Episode 50: Perception

Karen Catt

Karen Catt believes that no matter what happens in your life, you can find serenity. When she's at peace with herself, she can be at peace with the world. If she's not at peace with the world, it's because she's not at peace with herself. She says she can share this with you too, there's no secret to it.

Contact information:

www.conversationswithcatt.com will lead them to my contact information and podcast

IG/fb:  conversationswithcatt

Podcast Transcript:

Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents. Where devastated, drowning, sad 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 damage 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 Karen Kat. She has many roles in her life. Daughter, sister, wife. Host of Conversations with Catt and more. We'll talk about how she lost her son was in an abusive marriage, became an alcoholic and how she found health and healing. Let's talk

Welcome Karen Catt to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We're so glad you're here today.

Karen Catt: [00:02:02] Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Damaged Parents: [00:02:05] Yeah. So I noticed on your pre-interview questionnaire that you said it's not so much as what I want the audience to know about me as what I want them to learn about themselves. And I think that is a really interesting perspective.

Tell us about that.

Karen Catt: [00:02:22] Well, basically, and I, did go back and look at some of the questions that you had asked. So that's good. Because I think the main thing is, is that, I w before I had started a podcast, and before I started looking, to respond to your request, I used to speak to people about how their life is going and really it's the choices that we all make.

In our lives. And so it didn't do much good to speak to an audience when I was doing public speaking and just tell them how wonderful I was. I have to learn to tell my story in a way that says, here's my story. And here's how I did it. But that means you can do it to take a piece of it that you can relate to and use it for yourself.

Because the whole idea when we read biographies or follow celebrities or whatever it is that we do. I think so many times, well, I would even say this when we watch a movie and we love the hero in the movie. What we're really doing is thinking I'm that hero

Damaged Parents: [00:03:29] Yeah. Yeah, I agree

Karen Catt: [00:03:31] in my own life story.

That's, that's what I think.

Damaged Parents: [00:03:35] Yeah. And how do you become that hero in your life story?

Karen Catt: [00:03:40] How do you become that?

Damaged Parents: [00:03:41] Yeah. And so let's talk about that. Let's get into where your struggles started because you didn't. I, and I really loved it. That what I noticed is there's not just one big struggle. You want to focus on there's period, it's periodic throughout your life.

So let's talk about that and how you kept moving and, found hope and courage in those moments.

Karen Catt: [00:04:01] Okay. So the first one would be it. And then it's the biggest one for me is I had a son that died of cancer. So I was in my late twenties when he was born and he was doing fine for the first two months of life. And then he went in, I started back to work and he went in to daycare that day and they thought he had an earache.

And called me and said, I think you need to take them to the doctor for an earache. And by that evening, we were at the time we lived in Minneapolis and by that evening we were struggling to find a way for him to live another hour.

Damaged Parents: [00:04:38] Oh, wow.

Karen Catt: [00:04:39] he was losing body temperature and seizures. I mean, it just happened just like that.

They did an MRI. In fact, if we had not had a doctor. Who had treated a child with this particular appendamoma 11 years earlier. And she said, that's how rare this is, but your child and your descriptions of your child's behavior are eggs. It's like deja VU to what happened 11 years ago with that other patient.

So she made us get an MRI

Damaged Parents: [00:05:09] so upended moment, OMA it.

Thank you.

Karen Catt: [00:05:14] yeah, it's in the back fourth ventricle of the brain, which basically means it's also operating everything through your spinal cord to communicate for your heart, to beat for your lungs, to breathe for your limbs to move it was affecting all of that communication.

So that's where he's losing body temperature breath. And heartbeat. And so it's just to say everything happened that quickly, that you're just, I always tell people you're just shopping in the grocery store. Just like everyone else, figuring out what you're going to do for dinner. And the next thing, you know, you're all of a sudden dealing with medical terminology about saving your child's life.

This is a life or death operation. These are life or death decisions for what a lot of parents who have kids with cancer, it goes on for several years. And that's where we suddenly found ourselves was, in one way it simplify your life. Because the only thing I had to focus on was keeping my child alive. However, when you do that, as we did for two and a half years, and most parents go through having kids with leukemia, which their treatment lasts four years, our son died. Okay. He was doing well, but he did die at about two and a half years old.

Damaged Parents: [00:06:36] Now had been hope that he

Karen Catt: [00:06:38] Oh,

Damaged Parents: [00:06:39] the, if you could treat it that he would live a, I don't want to say full life. Cause I can't say that two years, isn't a full life  for his

Karen Catt: [00:06:46] I know what you mean. Yeah, no, they they thought he could live a good quality of life and he did, and they thought maybe up to 10 years old, they really thought at two years old when we.

Transferred. And that's a really good, I'm glad you asked that because people wonder why did we transfer for three different hospitals over two years, if you knew he was going to die? Well, because there was hope that the surgery had done well and had removed the tumors. They just thought that they would come back in about five or six years.

But they thought he would be five or six years cancer free because they got most of it. So I'm glad you asked that because we really did. And that's how we ended up at the, he had the free and clear actually, when we moved from, Omaha to Denver. He had the free and clear, and we just went in for a baseline checkup with their equipment.

And that's when they found the cancer had already come back. And it was extremely aggressive in multiple tumors throughout his spine. And there was just nothing that we could do at that point. So again, when you think you're on the free and clear, and then all of a sudden it stopped, but all of this is a long way to say.

For a long time. It was really hard to when people would ask if we had kids and we had, did not have any other kids at this point. I just said no, because I got tired of always telling the story of my son's cancer, because people will say. Oh, I feel, it feels like you're trying to just be let's say it's Easter weekend and you're meeting someone else or a family or something you're out in public.

And then the entire conversation comes about your child's death and how bad they feel for you. So you're always the victim

Damaged Parents: [00:08:40] Oh, so, so even in what they would, the way they would ask the questions, you are the victim and not the hero because you lost your son.

Karen Catt: [00:08:50] And they're trying to console you, but what happens is you don't want to depress everyone at the party, so you end up telling them it's okay. And you're trying to talk them out of, because here's the thing. It's new to you to hear this. If I just meet you and somehow you find out just like you did, okay.

My son died of cancer people are sorry. It's new information to you. But at this point for me, it happened over 25 years ago. So I had to find a way to not keep living in that story. That being the mother of the child who died is not my identity. And it's not the only conversation that we have with people.

Damaged Parents: [00:09:37] I think that's really interesting that you said the mother with the child that died is not my identity. And I'm thinking you struggled with that also

Karen Catt: [00:09:47] Oh

Damaged Parents: [00:09:47] probably a while. And how, and I'm thinking you got hit by a Mack truck after Mack truck, you know, just the pain. So When he passed away, what did it take for you to start shifting or after that?

How long did it take you to start really finding that hero inside of you? Or what was next? I guess is probably the best question.

Karen Catt: [00:10:10] Yeah. Yeah. It was just a matter of, I often say to people, you know, you see children on a merry-go-round. And , they get it running and then one of them is wanting to jump on. Right? Okay. I needed the earth to keep turning. I needed you to keep taking your kids to school and telling me about your story with your kids.

And I needed somebody else to just talk about work and I needed, everyone else to keep the world turning so that when I was ready, I jumped on and joined in,

Damaged Parents: [00:10:39] Okay.

Karen Catt: [00:10:39] they all stopped, if they quit telling me about their kids and they quit telling me about their job and they just, walked on eggshells about, you know, just focused on me, there was nothing for me to join in on.

There was no know routine life as normal. And that's really all I wanted was just, I just, when people talk about it, a new normal or get life getting back to normal, I just wanted a daily routine.

Damaged Parents: [00:11:06] Right. So you just needed some consistency in the people around you and the focus to not be on you, but to be on them so that you could process in some ways.

Karen Catt: [00:11:20] Yeah. Yeah. So it, it took many years of off and on and up and down. So at first mother's day was hard. I don't know, many years it was hard, but then I just got to where I just focused on celebrating mother's day with my mother. We had a great childhood.

She was a great mother. I focused on her. I focused on other people in my family who had kids. And so now, and again, it just comes with time and I've met other parents who feel this way because my son died at such a young age. It, and I don't have any other children. It seems odd. For me to celebrate mother's day, like people say, Oh, but you'll always be a mother.

I'm like, yeah. But that was 25 years ago. He was two years old at the time. I never raised him through, the teenage years and marriage and all that stuff. So I just don't think of myself as a mother. I was a mother, but I'm not today. And I've talked to a counselor about it and it's a very healthy way to deal with it that I was a mother back then, but I'm not now.

Damaged Parents: [00:12:24] Yeah,

Karen Catt: [00:12:25] And there's no pain and regret with it.

Damaged Parents: [00:12:27] Right. And it seems like that's, to me, I'm thinking that might be a really healthy place to go because you're not still stuck in the past.

Karen Catt: [00:12:37] Yeah. And it's also, it helped me deal with other, you know, when you move through your life in different stages. So, like you said, I had other things, so I was a wife, but I've been divorced, so I'm no longer, we have no problem letting go of being married to someone, anybody I know who's been divorced very wants to let go of that identity of being so-and-so's wife. Right. And you're ready to move on to the next thing. And so I think it's okay to say that was my life then. And this is my life today. So I was a mother, but I'm not, I was an alcoholic and I still have alcoholism. I still cannot drink alcohol, but that doesn't mean I don't have recovery.

Damaged Parents: [00:13:19] Right,

Karen Catt: [00:13:20] So I'm not still stuck in that role of addiction.

I'm no longer addicted. I'm living the life of recovery.

I'm no longer, you know, easily the ex that doesn't bother me at all. But here's who I am today. I Mrs. Catt. I'm now married to someone else. I'm a wife in a different marriage.  I used to have a different job.

You know, I've been in retail, I've been in banking. I've been in the public speaking. I'd been in a home-based business. That was my identity at the time. Cause that was my job, but they're not my identity now.

Damaged Parents: [00:13:51] It sounds like you've almost shifted from identifying as the things you do or have to, you are Catt first. I mean, Karen sorry. Let me

Karen Catt: [00:14:02] No cat. No, no. This is why I go with conversations with Catt because everyone naturally calls me Catt.

Damaged Parents: [00:14:08] Okay.

Karen Catt: [00:14:09] Naturally do even my husband does. And so this is just it. We go with it, you know, it's like, this is what it is. It's my it's truly, my name is just my last name, but it's what sticks. It's what people remember.

And so that is what I go by.

Damaged Parents: [00:14:24] funny. I felt terrible for a second. So

Karen Catt: [00:14:27] No,

Damaged Parents: [00:14:28] thank you for letting me know. I mean,

Karen Catt: [00:14:30] No,

Damaged Parents: [00:14:30] I was, I was thinking of conversations with Catt you know what? I was like, wait, that's not her first name.

Karen Catt: [00:14:37] Nope. It is everyone that, even my friends that had known me before Catt before I was married to Larry, it just kind of naturally switched, but I'm glad for it because just like you said, it's just, it's who I am today. When you hear people talk about being in the moment, I'm not so much like Hmm.

I'm in the moment. I'm more, I believe in that, but for me, what it is is I'm in today. I see, I have a future based on things I'm doing today.

Damaged Parents: [00:15:06] Right. And okay. So your son passes away. Is that when the alcoholism started or the drinking started or had that started beforehand?

Karen Catt: [00:15:17] had started beforehand, but that is what I would say. It's what escalated it. So I was the one who started experimenting with alcohol in junior high in college. You know, partied and all of that, more so than my, I mean, I had more consequences from it than my friends did. It's a public record.

I had a DUI in college. But people wrote it off as well that's just college.

Damaged Parents: [00:15:44] Right.

Karen Catt: [00:15:44] People are still drinking more than they can handle. And that's not uncommon for people to drink too much in college, but I really got to once, Ellis was born and we were in the hospital all that time, of course you take all that time, no drinking, but as soon as he died, I picked it up even harder than before.

And I realized people in my family, this was my turning point for alcoholism. People in my family live very healthily to the age of a hundred, roughly.

And I was about 30 years old at the time, and I was absolutely miserable and broken. It was affecting my work. You know, I was drinking Kalua in my coffee.

At work and and nobody knew that, but you're drinking coffee and flavored coffee is what they would think. But the point is, is that I thought, you know, I cannot live like this for another 70 years. I'm not capable of living like this for 70 years, but I also just don't want to. So it was a turning point of getting out of my grief and getting sober.

So in some ways I say, you know, some people would think like you asked, well, is the drinking, what caused the alcoholism? And I tend to think, you know, or my son dying is what caused my alcoholism. And I, tend to think my son dying is what caused my sobriety.

 Damaged Parents: [00:17:05] Okay, elaborate on that for us.

Karen Catt: [00:17:08] Well, just cause like I said, I just went full into drinking all day long couldn't function. Wouldn't talk to friends, just isolated. And that was that thought of, I cannot live like this.

Damaged Parents: [00:17:18] Okay.

Karen Catt: [00:17:19] cannot live like this and it's not serving him either.

Damaged Parents: [00:17:22] Okay. So because he passed away and then you dove into the drinking, you recognize that you couldn't live like that, and then were able to make some changes. So did you have people coming to you and saying, you know, Karen, at that time, right? You have a problem? I mean, was anyone calling you out on it at all?

Karen Catt: [00:17:45] no. And also partly because and I hear people say today too, they say, well, I don't want to judge someone else. About how they live their life and I'm thinking somebody needed to. But the other thing is, that it was probably a year and a half. Yeah, probably about a year and a half after he died that I finally got sober.

So people give you that grieving period and they just kept talking it up to well it's because their son died.

Damaged Parents: [00:18:12] Ahh

Karen Catt: [00:18:13] I specifically remember we went to is like a Christmas Eve or a New Year's Eve party. And  he died in October and then month, four months later, roughly we're at this party and everyone is saying, you know, well, she drank way too much, but we understand why.

Damaged Parents: [00:18:30] So they almost were justifying your drinking for you

Karen Catt: [00:18:33] Yeah. Yeah. And people will do that for years. I'm sure I could have kept going another three or four years of people justifying grief takes time and it does, but that's not grieving. That's just numbing out, not dealing with the problem, but I did go to a marriage counselor or excuse me, a grief counselor.

We had gone to a marriage counselor, but we ended up getting divorced. I went to a grief counselor  and then through that, that I ended up also going to AA.

Damaged Parents: [00:19:02] Okay.

Karen Catt: [00:19:03] Yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:19:04] did the grief counselor help you recognize it or again, it was just really you recognizing it for yourself?

Karen Catt: [00:19:10] I recognized it, but yeah, I would say the grief counselor talks through things like, and how did you feel after you were drunk? How did you feel when you woke up the next morning?  I didn't feel like I was grieving my son. I felt like I was hung over. That's the difference?

Damaged Parents: [00:19:25] Yeah.

Karen Catt: [00:19:27] There's those are two different things.

Damaged Parents: [00:19:29] Right. Really numbing those feelings.

And

in trying, maybe I guess in my mind, what I'm envisioning with alcohol is trying to go around the feeling versus going through it.

Karen Catt: [00:19:39] yeah, yeah. And I'm, also very fortunate that my parents grew up in an age where you, you didn't get stuck in your feelings. You worked through them. But you also didn't take pills for them. So when I went to a grief counselor, one of the first ones I went to. My mother was with me in the appointment and I just newly sober.

And this counselor said, well, because you just lost your son and you're dealing with addiction. We're gonna we're gonna recommend that you take Prozac because you're going to have to level out before you can deal with problems. And my mother said, no, my mother said, absolutely not. She's going to grieve like the rest of us.

She's going to feel some pain. She's going to cry and she's going to get through it. And she just grabbed me. And we walked out of that room and I had a brand new sponsor at the time.  She was new to me.  and I called her and I said, Um the counselor said, I need to take an antidepressant.

And my mom said, no. And thank God for this sponsor. Who said, I agree with your mother. You can't numb out, you have to deal with it.

Damaged Parents: [00:20:44] yeah.

Karen Catt: [00:20:46] And so I never so I had to deal with it.

Damaged Parents: [00:20:49] Yeah. And that was hard.

Karen Catt: [00:20:51] Well, yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:20:52] Yeah, you're reminding me of the movie. I Am Fishhead That's about psychopaths and one of the doctors, yeah. He talks about going to a funeral and someone's actually there, I think handing out, Valium or Xanax or something like that. And he said, no, I am here to feel these feelings, not to avoid them.

And so do you think with that you found that inner strength, like by feeling it, it made you stronger.

Karen Catt: [00:21:19] Yeah. Well, it, it helps you realize that it's what they say. If it doesn't kill me, it's gonna make me stronger. Yeah, I thought this is just life. Cancer took my child at a young age, but other people deal with it. What if it was me who had cancer? What if it was one of my parents who had cancer?

What if it was a coworker who had cancer? There's a million ways that it could have affected me, but yes, I have to deal with it now. This segues into the next thing that I did was I got out of that marriage. I get sober and my current husband and I Ellis his dad, we were separated because that is not dealing with the grief.

Right. And then I go to AA and get there and I meet another guy and he has seven years of sobriety. And. It's what we call 13th step. They're just, you know, hit on you and again, my sponsor at the time said when someone who has seven years wants to be in a relationship with someone with seven days, that's not a compliment.

It means he still screwed up because his life should be so peaceful. He doesn't want to take on the chaos of someone. Who's trying to figure out life, had a son that died and went through a divorce.

Damaged Parents: [00:22:33] Yeah,

Karen Catt: [00:22:34] Why would you pick up well, because I'm vulnerable, but that's what I did.

Damaged Parents: [00:22:38] Yeah. And it sounds like maybe there's this idea that they're trying to still fix someone else

Karen Catt: [00:22:46] No, they're not trying to fix someone else. What that turned out to be was that turned out to be an abusive marriage. And so their radar and, still is. And I, you know, that's been 25 years ago. But he's still in that pattern. He's still in the program only.

Now he has like 30 years and he always goes for the person who has less than a month. Even though. Yeah. And he's still, married and you just date all these other people. And people want me to talk all the time to say he can't come to meetings anymore. And I say, no, it's not my place to kick them out.

It's our place to make those women stronger. Just like my sponsor did. She told me no, she told me not to do it, but I did anyway. Now it only took a year. And so I had less than a year of sobriety when we got married and we were married for less than a year. When finally I got out of that marriage?

I got out of the abusive situation mentally and physically, but it's because that inner strength came in. If I made it through death and I made it through the alcoholism, I did not get sober and I did not survive those problems. To stay in this crazy mess. I owe it to myself. I owe it to my son. I owe it to the gift of sobriety.

I owe it to the gift of life that I have been given to do something better with it and help other people with it making the good choices.

Damaged Parents: [00:24:08] And you gained that strength by surrounding yourself with safe people. I would think. 

Here's my thought some people would go into that and be like, Well I did it again. And just beat themselves up over it. And it sounds like you flipped the story a little bit and said, well, I made it through this and I made it through this and I don't have to do this because this isn't healthy.

So how does someone, or what would be your recommendation to someone who's trying to learn? How flip that in their own personal life?

Karen Catt: [00:24:38] I don't know how to tell someone else how to do it. I know what for me, what it was was I got tired of hearing myself complaint. I got tired of being weak and vulnerable, but also I got tired of whining, and I had a friend who basically said, you can go to a women's shelter, you could live with someone else.

You know, your parents have offered, you could go live with them. You're not taking any of that help that anyone else is offering. So I'm not offering my help anymore.

Damaged Parents: [00:25:09] Ooh, ouch.

Karen Catt: [00:25:10] Yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:25:11] Okay. How did that feel when she said that to you? What happened inside of you?

Karen Catt: [00:25:16] The moment you think I'm alone, nobody understands. But like I said for a little bit there's we do have a say, or I don't know if it's the saying in all meetings, but a good friend, a guy who had many more years than me. So I now have 25 years. He probably has 50 and And he would always say, my life is my fault or a smoother way to say that is I'm in the middle of every decision I ever made.

And that is really what I, I learned and I learned this from you will also hear it from people like Richard Rohr and Wayne Dyer and all those people who were around 20 years ago, you hear them say basically, the choices I make, determine my life. I was also very fortunate. to, the home-based business I was in at the time was Mary Kay.

They taught a lot about, giving women strength, supporting other women. One of their causes was against domestic violence. So I got a lot of. Female support of you can earn your own living. You can, provide for yourself. Family, a good, healthy family. Life was always promoted in that business was your kids are not your excuse.

They're your reason, your family. Respect and love your husband, but in a respectful, loving relationship. So I got a lot of how, what healthy relationships look like being in that environment.

Damaged Parents: [00:26:42] Which I think is really interesting because the, otherwise I don't think you would have been able to make that choice because you wouldn't have been educated on it. So, and I don't

think anyone could have forced you.

Karen Catt: [00:26:56] No it's and this is what I tell people, you know, it's not like, I completely understand when women will go back into the abusive relationship. In fact, I remember the neighbors called the police one time because the noise was so bad, but also the neighbor in his backyard saw in our kitchen window.

Me being thrown across the kitchen table, he saw that happen and and they called the police. And I remember my, what I was so upset about was I said, when the police took him, I said, you don't understand when you take him. You only hold him for four hours. So when five hours, he's going to come back here and beat me up even worse. What I didn't realize was. The policemen at that time, I did know who he was. He was the husband of one of my team members. Crazy enough.

Damaged Parents: [00:27:47] For Mary Kay.

Karen Catt: [00:27:48] Yeah, but what I didn't realize was he took my license with him. Like they ask for your license and your ID, and he took that with him. We didn't pay any attention to that.

So they, you know, take them off, arrest them, take them down to the jail and all of that. And he came back with the excuse to give me my license back. But what he did was he talked with me and said, get help. They'll stay with a friend. Just don't be here. When he gets home in five hours, don't be here and then gave me backup plan

Damaged Parents: [00:28:21] Yeah. Was that also hard in that moment? I'm thinking there's probably a lot of emotion going on. A lot of, some confusion. Of course I'm betting there was, but I love him.

Karen Catt: [00:28:32] I never had the thought that I loved him. I just had the thought that no one else would love me. And that's very different.

Damaged Parents: [00:28:40] Yeah,

Karen Catt: [00:28:41] That's very different. , I was at an extremely low point in my life and, isolated, no job, no income. How am I going to support myself?

Everything's in his name, all of these things, except by this point, I was enough in the business that  I hadn't earned the car yet, but I had the sight that if I earned a car, I wouldn't have to have a car payment. I could, make enough money to buy my own home.

So I had that glimmer of that. There was, yeah, that there was a possibility for me. I didn't have to go apply for jobs. I just had to do my job really well.

Damaged Parents: [00:29:15] So.

Karen Catt: [00:29:17] I, I say this is true for many women today. That was not true. 25 years ago. Twenty-five years ago, the only opportunities you had were I like a sales commission job.

But basically there were very few home-based businesses in today's world. You don't have to have a college education. To get a lot of these jobs, there's so many ways to start your own business and make your own money. So we have to get that language out of our head that I can't do it.

We have to get the language back into our head that there's a lot more possibilities out there for me today to leave an abusive marriage. I just have to take them.

Damaged Parents: [00:30:03] And I'm thinking part of that is recognizing that you are lovable because like you said, you didn't think you were lovable. So just based on what you said was Mary Kay. Sounds like it was a big part of that. What about other people in your life? What did you do to help yourself stay away?

Karen Catt: [00:30:20] Yeah, my parents, you know, I go back to, I had a great childhood. My parents always loved me. They were always very supportive and encouraging. And I wasn't raised with believing that I was worthless and unlovable, so I'm so grateful that I could go back to that relationship with my parents.

And that was also what I could look at in this abusive marriage and say, that's not what my mom and dad's relationship looked like, so I know it's not acceptable. And I see just any example of where things are better. I learned that saying, which we say today, you know, you become like the five people you hang around.

So I focused on who were people who liked what they were doing for a living who were people who had a good marriage or a good home life, even if they weren't married, just, what are those things that somebody feels good about their life in general, whatever it is. And then I started, you know, they felt good about their body because they ate healthy,

Damaged Parents: [00:31:18] Right. And you had to consciously choose those things though. It didn't just happen.

Karen Catt: [00:31:23] Yeah. If I think somebody has something that I would like to have in my life, that's who I go around and I do what they do,

Damaged Parents: [00:31:32] Okay.

So it's kind of like you learn from them.

Karen Catt: [00:31:34] Oh, absolutely learn from them. I often joke, you know, I was really fascinated by what we call normies. I first got sober because it's like, how do they do that?

Like, they get really upset about something and they don't obsess about it. They just go onto the next thing. They just start focusing on work.  So yeah, if I want my life to look like that, I get curious.

And I find out what they do and then I just kind of hang around and, you know, there's some people who had jobs that they really liked their job.

I didn't like their job. That's okay. You find that out from hanging around them,

Damaged Parents: [00:32:08] Their job is for them and if they like it, that's totally okay. Right. Like you didn't have to shift into. Who the other person was, you need to figure out what was right for you. So when you say you get curious or you got curious, were you interviewing your friends, sort of say, where are you just asking lots of questions or were you observing?

What were you doing?

Karen Catt: [00:32:33] More observing and hanging around him. And you just send out who were the people? I mean little things for me, like. When we went out to eat, who was nasty to the waitress and who was nice to them, the waitress,

Damaged Parents: [00:32:44] Okay.

So little things like that made a big difference.

Karen Catt: [00:32:48] It made a difference in, I felt very um, where they competitive, like where they always saying, well, I have a better car than you or I shop at a better store than you were okay.

If that was their goal. Then generally, I didn't feel comfortable around that. And so I just go find somebody who was just, maybe they did have a really great job or a really great car, really great clothes, but that wasn't the conversation. They just happened to have it

Damaged Parents: [00:33:14] Right.

Karen Catt: [00:33:15] their job or they liked their family or they liked whatever.

I would observe. Not only what they did, but also how I felt. And if I felt comfortable around those people and the way they treated other people, those were people I hung around.

Damaged Parents: [00:33:31] That's really interesting. Did it take you some time to figure out those feelings and what did you start recognizing? Was it like a peace or was it with when things were bad? What was it, I guess is the question.

Karen Catt: [00:33:45] Yeah. It was more when I felt a little unsettled inside and I had to do this with family members. Not, not so much on my family, but. But, and I'm careful about this, but with my current husband, there was definitely issues in their divorce. And when that's all they would talk about or try to make me feel bad or insult me or intimidate me or some issue with that, I just made excuses to not be around.

Damaged Parents: [00:34:09] Right. So you weren't taking on the blame anymore.

Karen Catt: [00:34:13] Right.

Damaged Parents: [00:34:14] Of their blame. And their blame is about them anyway, but it's really hard to remember in those moments. So how did you do that?

Karen Catt: [00:34:22] Oh, I definitely, I talked with counselors and I had a good friend. And remember through all this time, I always have a sponsor, but it just really came back to I'm not here to fix anyone else or change anyone else. I am here to, focus on what am I feeling, what am I doing?

What are my behaviors? And if my behavior comes in getting someone else's approval or meeting, competition with their level or telling them they need to Become vegan. I'm not totally vegan, but you know, if I was like getting on them about what they were eating, not eating healthy, if everything becomes about, I have to adjust everyone else for me to feel okay, those were not where I needed to be.

Damaged Parents: [00:35:07] Interesting. That's a very, codependent type of behavior. It seems like to me. So even being in AA, in that 12 step program, part of what you're also learning in that program is that it's not about changing or fixing anyone around you. It's all about what's happening inside of you.

Karen Catt: [00:35:29] Yeah, that's why I say, some people believe you have to only be in that shell of the people who are going to not upset me. And so that, and that's what I'm saying. It's not about that. I would only be around those people. I just would be around the people I enjoy being around or in the career that I enjoy being in or things like this.

Like we found each other through the podcast, kind of, it became this platform that I fought. I love listening to podcasts and people sharing ideas and they're not telling other people to do something different, they're sharing what they love about their, what they've learned in life or what their messages are they have a passion for. I remember hearing one and their whole topic was trees. I love trees. I love listening to that.

Damaged Parents: [00:36:17] Right,

Karen Catt: [00:36:18] And I was like, huh. And then a couple of different speaking engagements afterwards. Somebody said, have you ever thought about a podcast? And I was like, no, I never thought about it.

And then I thought, well, why haven't I thought about it?  That's.what I mean, like the more you fill in the things that are with your flow, with your path, you're not fighting against it. You're not defending yourself all the time when you fight. That was it for me. If I was constantly defending myself or constantly angry, trying to change someone else, I felt miserable.

So. When I'm at peace with myself, I'm at peace with what's going on around me. So I may not agree with what someone else is saying, but I don't feel the need to attack them or correct them.

Damaged Parents: [00:37:04] Right. So it's not avoiding conflict there still conflict in your life. It's that you don't have to be right.

And,

Karen Catt: [00:37:14] to be right. yeah.

Damaged Parents: [00:37:16] Okay.

Karen Catt: [00:37:16] And I can just, I want to be around the variety of people. My five people that I spend the most time with are the ones that are of the way I want to live.

Damaged Parents: [00:37:26] Right. Which makes sense based on what you're saying, because you want to stay around people who are. Living in the way that you want. And I'm not thinking it's material at all. I'm not getting that from you. It's this very inner peace of being allowed to be who you are, faults and everything included and allowing them to be who they are and having difficult conversations and still loving them.

Karen Catt: [00:37:52] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's one of the benefits. Honestly, if I can look at a benefit of a child dying early, because I was a product of the eighties. When everything was materialistic and it was about who you mean? We had TV shows like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. I mean, it's no different than people today get hooked on watching the celebrities.

Right. So we were very much of that mindset, but then after my son died, it just didn't matter. As like, I just couldn't be. And quite honestly, that is part of why I left a home-based business because the part that attracted me to it was all the personal growth. And encouraging other women. And , like you said, everything on the inside, but in order to move up and do those things, it was based on the outside rewards.

And at this point, I, it just was empty to me that just, wasn't a motivation. I am married to a man who makes really good money and I did grow up having everything we needed, both loving and emotionally and materially. We had everything we needed. So I think I just never had that lack of scarce scarcity.

I've just always, it's just always been there. I've always been able to live

Damaged Parents: [00:39:08] And it's almost like, you know, that even if you did have that scarcity showed up in your life, that it's just part of the journey and it would end at some point. Scarcity portion and you would be onto the next part of the journey.

Karen Catt: [00:39:25] Yeah. Yeah, there's a, uh, that's a sort of a poem. And I kept it at my desk for years. It's been attributed to mother Teresa, but it basically is, you know, you're going to build all these things and they're all going to get taken away. And in the end it says build anyway, because it was never between you and them.

It was always between you and God anyway.  That I got that many, many years ago. And it's like when I'm doing this comparing or competition or defending, I'm forgetting that they're just a person just, a person

Damaged Parents: [00:40:03] Yeah. So it still happens. I want to reiterate that because of what I heard is it still happens.

Karen Catt: [00:40:09] It still happens. And then I just remind myself, they're just a person.

This is between me and God. So if I'm upset with someone else, I have to check myself, why am I upset? Like if they have a better job, do I think I'm not capable of that job? Do I even want that job?

Damaged Parents: [00:40:26] Right.

Karen Catt: [00:40:27] You know, like what difference does it make?

Damaged Parents: [00:40:29] it sounds like though, that, that takes you back to the steps in that you get to do like an inventory or something and figure out what the reason is. That's behind the feeling.

Karen Catt: [00:40:41] Yeah. Yeah. I will always be influenced by that. You know, some people are always influenced by if their particular religion, but I also think some people are, Oh, it's no different for me to always be influenced by 12 steps of recovery than it is for other people to be influenced if they grew up and.

A dysfunctional home. If you were always given the message that you're not worth anything you want to amount to anything, sexual abuse, physical abuse, all of those things. If you always grew up with that message, you carry that with you and you keep replaying those tapes.

Damaged Parents: [00:41:21] Yeah.

Karen Catt: [00:41:22] and, and for some people they don't go to a a recovery program. They go to a counselor or they find it in their church. There's a lot of positive messages in their church. That will be what changes from the old tapes to the new tapes?

Damaged Parents: [00:41:37] Yeah. And you can't expect it to happen immediately? It sounds like

Karen Catt: [00:41:40] No, it goes up and down and back and forth. I've also heard people say that new level, new devil. I kind of get that only the way I, turn it around is the higher up I go when I get to that next level, the farther I can see. So on the one hand, yes, I am.  People say you're pulling out a new layer of the onion. You've peeled it off. It's that same idea.  There used to be something I was always working on. Now there's something I'm always working towards

Damaged Parents: [00:42:12] Right. And it seems in line with a quote, right? It seems it really in line with my friend's quote. There's no comfort in the growth zone and no growth in the comfort zone.

Karen Catt: [00:42:22] Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I think it's okay that we can have, as we go along say, that doesn't fit my life anymore. And part of it is you have different stages in your life with age, or there's a lot of people go through, they get to a certain point in their career and then they go, Oh, is this all there is.

You know, and, other people, empty nesters, the kids grow up, they go off and they move somewhere else. And now what do I do? Or people retire after many, many years of a career that they loved. And now what do I do? what do I do

Damaged Parents: [00:42:57] Yeah. Who am I in relation to the world now? Because I knew before and now I have to figure it out again. So it seems like it really is just part of that journey. Okay.

Karen Catt: [00:43:07] everyone has it.

Damaged Parents: [00:43:08] Yeah, I think so. Okay. Three things that people could walk away with today from our podcast of tips or tools, it could be things we've talked about already, but just three things to think about in their daily life.

Karen Catt: [00:43:22] I think, just like we were saying earlier, I would say trust your gut.  Take a moment when you're getting that uncomfortable feeling to check, why am I feeling uncomfortable and what can I do about it? So that, that's probably my number one thing. Number two is I say let's use our brains.

Let's not just, write it off as something's impossible or I can't do it, or it's just never going to happen. I have a brain and I can use my brain. I don't have to numb out with pills. I don't have to just give up on the situation. me just think for a moment productively

Damaged Parents: [00:44:00] Yeah. Give yourself some time. Okay. One more

 Karen Catt: [00:44:03] I guess the biggest one is. Listen, when I give myself some quiet time in a day, I listen and again, some people would call that gut instinct and other people would say, that's meditation. I personally meditate, but I meditate in the sense that I'm just letting thoughts roll out. And then I just let thoughts roll in. let thoughts roll in

Damaged Parents: [00:44:26] Right. So not having to control the thought process or grab onto it and just letting it go. That's hard. Thank you so much, Catt.

Karen Catt: [00:44:35] Thank you.

This was wonderful.

Damaged Parents: [00:44:39] I really enjoyed our conversation so much.

 Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We've really enjoyed talking to Karen cat about how she was able to leave an abusive husband and recover from alcoholism. We especially liked when she admitted that she had stayed because she thought no one else would love her. And she was wrong.

To unite with other damaged people. Connect with us on Instagram. Look for damaged. Parents will be here next week. Still relatively damaged. See you then.