Podcast Transcript
hi my name is Jeff from Mental Health Resource welcome back to straight jacket pod my name is Rachel Honda LCSW and
this is our guest K Ka Lauren hi very nice to be with you guys today how are you good how are you doing I’m doing
good I’m really excited to be here and cover a few topics yes of course so
kayada can you tell us a little bit about your story and what’s brought you
here today so yeah I was asked to be on the podcast of course that’s what brought me here today
um so my name is Kay Lauren I am a musician a content creator and I kind of
walked into content creation through being in the music industry so in back
in like 2010 when social media was starting to pick up musicians had to start doing
social media um and so by chance I happened to get really good at it and
then when I transitioned out of the music industry I decided Well I’m really good at this content creation thing
maybe I’ll be doing that so that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few years while we’re on that topic did you did
you hear that Tik Tok is like GNA be banned in three days yeah and you know I don’t know if it’s actually going to go
through or not I they’ve been doing so much back and forth that it could go either way at this point they’ve been
saying it so much that I didn’t think it was yeah I thought it was like I didn’t know but I heard that like uh it was
going through no I mean there’s there’s always a chance that it doesn’t
so right now Joe Biden saying that he’s not going to enforce whatever the rules are um did pass the Bill did fail in
Senate to extend it for 270 days so we’re kind of just flip-flopping back and forth so Joe’s saying one thing he’s
saying he’s going to pass it off to Trump and then uh the Senate’s like no we’re not going to do an extension but
it’s not fully banned yet so there’s still a little bit of time and then even if it does get banned we have a new president coming in office who supports
Tik Tok so we’re not really sure what’s going to happen with it but it is kind of keeping us all on our toes so yeah
there’s a ton of platforms though there’s which I think that’s there’s like a new one right like red red note
it’s not new actually it’s uh it’s probably is it it’s probably the funniest thing we’ve ever done as a
country um I know it’s pretty weird right it’s like well we don’t want China to have this information so we’re to use
it’s Theon Tea Party of the of this generation so basically it’s a Revolt
because they are saying they’re taking Tik talk away um because they don’t want the Chinese our Chinese spies to have
our data and so everybody’s willingly giving their data over to this app called red note it’s called R Little Red
Book which is like the Communist notebook basically but we call it red note and we can’t read the terms of
service it’s all in mandrin like even you if if you’re looking up
the app like it’s in mandrin so you can’t see anything but there’s a ton of
Americans over there like sharing content and they’ve all been really welcoming which is pretty cool so it’s
just been hilarious because Americans we are rebellious like we don’t want to be
told what to do you told us we were free we’re going to find a way around to stick it to you and we are going to
organize and uh it’s going to be hilarious we are pretty funny America
americ good way to do it oh my gosh hilar ious right it’s like a kid like
rebelling against their parents that’s exactly what it is pretty much
yeah so um about your content creation so um you in your m music industry why
did you leave the music industry I think it was just time you know I had been pursuing it as a songwriter and an
artist for like 10 years and then um I kind of
transitioned out like I was working on a final project and um I have bipolar
disorder so I actually had like a manic episode and I gave away all my crap and
I like literally everything I owned and I moved to Peru to write a book Peru so
yeah and like I didn’t realize I was in one until like I was in Colombia and I had like finished the book and I was
like like something like just snapped and I was like oh that was an episode I
want to go home now so but I did finish the book the book it’s called gutter kid by K Lauren it’s available everywhere
it’s about my story my story and um how I grew up in a lot of the experiences
that I went through that are pretty you know there’s some darkness in there but it’s definitely inspirational as well
can you tell us about some of those things in the book um yeah so it covers
my early history when I was about 18 years old so we’ll go back so I grew up
in the foster care system so through that I kept getting in trouble and then
I ended up going to something called what’s uh California Youth Authority M A lot of them are closing down but it’s
basically like prison if you are not old enough to go to prison and I really didn’t do a lot wrong they just didn’t
have anywhere else to put me and so that I had some confinement time and so they put me in the California youth authori
So eventually I aged out and um I had went to Northern California I had like
two weeks in the crystal motel that they gave me they gave me no resources whatsoever no money so they just gave
you they just threw you in a hotel orot for two weeks had been institutionalized like I
had no family to speak of like I had no money no experience in the real world
I’m 19 years old 18 years old 18 years old and um just was like they were like
figure it out and I didn’t you know what I mean like so um for all intents and
purposes like the story makes sense with like how it started like how it all played out like statistically you’d be
like oh yeah that makes sense that this all these things would happen but um so
I didn’t have really anywhere to go when I went back to my hometown because they passed something called s sp81 and what
that did was for non-violent offenders that were in the Juvenile Justice System um that sent them back to their County
of origin but I was already an adult and my County was like we don’t want her
like she’s whatever we gave her to you the state so it was a way to get out of
having resources for all of these individuals so while normally they would have had to have provided me with
transitional living expenses clothing expenses food expenses whatever like had to help me
transition back into the real world they didn’t they didn’t do that so I was kind of just left out in the because the
government doesn’t want to spend the money right and so I was a prime candidate for like human trafficking so
um one of it’s always it’s crazy because it’s always somebody that you know it’s
like somebody who you think you can trust at some
level and I A friend had reached out to me during like the worst one of the worst moments in my life I nowhere to go
I don’t know what I’m doing and she said um come to La my friend is in the mus in
the music industry and I told you that if I ever could help you follow your dreams that I would help you and so I’m
like that sounds good hell yeah let’s go you know God’s looking out you know like I
got an opportunity like I knew it was going to work I was going to go to job court because I didn’t know what to do with myself you know so um I think at
the time I was selling meth yeah I was and I was out of meth and out of Mone when did the start was it like when you
were youth or like was that Rec No it started when I was like 18 like I partied a little bit cuz I got out when
I was 14 or I went in when I was 14 I got out when I was 16 and a half and
then I uh got violated when I was I think 17 so I ended up going back in for
another nine months so I did two and a half years almost and what brought you in when you were 14 initially um there was a lot of running
away but they would get me for little things like fighting I got had some batteries I had um the one major charge
that I had was I was selling chocolate for this is so stupid I was selling chocolate like the world’s final
chocolate um for school and I wanted to go to the [ __ ] pizza party and so I changed the check from $17 to $43 so
that I could look like I was selling a whole box of chocolate and I got charged with a felony forgery for that what okay
that’s crazy man 14 years old I was I was 11 11 I was 11 years old yeah and
it’s completely insane that’s tough because there’s like nobody really to just tell you that that’s that was
actually when I went back to live with my mom briefly and she’s the one that press charges on me oh but that’s why I
didn’t live with her you know she was not fit so I tend not to talk about her
much but she’s a part of my story like I don’t want to hurt anybody but at the same time you know it’s part of it’s a
part of my story it’s my story it’s not anybody else’s so I have every right
to my story you know and i’ tell everybody else that like if people
wanted to be you know talk about better they should behave better and like people make mistakes in life and that
doesn’t mean they should be punished for him forever but the truth is the truth the truth is the truth no matter out
your last name Ed out your last name no I mean my last name isn’t even their
last name because it’s yeah it’s it’s a stage name so okay okay um but yeah so
the friend told me to come to LA and I
did and and she had a pimp and I had nowhere to go and there was nothing that
I could do I was literally I had no one to call there was nowhere to go I was
out on the streets of LA with no other choice you know what I mean and so it’s
actually insane because this is the position that foster kids end up in I think it’s something about
75% or more um human trafficking victims have been in the foster care system wow
or at least once have been in the foster care system so or Award of the state or
whatever the cases so the statistics it’s like when you’re in foster care you
are essentially living with people who are paid to keep you like they don’t they’re not all good homes they don’t
necessarily like you they don’t necessarily want you there and so it’s kind of like breeding this understanding
to stay place where you’re being abused to stay places where you’re not supposed to be is there
much abuse going on in in these homes it’s more there there is but it’s it’s
harder to detect because it’s neglect emotional neglect emotional abuse
um withholding uh like food there’s people who have like locks on their fridges and
cupboards and stuff you’re only allotted a certain amount of day um you know there’s it’s it’s not always outright
physical abuse because it’s so much easier to report but it’s not a healthy environment about I would say 80% of the
time I did have a few foster parents that were like literally Angels there
was a couple of them you know what I mean and I’m forever grateful to them because they showed me that there are
good people in the world but I had other ones that were just like it was a check it was a check and I was extreme
extremely rebellious so I was a hard teen to have I was a hard kid to have in general cuz I was so damaged from the
abuse that I suffered when I was younger that like I was a mess I was an absolute
mess when I was a kid so I went from place to place to place to place to
place yeah so my book is essentially covering that portion of my life and um
escaping that uh that experience and moving into
a new part of my life and I’m writing a second book about my addiction which it
came kind of well they overlapped but the worst part of my addiction came
after that for sure after you escaped LA or after I
escaped that situation yeah okay yeah so after that I
had I think I was doing only only meth and then I quit I quit
for like two years and then I ended up relapsing but I just quit like I didn’t
go to AA I didn’t go to rehab I just like just was like I need to not do this anymore this is ruining my life and I
quit and I went to school and I was pursuing a career and then I had another
trauma happen and I went right back and so um that seems to be like the B
bandaid for me or the crutch for me whenever there’s like something highly traumatic like my soul can’t deal with
it or something and so it decides that it’s going to like numb it or cover it up cover up the pain and um you know the
only way to get out of your mind is to get out of your [ __ ] mind you know and drugs get you out of your mind
because your mind can be an extremely painful painful place to be um and if
you don’t have the right tools to walk
through traumatic experiences or even the monotony of everyday life like how
many people relaps because they’re bored you know what I mean like how many people relap they their meaning or
purpose right they don’t have a purpose they’re like what am I doing every day is this all that there is and it’s like
I call myself the queen of reframe because you can look at anything in a
completely different way and see it the exact opposite way and it does take a
lot of courage to continue to walk forward when what you’re looking at doesn’t seem like it’s panning out the way that
you expected in life and I think we all get to those places in our life where we’re like what the [ __ ] is this like
what is this what am I doing here you know but the the magic is is if you keep
going you can stay there if you want to that’s always a choice but if you keep going it has the tide has to change it
it has to change it’s just the way that the world world is what goes up must come down so it’s looking at life from a
different perspective and believing that something different is possible you know
so yeah I’m excited to read your book it sounds really good thank um and when’s
the next one like supposed to come out I feel like I’m in a little bit of a sophomore slump with it I have written
about a third of it but the first one was like such a powerful like for one I was manic when I wrote it so it’s it’s
really good actually I wrote it in like three weeks and it
took me 6 months to edit it so the full process from start to finish with like
the publishing to the book cover like all those things um took about nine
months which is an insane turnaround for a book yeah but when I was writing it I
had broken both of my feet in Mexico i’ had like I like I convinced like 20 was like
staying at this hostel I was having the time my life guys listen I was having a good time okay I know how to party I
know how to live you know and so I convinced like 12 people to go um Night
Swimming with me in Tulum and so we all rode bikes down to the beach to go
swimming and I ran into the water and I’m screaming I love my life and there’s
a ditch that I thought was a puddle cuz I can’t see and I went do do doof and I
rolled it out and like I had broken my right right anle and I broken my left foot and I had went to this doctor and
um he was like no it’s fine it’ll be fine in 5 to seven days here’s some he gave me like a suboxin shot or something
because it was so [ __ ] up and I was like I feel like he’s wrong but I want to believe him I’m like am I getting
scammed at the doctor right now I for sure was I didn’t know it was broken until I got back to the States but I was
so mad at Mexico that I like bought a flight to Colombia so I was laid up with
no I couldn’t walk right I could but with crutches but um so for the
next like I want to say almost month um
I just furiously wrote night and day and I had written this book and then the editing part was like the hardest part
to to do because you’re like going through everything that you wrote like ferociously in a man manic episode
trying to like piece everything together and make sure that the flow is right and make sure that everything is is like you
know you can understand everything and it’s going in and out of like flashbacks so because I have PTSD like I
experienced like flashbacks from my childhood and so the book is written in a format of like um you’ll be in the
present day and then something will happen and it’ll take you into a flashback and then you’ll wake up out of
it that would be a really good movie too yeah yeah so and it’s crazy cuz like I didn’t even it wasn’t like a thought in
my head that I was going to write it this way it like wanted to be written so yeah so the other one’s about a quarter
I’d say a quarter it’s about 20,000 words standard book is 8200 K so it’s
about a quarter of the way done and we’re still working on it wow yeah that’s incredible how many pages um
almost 200 you wrote 200 Pages yeah is that quick I’ve always heard people say
they want to write a book but I’ve never met someone who actually done it yeah it’s it’s um like I said that book
wanted to be written do believe that creative um like the muses like that’s a
real thing like when you want to create something like there’s inspiration or you can like pull it out you know you
can you can pull it out but it’s not going to be as good as when like that inspiration hits and you’re like riding
this wave of creation so um the inspiration for that one hasn’t hit I
think it’s cu the first one was like such a success and it was so good that like um I’m comparing the second one to
the first one and so I need to stop doing that I know better than to do that I know to just write and then anything
that I don’t like you can edit right you can edit it out but I’m pretty hard on myself because I believe in like quality
you know and I wouldn’t want to put anything out that was not great but yeah
so um you started you’ve written a book you’ve done music you’ve done all these things
do you feel like being diagnosed with bipolar disorder has helped you to do
these things it’s been such a double-edged sword like it’s definitely ruined opportunities that I’ve had um
but it’s also like given me massive Strokes of creativity to the point where
like I don’t know like I don’t know who I am not bipolar right you know like I
don’t know who I am without this diagnosis I know what I’m like you know
medicated I know what I’m like unmedicated which for most of my life I was just raw dog and bipolar like I was
like it was only very recently that like I found something that did actually help
and so we’re still in a trial process I think it’s been like five months or
something that I’ve been on medication but I didn’t need it like I would be
completely stable I would do diet exercise meditation like being bipolar
is really hard like keeping yourself stable without medication is incredibly hard but I had tried going medication
before and it was like it would send me into a six-month long depression or it would make me manic to where I was like
offthe wall it’s like I couldn’t find what would work and I would get so dis so discouraged from trying all these
different things with these people who are like just guessing you know the doctors are just guessing and like throwing things at you and I’m like if
anybody’s going to experiment on me it’s going to be me you know and
so um yeah so I had lost my best friend
very tragically um in July of 22 and
kind of that like hit my life in such a way that I didn’t know grief could be that deep I didn’t know that
pain was I and like I’ve suffered through like a horrendous like heroin
addiction crawled out of that whole human trafficking foster care like I survived some things and losing
Stephanie as her name m was like one of the worst things that I’ve ever
experienced um just because of the way that it happened and in that experience like I had to
pull myself up off the ground so many times to where it was like a year had
passed and as you can see like it still [ __ ] me up like I’m traumatized by it
but a year had passed and um I was like not getting better you
need to get some help like you need to try again even if it failed the first the second the 5ifth the 90 second time
you know you need to try again you need to talk to a doctor and see if maybe there’s something that you can do because I was in such a dark place and
like me my personality like who I am in life is just like so tenacious and like
so vibrant and that was like it was like 75% of me was like just wandering in The
Ether in the Abyss somewhere like I didn’t exist fully as myself right and
so like sometimes it takes that much to break you open and make you realize
how human you are and um it was that time that I tried that I
found something that actually helped me and made me feel stable which is completely insane but like um my friend
Christa she always said like there’s gifts from grief you know it does come empty-handed and um I was like you like
you know like I do not want to hear about the gifts of grief right now like I am so in the throws but she was so
right and um there were so many like I could go on for for days about it one of
the other things that happened with that situation was um my dad
so he has been homeless and like there is something that happened to
where he lost his mind so when I was seven my house burnt down and killed
three of my brothers and one of my sisters and um he was the one that left
the candle burning it was on Christmas night the power had gotten shut off um
because he was using you know and um he
never forgave himself and so um he was like living in like Michigan or or Montana or something and
um I hadn’t spoken to him in a while because it’s just hard it’s hard to deal
it’s there’s so much and like over the years there’s been so many things and so many attempts to help and like so
many um just I didn’t understand it either I’m like figure it out like get
up like you have to get up and then when I got rocked by Steph’s death um I
remember I was on my knees and I was like praying I was like just praying for some of the pain to lift and
um I just heard imagine this times four and it’s your fault and I was just
like and it covered me with such compassion and Grace for my father that
I never knew or never thought I could have because I just didn’t understand why he couldn’t figure it out
yeah why he couldn’t get himself back on his feet and in that moment it was God
was with me 100% And um said imagine this by times four and I couldn’t even
have imagined it times two times one and a half one inch more I would have fallen
off the edge like that’s how much pain I was in and I had like this understanding
at that point I’m like okay I actually don’t know how the depths of How deep the depths of
pain are and maybe I can have you know a little bit more compassion and a little
bit more grace and maybe I can try this thing again and like try to help him and so now he’s actually out here I’ve
gotten I got him into a place and so um but it’s like just funny how God works
with these things that seem to be like Earth and life shattering but there’s always it doesn’t
come empty-handed like it’s still bringing a connection it’s still bringing good you know it’s cuz like
wisdom is hard earned wisdom is hard earned it does not come easily and if I
had my say or my choice I would get no more wisdom I don’t want
anymore I would say it’s enough it’s enough wisdoms we’re good we don’t any more wisdoms thank you you know but you
don’t get to choose yeah you don’t get to choose so yeah you’ve gotten a lot of
wisdom so I have it’s unfortunate because then you’re
responsible for like using it and sometimes I don’t want to you know
sometimes I want to be a piece of [ __ ] like I do like sometimes it’s less
pressure so much less pressure so much easier it’s like I got to take the high road GH I got to be the bigger person GH
I got to make the right decision now you know and sometimes like there’s still that part of you that’s living inside of
you that’s like no I want to like punch somebody in the throat right now you know it’s like no you can’t like you’re
not allowed to do that like you know better once you know better you have to do better because your consequences are
so much stronger it’s true like I truly honestly believe that life protects you
if you don’t know better but once you do man once you know better and you do it
anyways you’re getting popped like it’s just it just is the way that it is once
you know a lesson once you know something is wrong or the wrong way to go about things and you defy it then you
get the full weight of that consequence and that guilt and shame lives with you yeah it does and those will eat you up
yep those will eat you up and that’ll that’s what takes us down shame is like
the most Insidious the most Insidious emotion I don’t carry a lot of shame I I don’t
feel shameful about things that happened to meh you know well cuz they weren’t
your fault right and but when I was younger I did feel shame and because I
didn’t have the concept that the things that happened to me weren’t my fault because they were made to be my fault
like it was because I was there was something fundamentally wrong with me which in fact wasn’t true it was there
was fundamentally something wrong with other people and as a result um I was
traumatized which made something wrong with me you know but if you’re not
actively seeking you know help whether that’s through counseling edmr
recovery PTSD treatment whatever it is they have like TMS now like they got
they have so many more options with mental health and Trauma than they ever have before there’s a new one called AR
um art therapy but if you’re not actively working and walking in that direction then you’re going to be
consumed by that grief that guilt that shame whatever it is so you have to take
the first step what has helped you get out of those like bottom
moments a support system and you know what it wasn’t even getting out of them
getting out of them I think happened in its own time it was really just time there was certain things that like there
are certain things that can happen and like there are tools to get you out of it and then sometimes life’s going to
hit you so hard that nothing’s going to help and it’s just a waiting game and it’s just you know holding on sometimes
all you can do is just hold on and um but the people who loved me through it
the people who sat in the dirt with me the people who didn’t you know allow me
to give up you know the ones that reminded me oh I’m going to cry the ones
that reminded me of who I was because I had forgotten you know so um but a lot
of it was like not getting out it was staying in those places for a while and
just hanging on for dear life you know so but there were those moments like
which we we’ll call like God shots you know and different points in my life where um there was
this miraculous thing that happened that there was like no other way that it
could have happened and it made me see that there was a creator that was working for my best and highest good and
that I was being given an opportunity and I didn’t want to disrespect the opportunity and so I I
definitely I was aware of that as well so
yeah are you in recovery now like would you say you’re I am I would say I’m AA I mean I do go
to meetings and um I have a sponsor who has a sponsor and I practice the
principles and all of my Affairs I think you know I have had my bouts of like frustrations
with AA like the personalities and stuff I’ve seen things happen that and that’s
why they say Pro uh principles over personality right because when I relapsed I had three years and I
relapsed and um people treated me like garbage yeah they did not like everybody
was like I was a pariah you’re like an outcast at that point yeah and it’s like
no that’s when you need to take people in right that’s when you need to help the most and like that’s when I saw who
was really down for me who was in my corner when I wasn’t doing the best because none of us are immune MH none of
us are immune from relapse none of us are immune from something the just the wrong life hitting the wrong way one
time and you’re out there deep yeah deep in the trenches of addiction you know
and you’re sitting there like how did I get here what even happened you know it
life will take you by surprise sometimes so um I do work a program of recovery
and I know that my best self is a sober self I know that my best self is a sober
self I am very aware though that like having bipolar makes it hard for me to
get long-term sobriety so um that’s something that
I’ve had to accept and walk through taking each good
day and making sure that I make the best of it because I don’t know when life’s
going to flip so I mean for some people especially if they’ve never dealt with relapse before they’re like I don’t get
it just stay cuz I was that person who proudly in a meeting was like relapse isn’t part of my story you know like
that was me and then it was a part of my story and I was like oh I sound like a dick you know what I mean like so
sometimes I hear people say that and I’m like good for you because you might not maybe that’s why God kept you there
because you maybe you couldn’t handle it maybe you wouldn’t have made it back you know what I mean and so um I just have to keep in mind that I
have one day in front of me I have one day in front of me I have one day of recovery every single day
that I wake up I get have a choice I get to choose that day and if I make the
choice to be sober that day it’s usually a really good day so and what do you
know you have to do to stay like sober and also like good mental health I think
for me like I’m pretty militant about like a morning routine um I wake up I meditate for 10
to 15 minutes I write in my journal sometimes I do some breath work because this is all what I put in practice
before I like found medication that actually helped me and they helped me
like so tremendously because it’s focusing like the first part of your day it’s called priming um like Tony Robbins
like coined the phrase because they had done studies that when you first wake up you’re the most impressionable so if you
put positivity in your ear the moment that you wake up you’re more likely to have a positive day they did did this
study where they walked up to people on the street early in the morning and they were like hey can you hold this and they handed a stranger a cup of coffee and
then later they did the study and the people who were handed a warm cup of coffee um had good feelings towards the
person that handed it to them and the person who took the cold cup of coffee had like negative feelings like we’re so
unaware of how we are wired and like what affects us on a day-to-day basis so
whatever you can um control and like streamline and into a practice like it
gives you a little bit more defense against the day that’s true yeah so
that’s one thing that I do I also keep really really positive people around me I keep people who actually like me and
love me and you know what I mean the the
my biggest accomplishment in life is the people that I have in my life like the people who love me are so rad like
they’re the best like hands down the best human beings that you will ever come across in your life and that’s how
I know that’s how I gauge my quality of character because the people who love me
are that that rad you know what I mean so that’s a good way to look at it cuz
some people are like okay just a bunch of acquaintances and they’re like look I have so many friends but it’s like who’s
going to be there at the end of the day right and you know who’s going to be there when you have nothing to give yeah
who’s going to be there when you need to take who’s going to be there when you know the Bottom’s fallen out of
everything because they actually love you as a person and not for like what you can do for them or what they get
from it of course all relationships are like mutually beneficial or they should be but there’s going to come points in
your life where you’re going to see who’s really the real deal and who’s not
you know so it’s very true mm I guess one of the things that you said said or
one of the one of the parts of your story that interests me is the foster care stuff and then the what is it
called that you went to like you said it’s kind of like a uh California Youth Authority yeah California Youth
Authority how did that how was that I mean the foster care system is
the foster care system it’s for one you’ve been discarded like so you have
severe abandonment trauma going on which you won’t even re recognize until you’re in your 20s and you’re like why do I
keep acting this way you know um so the foster care system like I said was there
would be a bad home there would be a good home but because I had like confinement time I would go to juvenile
hall and wait for the next foster home so it was like the least ideal situation for a kid growing up and then eventually
they kind of just ran out of places to put me and so they put me in the California Youth Authority which um
it was in Ventura and it was called VCF and I think they’re shutting everything
shutting all of them down cuz they’re just kind of not seen
as you know Humane like they should have they’re
they I’m pretty sure they were for-profit too oh wow yeah they were doing like cash for kids and stuff I’m
pretty sure my County was involved oh my gosh yeah they treat you there like what
would they you’re just in in just like everywhere else you’re just an inmate so I mean they had like four classes a day
um and you could when I got out any therapy offered anything like there was
but it was so low quality like everything was such low quality like it’s state driven like there wasn’t
really therapy yeah I mean there might be now because they’ve done a lot of
work around these you know programs and stuff um especially with like foster
kids aging out like they have systems in place they have grants in place they have traditional housing in place they
didn’t have these things they they did they were just starting but I didn’t get to access any of those things when I got out so um they’ve made a lot of progress
but when I was going through it we were like the test dummies you know so what
about medication management with regarding to me now no no no no like before they did they like
to keep everybody on medication and that was where some of my trauma with medic medication came from because when I was
a kid I was so so young and I should not have been on all those medications like
where I was on lithium they were having to draw my blood like I was having to go to the place to get my blood drawn all
the time and um what did you think of it like was you just like well they’re
telling me to take it so I’ll take it or was it like I don’t I don’t know how to feel about how I feel with this or were
you just did it kind of just it was just something like cuz I remember them asking me
um is it helping and I’m like obviously not because like y’all keep changing it
so I’m the like people are saying I’m still a problem so like obviously not and I was always made to feel like I was
a problem so it didn’t seem to help then you know what I mean maybe it did and I
didn’t notice it but when you’re like 10 11 12 years old you don’t freaking know
you don’t know if something’s helping you or not you don’t have the Consciousness or the awareness like your frontal lobe isn’t developed yet you
know like you’re just like I guess I don’t know why are you asking me I’m the kid like you know you should know you
probably didn’t even understand the diagnosis at the no and I was
diagnosed bipolar 2 so and then when I turned 27 I think no 28 it transitioned
into bipolar one so I didn’t have any type of episodes until I was about
28 so I just had like The Swinging back and forth like rapid cycle bipolar and then um which is gnarly in
itself it’s super gnarly um and then I started having like long episodes so it
would be episodes of depression episodes of mania and then episodes of remission so I could keep myself in remission for
a good like year or two sometimes um just through diet exercise meditation
and just really positive you know reinforcement but um if something that
was the thing that I couldn’t control was like if something external happened um that was traumatic in any
way it would I’d be Off to the Races and you know moving to Guam and my friend’s
like what’s in Guam I was like we’re going to find out I don’t know we’ll see we’ll see when I get there I’ll send you
a postard you know so and what age was it initially that you went into the uh foster care system cuz I know you said
that like at first you were at home but then there was a tragedy yeah I was well so I was back and forth between my mom
and my dad um up until I was like 9 and a half so the tragedy happened when I was seven and then like he kind of
pulled through like he got he like found Christ and um was like writing Christian music my dad’s an epic musician as well
and like um there were some like really good times that happened after that and then
it all just the bottom fell out of everything so like something happened it
was just he couldn’t live with it yeah he was trying to find peace and find some type of Hope
and willingness to move forward and like I just think it was too heavy it was too heavy for him to carry and he struggled
with substance abuse disorder and he suffers from other mental health issues
as well like they’re definitely genetic yeah yeah definitely have some genetic markers there so um the bottom kind of
fell out of it and then I went into the foster care when I was nine and a half the first time and then was were you
just kind of like accepting of it or I guess like what was it like really yeah what was it like when you first got
there when I first got there it was like a vacation really yeah cuz I was so glad
to be somewhere else yeah um and then it just became like that was a temporary
home that was like called breast pit care that they put me in and then they put me in a more permanent home and there was like 10 10 girls and like it
was crazy like 10 young girls that all have issues like they’re all growing up in the foster care system they’ve been
abused like you put that many people in a place together with that many problems like it’s going to be a problem and so
that one was really rough and then I went to one where I was like the only kid and like I did really great there
and then they put me back with my parents my mom was like doing well well she yeah and she was doing well too but
it wasn’t a good place for me so I ended up end up going back into foster care when I was 13 and then they tried a
couple group homes and then when I was 14 they put me in California with authority wow I feel like you did not
need to go there but no and that’s the thing is like when I look back at my
story sometimes I’m like what the heck H what the heck like what do you someone
should have been there to like fight you know like yeah and I think that’s the sad thing because what happens when the
people who are supposed to advocate for you are the enemy you know or are the
people that are harming you or are just unfit or unqualified or there’s so many
different instances where you know there needs to be advocates for foster kids there needs to
be advocates for kids going through the system and there needs to be advocates
for in these situations where kids don’t have parents because is they have either
a lawyer or a CPS worker I mean I’m sure that they do now like I haven’t been in
the foster care system for a long time but at that time they did not have any of those things what do you think like a
big change from from your eyes since you went through it what do you think um is
a big thing that could change it’s so hard CU it’s such a
system um you know and when they have good homes they have good results like a lot of kids get adopted from Foster
Homes into you know it’s it’s really Case by case like some some kids go to
one foster home and they get adopted and they stay there for the rest of their life and then some kids end up in 20
plus homes I think the older kids um have a harder time finding a place to go
because they’ve endured so much trauma already that um they’re messed up
they’re hard kids to deal with they’re they have attitude problems and they run away and like maybe they’re trying drugs for the first time like they’re not easy
kids to manage at all so takes a lot of love and a lot of patience
and some of it is just like there’s nothing you can do differently and then
some of it is like maybe there’s you know programs that can
become that can be enacted to where these kids have more support like
assigning them like an advocate or something or um making sure that there’s they’re the only kid in the home which is hard to do
when you have a foster care problem but I don’t know you know I wish I had more
answers I wish I had all the solutions but there are people that are trying to
solve these problems it just takes forever because it’s really they’re really hard to solve and it is a system
like it’s a system but I think like knowing what resources they have is
important I think starting before foster care happens right like there’s a huge wave in people
getting recovery there’s also a huge wave in people not having children they can’t afford them so I think just
naturally I think people are starting this is the first generation that’s taken like healing really seriously and
it’s the first generation that’s been like not doing exactly what the last generation did because it didn’t work so
they’re raising their children differently they’re not having kids um and they are like attending therapy and
like they’re taking their mental health seriously they’re going to therapy they’re on medication they’re you know
doing things differently than everybody before us was just like sh don’t talk
about it yeah don’t talk about it don’t talk about it like until it all blew up
and it was all over the place and the cat was out of the bag and there was nothing to do so I think the the biggest thing was like
getting people in recovery to be honest like because yeah most most um kids that
are in foster care are in foster care because of addiction that’s like the
number one cause Okay so with more Awareness on recovery more programs the
ability to get people the help that they need um that’s going to reunify you know
and they have they have laws and stuff like if you attempt to get clean and you want to reunify then you know you can um
unless your kids get adopted out like you have a certain amount of time in order to in order to show the court that
you’re doing what you need to do and if you do then they won’t put your kids up for adoption especially they’re more
likely to go up for adoption if they’re really young so um yeah they if they don’t do that
then and they’re still which a lot of people are just so deep in their addiction they can’t even they’re not going to a court date no they don’t even
know what a court date is in a completely different Universe on a different they have so many other problems yeah there’s just like it
doesn’t even like when you’re lost in addiction like you don’t know what [ __ ] day it is like you don’t know
what day it is time is a complete like lapse like you don’t have any concept of
time whatsoever the only thing you have a concept of is using getting the drugs is hard enough getting the drugs and the
money for the drugs you know is hard enough to where like you could even have the best of intentions and then be like
oh my God that was Tuesday you know and like now you’ve missed now your kids are
in being adopted you know so yeah it’s a it’s a strange world we
live in honestly but I think yeah if I were to say anything it would be exactly what you know you two are doing and and
it’s just raising that awareness getting people through the door I mean a lot of people don’t stay recovered but you’ll get the
ones that do and their kids will think thank you for it it might take a while to repair some of that but I’ve seen
some really beautiful reun reunifications where you know there’s
other cases where that doesn’t happen and it takes the kid a lot longer to recover it’s true yeah I guess my other
question from uh the part of your story what if any advice because you know you
successfully got out of Being Human traffick which is like a pretty big feat in of itself you know I mean you you’ve
done a lot of miraculous things in your story but um how did you do that I
started dancing actually which was like just the next step I was like I got to get out of this um because it was just
not anything that I would have ever done on my own you know and when it’s crazy
because people who judge it um they if it was what they had to do to survive if
they were put in that position in in those circumstances like you have no idea many other options when you’re like
there yeah so like you think you think what you would do in a situation you’ve
never been in but you don’t know what you would do in a situation you’ve never been in until you’re in it and when the circumstance is hit like um but what
happened was is I got like it was a complete God shot like I got Street
casted for a Yahoo commercial so I was just walking down the street going to popey’s and like I forgot to put change
in the meter it’s on Hollywood Boulevard so I went back to go put change in the meter and this guy stopped me and um he
was like uh we’re Street casting for like this commercial like if you want to come down you look perfect for the rooll
uh you can come down have dinner we’ll give you 200 bucks if you make it into the commercial like you’ll make a ton of
money and if you don’t then you know you made 200 bucks and you got to have a nice brisket you know and so I was like
yeah so I go and like sure enough they casted me it was a global Yahoo commercial and I made like 100k and that
was the first time I had seen like that mailbox money was coming through and I was like I’m done like I I was still
with the man that because I had like Stockholm syndrome yeah and so I was
like I’m done we’re done and he’s like well this money is going to run out and I was like yeah well I’ll figure
something out and I bought a stripper pole and I was like I’ll teach myself how to dance I bought a DVD and a
stripper pole and um it’s hard it is hard yeah but I was you know I was I
think 20 I just turned I was 20 that’s definitely God and then you randomly got
picked on the street for a Yahoo commercial and it was a global Yahoo commercial so we were getting money from
it being everywhere it was when Google was like taking over and like Yahoo was trying to save their butt and so they
wanted real people it was like their it’s you campaign and I wanted real people in the commercial and so there’s
me and then they used they had me like record a bunch of stuff at the end um that was like Yahoo y’all are like
singing Yahoo or like doing because I have like a bunch of different voices that I can do so like my laugh is even
at the end of the commercial but it’s like the way God has like if you want to
talk about like testimony it’s insane like the things that have happened in my life that have led me to this point are
like once in a million like never happens to anybody twice like doesn’t
will NE most people will never have the amount of like complete Divine
intersections that my life has had and I I truly believe it’s because I was
courageous enough to walk forward you know even when it looked like I had lost
yeah even when it hurt so much to do so I continued to trudge forward whether it
was a crawl whether it was you know a a baby step whether it was a leap or a run
or a jump whatever I could manage at that time but I continued to walk forward with courage scared to so
terrified of what was going to happen next you know is there any advice that you would have to people stuck in that
situation because I’m sure that you know it’s like one in a million that they get that lucky yeah
it’s kind of an emotional place to come from because it’s like I wish somebody would
have had something to say to me but I don’t think I would have listened you know um there’s such
a mental manipulation hold um on these girls they think that
they’re being loved and they’re not they’re being used and it’s being contorted and distorted
as love but that’s the only love they’ve ever known was abuse everybody who said that they loved them beat them treated
them like crap used them so that’s the only representation that they have um I
would say that is not love it is not love the money doesn’t love you
back and there is so much help available now there are are safe houses
there are people who walk the streets and fig like I’ve been involved with those programs too where they go out
they give bracelets to the girls I never walk the streets or anything but
um they there are still girls out there that are doing that even in this day and age you know on Figaroa and downtown and
stuff but um yeah I
wish that I thought somebody would listen at that point you know but like I
said like I don’t even think somebody who hasn’t been through it can grasp like how deep the manipulation
goes like that’s that person’s Lifeline that’s their income they’ll do yeah
they’ll they’ll do anything you know what I mean so if there’s a pimp involved or if there’s man management
involved like some of them are extremely violent some of them they’re all it’s at
some rate abusive so how do you walk away from all you’ve ever known not
knowing what’s next and maybe you’re addicted as well much you’re comfortable with I don’t think anybody’s comfortable
there but I think that it’s a lifestyle that it is your entire life
and so to walk away means giving up everything it means giving up everything you’ve ever known and that’s a really
scary place to be like I said walking forward with courage like that the next thing is gonna pan out that the next
move is gonna appear you know that the net is gonna appear
um I understand why people don’t do it because it’s terrifying and it’s like
you know it’s painful and it’s scary and it hurts and like you don’t want to be put in those situations we always want
like some stability or some some comfort to like guide us through but that’s not the case with these with these
situations that are life or death you know
so and um I guess let’s go into your recovery okay um I guess what has
been some of the most beneficial things for you in your recovery yeah I would say um the
support I would definitely say the support the people the people and I’ll always say that I when I was first
getting sober um back in 2015 people just showed up I didn’t know
these people they had absolutely no reason to help me and they just did because somebody helped them which was
completely insane to me like did you just walk into the rooms or did somebody help you get there so um I had called
like every Treatment Center I had tried to quit on my own for like a year and like I would
be I’d be kicked for like 4 days and then just right back on my dealer’s doep because I couldn’t make it past that
fifth day and it would happen over and over and over again and I remember the realization I was like and I’m telling
you that year mark for me for some reason like it was with the depression like okay you need to get help you’re not this isn’t working the same thing
happened with my addiction it was about a year where I was trying to do I’m like
I can do this I did I did it before on my own I quit before yeah but it was
meth it wasn’t heroin I didn’t have like that fit like there were days where I had to like pull my myself up off the
off the couch or the bed and my limbs felt like cinder blocks you know and I had to like somehow push through but it
wasn’t like kicking heroin not at all and so with that one um I remember I was
like up in the middle of the night and I was watching one of those sermons on TV
cuz I was like so desperate I was so desperate and uh I the pastor was like
there’s some this I never believed these things like I never even thought like these things were real like I’m like
whatever but I needed to feel something I needed to feel some hope cuz I had
called like every detox in La I was living in La at the time and they were
like hanging up on me CU I didn’t have insurance and so I just needed to
desperately believe that there was some someone looking out for me and um
the guy like pans to his face and he’s like there’s somebody wearing a black shirt right now and I’m like looking
like like okay and he’s like you need to write a check for $46 and send it to
this address right now and write in the corner a seed of what you’re going to uh what you need what your prayer is and I
was like on drugs too so I was like oh he’s talking to me but I it was like
that spiritual intervention that divine intervention he was talking to me and so I walked to 7-Eleven and I bought a
a I bought a money order for $46 and I remember my partner at the time like
1:00:04
that stuff’s not real what are you doing I’m like you don’t argue with me about this right now this is what I’m doing this is going to help me I know it is
1:00:10
he’s like you’re crazy I’m like yes I am but I don’t care I’m doing this it’s my
1:00:15
money I can do what I want to do with it and so I got a stamp in an envelope and
1:00:20
a $46 money order and I wrote in the corner a seed of sobriety and I licked
1:00:27
it and I sent it off in the the little the big blue mailboxes out on the out on the street and um my dad had just been
1:00:36
scholar shipped into a program and he was like I think they’ll give you a scholarship at this Pro that’s like the next day he’s like I think they’ll give
1:00:42
you a scholarship and I was like okay and so I called them and they’re like yeah we’ll come get you right now and
1:00:47
I’m like not right now hold on hold on tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow let me uh I got I got
1:00:53
some I got really big business I got important things to do you know how every time somebody like
1:00:59
decides to get clean they’re like H I have all these important plans that I have head was like dude just uh pack
1:01:07
your three shirts and let’s go you know but um yeah it was literally the next
1:01:13
day and I was just like okay God’s God’s with me on this one you know and um they
1:01:20
came to pick me up and I was not ready yet and uh I was like I’ll be there tonight and he looked at me
1:01:26
and he just said okay I hope to see you and like he did not believe me that I was going to
1:01:32
show up and uh I did I did show up loaded high as [ __ ] high as [ __ ] but I
1:01:40
showed up had like 11: at night and they were they still took me in and um
1:01:48
so yeah that was the first time that I ended up getting sober and like if you
1:01:55
know how like miraculous that is like at every turn there was a new Miracle like
1:02:02
I had totaled my car right before this I like put it in the shop like I remember God being like um just be still be still cuz I was
1:02:12
like trying to get things rushed and like I was just always trying to make
1:02:17
something happen for myself just being in my own will and I didn’t understand what it meant to like walk in God’s will
1:02:24
cuz I as a survivor had always had to make things happen myself because if I
1:02:29
didn’t make them happen I wasn’t going to live I wasn’t going to survive like it was life or death at every turn at
1:02:35
every single turn and so I had this tenacity which was like such a good um
1:02:41
Quality to have but when focused in the right direction when focused in the wrong direction it’s incredibly
1:02:47
destructive you know and so I had to learn how to take my hands off of things
1:02:53
and like let God work some things out you know and um at every turn there was
1:02:59
an angel that showed up in in human form that had exactly what I needed I
1:03:05
remember um I told God I was going to quit Dancing if he helped me and
1:03:11
then I needed to like pay for like my insurance to cover my uh my IOP so they
1:03:19
would pay my rent and um I called them to make the payment for the insurance
1:03:25
because like the sober living had or the detox had bought me insurance as an employee like they were doing insurance
1:03:31
fraud so or whatever they were doing at that time and so um
1:03:38
they had left their card on file and my my insurance was paid up until the end
1:03:44
of my stay there so like I didn’t even have to pay it wow yeah like there were
1:03:50
so many things that happened to me in early recovery that like kept me on the right track and
1:03:56
um like I could go on for days and days and days about all these things that happened but they are things that when
1:04:02
you experience them for yourself like they’re it’s undeniable that there’s a force that is working for you and I
1:04:09
choose to call that Jesus Christ you know but everybody has their own their
1:04:14
own God Everybody’s Free to have their own God and um but that God does love
1:04:19
you and that God wants to make sure that you’re taken care of and if you just let
1:04:25
go little bit if you just trust let go and walk in the general direction of
1:04:30
where you’re supposed to go you’ll see all of these things happen in that intersection and it’s just like the
1:04:36
coolest thing because it’s like a pick your own ending book you know what I mean like it’s like this movie with all these twists and turns and like what’s
1:04:43
it called with the where the ending is like oh yeah I don’t know the surprise
1:04:50
ending ones you know like it t ends up being like a complete plot twist all the
1:04:55
plot t good job good job I thought you were thinking of some like deeper wward no yes plot twist my brain escaped me
1:05:03
yeah all the plot twists that happen like it’s such a cool ride but some of it sucks but it’s such a cool ride but
1:05:10
it’s beautiful at the end it’s so beautiful even in the trenches you know even in the throws there’s so much
1:05:17
Beauty in it because like when I was going through you know that grief i’ never experienced grief like that before
1:05:24
like and I’ve experienced a lot and I’ll say that with my chest um the way that I was loved so gently
1:05:33
and nobody tried to rush my process which like I feel like I thought like
1:05:40
dang like this should be done by now you know like I should be over this by now um I just wasn’t I wasn’t I’m still not
1:05:47
you know and there is a little bit of healing that comes each day and like
1:05:53
um I have to take what I can get because it’s not I’m not on my own timeline I’m on grief’s timeline and it gets to make
1:06:01
the rules apparently I don’t like that part um but I don’t get to say I don’t get to say in like how long it takes to
1:06:07
heal um but the people that loved me through it and walked with
1:06:14
me held my hand through all of it you know there there was so much Beauty in that and there’s also Beauty in
1:06:21
everything that was learned and like really know knowing how much you
1:06:26
loved by losing it yeah such a devastating process but
1:06:32
you got to love that much like imagine that like imagine being able to be loved
1:06:37
and love someone so much that losing them destroys your life like but you were loved that much like that’s the
1:06:45
tradeoff like there’s this saying and it’s
1:06:50
um I think it’s is it it hurts as much as it was worth
1:06:56
MH you know it hurts as much as it was worth
1:07:01
and in order to have such a great pain like you would have had to have such a great love so I’m super grateful for the
1:07:09
love I think that’s that sounds like a good ending place we really appreciate you coming on kayada thank you so much
1:07:16
yes thank you was amazing thank you
