Episode 43: The Ultimate Failure
Kara Laws
Kara Laws is an author, artist and business owner. She started running her businesses when she was 16. Since then she has started and sold multiple businesses. She also trains other business owners. Currently her focus is on writing which is what she really cares about. She's currently writing a book called people in pieces it is a dramatic girls guide to loving people who suck. She’s really good at steamrolling people and she's really good at anger. This book is how she's learned to set those things aside, stop pushing people away and started finding real happiness in her life.
Social media and contact information:
Facebook.com/karawritesstuff
Instagram.com/karawritesstuff
Podcast transcript:
Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents. Were abandoned alone, failed 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 a 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 Kara laws. She has many roles in her life. Best friend, sister, daughter, wife, author, business, owner, artists, and more. We'll talk about how she felt like she failed her friend who committed suicide.
And how she found health and healing along the way.
Let's talk. Welcome to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Kara, we're so glad to have you here.
Kara Laws: [00:02:01] I am super happy to be here.
Damaged Parents: [00:02:03] Yeah. So as you know, this is a show about struggle and we were briefly talking about your perspective you had a struggle. And it was because of someone else's struggle.
Right. So let's tell us what happened.
Kara Laws: [00:02:21] So I had a friend, I will just use her name, real name. I'm okay with that. I think her family is good at that. So we'll move forward. Uh, her name is Andrea and we were friends growing up. We. Went to school together. And about the time we were 12, she started having a lot of depression issues, really, really struggling with depression.
And she, I mean, we were young, the first time she tried to kill herself when we were 13 and she overdosed and she overdosed at home and then she came to school and then she told me about it. And that, you know, she was just waiting for these pills to kick in. In hindsight, I feel like it was like, A ton of Tylenol or a ton of ibuprofen or something like that.
It probably wouldn't have actually killed her, but we were like 13. So I was sure that it would, so I told our school therapist, our school counselor, and they took her to the hospital and got her stomach pumped. And she hadn't talked to me for weeks because I told on her and that was the beginning of my role, I guess, in trying to keep her alive and trying to support her through her mental health and just all of that.
Damaged Parents: [00:03:28] So I have a question before she did that. Did you recognize that she was sad or what did you notice?
Kara Laws: [00:03:35] So we recognized, I say we like me and my friends. We recognize that she was sad. but mental health, wasn't a huge thing. You talked about a lot. And so it was kind of ignore her. She just wants attention, which is a ridiculous thing to say now in my head. Cause like, if someone has to go to those extremes to get attention, like there is something wrong and we should give them attention.
But like a lot of people were just like, she'll get over it, stop babying or whatever, buck up, be happier. Those types of things. Like we knew she was sick. Yeah,
Damaged Parents: [00:04:09] So it sounds like her behavior was a bit exhausting for other people. Maybe.
Kara Laws: [00:04:14] for sure. For sure. it is kind of exhausting. I want to say this right. It's hard to have someone in your life that is struggling a lot. Because you do want to be there for them and you want to be them, be there for them all the time, but it also takes a toll on us as that support role. And especially that no one was talking about it.
So I didn't have anyone else to lean on to help me support her. And I was trying to take it all in myself, but you know, I was a young teenager and that's hard to, take in yourself.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:44] right. So you're trying to manage your life is being a teenager, which is hard already.
Kara Laws: [00:04:51] Yes.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:52] And it sounds like you're really worried about your friend, Andrea,
Kara Laws: [00:04:55] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:04:57] and what's happening with her. And it sounds like the other people in your life were like, just ignore her it's too much.
Kara Laws: [00:05:05] Yes.
Oh, that's how a lot of it was.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:08] Did you actually try that.
Kara Laws: [00:05:11] Yeah, I don't remember. I don't remember ever trying that this was, you know, a good 15 years ago and I don't remember ever trying to ignore her. She always, she was one of the kindest people and she was always, like remembering birthdays and remembering events and doing these things. And so I don't remember ever, just trying to ignore it and making it go away.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:31] but you would include her like, Gosh, that reminds me of the Eeyore.
Kara Laws: [00:05:36] Yes.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:37] So, you would try and include her all the time.
Kara Laws: [00:05:40] Yeah. We always had a place for her at lunch. Uh, we have like group photos that she was in, Like we have photographers come to the school for some reason. I don't remember. And we could do like a group photo. So she's in those things. When we went to girls camp, she, roomed with me or us, all of us.
And so, yeah, there's always space for her. for sure. We didn't try to push her to be happy, kind of like Eeyore you know, she's here and we're along for the ride. But we definitely did have a space for her all of the time.
Damaged Parents: [00:06:07] However it sounds well, she was still sad. I mean, did she ever seem happy? Like
Kara Laws: [00:06:13] Oh, that is a huge, I would actually, okay. Let me back up a little, the thing with depression is that. Most people kind of assume it's just like bad days all the time. It's like a constant bad. I always feel sad. I always feel bad. I'm always suicidal and it's not really like that, or there's really good days and there's really good times.
And so you're happy and we feel like it's good and she's happy and we're getting along. And the next day, it's the worst day ever. And she's super suicidal and. And she doesn't want to get out of bed and she can't make herself go to class and I'm sloughing class with her cause I'm afraid of her being alone.
And then it's a really good day and like, Oh, it's, we're coming out of it, but that's not really what depression is again, especially clinical and chronic depression, like what she had, but yeah, there's good days and there's bad days and there's really bad days and there's really good days. Yeah. It's just all meshed together in kind of this.
Unpredictable system where we're just waiting to see what's next.
Damaged Parents: [00:07:12] So you could see happiness on the outside, or they could emulate happiness but on the inside, They're sad. I mean, did she share that with you? That she looked happy, but on the inside she was just despondent.
Kara Laws: [00:07:26] And she wasn't actually, with me, I felt like she was pretty good at being true to what her emotions were when they were. Cause, if you're depressed, it's not that you never feel happiness ever. So when she was happy, she, I felt like she was pretty honest about it. and when she was sad, she was very honest about it.
And when she just couldn't, it was just too much and stuff. We really talked about a lot of that. Yeah, I guess that's it. That's all I got on that one.
Damaged Parents: [00:07:49] Okay. I just wanted to understand that part. So just go ahead and move on with your journey. So, so I'm assuming you make it out of junior high.
Kara Laws: [00:07:58] we made it out of junior high. We, made out of high school. She was our valedictorian. That's something most people don't expect to, uh, with people that with depression, she was high achieving, very high achieving. She killed the rest of us. Uh, when it came to academics, she was super smart.
She was talented musically. She really. Was like a really incredible person. She loved school, high school. And she got married and in my head, I was like, Oh, this is it. Cause again, I didn't understand depression enough. And I was like, she got married. And so now it's gone because he'll take care of her.
And now she's happy because people want to get married 17 year old mindset. And, obviously it didn't fix it at all. She's had lots of issues there. Uh, they ended up getting divorced. She had a baby while she was going to, she was a pharmacist technician. So while she was going to school for that, she was raising a kid on her home.
She still graduated with honors, but she's still battling this constant depression, this constant feeling that she's not good enough and that her whole world is falling apart. And you know, you leave school and you kind of. Distancing yourself, you know, you just don't see everybody every day. And I lived in Phoenix, she lives in salt Lake, you know, we didn't see each other as much.
And we ended up living in the same town and I just wasn't as prepared for everything as I had been before. It's a lot to try to help the people that you love and to try to make sure they're okay. All of the time. It's something all of us are willing to do. Anyone who has somebody in their life who was struggling mentally.
We are a hundred percent willing to take that on and to do it all of the time. because them being there is it's worth it, but it is kind of a lot. And, um, she was still struggling a lot with her depression. She, went up to salt Lake to do. Shock therapy, shock treatment therapy. And she came home. I think she was home for like a week or two. She came by my office while I was gone, which is weird. Cause she never does that. She came by my office while I was gone just to talk and I texted her, see how she was and she texts me back and said, she just stopped by to say hi. And I was like, Oh good. She's feeling really good today. And then she killed herself that night. Yeah. And it's. It's hard to be the person or one of the people. Cause it's not like it was just me. That was a support for her. It's hard to be the person who feels like you let them down.
Damaged Parents: [00:10:19] So do you feel like, because you weren't at the office at that moment, like, were you able to cope with that? I mean, that would be really hard for me, which is why I'm asking
Kara Laws: [00:10:29] I don't feel like being at the office would have changed anything. I don't think I would've noticed. I know the signs. I know like the signs of suicide, they get really happy that day they visit people. They haven't seen in a long time. They call everybody, they give stuff away. I know all the signs, but you so badly want that person to be happy that I think I would have just been happy that she was happy.
Instead of being like, Oh, hang on, hang on, hang on. Something's wrong. You were really upset yesterday.
Damaged Parents: [00:10:57] I hadn't thought of that before.
Kara Laws: [00:11:00] Yeah. And because, and again, with depression, it does kind of go up and down. There are good days. And so in my head, I would have just I've thought about it a thousand times. I'm sure I would have just been super happy that she was happy that day and have a little hope that the shock treatment that she had done.
Was making an impact?
Damaged Parents: [00:11:19] Yeah. So she was doing the EFT or whatever it's called, right?
Kara Laws: [00:11:23] think so she just, said shock treatment therapy. To me, that's all that I really knew. And she felt better for a minute. And then she crashed and then she was better that day. And my mom talked to her, my mom has taken a tons of training. For suicide and depression. And my mom talked to her when I was like, she's doing better.
We're also happy. She's happy to good day.
Damaged Parents: [00:11:44] So, how was that for you? You're the support person you'd love her. She's an important person in your life. What did that feel like to you?
Kara Laws: [00:11:56] Like a lot of failure. That first time she tried to kill herself, I, as the person she told, and I kind of just took that role through high school, you know, that's seven years through junior high and through high school where I felt like it was my job to keep her alive. We got in trouble several times cause we like missed class together, but I was afraid to let her leave the school alone.
And so I go with her, we liked the principal, we got out of a lot of trouble. We shouldn't have gotten out of, but, we were both good students, so there's a little leeway when you're both. Essentially straight a students, you know, they don't think you're out to cause a lot of trouble, which I guess we weren't.
But yeah, it's really hard cause I was supposed to be her person in my head that kept her alive. And there were so many times, um, that she tried to kill herself, that we were there and we'd been some of her friends or, the guy that she married, that type of thing. But I was always like that.
Central one to me that was always there. And so it was a huge feeling of failure to know at the time that she really, really needed me. All I did was text her
Damaged Parents: [00:12:59] I'm sorry. So how do you learn to cope with that?
Kara Laws: [00:13:03] I had some really good people because I do believe. And it took me a long time to realize this was, I was thought I could function really well without people. I always thought that I didn't need people. It turns out we all need people. I just shut down my whole, cause I was in my office. I ran up the photography studio.
I shut down my whole business for the day. And then there were just people who showed up all, all day long. My sister lives in France and she sent another friend over to like knock and run and leave me, thinks that my door, it was really sweet. And then I just had people all day who, reached out to me to make sure I was okay.
I called her ex-husband and, uh, we went to the funeral together. I didn't even take my husband because you kind of have to have been there to understand almost, and, um, suicide really hard for some people to wrap their brain around and they want to. Do you want to say things like that was super selfish of them and how could they do something like that to somebody and all of these things that aren't really true.
And they haven't really been there. So I called her ex-husband and he drove down and then we went to all of that together and just talked about everything that we'd been through with her. And basically that it wasn't our fault, that was probably the first step in the healing portion is just knowing that like, there probably wasn't anything we could do.
This suicide was different than all of her attempts because her attempts, she told us about her attempts. She wanted more help. She was, she didn't want to die. She wanted somebody there. And this is the first one that she planned, the way that she did again, she was super smart. She knew how to follow through with something.
And so that was a huge step in healing was being able to talk to somebody who truly understood and understood her. And then just all of these support people that were just there, even though they didn't say very much, they were just there.
Damaged Parents: [00:14:48] So her ex-husband actually was super helpful in as far as like talking about what had happened and maybe understanding it.
Kara Laws: [00:14:58] Yeah, definitely the understanding it, I mean, we went through a lot together, like the three of us. And so he was a huge support in that and understanding like what it's like to support somebody and to be constantly afraid of losing someone to suicide.
Damaged Parents: [00:15:14] So that's what it is. Okay. So actually, if you could explain that, what is it like constantly supporting someone I heard afraid, but what else is there?
Kara Laws: [00:15:23] I don't know how to explain it exactly. Right. It's kind of like this constant, a little bit of anxiety, because I don't know when she texts me what she's gonna say. And I don't know when it's a good day and I don't know when the smallest thing is going to set her off because she's already beating herself up.
Um, and so it's kind of like, it's the very tread carefully pit in your stomach kind of thing, because you don't really know what's going to happen and it can swing way out of control really quickly. And. I don't know how to explain it. It's just, it's kind of just like a constant fear. Cause I loved her so much and I want her here, but I'm afraid that anytime, anytime she texts me it's because this is it.
This is the end.
Damaged Parents: [00:16:05] And then the last time she didn't. She texted you earlier in the day, but when it happened, there was nothing.
Kara Laws: [00:16:11] No, she just, it was a really sweet text. I said, Hey, my mom said, uh, you came by to say hi, and I was just wondering what's up and did you want to chat or something? And she was like, no, I just, at the eye, my office, her neck was right next to the post office. She said she was at the post office for something she thought she'd stop by and say hi and see how it's doing.
And that was like, it. And I was like, Oh, okay. And I asked her a couple things. We talked, it was like three texts and we both just moved on
Damaged Parents: [00:16:37] It was just a conversation. So it sounds like I'm wondering if there isn't like a, little bit of hypervigilance about your friend of checking on her maybe more often because you're worried.
Kara Laws: [00:16:50] Yes. And it was more so in high school and in middle school, as we went our separate ways. You're just not on top of it, as much as you were, and you both have wives and she's getting married and she's having kids and we all have jobs and you're like, maybe we're okay. It was a huge stress. And again, it's something I would do a thousand times over.
But it was a lot to take on in high school, especially for somebody, they weren't talking about it a lot. There wasn't training available to me. Then I had to like actively seek out what do I do next?
Damaged Parents: [00:17:20] Yeah, that would be really hard.
Kara Laws: [00:17:22] It was, it was for sure.
Damaged Parents: [00:17:24] I don't know the timeframe, but I'm thinking there were still suicide hotlines and things like that at the time
Kara Laws: [00:17:29] I'm sure there were, but you know what? That never even crossed my brain until you just said it right now.
Damaged Parents: [00:17:35] okay. Okay. I
mean, there.
Kara Laws: [00:17:36] no one was talking about it. And so. It never even crossed my mind that was a thing that we could have been like, Hey, I need some help with this person. I asked my mom a lot of Googling and just searching for like symptoms.
And what does this look like and how do you help somebody and that kind of stuff.
Damaged Parents: [00:17:54] Now
did you have like a, a therapist or someone you could talk to as well or
Kara Laws: [00:17:58] no, I should have, as we talk about it, but again, it just, I was talking to my mom about it. We were just trying to survive it
Damaged Parents: [00:18:08] Right. And
Kara Laws: [00:18:09] okay,
Damaged Parents: [00:18:10] didn't understand, or they didn't really know it was that bad.
Kara Laws: [00:18:14] Um, she had a therapist about the time that I. That she overdosed that first time. And I went and talked to our school counselor and I was like something, you know, she did this thing. She's going to be so mad at me, whatever. and then they got her into counseling shortly thereafter. But there's no support even now.
There's really not support for people who are supporting these people. And we focus a lot on those people, which is good. Uh, but their family and their friends are just clinging to anything they can. And there's no system or support or, Hey, let me get you some more information or anything like that. They are just like good luck
Damaged Parents: [00:18:54] To you, to the carer.
Kara Laws: [00:18:56] to yeah. To the rest of us. And so like, yeah, the school knew there were these issues. Cause I talked to him. But it wasn't about me, which is okay, because the main support should have been on her, but yeah, there's kind of a whole because if they could, if I knew where to get more resources, if I knew how to find help to support me, I could have done more for her, just floundering.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:16] Yeah. And it sounds like there wasn't much support even later for the carer, if you will, for, someone in your position that has spent time and here you are at, when it, when it happens, feeling like a complete failure and like, you didn't do enough. And I mean, did you ever go in and talk to a therapist or get some help processing or was it mostly family, friends, church?
I don't know.
Kara Laws: [00:19:43] Um, mostly just my mom, my husband, a little bit. He lost his parents when he was really young. Um, so for somebody to commit suicide is like hard for him to digest. So I didn't talk to him very much about it because, um, his frustration with her was really bad for me. I see that makes any sense. And so mostly it was just my mom.
I have a therapist and now, um, but I definitely should have had a therapist then it just never, it never crossed my mind as a thing. Everyone just deals with death. And I leaned a lot on her husband. I laid on her ex-husband I leaned a lot on her boyfriend then, uh, we used to talk a lot at night and stuff about things and share photos, but.
That was like it, we were just looking for anyone who understood because there's so many misconceptions about it. And so we, all just needed somebody who understood what it was actually like to be on the other side of it.
Damaged Parents: [00:20:34] I mean, it sounds like a support group would have been super helpful to you.
Kara Laws: [00:20:39] Super helpful. If I had advice for anyone going through this, that you have someone that you love that is struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, it would be to create them a support group. That's also a support group for you. Cause Andrea had people, it wasn't just me. She had her boyfriend, she had her parents, she had her sisters and her brother.
She had other friends. All of these people, but we were never talking to each other. We were never checking in with each other. We were never telling her, Hey, if I don't answer, call so-and-so or something like that, we never got together. And we're like, we've got you and we've got each other and we can kind of help each other through things.
Like if I'm going through something personally and. I can't take on a lot of her stuff that I can communicate that to somebody else who's like, I got her. You're okay. Breathe. It's okay. I also think that if we had created something like that, a group where we actually said those words and said that we are the people who are going to help her, and we were communicating with each other.
We may have been able to pick up on what happened the day before she died. Cause we all knew, we all know the signs, but we didn't talk to each other. If I had known that she called her cousin that she hasn't talked to in a year and she came to my office. It might've like raised a red flag, but I only, but I wasn't talking to her cousin.
And so, you know what I mean? Those types of things.
Damaged Parents: [00:22:02] Almost like there needs to be, like, there could have been like a Facebook group or,
Kara Laws: [00:22:07] Yes.
Damaged Parents: [00:22:08] some sort or just some or a Slack, right. Somebody could be using Slack or discord where there's a group that just says, Hey, here's what's happening.
Kara Laws: [00:22:17] Yeah, even her mom being like, this has been really hard on me. Can somebody go check on Andrea for me? And then there's 10 of us who were like, yes, I didn't know. She was having a hard day. You know what I mean? And. Or I'm out of town and I can't help her. Can somebody go check on her kids?
Can somebody, you know, that kind of stuff. But we all, I mean, I probably can think of about 10 of us and we all just try to take it all on ourselves instead of sharing this love and concern for her amongst ourselves. And letting her know that there were all of us available, you know, like we're available to each other and we're available to her.
I think about all the time, that's a hundred percent what I would, do differently or what I would suggest to somebody struggling with it, because it is a lot to take on and, and it's impossible to do everything yourself anyway. But we tend to shy away from leaning on other people and we probably should have.
Damaged Parents: [00:23:11] Isn't that the truth. So how do you, or what have you done to create that network in your life now? Or do you have it now?
Kara Laws: [00:23:19] So now I do spend, so when she died, She's probably 27. So she's not, you know, we're not very old, uh, when she died. And I just remember realizing how short life is and wondering what I'm leaving behind and, you know, none of us make it out of here life. Right. And so, and so I just kind of started pulling back and being like, okay, I want to take up, I really want to take on everything.
I want to change the world. We want to do all this stuff. And I was like, I felt like I needed to pull it back in and really be like, what is my core? And who are my people? And how do I support the things that matter the most, Andrea mattered a ton. She was one of those things that mattered the most. And. I missed when she needed me the most, because I was distracted with other things.
Again, I don't know if I would have seen it. I don't know if I could have changed anything. It was still a choice that she made, but I also hadn't been super available to her for a long time because I was so absorbed in having a career and do it, all of these things and being the best at everything I was doing.
And so the changes for me were understanding what's most important first and really, really writing it down like my family and my friends matter the most. And starting to just change my priorities. And then I created like a Facebook group for my family that we post every week, we post a highlight, a low light and a weird light.
So something weird that happened that week, so that we're connecting with each other and we're remembering to support each other a little bit more. Just things like that. Understanding. What's most important and then just starting to create, and it's been really slow. It's been years and I'm still really slow at it.
Uh, but just starting to create systems that support that a little more is what I've been working on a lot. Does that answer your question? Cause I got really long.
Damaged Parents: [00:25:01] I think so.
Kara Laws: [00:25:02] Sorry.
Damaged Parents: [00:25:03] it sounds like the way that you've created support is by having a family group, making sure that you back off of things that you don't find important, and that you're really focusing on the things that you find value in.
Kara Laws: [00:25:16] yes. Way to sum up. Well, that was a great summary.
Damaged Parents: [00:25:20] It's
Kara Laws: [00:25:20] I have a lot of words.
Damaged Parents: [00:25:22] That this is a hard, and it's a very tough subject to talk about, I think, because it's just, even from listening to what your saying and in your experience, it's everyone, not just, you took on this responsibility for your friend and. And that's a lot, especially a life. And I'm also trying to figure out, like, how would you even help her?
And take care of yourself at the same time and not lose yourself. Right. Had it been at another time, you know, where even in today's world right now, because there's so much, well, you need self care, you need this, you need that. And how, can someone, and I'm not certain that you even have the answer to this question, but how could you do self care and.
And to make sure you're watching out for the people around you that you love. And do you see where I'm going with that?
Kara Laws: [00:26:17] I just, the more that I think about it all. And, there's some other depression like in my family and things like that. So we saw people we support, the more that I think about it all, I think we need more people. I mean, . I just keep coming back to it all the time and I think we need to reach out and ask for help.
Like, I can't check on so-and-so today. Can you help me? Um, today? So I'm LDS, and our missionaries came over today and they mud and taped our walls. Yeah. They just came into the service. They were like, we have time. What do you need done? Um, we're building me a new. Office space. And they come in, they came in modern, taped all the walls.
They had everything ready so we can paint on Monday, but we're willing to ask them when they said we have things to do, what do you need? And I think usually when people are like, we want to serve you, what do you need? We all say, I'm good. Thanks.
Damaged Parents: [00:27:07] Right. So how do you give the gift? How do you get comfortable with giving the gift of receiving? And I learned to term it that way. I think it was from Marshall, B Rosenberg. Uh, he taught nonviolent communication and he jokingly said, you know, if you need sugar, you go to your neighbor and it's like, Santa Claus going over there.
Oh, ho, ho can I have some sugar? You know, it's like, because it really is a gift. Receiving is also a gift because the other person couldn't give. So if somebody took that away from me, I would be devastated. And it took that comment that he had made for me to realize, Oh, when I ask it as a gift. So how do you recommend someone learn how to give the gift of receiving.
Kara Laws: [00:27:53] I recommend you start small. It was really hard for me, , to start with and just, there'll be a lot of times that people ask you, how can I help? And so for me, I had some serious back issues at some point in time and had to have surgery. But I made a list of how people could help me because when they ask me, I'm always like, I don't, I don't know.
I mean, obviously we're drowning and I need help, but I don't know how you can help me. And so I made a list of like small things that people could do. And then when they said, how can I help then I'd be like, well, I was putting out my husband cause I was nervous. I'd be like, well, Jamie really loves it when we get food.
Cause then he doesn't have to cook for me. Or we're we have a project in our front yard that we can't get done. So if you have Scouts that want to come help with that would be really nice. And I just started with like, I wrote a list and then I started with really small things and I waited for people to say, how can we help you?
And then. I told them how they could help us. It's really hard. Um, but that's how relationships are made in the end. That's how we, that's how we support people and how we start to dig our way out of our own crap is we share it a little bit with somebody else and they in turn share a little bit of theirs with us and it makes us better people and it makes us, it makes life easier. Just a little bit,
Damaged Parents: [00:29:07] just, yeah. Even that little bit matters. So. Just knowing the LDS group, right. And, or society or culture. That's the word I'm looking for
Kara Laws: [00:29:16] there it is.
Damaged Parents: [00:29:17] in the, in the LDS culture, it is very much the. You need to be the helper not the helpee. And so I'm assuming that was also really hard to overcome because of the perception that maybe when you're not the helper, you're not good enough because.
Part of the acceptance into that culture might be, you have to be the helper and I'm interested to understand your perspective on, on that whole situation. I just kind of explained.
Kara Laws: [00:29:49] That is a hundred percent true. It does feel like you're supposed to be serving all the time and I'm supposed to be serving people. They're not supposed to be serving me. I have to take care of other people, but if all of us put up that wall and said, You can't help me. I'm supposed to be helping other people.
We have nobody to help. And again, we're all going through our problems alone and we don't have to, we don't have to go through it alone. There's people who get it and who want to serve us, but we're just putting up those walls. And when I allow people to serve me, I'm also more able to serve other people because they've taken some of that stress off of my life.
They've taken some burden off of it and. I suddenly find all of this extra time to be able to do things for somebody else and help them and give a little back. And I want to give more because it was such a big deal when people did something kind for me, even if it was something little, like bringing us muffins on the doorstep or something like that,
Damaged Parents: [00:30:41] So that little thing. Actually made a huge difference or what you maybe think of as a little thing, even though it made a huge difference. So meal on the doorstep took care of hours of time that allowed you to do something else that may have been serving other people. Yeah.
Kara Laws: [00:30:58] yes, definitely. Or even that took enough stress down that I found myself the next day being like I have some free time I could do something for somebody or realizing the real value of serving somebody else because it mattered so much to me. I have a little boy. Who's a weirdo. He was four years old when the new neighbors moved across the street and we've been trying to teach them about stranger danger.
And so he was like, these are strangers. Therefore they steal people and he's watching them out the window. And he's sure that they are kidnappers, but he's super stressed out about it. Cause he has a little friend that lives down the street. Who's a little younger than him and he does not want them to steal his friend.
Right. So this little boy, unbeknownst to any of us, took a string cheese, a single string cheese. Over to the neighbors. And he targeted the mom because she looked the nicest. So he gave her a single string cheese and told her his name and ran away and then came and told us that the neighbors didn't steal people.
And we were like super confused. What happened in the end is they were having like a really, they were having a really hard day, this woman and her little family and trying to move in and this little boy comes out of nowhere and is like, I brought you a string cheese because I wanted to do, you know, he's like, I brought you a strip.
She's like to them, it was just being kind. He was making sure they weren't kidnappers. He was sacrificing himself to make sure they weren't going to kid that his friend. Right. But he brought this little string cheese. That's all he did over to this family and this woman, she has a really good friend of ours now.
Because of that teeny tiny act of service, which was a string cheese for a four year old, who's crazy. And she brought us stuff and we brought her stuff and she brought us stuff. And it's just been this back and forth for a couple years now. So we've just continued to try to serve each other because like a little boy broke the ice with some string cheese.
And I don't think we realize I would never would have taken anything over there because it wasn't good enough. Right. I don't want to be embarrassed. I don't want to be in their way. I don't want to bother them, whatever else, but these little tiny things matter and they build communities and they build friendships and they build relationships that we can fall back on.
And I think that's the biggest thing I've learned from everything with Andrea is how desperately we need people and how big the little tiny gestures are in the end. I mean, it was string cheese and we have a really really amazing neighbors that really help us with our kids. It helped look after everybody.
I don't know yeah the little things matter.
Damaged Parents: [00:33:22] They do. And it sounds like you have a community now, you're not in, in, on your street. You have neighbors, you can say, Hey, I need something and
Kara Laws: [00:33:33] Yes, definitely. And it does just start with something teeny tiny before you're comfortable enough to be like, Hey, I just really need people today. I need some help. I need something. It's not something that happens overnight at all, but I think it's what we all need. I think we need. To be able to trust people and to be able to ask them for help carrying our immense burdens.
Damaged Parents: [00:33:56] and they are immense. So what about the people? What do you think about the people who are struggling to find those safe people that they can depend on? I mean, have you ever been around that or have any understanding of how to find safe people.
Kara Laws: [00:34:12] I'm probably not the best for this question simply because I have lived in a very small rural community. So we do know all of our neighbors. We talk to our neighbors, they all, most of them go to church with us, stuff like that. So we do feel pretty safe and open here. So it wasn't very hard for us to start expanding that circle.
However, I do have a friend who just moved in to town and her thing for finding her good, safe people is actively reaching out. So she's like, let's have a girls night and invite some people she thinks might be her people. And then does another one invites different people. She might be her people, so she can start,
you know, the beginnings of the friendship into something that feels. Better. Does that
Damaged Parents: [00:34:55] So I, I think what I hear you saying is just start with little, little things. And when, if you meet someone that doesn't mean you can't keep trying to find more safe people. Just try it, try people out. They don't have to be, they might not be the right people and they don't have to be the right people for you.
They might be the right people for someone else, but if you don't get out and you don't communicate, then you're not going to have that community available to you.
Kara Laws: [00:35:20] For sure. And another safe place to start for me is just my Facebook friends. I have my whole page where I'm, I really bear a lot of my soul on there and people kind of come out of the woodwork. I just had a baby and then I had. A leak in my spinal cord and that I had gallbladder surgery, like all within three months and people that I didn't know, cared about us really came out of the woodwork and just called and drop things off and offered to take my kids and all of those things.
And typically I would've pushed against it cause that's uncomfortable to me. But I really worked really hard on just being as grateful as I could. And it's overwhelming and so that's like a really easy, kind of safer way to start doing things is to talk to your people on Facebook, find out who understands you and who gets things.
And then to start being like, maybe we get together, maybe let's try something.
Damaged Parents: [00:36:17] What do you say to those people that worry about putting things on Facebook or worry that they're going to be judged negatively?
Kara Laws: [00:36:23] The super cool thing about Facebook is that you can block people.
Damaged Parents: [00:36:27] Yeah. So has that happened to you? Did you need to block some people because, you were vulnerable and they were disrespectful or rude or mean.
Kara Laws: [00:36:35] I call through my friends list at least annually. And I'm like, Oh, I don't know you in real life. You're super cranky. Uh, you're super rude. You know, those kind of not like super mean, but like, I don't know you in real life is a huge one for me. I don't know you in real life and we're not building a relationship here.
Or, uh, there was one guy who followed me, cause we were both photographers and he just liked to say super rude things on everything I posted. I don't have any obligation to him. He's not an actual friend. We met online. I could totally in front people
and I do go through mine probably annually just to be like, I can control this space.
This can be my space. If I want it to be and cut down other people maybe that are just adding pain and anger into my life, which I have plenty of anger. I don't need other people to add more in,
Damaged Parents: [00:37:21] Yeah, I think I was reading somewhere. You steamroll people and, uh, you're really good. Steamrolling people and you're really good at anger. Tell me about that.
Kara Laws: [00:37:31] Yes. What you said really good at both. Okay. So, I want to take care of people, but part of my taking care of people is like, I assume if you're not helping me, then you're like the enemy. It's like the whole, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem idea. And so if you're not helping me do this, you're standing in my way.
It was like my brain thought for a long time. And so I would just steamroll right through people and be like, well, if you're not helping me with this and get out of my way, Really mean and aggressively. And I did this for a year as a kid. I did it. I just have a lot of have high emotions when my emotions are there, they're high and they're strong and they're intense.
And that's just how I always ran life for like 26 years almost. And then I started realizing that at the end of the day, the only thing you have are your people.
Damaged Parents: [00:38:15] Was, is that part of what you got from losing Andrea? That.
Kara Laws: [00:38:19] Absolutely. Cause you know, you sit at a funeral and you really look around at who's there and what you have, what you left behind. Well, what a person left behind and it makes you think of your own mortality and how like, again, none of us are making it out of here lives. And I started being like, I don't know what people are going to say about me when I leave.
I don't know who's coming to my funeral because I have just bulldozed through so many people to get what I thought was right. Or what I thought I needed or what I thought was helping somebody else. It was almost always done with good intentions, but I had a neighbor across the street that didn't talk to me, threatened to beat me up in a parking lot once.
Right. We're friends now. It's all good. But like I really started, that was part of me figuring out like what my core was and what mattered the most is also what have I been doing? That's taking away from that. And a lot of it was, I am so mad at everyone for not being what I think they should be for not helping me when I think they should for not caring about the things that I care about.
All of those types of things. And so I really had to, that was a huge part of it was being. Able to look at what I was doing that made me more angry. What I was doing was taking joy out of my life and what I was doing that was pushing people away.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:29] So you were able to look at is this anger serving me? And is this steamrolling serving me when, what I really want is connection.
Kara Laws: [00:39:37] yeah, yeah. Or sometimes, so I started a whole business based on like my anger, my sense of injustice. but you can't, you can't pull from anger, eternally. Like you can't always fuel your life with anger. It doesn't work because eventually you just burn out and you're done and you ran every one off that you cared about and your family is sick of you ranting about your problems or your new cause for the week.
That was mine. And so you can't pull from it eternally and it doesn't serve at all. It's just painful in the end. Does that answer your question?
.
Damaged Parents: [00:40:10] I think so. Okay. So when you say stop pushing people away, what does that mean?
Kara Laws: [00:40:17] I am really good. Again, it, those walls, and I think we push people away when they ask us for help. And we say, we're fine. I think we push people away when they invite us to things and we don't want to go. I think we pushed people away when we, even when we want to serve, but our service isn't good enough.
And so we don't do it. All of those things, I think we want to keep people at a distance because it's safer. I can't get hurt. And I definitely do that. I,
I keep people at an arms length, people who want to be my friends, people who want to. To know me more because I frequently have been afraid of what that actually means. What if they get to know me? And it turns out that they don't like me. What if they get to know me and I have some fit of rage again, or I'm yelling at people and they're like, wow, Kara's insane.
And then we can't talk to each other anymore. You know what I mean? And so I think we all do it. I'm really, really good at it. Keeping people at arms length and then taking everything on myself.
Damaged Parents: [00:41:08] Yeah. Cause it sounds like even with that with Andrea, you took a lot on yourself and in some ways you could, did you have, well, you weren't connected to the rest of the group, right? So you did keep them at arms length if you will. But Andrea was super close. That's really interesting. Just now that I'm thinking about.
That after what you just said.
Kara Laws: [00:41:29] Yeah. And like I needed those people and, um, she had enough other friend who was like her very best friend growing up. That definitely we could have supported each other and she loved her just as much as I did. And we should have been, we should have been just so close and trying to support. And the three of us never did I reach out to those people.
It was, I don't want to admit that I'm making a mistake. I don't want to admit any failure. I don't want them to see me crack. And so I don't, and I took it all on myself, which none of us can do at all.
Damaged Parents: [00:41:59] So, and in the carer role, if you will, in some ways you thought you were the only one who could do it and you had to do it alone,
Kara Laws: [00:42:07] Yes. In some ways. Definitely. And I didn't want to, I didn't want anyone to see me screw it up. I didn't want to, it's hard to admit that you're vulnerable, I guess.
Damaged Parents: [00:42:15] it's hard to admit you're vulnerable.
Kara Laws: [00:42:17] Yes.
Damaged Parents: [00:42:17] Okay. Right. And you would be vulnerable because you would be reaching out.
Kara Laws: [00:42:22] Yeah, it makes me look weaker because I can't get, I can't take care of her, myself. I can't do these things myself. And so it makes it look like I'm giving up. Maybe in my head, I felt like I was giving up or it makes me look like I'm not strong enough or I don't want to, or there's a lot of things in reaching out that just makes us feel like.
We're failing somehow.
Damaged Parents: [00:42:42] And yet, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm thinking about how a net gets weaved together. Like individual strands, get weave together and become strong. Like that just literally popped into my mind as you were talking. And I'm thinking you're afraid of looking weak and yet the net is stronger. And if you could just be part of the net, then you're stronger together and not apart.
Kara Laws: [00:43:07] definitely, definitely. And we all need people. I mean, it's taken me decades to realize that I need people and it's still really hard for me to step into being okay with that and to step into asking people for things. I mean, even going to events, those types of things, I want to be the super independent person.
But all it does is damage me and I lose the ability to help other people, because I can't do everything myself.
Damaged Parents: [00:43:32] Yeah. So you kind of run yourself into the ground doing it. On your own. When, if everyone shared not only would you have more friends and more people who could support you, but everybody would be stronger.
Kara Laws: [00:43:42] Everybody would be stronger. Yes.
Damaged Parents: [00:43:45] Yeah. That's really interesting. Okay. So three things you would want other carers, other support people. You want them to know you? It could be nothing that we talked about. Just three tips or tools that you want, people that are in your position that are supporting someone depression or, suicidal ideation issues that you want them to have for support.
Kara Laws: [00:44:12] The first one, cause that's what we've been talking about is that they need a team. I, a thousand percent would say you need a team of people that supports the person who's struggling and that you guys can support each other. Um, would be the first one. The second one would be to find support for yourself.
So like a therapist, somebody who can help give you guidance because. None of us know, we are all making life up as we go. It's nice to have somebody on the outside looking in that can help you center and understand. And the third one would probably be to give yourself some grace because we also have to live our own lives.
We also have so much that we're trying to do. And so many people we're trying to take care of and we will not be perfect at any of it. And it's totally okay.
Damaged Parents: [00:44:56] Gosh, isn't that the truth?
Kara Laws: [00:44:58] It's hard. It's so hard, but yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:45:01] And yet we can all do it. Right. It's so hard. It's uncomfortable. And it's okay.
Kara Laws: [00:45:08] Yes.
Damaged Parents: [00:45:09] I am so glad we got to have you on the show today. Kara. It's been awesome.
Kara Laws: [00:45:12] Thank you so much for having me.
Damaged Parents: [00:45:14] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoyed talking to Kara about unconditional love. We especially liked when she spoke with an abundance of love for the people around her. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Facebook. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then.
