Episode 31: Unexpected Trauma

Christy Simmons

Christy Simmons (Life Coach, Your Turn To Shine) comes from a career in the performing arts, with an extended side-trip into the real-life role of full-time caregiver. It was during her caregiving years that Christy first became aware of the coaching industry. That launched her on a path of self-discovery and education, that eventually led her to become trained and certified as a life coach.

Through coaching, Christy helps her clients re-connect with their true self, and learn how to choose happiness. It is her calling in life to help others find their path.

Social media and contact info:

Facebook Page: Your Turn To Shine

Email: yourturntoshine1@gmail.com

Podcast Transcript:

Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where abandoned, banged up, alone, people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%. Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about.

In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience?

My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole those who stare directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them, let's hear from another hero.

Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.

Today, we're going to talk with Christy Simmons. She has many roles in her life. Daughter, sister, aunt, life coach, with a career in performing arts and more. We'll talk about how she grew up in a happy home and had an unfortunate event happened as an adult that significantly changed her perspective and gave her challenges that she was determined to overcome. Let's talk.

 Welcome to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Christy. We're so glad you came here

Christy Simmons: [00:02:07] Well, thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Damaged Parents: [00:02:09] Yeah. As you know, our show is about struggle and you came on to talk about something that was really difficult for you. Can you start your story wherever it starts for you?

Christy Simmons: [00:02:22] Okay. Well, I'm going to start it in my childhood, which did. Well, it's not a childhood of struggle by the way. I had like the happiest childhood, I think of anybody. I know. Although, you know, we didn't have a lot of money. My parents were both musicians growing up in, or raising a family with three kids in St.

Louis, Missouri, which is where I grew up with. Being musicians, you know, there's, there's just not a lot of money, but there's, uh, there was a lot of creativity and there was a whole lot of love. And, you know, I really kind of thought we ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because they were good. Not because they were cheap, you know, and tuna casserole and all of those things.

Right. But uh, so we weren't destitute, but we just weren't, you know, there wasn't like a lot of extra, but there was all of this. Fun. And nobody was ever, ever wondered if we were loved and cherished and,  you know, supported and all of that. It was really, my parents were older when they got married.

I was the third child of three. So they had kind of gotten their act together. They've had time to really become, Great functioning couple. They learned what they needed to learn about parenting. I guess on my, maybe on my siblings, you'd have to talk to them about it, but by the time I came along, they had their act together and it was, fantastic.

So from this wonderful loving, nurturing, supportive background I became a theater professional. I became an actor and when it was. Time to move out of the house. I moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles, partially for career purposes and  partially because quite frankly, if I had not moved across the country, there would have been no really reason for me to move out.

And I knew I needed to, you know, to grow up. You need to go out and be on your own, but I was just so happy there.

Damaged Parents: [00:04:17] Okay. So 21 you're like, I want to go to LA and I want to explore acting

Christy Simmons: [00:04:23] I had gone to NYU and, gone to college at NYU and then came back to St. Louis  and then, yeah, you know, it was time to go and try to be an actor and you know, a big pond and So I did it. I didn't know anybody in LA. I packed everything I owned and my dad into my Dodge Colt, and we drove across the country at a glory.

Damaged Parents: [00:04:43] wait, wait, was dad, dad was going with you or he was just going for the

Christy Simmons: [00:04:48] You just went for the trip. He went for the, yeah, I know.

Damaged Parents: [00:04:51] What a great

Christy Simmons: [00:04:51] I And then what a great mom who's had to stand in the driveway and wave bye-bye, ,as I go off on this great adventure, I think I love parents. And I, you know, I think parents it's like the, that is the scariest job description ever.

Anybody who willingly goes into that and really endeavors to be a great parent. You've got to have so much courage.

Damaged Parents: [00:05:13] okay. You've got to explain, are you a parent? You are not. Okay. So tell me, please, what it is about this parenting job that makes it scary and that it takes bravery and courage from your perspective.

Christy Simmons: [00:05:28] you bring these little bundles into the world and you, and you protect them and you nurture them and you help them grow. And at some point, the point of that, Is to send them out into the world to be independent. And then you no longer have control over protecting them. And you know, I mean, you good parents are still there to nurture and whatever, but you know, eventually you stand in your driveway and you wave goodbye as your, as your baby is driving across the country to a city where she doesn't know anyone. And you go, well, let's hope this works out. Right? So, uh, so, and I say the trip across country was fun with my dad. We had, I didn't have a job on the other end. There was no timeframe that we had to do. And when I was a kid, we would take camping vacations and things. And we w but it was always on a shoestring and we had to be back on this day and whatever.

So, yeah. We would have to sometimes pass those interesting looking little roads or interesting little things and say, well, next time, wherever ever in this part of the country, maybe we'll go down that well, this trip, it was like, that looks interesting. Huh? Okay, let's go. So, uh, so we just took this, this road trip again.

My mother got lover hanging out at home. Maybe we called her every night. Kind of maybe not every, every night. And neither one of us was very skilled as a navigator and she, you know, a couple of times we would call she'd be like, okay, well you're, you're, you're alive. That's good. Cause this is before cell phones.

Right. You know? Well, I'm glad you're okay. Cause I didn't know if you ended up in Mexico or Canada or where, you know, I pointed you West and.

Damaged Parents: [00:07:16] so you really had no plan. You just knew you were going to LA with dad and, and no budget.

Christy Simmons: [00:07:24] I had a little budget. My, as I said, my parents were older when they got married and I was the last child. So my dad had had retired a few years earlier. So I squirreled away the retirement benefits that the social security benefits that came to me, and that was my nest egg. And I, and I had a job that the last year that I was in St.

Louis. So that was my little nest egg. So it did have. Finances, they didn't have a budget, but I didn't even know how to do a budget, but I had finances. And, and my mom and I had gone out for like a long weekend to just sort of get the lay of the land. So it wasn't totally without a plan, although that is kind of something I've been very good at my whole life is, you know, I will dive off that.

Off the high dive high, high diving board. Anytime I don't always look to see if there's water in the pool, sometimes just don't think of that. You know, I'm like, Oh, but w there was some water in the pool on this one. So, you know, so we finally get to LA fi find me a place, get settled. I put my dad on, back on the plane and, and, uh, and.

And then embarked on this journey of trying to become a working actor, which you know, I did. Okay. I didn't, I worked enough to say I worked, I didn't work enough to become rich and famous, but in the 10 years I was there, you know, it was, it was a happy enough time until one of the jobs that I had, one of the day jobs that I had that that would allow me the flexibility to go out and do auditions and do shows or movies or whatever.

When I needed to was I was an apartment manager. I became an apartment manager and of course you get it. You get, an apartment as part of your pay there. I started as an assistant manager in a,  big apartment building in West Hollywood. And there were three of us and then I got promoted and I got four smaller buildings in Westwood.

Beautiful, wonderful, theoretically safe Westwood. And I worked that job as the company that I was working for was. Falling apart financially and ultimately declared bankruptcy. So I was the last one who was laid off the last one of the managers in the LA area. And a couple of days after I was laid off, I was still in the building that I had been managing.

And I came home one night, parked in the garage, went to get on the elevator and was greeted by a man in the ski mask with a gun to my head immediately. And, you know, I'll let you use your imagination on the rest of it. I don't want to go into gory detail, but it was, technically a rape kidnapping because I was transported from where he grabbed me to where he left me.

And, and my entire world, everything I knew about the world was shattered in that one night.

Damaged Parents: [00:10:16] right. You had this great childhood. Everything's pretty much going well. And then this incident happens now. I do want to ask about the emotions, what was going through your mind when this happened? How did you feel? What physically did you feel like? What emotionally did you feel like

Christy Simmons: [00:10:36] I totally disassociated. I, I like was outside my body watching what was going on. My, I, I remember, well, I remember everything, but I remember, uh, like, you know, when the door first opened, The sound that came out of my body was it was beyond a scream. I don't even, I can't even.

Damaged Parents: [00:10:57] the elevator door opened or the car door opened.

 Christy Simmons: [00:11:02] So I'm standing at the elevator in the underground parking garage, so many buildings have them push the button for the elevator. The door opens. And there's this guy with the ski mask and the gun. And I mean, instantly he knew his lines. I didn't know my lines because I, it was totally improv for me.

And it wasn't for him. Right. So the door opens, grab a gun to the head before I even knew what was going on.

Damaged Parents: [00:11:26] so did you freeze in that moment? Because I think I would have

Christy Simmons: [00:11:29] Yeah. I mean, you know, it, it was such a split second thing. I absolutely froze. I do remember though, this sound that came out of me, that was it wasn't like, it was a kind of screen. Right. And and then boy, he had me and he's and we're on the move and the gun never left my head, never left my head. And I'm thinking as he's dragging me through this parking garage to the, laundry room in the garage.

And I'm thinking, Oh my God, this is like, and I'm saying, please don't hurt me. Please. Don't hurt me. And he's saying, if you do what I tell you, I won't hurt you, but if you don't, I'll kill you And okay. And I'm thinking all the, while this is going on, I'm thinking like, Oh, Bad TV show.

This is like, any scene from any cop detective, whatever show, from 1982.

Damaged Parents: [00:12:22] so it really did your experience of it was a lot like what the movie

Christy Simmons: [00:12:28] Right. And I was watching it from that point. I was watching it from outside. It was the only way that I could cope with it. After he was finished he taught, he took my clothes and he told me not to leave, not to get up off the floor for five minutes. And he would know cause he would be out there watching and he would kill me if I did.

Damaged Parents: [00:12:51] Oh my gosh. Were you terrified? I mean, you were already terrified, but now it's over and you're thinking, Oh my gosh, finally,

Christy Simmons: [00:12:58] It's over, but is it over? Cause he's telling me, he's going to know if I followed the rules and if I don't follow the rules, he's going to kill me period. Point blank, no passionate and no, nothing. Just point blank. This is the way it's going to go. And so I. I don't have a watch on cause he took my  watch. Uh, cause yeah, why not Rob me while you're at it, I guess.  and so, you know, I CA I waited until I was pretty darn sure it had been five minutes and, and I have no clothes. Right. He's taken my clothes, so I can't escape easily. So I'm in this garage.

Damaged Parents: [00:13:36] Wait. So are you still in the parking garage

Christy Simmons: [00:13:39] In the laundry room in the parking garage level. Yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:13:45] okay. So you're still kind of in the same area, but not.

Christy Simmons: [00:13:49] You had not

Damaged Parents: [00:13:49] the elevator to the

Christy Simmons: [00:13:51] off premises, but it's called a kidnapping or an abduction if they transport you from point a to point B.

Damaged Parents: [00:13:58] right, right, right.

Christy Simmons: [00:13:59] So now I have to come out of this laundry room. First of all, wondering if I'm going to get shot second stark naked, and I have to get help if I don't get killed. And so I'm very, very tenuously, I guess, making my progress out of there. And I don't have my keys. He took my keys, he took my wallet, he took all of that. And how do you function? I couldn't even get out of the garage because the, in order to exit, you either had to have a key enter exit.

You had to have a key, or, you know, there's the little thing that the car drives over that signals the garage to, to open. Well, I'm not. As heavy as a car. So I'm jumping up and down on this little thing, trying to trigger it so I can get out of this garage because I don't know if the guy's still in there and

Damaged Parents: [00:14:52] So were you still panicking? Were you still in

Christy Simmons: [00:14:54] Oh yeah, terribly, terribly. And and. Eventually, I don't think it was very long. I think it was probably less than another five minutes, but eventually one of my tenants or at this point, former tenants, cause I'd been laid off from my job for a couple of days, but one of my tenants came home in his car, sees me in the garage, stark, naked, jumping up and down on this thing.

Right. And. And God love him. He just jumped into action. Now, this is where I now I don't remember exactly how, like I was, I'm sure he got something in, threw it around me. I don't really remember that part. I don't really remember how I got to the hospital. The police were called, obviously the police were called and somebody covered me up.

 My, like my clothes were now evidence, right. So I couldn't put my clothes back on.

Damaged Parents: [00:15:50] Were the

Christy Simmons: [00:15:51] but he, they found them, he had ditched them in somewhere in the garage, so they found them, but, and what kills me. After everything else, he did those clothes. It's like one of my favorite go-to outfits and my mother had made it for me and I never got to wear it again.

Not that I ever would have wanted to wear it. If I had gotten it back, he would have ruined it. You know, the experience would have ruined it for me, so I couldn't have ever worn it again anyway, but, damn it  really. That you had to do that too, you know, after everything else, you couldn't just leave a person, her favorite outfit.

Damaged Parents: [00:16:30] Right. 

Christy Simmons: [00:16:31] But anyway, so I get to the hospital and, and it was really touching the, the ER nurse, who was so great with me, kept saying, , Christy I, unfortunately I see women who've been raped all the time. I see it all the time and it doesn't usually get to me the way you are, because I look at you and I think I could be you, you know, I'm not seeing somebody who.

And this has nothing to do. I am not victim shaming at all, but she said, you know, I, I usually see in here women who are, maybe not as kind of normal and careful and low profile, as you are, you're just like at normal average. Young woman that this happened to, and it was eye opening to me in a sense, because I think there is now this was back in 1982. Thank God. I think things are finally starting to change where we're we're realizing that so many rapes go unreported because there was the assumption. And it was in the press and it was, in the police department often, and the court system that a woman who had been raped was asking for it.

Well, the outfit I was wearing was not sexy. It was comfortable. That's why I loved it so much. It was not sexy at all, you know, it's but she was just like, you're just so normal and it scares me because. It could be, it could have been any woman and it was just you, you know, and that's it. It's a very random thing.

I have to say, I do believe that that perception of a woman who's raped is asking for it has changed significantly through the years.

Not enough, certainly, it's great to look back at it and realize that's changing some as with, you know, all of the things that have perceptions that have needed to change through the years. But anyway, so, so, you know, I, I get through that process and then now I don't have a job. was raped in my home basically. Not in my apartment, but in the building I lived in. So, and I'm about to lose that because I was laid off by the company I worked for. And and , I feel like I can never trust anything in the world again, like anything. And, that nurse, again, she sent for a, rape advocate. To come and sit with me during all of the process of being at the hospital. Cause that's too, that's, you know, just horrible. You're being poked and prodded and  evidence is actually inside you that has to be extracted and all of that.  and this advocate said I'm really, really, really going to recommend that you get counseling for this, like immediately.

And there's free counseling out there. Here's the number. Please call them tomorrow if you can or whatever, and, and, and get yourself signed up for that. And at the time I was I was in a relationship that was, it was a long-term relationship. And although I have to say he was, it was not the best boyfriend in the world.

But if he only did one thing right. In all the years that we were together, it was he was the person I called that night. He came over and comforted me and he was the one who insisted that I make the call the next day to get counseling. I know. Like I said, not that, you know, not a bad person, but just not the best at relationships, but he did that.

Right. And so I was, lucky because I did get some great counseling and I, you know, and I, I would, I would say to my, to my counselor, I just feel like, okay, if this is a picture of my life, my happy. Happy happy life, then all of a sudden it just got knocked  a skew, nothing matches up anymore. Nothing.

The dimensions aren't the same, you know, there are no right angles on the frame anymore. It's just the glasses broken. It's just a mess. And this is what I have now to work with. I was able to move back into. Actually the building I had worked in before I got promoted, there was, it was a big building.

There was always something available. I moved into a little studio apartment there. I was really too big, a mess to effectively get a job. Anytime soon I looked, I sent out tons of resumes that, and cover letters that. I forgot to sign because my brain just wasn't there. Right. Or that I didn't put postage on or that, you know, that because I just wasn't functioning yet.

I just wasn't at a, a functional level yet. And

Damaged Parents: [00:21:27] so were you sleeping a lot? Were you or were, did you notice it more in that you were forgetting things like that?

Christy Simmons: [00:21:34] it was more a lack of ability to concentrate. Actually, I have to one degree or another had insomnia since then.

Damaged Parents: [00:21:42] okay.

Christy Simmons: [00:21:43] And that's a lot of years now. and it's interesting. I ultimately. Sued the company that I worked had worked for, because what I knew was that because they were having financial problems, this building that was supposed to be a security building, which is, don't ever believe it.

If you ever, somebody tries to sell you on moving into a security building, well, it's only as secure as they need to make it look. But. I w you know, I, I, because I was in this security building, there were all kinds of measures to, to supposedly keep things secure. One of them was that there was a security guards.

That's when I worked for the company originally, there was when I took over these four buildings, there was, and then. They started having problems. And so one of the things they let go of was a lot of the security guards. So we would, and the maintenance people. So like I had to borrow the maintenance man from the building across the street that was also owned by the same company to get things done.

And we just didn't have, and we didn't have security. We had somebody who kind of made a sweep through once or twice a night of. All the buildings that they had in the neighborhood, but that's not, it's only keeping each building secure for the five minutes or whatever that the guys there. So I knew that and I sued them because they didn't keep me safe. And I can remember when I was, talking to my attorney in the early conversations with my attorney and We were talking about my sleeping issues at that point. And I said, I, there is no way in the world. I can sleep with the light lights off now in doing now, but , not in a totally dark house, I couldn't possibly, and he said, I think I could drive down any street in any major city. And I could point out the windows of the women who've been raped

Damaged Parents: [00:23:49] Hmm. Just because they're sleeping with the lights on

Christy Simmons: [00:23:52] in the middle of the night, there's like at least one life year, one light there, one light there when

Damaged Parents: [00:23:56] So would you say that by following through, on the lawsuit in you're having insomnia, you're having trouble concentrating. You're finding a way to move forward. I mean, you just keep taking one step in front of the other. It sounds like you say the lawsuit helped you to move forward.

Christy Simmons: [00:24:15] No, I don't think it helped me to move up, move forward. What it did, was it it just made sense. For me, it just made sense. And it was just a step on the path, but it wasn't what was drawing me down the path. I was just kind of stumbling around at that point. I was just doing what I could.

Think to do. And I don't know that I was moving forward. I was just moving. Eventually. I got a job, you know, I was able to start to concentrate a little bit cause I was getting counseling and uh, but I was living in this building that  had long corridors and fired doors in the middle of the hallway that you'd have to go through.

And every time I would open a door, I'd get a flashback. So there's all of this stuff. That's like working against me while I'm just trying to survive. You know, I'm just trying to now become a minimally, at least minimally functional person in society. And I can remember after I got my, the job that I got I would be out like walking to lunch on my lunch hour in downtown LA tons of people out on the sidewalk and thinking none of these people know what I'm going through.

None of these people would understand me if we had a conversation. None of them know because there is that isolation, feeling of isolation, like nobody possibly. Has been devastated as much as I have been devastated. Right. Which is a valid feeling. Although when you stop and you look at it now, there are a lot of.

People who have been violated and whose worlds have been turned upside down or by other things, but anything from, people who live in more towing parts of the world to, people who have lost a loved one through an unexpected tragedy. I mean, every. Thing that w rocks you to your core feels so very personal and it is, but these are also universal feelings, under certain circumstances, any one of us would probably feel the same way, but, you know, it was a very, very isolated locked in feeling.

And I became very angry. My response to that was I became very angry and I, it did not take very much. To set me off. I can remember in this job, the first job that I had af- post rape I was working for a great advertising agency in LA and our offices were on the second floor, the entire second floor of the Biltmore hotel, downtown LA.

And since the Biltmore was also one of our clients, one of our One of our perks of working there was that we could go and get a check cashed at the front desk at the Biltmore, rather than having to run out to the bank, during lunch hour or whatever. And I, I remember going down one, one day at lunch, uh, with a friend of mine and I said, I need to stop and get a check cash.

So we stood in line for a couple of minutes and, finally the guy behind the counter came up to me. It was somebody new. And I told him what I wanted to do. And he said that's a service that's only extended to our paying guests. I don't know. The company I work for is renting the whole second floor of this building.

You know, I, I, I think that makes us a paying guest, but I had that conversation with him. However, it was like this, it was like I was in his face. I I'm so surprised that I actually did not leap over that counter at him. I remember how angry I was at that. Now

Damaged Parents: [00:27:54] so anything. So it could be anything that

Christy Simmons: [00:27:57] Right.

Damaged Parents: [00:27:57] set you off

Christy Simmons: [00:27:58] a snarky thing to say, but it wasn't that snarky. It wasn't so bad that I had to really want to like rip that guidance throat out. So after we had settled it, because the manager was called in and Oh, no, she's fine. I turned around to join my friend who was across the lobby. She said, I heard him say that.

And I just started backing up.

Damaged Parents: [00:28:22] So how did you transition though? I mean, was it, you're angry. It makes sense that you're angry. And that you're, you've been suffering. How do you get to the next step?

Christy Simmons: [00:28:34] Yeah. Cause you know, yeah, I am angry. I haven't suffering, but that guy isn't, he, it's not his fault. Right. And I realized, I think probably in that moment when my friends, like, I just backed up, it's like, what's wrong with me? Why, would I be that person? I don't like myself as that person. I don't want to be that person anymore.

I miss. The little girl in the toe shoes. I miss the happy person. I missed that. And so I decided that I just needed to do something about it now, by this time my therapy had ended. So it was kind of up to me to figure it out. And I just thought, if I can just think of one thing. Every day to be thankful for gratitude.

That is so amazing. Isn't it? And you know, you hear people all the time who are in, in the realm of self-help or, you know, whatever, and they say gratitude, gratitude, that's it. And it is such an important key. And I just, I needed something positive. I needed something. What can I, what straw can I grasp at.

Damaged Parents: [00:29:44] Yeah. Did the counselor recommended or it just, you decided I need one

Christy Simmons: [00:29:48] No, it was just, it just came from me. And I just thought, I haven't been, haven't appreciated one thing in this life, since it was allowed to continue. You know, if you back up there was a gun to my head and there was someone threatening to kill me. If I didn't please him. So my life, which could have been snuffed out that night was allowed to continue.

And what was I doing with it? I wasn't celebrating it. I wasn't  spreading the joy and the beauty of it because I couldn't find the beauty anymore. So I realized if I am going to really truly survive this. I need to find the beauty again. And the way I did it was to just decide every day. I'm just going to just one thing to be grateful for it.

Just notice one thing and I have to say it was hard at first. It was hard.

Damaged Parents: [00:30:43] Yeah, I like what you said in that you couldn't see the beauty and because you couldn't see it, then that, that makes sense that you would behave that way. Because at that point, the only thing that you can see, in fact, maybe the only thing you're even looking for at that point is every way in which you could be hurt and you're on high alert.

Christy Simmons: [00:31:06] Right.

Damaged Parents: [00:31:07] So it just took, so it took that moment in your friend it sounds like it's actually more than anything, your friend being across the room and not right beside you was more the trigger to something needs to change then even the behavior in that moment.

Christy Simmons: [00:31:25] Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. It was. And, yeah, so I started out this gratitude thing and, and it was hard at first. And then the more I did it, the easier it got, and I'm going to say within like a couple of weeks, even, it got easier to find something and then. I thought, okay, well this is going along pretty well.

Now this week, I'm going to find two things to be grateful for.

Damaged Parents: [00:31:51] would you say it took you three or four weeks to get to the two things or a month? Or how long until you started.

Christy Simmons: [00:31:58] probably two to three weeks to get to the bump up to two things. And then maybe another couple of weeks of two. And the thing that made me. Bump up to three was that I was having a hard time then stopping myself at two. And I was like, well, if you're having a hard time stopping at two, don't stop.

Let's make it three. And then, you know, Oh, that was easy. Let's make it four. And then I think at about four, I was like, let's just blow the roof off of it. There's no limit the only goal is to be grateful. The only goal is to just. Be open to those moments of, Oh, look at that. God gave me a flower today.

You know,

Damaged Parents: [00:32:38] okay. So,

Christy Simmons: [00:32:39] a Bush, that's got a bud blooming or whatever.

Damaged Parents: [00:32:42] right. And so this is. Let's see a few months or, or six months, uh, how long after

Christy Simmons: [00:32:50] I would say it was probably probably about six months.

Damaged Parents: [00:32:55] okay,

so

Christy Simmons: [00:32:56] the gratitude.

Damaged Parents: [00:32:57] when you started it. Okay. So, and then when you started it, so we're about eight months out. Okay. Would you say it was important to not force that, that it needed to happen naturally for you to get to that point of? Oh, I need to change.

Christy Simmons: [00:33:13] Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. For one thing, there was. A lot of anger around all of this, of course there would have to be, I think anger is a healthy emotion. You want to be able to feel your emotion. The only thing is when you start inflicting it on other people, then you are no better than the person who inflicted their anger on you.

And so at some point when you become self-aware that, that's what you're doing  then it's, maybe time to take the next step in healing. Which is okay. And need to find a way to reach channel my emotions. And and one is to find the beauty again, tap into what's good. Recognize what's not good.

Recognize the pain, recognize the anger, but it does not need to be. Directed at anyone else. It doesn't need to be directed at me. It needs to be directed at the person who earned it, by the way, who paid for that crime, the crime that he committed against me, I was told that they did bring someone in and he was a serial rapist.

He was brought to trial. They chose not to include my case, although they were certain that it was the same person. They chose not to include my case in it because there wasn't a, not as much evidence as there was in other cases. But from what I understand, I did not go to court. I didn't do any of that.

But from what I understand, he did go to prison for. A lot of years, like 20, 30 years

Damaged Parents: [00:34:51] I'm, I'm wondering about forgiveness. Did you get to a point where you were able. To forgive him. And did it help that he went to jail? That there was justice

Christy Simmons: [00:35:03] It did help that he went to jail. I don't even, I don't think about him very often, which is great. I don't, I never actually officially went to a place of forgiveness with him. I went to a place of, you know, what, I'm just not even going to give you that much of my attention. And I've been there for all these years.

I once in a while, once in a while, something will make me think about that. And I'll think, do I need to forgive him? Yeah, no, not yet. I just don't feel like I need to, you know, I, I I'll leave that in God's hands and, and I no longer have the the revenge fantasy of just put me in a. And that locked room with them, with him tied up and me with all of the power and let's see what happens. I no longer have that fantasy, which is good.

That's been a long time that it's been gone. But but yeah, I, I, I really haven't approached it with forgiveness yet. And, and it, like I said, it does come up once in a while. And I do think, is it time? Do I need to do that? And so far, No. I'm okay with, without giving it that without giving him that much.

Damaged Parents: [00:36:15] Yeah. And it sounds like you've turned it over to a power greater than you.

Christy Simmons: [00:36:20] Yeah, I have.

Damaged Parents: [00:36:21] And said, that's that power's job as to what happens. So in some ways, so maybe, for you it's it was let it, it was letting that go. Not that it necessarily had to mean for givenness and I don't know if there's a difference between the two.

Christy Simmons: [00:36:37] I'm not sure. I'm not sure either. Honestly, I'm not sure if there is. I mean, when we're kids, you know, and we squabble with our siblings or our friends on the school yard or whatever, and some adults intervenes and says, say, you're sorry. Okay. I'm sorry. I became you. And how much does that actually mean?

At that level, you know, and then when you are a little older and somebody, you, you have a falling out or whatever, with somebody who's close to you and, you really genuinely find it in your heart to forgive them, or they find it in their heart to forgive you for some upfront that has occurred. I think that's a wonderful and powerful thing.

I have no relationship with this man. So I don't feel the need to forgive him because I have no relationship with him. If I think in order for me to forgive him, I have to still consider him part of my life. He was part of my life for, I don't know, a half an hour. Right. I have no relationship with him, which is. Appalling, when you go back to the actual event, how someone would just randomly pick a total stranger to inflict harm upon. You know, it's not revenge for anything I ever did to him. I never met the man before. It's not anything that's earned. What happened to me was not earned in any way. Which was what was the crux of why my life fell apart in that?

I think if it had been some crazy retaliation for a bad breakup or, you know, whatever, I don't know, jealousy, whatever, at least it would have made some kind of sense. And then I, it might've made more sense for me to forgive. But yeah. You know, I don't want to give him that much of my time.

Honestly,

Damaged Parents: [00:38:29] I was just really interested in that. And because I keep hearing a statement, forgiveness is for me, reconciliation is for them. And so I was interested to see where you were at in, and again, like I said, is letting go of it and turning it over different than forgiveness.

I'm not sure. I don't know. And.

Christy Simmons: [00:38:52] Yeah, I don't either. I mean, it's a really good question and I, I do think that for me anyway, it's going to have to be enough,

Damaged Parents: [00:38:59] Yeah. Yeah, no, it sounds like you've moved on and, I had to go back cause I just really wanted to understand what happened there. And I am very interested though, also in where that gratitude. Took you, because you said it was just one a day. Just one thing. If you could find one thing in your day.

So were you getting up and being grateful when you first got up or were you looking for something throughout the day to be grateful for? And then at night,

Christy Simmons: [00:39:26] I was looking for something. Throughout the day to be grateful for. And I, and it, wasn't a decision that I made. This is how I'm going to do it. It's just the way it happened. But I would take that moment, even if I was in the middle of, you know, if I was having a conversation with somebody and something, just like a butterfly just flew by or whatever, and I would go, Oh, that butterflies so beautiful in my head. While I'm having the conversation I would give thanks for the butterfly. Right? I'm hopeful this butterfly just in that moment, very organically. And or sometimes, you know, often it wasn't when I'm now ignoring my conversation with somebody, but, just being in your own head and doing your own daily activities and, that.

Accident, you didn't have, that was that you almost did. That kid who ran out chasing the ball and he slammed the brakes on and nobody was hurt. I was in these and those same years in my LA years later on different job, I was, I was selling insurance  but I did not have auto insurance myself.

Damaged Parents: [00:40:32] because you were selling auto insurance and you didn't have auto

Christy Simmons: [00:40:35] I was mostly selling life insurance, but I didn't have, I didn't have auto insurance at the same time. And, uh, I was, it was kind of in my defiant years, they're not going to tell me what I to do for whatever. And so I'm driving home one day and  on the freeway and I could see the accident shaping up happening as I was driving into it.

Right. I slammed on my brakes because I see people up ahead of me running into each other in my lane,

Damaged Parents: [00:41:05] no.

Christy Simmons: [00:41:06] when all was said and done, I was the middle car in a seven car pilot. I was the only one who did not run into anyone. And no one ran into me.

Damaged Parents: [00:41:17] wait. So people in front of you crashed into each other and people behind you crashed into each other.

Christy Simmons: [00:41:23] Yes. Yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:41:24] Wow.

Christy Simmons: [00:41:24] Rear-ending rear-ending rear-ending and, or head on head on head-on nothing, nothing rear end rear end urine. Yeah, so we all pulled over and I'm running up and down the line again before cell phones too. I'm running up and down the line, checking in. Is everybody okay here? Are you okay to do I need to go get help?

Whatever. And they're like, no, no. I'm okay. Uh, who hit you? Uh, nobody. Well who'd you hit nobody. Why are you here? I'm the one in the middle. I'm the one who was okay. So, you know, I want to make sure everybody's okay. Once they were all fine, you know, I left, I got in my car and I, I looked up to God and I said, okay, I hear you.

I'm going to get insurance. Right. Well, okay. That was my gratitude for the day, for sure.

If I was even still counting, but I wasn't at that point, but you know, those things. Sometimes it is something like just a beautiful butterfly or a beautiful sunset, or, walking out of the house on the first day, when you can feel that first-hand of spring after a long, hard winter.

And that just like, yes, yes, things are always changing and , the flowers are going to be blooming and the temperature's going to be gorgeous soon. And. And life goes on and what a wonderful world. And there's your, there's my gratitude for that day, you know? So it doesn't have to be big things.

It can be really, really little things, but the more you practice looking for things to be grateful for the more it just happens. And you don't, it's not even a conscious thing anymore. Like with me, it's not really. Sometimes, you know, I do have those conscious moments, but every day now I just start with gratitude.

I, and I do believe in a higher power. And I do when I leave the house, I find that time when I'm in my car, either driving to work, if I'm working outside of the home or, now I'm taking my coaching practice. Inside. And I don't know if we'll ever go back to an office setting or not, but we'll see what that looks like, but you know, my time in the car is very quiet.

Time is it's great, quiet time, and it's a great time for me  to pray and to, and I always start off with gratitude. I always start off with it. Because if we weren't given this gift of life, We would have nothing to ask for. We would have nothing to protect. We would have nothing to, want to forward ourselves through because life is where it starts and a roof over your head.

You know, if you're lucky enough to have one, you should be grateful for it. Even if now I have to buy a new refrigerator. Well, okay. I have to buy a new refrigerator, but it's a new refrigerator to go in my kitchen, which I own. W which has a roof over it, which is, not the biggest, most grand and glorious house in the world, but it's not a paper bag or a box or living under a tree either.

You know? So, when you start just looking at really wherever I am, it could be so much worse and I'm grateful that it's not.

Damaged Parents: [00:44:30] So it sounds like it's focusing on what you do have and not want on what you don't have.

Christy Simmons: [00:44:38] And that doesn't mean you can't focus on elevating your station. Right. of course the war. One of the things I, thank God for every day is opportunity that this world every day is so full of opportunity.

Damaged Parents: [00:44:55] Yeah, it really is.

Christy Simmons: [00:44:57] It is, you know, and when you know that, even when you're feeling like the world is really oppressive,  at times when we go through money problems or relationship problems or grief, because we've lost someone dear to us. I mean, both of my wonderful parents have passed on  and, We all have those things.

You can't just walk around and be hi, I'm happy Christie, the Stepford woman,  you know, we all have things that are good and bad in our lives and, and there's an ebb and a flow to that. So it's, it's great to be grateful for what you have and where you are. That doesn't mean you can't strive for.

Something that is more or better suited to you. I'm in the process right now of getting this house, which I love deeply, uh, getting it ready to put on the market to, because it's time to move and it's time to move because for one thing, I have to climb seven stairs from the time I got out of my car to the time I'm in my front door and.

My knees have been banged up through throughout my life. And they're, you know, I'm at, at a stage in life when something, when I get dinged, I don't bounce back as quickly. And it hurts to climb those stairs and I'm tired of hauling stuff up those stairs when I'm two foot footing, each step,  I'm just done with it and. While my neighborhood is a nice neighborhood. If anybody's paid attention to the news, St. Louis does not have the best reputation right now for keeping it citizenry safe. We have a lot of violent crime in this city and and it's starting to affect my neighborhood as well. And, you know, I know you can't run and hide, but I also am not gonna.

Walk down a dark alley in the middle of the night, asking for something to happen to me. If, I can be someplace where I feel a little safer, considering everything I've been through in my life, I'm going to do it. there's no guarantee what happened to me happened in Westwood in Los Angeles, a very wealthy, very  safe neighborhood.

Except it wasn't so safe because there was a serial rapist working that neighborhood.

Damaged Parents: [00:47:11] right.

Okay.

So three things real quick that you want the audience to walk away with tips or tools to help them.

Christy Simmons: [00:47:20] Okay. Yeah. Tip number one is the gratitude thing. If you start with that and you just start seeing the beauty. That is around you and the opportunity that is around you and really, yeah. That, whatever it was, whatever event or series of events that have brought you to a place where you're not happy, they don't have to define the rest of your life.

You have the power to change how you see the world and how you fit into it. You really don't have to. Just live in the messiest, deepest pit, that you've encountered in your life. You can get out of it. You can climb out of it. It's not going to happen overnight. It is a process. It is something that you actually have to work at until one day.

You don't have to work at it anymore. And you know what? You still might get knocked down a few times and I have to get a yourself out off go. I'm going to go back to basics and work on this being happier again. So that's thing. Number one thing. Number two is I think I'm going to go back to the question of forgiveness.

You know, what. Thing number two, this is just for me, but I, but I think it might make sense to other people is, you don't have to forgive somebody just because society says you should, but it also doesn't mean you have to carry around the anger. If someone did something that hurt you, you just don't have to have a relationship with them anymore.

You just don't have to let them take your energy and your power from you and whether that's someone that you actually have a relationship with, or whether it's a random stranger, honestly, in your relationships, if someone's not being nice to you, someone's not treating you well, maybe it's time that you address that and take ownership of.

Okay. This is something that is causing me pain and I have the power to change it

The third thing is love yourself. Honor yourself. Respect yourself. You brought yourself this far. You can take yourself anywhere,

Damaged Parents: [00:49:30] love that. Thank you so much, Christy

Christy Simmons: [00:49:34] 

You are so welcome. Thank you.

Damaged Parents: [00:49:36] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoyed talking to Christy about how she recovered from the traumatic rape. We especially liked when she talked about just finding one thing she could be grateful for and how that morphed into more. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Tik TOK. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week still relatively damaged.  See you then.