Episode 84: Message in a Bottle (addiction as a teen)
Kriya Lendzion
Kriya struggled with multiple addictions and mental health challenges as a teen, a painful self-destructive time out of which came some awesome gifts, and catalyzed her life passion and career. She has now had over 20 years of experience as a school counselor, adolescent therapist, addictions and prevention specialist, and drug and alcohol educator, committed to helping youth be equipped to steer themselves healthily and resiliently into thriving young adulthoods, and empowering parents to be their trusted guides. She’s currently acquiring additional “street certification” applying her own experience and “expertise” to parenting, and helping her own “at risk” kids avoid addiction themselves.
Social media and contact information: @kriyacounselor on IG, Facebook and Twitter
kriyalendzion.com (I've got a killer blog, if I don't say so myself)
"Raising Teens in Reality" YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3Q1RXJc0pQ
Podcast Transcript:
Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where unbalanced addicted, genetically predisposed 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 going 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 hole. 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 Kriya Lendzion she has many roles in her life. Mom step-mom partner, sister, cousin, aunt. Step grandmother. And informal adoptive, crazy wise aunt as one kid said, To so, so, so, so many kids she's worked with as a school counselor. . We'll talk about how she struggled with multiple addictions and mental health challenges as a teen and was painfully self destructive and how she found health and healing let's talk
Kriya Lendzion welcome to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. I'm so glad you're here today.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:02:19] Me too. I'm really excited to be here.
Damaged Parents: [00:02:21] Yeah. And I got your name, right? So we're already off to a good start. This is awesome. Yeah. I love it. So you are on here to talk about a struggle and the other thing is, I believe you are a school counselor. You're writing, not just one but multiple books. What got you to that point?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:02:39] Wow. Okay. How far back do you want me to go? I'll give the very,
Damaged Parents: [00:02:44] Yeah. Wherever you want to
Kriya Lendzion: [00:02:45] Yeah.
I'll give the very short version and then you can, if you want to pull any of that out further, unpack it. Quote unquote. And we can, but, so I was in rehab at 19 with multiple addictions. And and eating disorders self-harm and alcoholism that, filled all the criteria even just by as a teenager and going to college and then kind of the like sorority life party scene, and my life, you know, I really was at this, at this pivotal place where either I really continued, damaging my body, my life in some ways that I truly believe like I was headed for absolute tragedy, if I didn't stop where I stopped..
Damaged Parents: [00:03:25] Right. So you were 19 when you're figuring this out. And so when you say self-harm, what does that mean for you?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:03:36] Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's so many, I mean, what we hear most about is like cutting, right. But for me, I was like, I I'm a compulsive picker. Which sounds bizarre, you know, and it's been one of those things that is like, I cringe a little, even as I say it, I've got a little bit more comfortable talking about that part of my addiction story, you know, and of my shadow, my ugly part of my story there.
But it was just yet another way, you know, similarly to, when you hear about people cutting, you know, or you hear about kids that harm themselves in other ways, like, I just, I would give, be compulsive about it, you know, and then it was almost like a, an anxious thing, a nervous thing, but it, it became more than that, you know, it would be a
Damaged Parents: [00:04:12] I'm thinking when you say compulsive picker in teenage years, I'm thinking zits.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:04:17] Yeah.
some of it was my, it was actually actually more.
on other parts of my body. Like it would be like I would have a an ingrown hair or a bug bite. A mosquito bite would turn into something, but I literally, like I had to be sent home from camp. Cause I had a boil on my leg.
That was the size of a grapefruit I would really dig into myself and get completely consumed with it and it would become a whole other addictive thing nor I was ashamed of it. I was hiding it, you know, I was grossed out by it. You know, what the great effort to hide it and to sort of work around it.
but yet I wasn't, I didn't know how to stop doing it. You know, I was really just drawn to doing it as a way to kind of cope and escape. And, you know, it was just really, this kind of sucks cycle for me.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:00] Yeah. And so would you say there were things going on at home that you were anxious about or what was happening.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:05:07] Yeah.
I think, you know, in hindsight, I was always for one, just a really sensitive kid and, and I've learned to embrace that. That's not a, you know, it's part of why I do I do now I'm a counselor. I'm, I'm really good at it because I'm really impacted, right. Because I feel what other people are feeling, and, but I was really sensitive to just things going on in the world to the people that were around me to, you know, to my environment and didn't necessarily have tools to, you know, to harness that, to ways to cope with it.
And I had a pretty chaotic filed it in the sense that we were part of this sort of nomadic lifestyle that my, my birth father, my biological father was a one hit wonder seventies, rock star for a moment there. And then when mom left that lifestyle and I was like, we were, my dad was a golfer and a PGA golfer.
And So I, I was on the road. And we called the car schooled. I mean, I went in and out of schools. I've been to 11 schools. I think I counted by the time I was in fourth grade, freaky smart. I was really sensitive, you know, like I was just different. I was different in this environment where I was hopping in and out, you know, feeling really freakish and feeling pretty unstable.
And then when we settled, my parents split and my mom really like, I'd been really attached to her and she just went on went out there and became this, within a few years, this thriving entrepreneur, running all these businesses and kicking ass and taking names out there.
But we were completely disconnected. She was no longer like my nurturing. , person that I felt really safe with while we were on the road, she was working constantly. We were raised by babysitters. I was starting to get exposed to topics and things that were way out of my age appropriate range.
Yeah. From babysitter, from things I was reading and exposed to because I just wasn't being supervised or connected with the same way I was trying to, on my own in some ways.
Damaged Parents: [00:06:56] So you didn't really have mom, too. It sounds like you used to talk to mom and then mom went and did these things, and then you lost that confidant
Kriya Lendzion: [00:07:05] yeah,
Damaged Parents: [00:07:06] And your safety blanket. If you will, what age did that happen?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:07:10] That was an eight. I mean, that feels like a real pivotal time for me. That was an eight because I don't think I, you know, I think about my childhood before then. You know, I was a unique kid. Things were tough in terms of going and trying to fit in socially, you know, happen? in and out of these schools.
You know, Second and third grade and, being a kid with a weird name when everybody was like Jennifer S and Jennifer B, you know, in their life and Kriya rhymed with everything gross, like Pia and diarrhea.
Damaged Parents: [00:07:36] Oh, wow. Yeah.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:07:38] but so, but the thing was, you know, like in terms of like, resiliency factors and I had this really close knit family, and I still felt safe and protected.
You know, when I went home, the roots, the foundation was gone, but then it ate everything, pivoted, you know, everything pivoted. My dad was off golfing. And even though he stayed connected, I mean, they were divorced. And so he was all over the country and hopping in for the summer, you know, he'd be around by the summer. and mom was again flying around, out there, running the world, but not connecting to to me.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:08] Yeah. Yeah. And it's not, it doesn't sound like you're blaming her for it. It's just, this is what happened and how you maybe interpreted it. What was happening on your inside?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:08:19] I mean, I've gone. I went through blaming stage for sure. I can go back further and understand why she was, how she was, you know, and where that sort of went back generationally and have seen it myself repeats of the same stuff, which is where it really scraping again as a parent, you know, and then like, okay, there's parts of this.
I don't want to keep on passing down. right.
Yeah. So that's when it shifted. And I think I really started all these like attention seeking behaviors then compulsive, nothing forced out of the compulsive behavior started, you know, it's already hearing about drugs and alcohol. So it's already curious about it.
I was exposed. I had a babysitter 16 year old babysitter when I was in third grade that taught me how to play drinking games. I mean, I always exposed, I mean, extraordinarily too young.
Damaged Parents: [00:09:06] Wow.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:09:07] so that world,
Damaged Parents: [00:09:07] Yeah. So you already third grade.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:09:10] yeah,
Damaged Parents: [00:09:11] You about all it started learning really about all of these things. And is that also when the picking started was third grade? I mean,
was it all around the same time?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:09:21] I think so. Yeah. I think so. And the food relationship and the distorted food relationship and the eating disorders didn't start until I mean, there was definitely like extreme body image stuff. It's unfortunately, more common than not, you know, with us as girl, body people.
But that didn't really become a thing until high school,
Damaged Parents: [00:09:39] What was food disorder for you?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:09:42] So for me it was, you know, I think they officially call it. like I would go through these you know, I was bulimic, but I wasn't purging through vomiting. Like I tried and didn't work. So you're in a failure of a bulimic that really hit my esteem. No, but I,
Damaged Parents: [00:09:58] Did you just say that really hit your esteem?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:10:00] yeah,
Damaged Parents: [00:10:00] You're like, I can't get this right.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:10:03] That's right. I would go through binge phases and then my purge would be starvation phases, you know, or extreme exercise. And then I would bend again and then I would, you know, purge through exercise and against our, starvation phases.
Damaged Parents: [00:10:16] I think that's really important to recognize that the purge doesn't necessarily need to mean vomiting or yeah, That it can just be withholding
Kriya Lendzion: [00:10:26] Yep. Yeah. So that's, that's what that looks like and it started to, I mean, it really escalated for me at the end of high school. So I would say, you know, like senior year and I was clinically depressed, struggling with this eating disorder, the substance use stuff. Wasn't so much of an issue because I was at a boarding school actually, and a really lovely boarding school, whatever images people come up with, you know, getting smack on the knuckles or, you know, whatever.
Yeah, it was very, this liberal, wonderful environment, so there wasn't as much access to substances. Honestly, there, it would be a summer thing. It would be uh, whenever I could get my hands on it thing. And I was really, I was drinking, you know, , that I was attractive to most, but then when, you know, the eating disorder really exploded hand-in-hand with deep depression, and then it, didn't all kind of interweave together until I hit college
Damaged Parents: [00:11:13] What I heard you say was clinically depressed. So when you were in high school as a senior, did you know, and were you actively trying to get help for depression at that point?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:11:24] I was, I did go to some adults. I mean, I reached out to some adults that were there. There was one ironically, I mean, interestingly, she was the like the drug and alcohol educator and she was the, because this was ironic. I was peer educator of the year. Like I was being trained on how to be like a peer counselor for kids going through tough issues.
Right. So I, I reached out to her and I also started, I think I was having sessions with the school psychologist, which were useless.
Damaged Parents: [00:11:52] Which were useless. Is that when
Kriya Lendzion: [00:11:53] Yeah. I just remember it. Like, whatever stereotype you have, it's like, it was like a caricature, you know, or something like figures. Like she was like one of Marge Simpson's sisters on the Simpson's, like she had this deep voice and it was like, all right, like let's do a problem today. And she smoked.
This is back when you could just chain smoke anywhere. So on a high school campus, she would just sit and chain smoked through our sessions.
talk. You're just sort of like just listening and writing lots of notes. Very interesting. Tell me about your mother. So,
Damaged Parents: [00:12:24] It was very much you just sharing your story and her listening and
that
Kriya Lendzion: [00:12:28] I would vent. I would vent about how horrible my mother was and how that's, what was ruining my life. and all of the traumas I had sustained from my mom not being available but was given no coping tools with strengthening, nothing to do anything different.
Damaged Parents: [00:12:41] Right? That would be so hard.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:12:43] Yeah. So I just went to college and it all blew up incredibly fast like it woven with each other, you know, in these really particularly sick ways and exploded really fast in
Damaged Parents: [00:12:54] So like first semester fast or
Kriya Lendzion: [00:12:57] Yeah. Well, I mean, first semester like, there's free flowing alcohol. And the first day I was on campus, I was whisked off to this party where there was cocaine everywhere.
And I had discovered like as soon as I put cocaine in my body, it was like the heavens opened and angels sang and it was like, oh, this makes you feel everything you've ever wanted to feel like it felt like the world,
Damaged Parents: [00:13:19] of the
Kriya Lendzion: [00:13:20] perfect place.
Damaged Parents: [00:13:21] right. I hear you say everything you wanted to feel. So I want to just, I've got to ask, I'm thinking that's those good, fun, happy feelings. The ones we, you know, in that it, maybe it took away the pain and suffering feelings or the anger, frustration, all those ones. I think labeled as negative. I just say
Kriya Lendzion: [00:13:40] Yeah. The hard ones, the uncomfortable ones. Yeah.
I felt normal. when I used coke, and I truly, I don't know if it's divine intervention, but I did not have more access to cocaine or I w that would have absolutely taken me down to, because it was love at first "sight". you know?
It was absolutely. And so I that, it just made me feel normal in the sense of like, I felt so out of control. But I think what it gave me was this illusion of control. I felt like I had the world in the palm of my hand that I wasn't self-conscious at all. I can handle any conversation, any interaction.
I felt like, you know, I could control everything. And so it really spoke to all, I felt out of control of myself. I feel out of control of my environment. That had been a theme for me. I realized ever since I was little. Right?
Like I was thrown in and out of schools, I was my parents split my mom.
I didn't know when she was going to show up or not be there. And what kind of mood she was be in cause she would be really volatile and stressed out half the time when she strutted in the door. And then through the fast food at us and left, you know, I just didn't know when I was going to have mom's attention.
I didn't know when it was going to be positive or negative. Like, so the theme was, I felt out of control. So as soon as something helped me feel in control, which an alcohol did that for me too, until it stopped doing that at first.
Damaged Parents: [00:14:56] See, that's really interesting for me that you say alcohol
Kriya Lendzion: [00:15:01] Yeah,
Damaged Parents: [00:15:02] helped you feel in control because when I visualize people drinking and I'm thinking of bars I am envisioning people totally out of control in my mind. So to me, that's a very, conflicting thought.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:15:16] Right. I was not that drunk because, so my father had been an alcoholic addict. Like I think I had the seed like the predisposition, you know? So when I remember having those drinks at eight, I remember my first drink at three years old. I remember that sip that somebody let me have their beer.
And I remember it graphically at three. Like that tells me something. Right. And so all of those little it really struck me. It was almost like as soon as it went in my body, there was like a switch that went on. It was like, I've been waiting for you, I've been waiting for you girl, but then you put that together, right.
With all of that stuff that I was feeling, it was just that perfect storm. So for me, like I had an insane tolerance. I had an insane tolerance, so I would watch other people getting slurry and staggering and doing the stuff you're talking about, you know, like an act and a pool. And I would be 10 drinks in 15 drinks in, I mean, that kind of, and I would be the one cleaning up, helping everybody else throw up, put them in the shower, cleaning, you know, like I couldn't feel drunk, you know, after a certain point.
So I was still and talk and functioning, but those first drinks would feel a magical to me. Like I would be like, okay.
if this is stopping the madness in my head,
Damaged Parents: [00:16:26] So I really would take away that anxiety,
Kriya Lendzion: [00:16:29] would take away the
anxiety. Absolutely. It would silence my anxiety.
At first it would silent anxiety, it would make me my self-consciousness, which was agonizing. Give me my level of self-consciousness. Cause remember, so this is leaving with my real body image stuff. So my weight was going up and down. I mean, I was more on the heavy side through my later teens and you know, and early got married through my, yes, my late teens um, was overweight because again, I was drinking, I was eating too much, you know, when these kind of binge things and then I was feeling horrible about myself.
And so then I would drink and I would not think about it. I would not care. I would not feel self-conscious, and then, Angela here's, what started to be extra piling on top of it. And this started in high school was the intersection between sexual, like I mean, I hate to use the promiscuity cause it sounds judgmental.
All I wanted was a boyfriend and wanted love and wanted affection. And I ended up in all of these sexual situations. A lot of them, really, some of them ended up feeling really violating because I'd be under the influence because I didn't quite know how I got there or how to get out of it.
You know, and that. had started in high school, but interwoven usually with alcohol.
Damaged Parents: [00:17:37] Okay.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:17:38] but so you see, I mean, so it was spinning together Right.
In my self consciousness, in the eating thing and and the picking thing went to the side, you know, I mean that kind of came and went in little episode, but
Damaged Parents: [00:17:47] you say, sexual promiscuity and, using thinking that it's judgy and, all of those things. I think what I'm hearing though is love. You were really searching for connection love. And I'm wondering if it was because of the feeling after the fact that then it felt like love in that moment, but then later it wasn't. So it would be like confusing.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:18:14] Cause this was the lead up to it, the lead up to it, or it's like the flirting and like, oh my gosh, me, you know, like, you're like all these people at the party and you want to stand and talk to me and you find me attractive and you're joking with me. And you're kind of getting closer and cuddling with me, you know?
And, that, that was really appealing. No matter how many times I went through that scenario and it didn't turn out well, you know, it didn't feel good in the end. I still, it was just another sort of addictive thing, Right?
Where I was like the buzz of, well, maybe this one will be different. This guy seems to really see me.
He seems to really be hearing me. I mean, it was just, and the yuck of that just kept piling and piling on itself, you know, with all of the other things.
Damaged Parents: [00:18:56] So the, the yuck of the, cause I'm hearing like betrayal, abandonment
Kriya Lendzion: [00:19:01] The shame.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:03] you think you have this relationship that's going to happen and then it doesn't. And then
Kriya Lendzion: [00:19:07] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:08] you said shame.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:19:10] Yeah.
it will reject this, this only rejected and not good enough and oh, right. That's right. I'm not the girl that people want to date. I'm just the girl that people want to beep like that's kind of what I carried from high school. I mean, cause I started that in high school, like really sort of giving into that.
As soon as somebody would give me that, attention. I would move right into that
Damaged Parents: [00:19:29] Did you have this thought in high school that if you just moved right into that, that then that would kind of lock them into the relationship and that you would get what you needed because now they're with you. Does that make sense? I'm not sure if I'm asking
Kriya Lendzion: [00:19:45] Well, I think, I mean, I really was just like, well, one of these guys is going to see me and like, I mean, I went through these ways of like how I knew I was this really awesome person. Even with self-esteem issues, like I thought I had to really beautiful insides, even if I struggled with my outsides, and I was just like, I had all these great friends I had, I was getting all these accolades for other things, you know?
So I'm like surely somebody going to see me and love me for that. You know? So it's a part of, it was just sort of, uh, the hopefulness of that. But I didn't necessarily present myself. You know, now, as an adult, that's worked with teen girls a lot, you know, I mean, I realized that I didn't present myself as worthy of that.
Like, I was really flirtatious with everything. And so what I've heard from I've actually had, you know, the high school reunions the guys were like, well, I just, I mean, you seem like you were kind of given that away to everybody. Like what would be special about being your boyfriend? Wow. Okay.
Damaged Parents: [00:20:38] And
Kriya Lendzion: [00:20:38] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:20:38] that at what age?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:20:40] I heard that as a teenager.
I mean, I had had some guys say that and I was class flirt in the yearbook, you know? I mean that, so that was a part of how I presented,
Damaged Parents: [00:20:50] Yeah. In an effort to connect.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:20:53] Yeah. And not what I meant.
I mean, I was just,
Damaged Parents: [00:20:55] No, I
just think that, yeah. I just think that's really interesting in this effort to connect, it became flirty, you know, like attention and you desperately really only wanted to connect, which that's really interesting. Okay. So you're in college.
All of this is coming to a head. What
happened.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:21:14] You know, it was interesting because the, the, the drinking sort of changed shape, you know, like at first it looked a little bit more, you know, like, yeah, I was the one that pounding the beers and they were, you know, like funneling five at a time and all the dramatic drinking, you know, and they would bring me in to like when the drinking games for them, like the fraternities, you know, like, and I had the status of being like, you know, which I wore with pride.
Right. But, it had gotten really sloppy. I had developed an ulcer. I had literally burned a hole in my stomach,
Damaged Parents: [00:21:42] from the alcohol.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:21:43] from the alcohol.
and the combination of, because I also discovered that I never could throw up as part of my purging, but sometimes when I got drunk enough, like it.
would allow me to be able to throw up, like, so there was this really, again, a really sort of sick symbiosis that was happening between those two things at times.
there was this what looked like really messy, messy drinking for a while. And then I went away for the summer. I had this awesome guy fall in love with me. And so everything was great and fine.
Damaged Parents: [00:22:13] Right.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:22:15] I was seen by this amazing, you know, human and I came back like this changed person, but without that rush, without that person telling me, I was Okay.
because they were, you know, an older person that was further away.
I started slipping back in, you know, so sophomore year and it wasn't the big, huge drinking episodes that it was freshman year where I was drinking five nights a week, you know, huge amounts. I was always at the party. But what started to happen is I would just have a little bit, and it would really shift who I was and how I felt.
So I would get unpredictably. You know, I mean, just a couple of drinks in, and it was like, if I didn't have the center of attention, I was really agitated and needy and you know, all these things and then everybody else would be going to sleep. And I would be wandering campus like this feeling, the biggest sense of loneliness.
It was like, there was this, I was feeling like the whole world's pain and this huge hole of emptiness and feeling that almost every time that I drank there was no more, you know, like the balance of at first, you know what? I picked her like high school, the cutest boy paid attention to me. I was the funniest person in the room.
Like everything, it was magical, you know, it was the closest thing I had to like God at the time. right.
Like that wasn't a habit I had. And then it just gradually got to the audiences and seeing my hands, but it, it gradually tipped and tip and tipped until, you know, at the end, it just only brought crap every single time. No. I went from a consequence once in awhile to every single time. And So it culminated in one day where I had spent the day hanging out with the brother fraternity, you know, that we were my friends and it started drinking with them in the morning. Like not a ton, just a little bit, all day through the days through the days through the day.
And then it was like their fraternity rush day or whatever, their big party when they get new members. And so I hung out with them, gone to the beach and all this stuff, but drank with them all day steadily. And then by the time I got to the party that night, that became a blackout, or like a brownout.
Damaged Parents: [00:24:17] So was that the first time you lost?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:24:20] that was the first time I had lost? memory. I mean, there had been hazing, but literally like, so I wake up the next day after you know this 24 hours of drinking and. I woke up about, 12, whatever, how many hours later I wake up on my friend's couch. Luckily, you know, in the fraternity I'm closed.
I, you know, I'm safe. But with this pit in my stomach of like, oh my God, something is horribly, horribly wrong. And I'm getting these flashes of, I remember making out with somebody here punching somebody here, somebody having me slung over their shoulder here, you know, crying in a corner here, like screaming and yelling at somebody here.
Like I just had these little snippets and Um, I knew that people were worried about me. I was here all day long. Everybody's coming to me, sort of talking to me. They even had people had, this is the one picture I tried to find for you that is lost. But one of my current still best friends took a picture, showed me a picture.
She went to Walgreens, develop this with one hour developing. And there's a picture of me. I still had my bathing suit on and a thrown my like nice party clothes on over it. Like I was that kind of drunk. I didn't even know the bathing suit from the day and put it on. I had mascara streamed all down my face.
And my hair is all over the place. I've got some kind of leaves in my hair cause I had fallen down apparently at one point, but I'm in the middle of this big, like woo. Yeah. That's part of my life. You know, in the middle of the scene and I'm a hot flipping mess. And so I looked at that picture and I was all emotional talking about this and I, and it was like, that's not, that's not me.
I mean, that's not who I want to be. It's not what I believe in. That's not what I'm capable of. I mean, it was just incongruent with, and I had really been feeling like, like the eating disorder and the, relationship with alcohol, like I had just written a piece called the monster, like where I felt like , I was living with like a Jekyll and Hyde
Damaged Parents: [00:26:11] Okay.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:26:11] you know, that I had this other part of me that I was in, in a constant battle with. And so that, that event in that picture was just like, Okay.
like the monster is winning,
Damaged Parents: [00:26:21] Right. So is that the day that it really shifted for you?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:26:26] Yeah, that
Damaged Parents: [00:26:27] That's amazing that you have a specific moment you can
Kriya Lendzion: [00:26:30] It's a moment. It's a moment. And what's crazy is that, so those people though, too, the people that were involved around me are still my like soul sisters. I mean, we've gone each other's the weddings and the, you know, like we're still really close with each other.
And so those people really wrapped around me in some really beautiful ways. the rest of them, sifted themselves out the party buddies. You know, I'd been going to the school counselor ever since I got to school.
Cause I already knew I had an eating disorder cause my mom had already set me up with that. And it was just sort of, you know, short version as he fast tracked me to getting an evaluation and doing all this stuff. And so I signed up for an outpatient treatment program, while still in college, while in the midst of this, you know, Greek party scene.
You know, and proceeded to do what? ended up being almost a year, you know, of outpatient treatment, to turn things around,
Damaged Parents: [00:27:17] I mean, what great thing that you already had a therapist to go into and talk to, to say, Hey, I'm, this is worse than
Kriya Lendzion: [00:27:24] yeah. What do I, do?
Damaged Parents: [00:27:25] cause I'm thinking you probably didn't say, Hey, you know, I also drink a lot, you know? Cause you're there for the eating disorder.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:27:32] he
knew
Damaged Parents: [00:27:33] Yeah,
Kriya Lendzion: [00:27:34] because I remember his question. I remember he was like, well, do you see any common denominator in all of these problems you're having, you know, like he was just doing all his great counselor, you know, with it, but it wasn't until the evaluator, asked me the thousand questions and held the paper, up to me with all the columns, it was like, you know, they had a visual and he's like, what does this tell you?
Damaged Parents: [00:27:55] Oh.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:27:56] I remember that I remember him holding up and saying, what does this say to you?
Damaged Parents: [00:27:59] Now were you in school to become a therapist?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:28:02] No, I mean, interestingly, I was I had gone in as a music major, so I wanted to be on Broadway. But I battled with that because of being chubby in and out, you know, and just what my physical health and I had because of how I partied, I had destroyed my voice. I mean, I just sounded you know, like every woman on every like rock station, like every DJ female DJ got a rock station, like a little course, like I stay up a little late and you know, has been partied really hard.
It went from that to like a whisper, like I would just lose my voice. And so I was in there on a singing scholarship, cause that was one of my things. And so that went out the window. Then I did move into being a psychology major after that.
Damaged Parents: [00:28:39] Okay. I got to know being in the, was it only after the alcohol, that, that realization that you were like, okay, I'm going to switch and go down the psychology route.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:28:50] It was such a natural kind of circular, karmic, whatever, you know, thing. It was like, I just started to, because again, remember, like in high school I was a peer counselor. Like there was part of me that was really natural at this, that people did come to me for support that I really did love teaching.
I just was with hypocritically, a hot flipping mess. So it became really natural. So I, what I did to stay sober, to get sober and stay sober in this environment where it's really rare for a kid at 19 in college, have it stick. Right, It's it's barely does that ever happen? right.
And so part of what I did was I came out really publicly about my process
Damaged Parents: [00:29:33] Okay. What does that mean? What was
public to you back then?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:29:36] Meaning at first all of my friends, the whole like fraternity of guys, I hung out with you know, my whole sorority, you know, my social world, like it started there, but then it became the, because I was also just sort of good about talking about it, you know, good at talking about it and natural about talking, you know, natural talking about it.
And so they started, I started talking, doing presentations for the incoming freshmen, you know, like the next year I did that and worked with the staff on how do you spot and support students that are having a problem, like started doing workshops with the staff. And they started referring students to me that were also going into dark waters, particularly when there was alcohol involved in sexual behavior.
And, you know, so they were kind of sending me as like, like peer counselor, some of these cases to just sort of, support as a peer. You have years worth of that? Just can I started running and then I was running that like drug and alcohol education programming on campus, you know, and really did some sort of Renegade stuff with that.
And then I got hired by the college as a student to do some of that work. Like it just really naturally turned around and was like, Yeah.
okay. This is easy for me to do. And it feeds my soul, you know?
Damaged Parents: [00:30:41] yeah. I'm thinking studying psychology going into to become a therapist is gaining a better understanding of emotional intelligence. I'm thinking that's part of studying psychology is better understanding yourself also. And how much did that help with your recovery?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:30:59] You know, I actually abandoned, so I actually switched from psychology to sociology at the end. I abandoned psychology because I, it felt too cognitive like we know, I, I remember the day I walked out of class and said, I'm changing. I went to my advisor and said, I'm changing when we were talking about love as a chemical in the brain.
I mean, that was the title of the class that day. Like as much more interested in social psychology, like how people are shaped by their environment and your experiences. And so I switched to sociology.
Damaged Parents: [00:31:26] I'm thinking sociology and psychology are similar in that it's human behavior. Just psychology is more, this is my understanding. And tell me if I get it wrong. Psychology is more, the individual and sociology is the
Kriya Lendzion: [00:31:40] How culture environment, sort of impacts somebody. I mean, I kept taking some psychology classes, so I think it, you know, I really definitely interwove the two and they, gave you some understanding, but , I was learning more. I mean, I think like my 12 step meetings and my therapy and my, you know what I mean?
I felt like those were informing what I was learning in class. You know, I was kind of bringing some of that knowledge and, you know, to even kind of amp up what we were learning in class. Cause I was personally in the middle of it. I took a class called alcohol and society when I was two months into rehab and had to write.
everybody in the class had to write their drinking autobiography.
So that drinking autobiography is going to be one of the books that I'm writing.
I'd started there.
Damaged Parents: [00:32:24] That's fantastic how amazing that that's what I mean. Yes, you would be in that class, but that you had to write a drinking autobiography.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:32:32] Yeah. So in rehab they were having us do a similar thing. So I was like, okay, let me dive into this. But I was learning some things about alcoholism and we now know some of those things I learned were wrong. I mean, they were putting out a lot of wrong information at that time.
It's not true, so I was literally digging out. I mean, some of the pieces of what I've told you, you know, that I ha I just hadn't put things together. and I did this, like, I mean, just regurgitation of every ugly thing I had done, you know, an experience onto this paper and handed in this 80 page thing,
Damaged Parents: [00:33:08] How hard was it though, to even start writing that.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:33:13] No, I would, Angela, I would literally, like, I would write a page. I would go dry heave and I would, and I would come back. Like when I say regurgitation, I was really coming to grips with all of what I had experienced done, you know, and in the several years, and even looking back to like, wow, this started young. Yeah,
I mean, I was the kid at weddings at eight years old, nine years old that was drinking. It was swigging leftover, you know, I was like Drew Barrymore, right? Like there's like swinging leftover drinks on the table. And at the champagne fountain, like I knew alcohol did something for me that I liked.
It was really valuable to look at that whole patterns. It'd be sort of like the way that the school and rehab were coming together, that I was looking at that pattern really intensely, but it was a lot,
you know, it was, a lot,
Damaged Parents: [00:33:57] When writing the things that you wrote in your 80 page thing and looking at all the hard things was there at some point, this thought and idea that, oh my gosh, I'm such a horrible person. How could I have ever done that? And how did you push past? Or how did you get through that?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:34:17] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:34:17] that's where you went.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:34:18] I think that the way that I sort of outed myself pretty vulnerably with others and that document, I actually, I handed that to people, whoever in my close world would read it. I handed it to them to read including my parents. Both of them said, you know, that, that was really rough for them to read of course.
But what I got back that was the thing is that, you know, so I would go and I would speak to the freshmen. Right. Or I would and I only got back like love, you know, I only got back acceptance, and I think that's because, you know, I used to, because I would speak to the freshmen, I'd be really public, but I still went to the party.
Like I still went to these environments where, and that's not what everybody recommends. They changed people, places and things, but this is what worked for me because I did have people had my back, you know, we'd be like, what are you drinking? What did you know? I mean, I had all
these watchdogs around me, but I would have random people come up in every single party I was at to say like, wow, you know, like my uncle drank himself to death.
And it's so cool to see you here. Like once I started realizing, like getting the natural high and sort of getting my brain chemistry in line and realizing like that, I was pretty like beautiful and awesome and gifted and you know, all these things without the substances. And then I can have a hella like blast at a party and then I could feel the music and I could remember my interactions with people.
Once I started like thriving on, that I was having a blast, you know, like life started to be really, really fun. And people started to see that. You know like I had all of these people that were like, wow, I just always thought I had to, I have an 18 year old kid being, like, I thought I had to be really drunk at a party, but you've shown me.
I mean, it's not like an after-school special, but you know, or a PSA, but they, you know, but like, you look like you're the most wasted person here and I just found out you're sober and you're like, that's really cool. Like, so I had all this positive peer pressure, you know, and all this positive affirmation that really just sort of came back to me from the ways I was putting my own, journey, you know, including the ugly stuff, you know, out and out into the, into the world.
Damaged Parents: [00:36:20] Well, and it sounds like you were also safe in that the people you first initially started sharing with, or, I mean, because they came to you and then you went back to them. So instead of it doesn't sound like at any point, those friends tried to shame you or that you felt ashamed because of this problem.
It's sounds like love.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:36:40] Yeah. I think it was relieving, honestly, because a lot, the people that were closest to me saw the behavior. I mean, they saw that I was, that I was constantly in a hookup, you know, I would present that with a brag. Like I would present that, like I was proud of it, like we were playing this game, which was ridiculous because I quote unquote won it It was like a point game in college. Like you get so many points for this kind of sexual activity or this mate, like we played one of these silly little point games, happens all the time. But
usually the dudes, the dude was doing more, but not so much any more. But, everyone's like this isn'y any fun. Cause Kriya just dominates like she's just taking it way too seriously
but so I would be like bragging about it on the surface, but inside I hated myself for it loathed myself for it. So I think when those people closest to me read, you know, what was going on inside and behind what it looked like on the outside, there was just nothing, but compassion and empathy and love for me for that, you know, and kind of relief that like, okay, she's not totally disconnected from reality
Damaged Parents: [00:37:46] But like just showing you a picture or coming to you, it doesn't sound like when they came to you, Kriya you're so sick, bad and wrong. You, I can't believe you drink like this. I can't, I mean, it sounds like what they
Kriya Lendzion: [00:37:59] I'm worried about you. I'm worried about you. We're worried about you Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:38:02] yeah,
Kriya Lendzion: [00:38:03] even. yeah,
Damaged Parents: [00:38:04] which shifts it because I think I would feel shame if somebody came to me and were like, you're sick and bad and wrong. You did this and you did this and you did. This and they just held it out. Like a, yeah, like a like a declaration of everything
Kriya Lendzion: [00:38:16] Right.
Damaged Parents: [00:38:17] I did wrong.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:38:17] No, my friends were the best. I mean, I, I honestly, I don't think I can say this without getting all emotional. So for 30 years, 31 years now I have contacted those people. I've contacted with people because well, what happened an interesting part of the journey? Cause it wasn't perfect. It wasn't linear in about a year later.
Cause I had you know, I'd done the intensive part of treatment and I had kind of slipped away, you know, I'd gone to the, like the AA meetings and I'd done that at first. And then I sort of was like, well, I'm good. You know, I kinda slipped away from it. And I started to act like an addict again,
Damaged Parents: [00:38:52] What do you mean? Like, so you weren't drinking, but you were acting like it?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:38:56] I wasn't drinking, but I was like sabotaging myself. Like it just in these little ways, like I would stay up too late. I would, was avoiding everything. I was not doing my schoolwork. I was not showing up. And I was sort of lying to teachers and I was whatever, like I would overtake like over the counter medicine, not to feel high just to, I don't know, like to make me feel sick so that I wouldn't have to deal with life.
And I was moody. I was getting really moody And my friend called me down the hall and I walked in and lo and behold, they did an old school intervention on me.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:28] what does that look like when you say old school? I'm picturing chairs and a circle.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:39:33] It means they were in a circle.
The school counselor was there. I mean, the one who had gotten me through is in the first place, and my best friends and my boyfriend and they were like, okay, so you're going off the rails, you know, you're going off the rails again. and the school counselor sat there and said, so I've talked with administration, cause your grades suck.
You know, we're going to make a contract, what you're going to do. And if you don't, we are making you go to inpatient rehab and keep in mind, like, if I was almost a year, this is almost to the day when I was a year sober and I was strutting around like, I'm, you know, all that and a bag of chips.
Cause I haven't drank for a year. And I was like, I'm this AA and I'm this. And I was like bragging about my year of sobriety and it was a mess. Even though I was sober, they did an intervention on me and I had to kind of like root back in and still then I got therapy then I really intensified kind of the work on myself.
And went back in at another level,
Damaged Parents: [00:40:22] I really love that you, that was part of your journey and that you're sharing that here on the podcast, because I think that there's a lot of times, even in my own personal life, that was the same struggle, but I think I'm over something and lo and behold, I'm not.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:40:38] yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:40:39] I think that's a very normal human thing to do.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:40:42] Yeah. Well there, and you know, and this, I haven't talked about publicly, but I feel like, I mean, I am ready to or wanting this because it's part of that. But as part of that non-linear journey, you know, of addiction is that, so here I am years later, right. And I I've been working in addiction. And I've been a drug and alcohol educator, and I've gone to 12 step meetings here and there in and out, I'd stepped away from it because once again, I got what I needed to from that.
And I didn't really need to incorporate that in my life anymore. You know, so I said, or because I was working in treatment, helping other people. You know, that was enough to keep me sober now. It didn't mean I was continuing to work on myself. So in hindsight I
Damaged Parents: [00:41:20] Wait, Hold on. We have to keep working on ourselves. Did I just hear you say that?
Kriya Lendzion: [00:41:24] Right. Yeah. You know, in hindsight, obviously, you know, the evolution needed to keep on happening because there's still like, it's like in my DNA to have this the anxiety piece and the addictive piece, the compulsive piece. I mean, I it's like learning how to harness it in these like beautifully creative ways is what I've learned.
Damaged Parents: [00:41:43] Great.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:41:44] So what I had done is I had had Like I had dabbled in a little like weed here and there. Like not, I mean, I never, it was never, I always hated, it was never a thing I wanted to get into, but I had gone there and I had had a sip of alcohol. Because I was pretty sick, you know, by then, and I wasn't gonna keep on drinking.
It wasn't a big thing. I was just, I was taking a sip of it when I didn't go into like, you know, I'm thinking of like, what's the mood? Is it Finding Nemo when the shark is like in recovery and he smell, you know,
the blood
is in the water,
Damaged Parents: [00:42:15] Yes. He goes crazy for
Kriya Lendzion: [00:42:17] he gets the blood in the water and he's like, looks like I'm having fish tonight. Yeah. So it.
wasn't like that. You know, like I didn't, I had my sip and I walked away from it. So I was like, see, like this isn't that big of a deal. So over the course of several years and granted. I never ordered a drink.
I didn't, but I had like a sip here. I had a sip there. I had a sip here Right.
Of something. But, I, I will say like the, the pick, the picking was the thing that I never shook so when I went to rehab, like kind of temporarily, but it was always just kind of there. And so when I would get anxious, when I would be distressed, it would be this thing that I would dive into in it that would do it on my face.
And then I'd be covering it up with all this makeup and I'd feel ashamed and I'd be making up weird lie kind of excuses about what was going on. Like I have a bacterial infection. No, I'm a compulsive picker on my own skin. Like it's cause it's a sounds so weird.
Damaged Parents: [00:43:11] Yeah.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:43:12] But I just realized, you know, and this was probably about eight years ago, nine years ago now is that I kind of had this realization and the short version is, you know, I found myself in this relationship with this person who was the culmination of every unhealthy characteristic I had ever found in a person.
I mean, it was every unhealthy pattern I had in myself, played out in my attraction to in my engagement in this relationship.
Damaged Parents: [00:43:38] Oh, wow.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:43:39] Yeah. So it was like, and it ended in this horrific, like, an abusive situation. Like I ended up in PTSD treatment. I mean the whole thing, that's the very short, that's another episode girl.
But what it was for me was this enormous, like Godsmack, I just call it a Godsmack. It was like, oh, okay. You've got some flipping work that you still really, really need to do on yourself, because there is something in you that is continuing to not screen out the attract, you know, like your picker's broken, your picker's broken and your screener and what you let yourself tolerate in relationship.
Totally aware that this has to do this goes all the way back to that relationship with mom that we talked about, right? Like I was tolerating the same dynamics because she also would get explosive, I didn't say that explosive and get violent
Damaged Parents: [00:44:30] right.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:44:30] So I was just tolerating attracting, you know? Yeah but he was also an addict
Damaged Parents: [00:44:35] Okay.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:44:36] and he was also an alcoholic.
And so I was doing this little dabble drinking, you know, and dabble, like smoking of weed and though I hated it to sort of be on the level with a super unhealthy person. You know, I just, I know where my head was going.
And so I did a deep dive at that point. I mean, a deep, deep dive into pretty intensive therapy for myself and go right. back into the 12 step stuff.
Cause I've never really done, particularly like, you know, effectively, you know, got the sponsor, did all the step work really intensely. I mean, I did all of the things, and did all the work to finally that, what was that at 40, at 41 to like really dig in to all of those patterns. It went back to childhood that were part of my other addictions that were putting, you know, that I really just had not comepletely worked out all the way. .
So when I got back into the, 12 step program deeper, and I was working with a sponsor she really helped me see that those little sips that I was taking though, seemingly harmless in the moment. How for one, it actually was taking a lot of head work for me to walk away with the one sip you know that I would still sit there and be like, how does anybody do that? You know, like the alcoholic was still there for one, but that those sips were getting closer and closer together. And you know, we think of a relapse is somebody taking the sip. And then all of a sudden they've had a blackout and they wake up after having done five more drugs and trashed their life overnight.
That a relapse you know, they look different for different people. And that for me that was, you know, what I feel in hindsight, a kind of slippery slope into my own version of relapse, cause it, probably what was coming next with me ordering my own drink, it'd be like, well, that didn't kill me.
Damaged Parents: [00:46:24] And I, what I'm getting from this is because you used the word fix fix or fixed earlier, is that there's never completely and totally and utterly a fix and it's non-linear and sometimes we get to go back and revisit this whether we want to or not it's there. And there are these natural ways we behave because of who we are
Kriya Lendzion: [00:46:47] Yeah,
Damaged Parents: [00:46:48] and shifting that can be difficult.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:46:51] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:46:51] Yeah. And, and so, okay. Three things people can do to, you know, I, I I'm having trouble ending this and because it's such a great
Kriya Lendzion: [00:47:00] I know that is so much stuff. And you're like, okay, we can dust it off in five other
directions. But,
but Yeah.
So I think, yeah, who got it? Give me the questions cause I,
Damaged Parents: [00:47:09] Okay.
Three things that people listening to this episode could focus on or do in their personal lives, or maybe whether they're the support person or the person in the shoes of being an alcoholic or a picker or a food disorder, whatever, but three things that they can do today after listening to this podcast or maybe just they can speckle into their lives here and there to start the journey to even keep going.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:47:38] yeah. So I think as a, Yeah,
those are definitely two different answers coming from the two angles of your support person or your person struggling. But I think from the district, starting with the person who's struggling, It's just reaching out for help. I truly believe I would be dead long ago.
I mean, I was doing extremely dangerous reckless things. So reaching out for an accepting, accepting help, because some people are being reached out to, and they're not accepting it. right.
And hearing that if people are reaching out, cause people were trying. And even when I was in that abusive relationship and the things were a mess nine years ago, people were trying and I had my ways of tuning it out and was in super denial.
Like I wouldn't accept it and I wouldn't listen and I wouldn't, you know, so that's, I think that's a, as a simple, but reaching out for help and accepting that. and accepting, like you said, is that it's like, It's never finalized. Like I think everyone should have a therapist or a counselor or some kind or a coach, or like, whatever way you find to do self work, the self-work should never end,
you know, because there's always layers at different stages at different, you know, different stages of parenting, different stages of living, you know, where new stuff comes and the different layers come off. Like I just, I think that that's a valuable thing, but the other piece is too, is to surround yourself with like people that are real with you, out of love, you know, the people that will be blunt. So people that will call you on your stuff, the people that will be accountability partners, I used to surround myself with people that were easy to be around because they didn't challenge me.
At times on the things that I didn't want to be challenged about. I mean, in hindsight, I can see that, or the people that were, not super strong in certain ways so that I can sort of run the show, you know, whatever.
Damaged Parents: [00:49:21] Like the people you could go to and they would just validate where you were at instead
of challenge your thinking.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:49:26] Right. Yes. And, I'm really happy to say that one of the reasons that I have, you know, gotten healthier and healthier over the last decade has been because I really shifted my own. Like Yeah.
I had those friends from college that I mentioned, right. That are the soul sisters, but they're not here.
They're all over the country. And the people in my immediate life, like, I like the way I've screened out, who I get close to now and who, is really the standards of that, you know, are also people that are evolving. They're also people that are working on themselves constantly. There are people that we can connect with on like, how are you doing with this?
You know, we have that bond over self-worth You know, and supporting each other's self worth and each other's best, even if it means calling out each other on like, Hey, remember that thing that you were given public years ago, that you told me to, you know, call out through the shock collar on, if you did it again, giving you the shock collar.
Damaged Parents: [00:50:19] That's one of those moments where you're like, oh,
Kriya Lendzion: [00:50:22] Right, right. But that's when you go back to point number one, right. Where you're like, okay, this is coming from care. You know, this is coming from care. So I'm gonna, accept it.
You know, I'm gonna accept the challenges that their help is giving me. When it comes to helping other people, I think, I mean, you nailed it earlier.
You know, when I was talking about what my friends did for me, you know, it's, they need to write their own book, you know, and have their own podcast or whatever, because they made sure it came from love. I mean, I think when you're approaching somebody, because you're concerned that they're doing, something self-destructive for themselves, you know, that being like, I love the hell out of you.
You know, this is what this is. And you can't say that too many times, whether it's your kid or it's your partner, it's a friend. You know, especially with your kids, you know, you just, you can't say that enough times if this is, I love you so much, and it's hard to watch you hurt yourself. And I see you doing this thing that I don't imagine.
It feels good inside, you know, and I love you for it. And I'm here with you. I will hold your hand while you take the next step. It doesn't mean you stand there and you let somebody, you know, if it gets really ugly and they treat you horribly, you know, you don't ride their rollercoaster strapped in necessarily, but you say I'm here to support you and help you figure it out.
You're not alone. This is because of love and you're not alone. You know, I'll be with you in it. And that's just huge because my friends went to AA meetings. They didn't have a problem. They were those take it or leave it drinkers. My boyfriend at the time. It was so funny that we go around and everyone's like, hi, I'm whoever I'm an alcoholic on whoever I'm an alcoholic. And he was like, I'm a recovering asshole. Like every day, you know, they came and they sort of dove into the self-growth process with me.
It was beautiful because I would get little like, no, I would come in and it'd be like, you're two months sober today. And I would have little love notes and I would have flowers. So when people say, how did you do this? How did you defy the odds , of recovering while you were in the midst of that environment at that age? It was more because of them than anything else. If I had had a different friend set, that wouldn't be my story.
Damaged Parents: [00:52:14] Yeah, I really love your message of connection and love when it comes to struggle.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:52:20] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:52:21] Not just connection between people, but connecting to who you are inside and connecting to the people around you. And I think that's a tremendous blessing to give this world.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:52:32] And I think another piece of that had to help piece of, if this was really important is also kind of what we hit on before is, is making sure to not be judgmental. Because again, if you're coming from care, you're having compassionate like, I understand why you're doing this, you know, instead of like, so somebody had come to me and been like, you are really being a ho I love you.
I'm worried about you because you're being such a ho you know, like that, that wouldn't work for me. But the fact that my friends understood, like, I know you just want to be loved. I know you just want to have a boyfriend and that's what you're going for here. you know, They saw that. You know, this making sure that whatever it is that they're doing, whether it looks like it's a horribly ridiculous, irrational choice, there's a reason why they're doing it right. Because of the things we talked about. Right. Because they want to feel better. They want to feel different.
They have these, you know, it's rooted in their stuff that goes way back. But there's always a reason know that they're doing something self-destructed so,
having compassion for what that reason is instead of judging what their behavior is.
Damaged Parents: [00:53:27] It sounds like. If you're going to go to someone really investigating how to do that from the perspective of love. And maybe I statements, instead of you did this and you did this, so I love you. And I want to
Kriya Lendzion: [00:53:41] yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:53:41] best for you.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:53:42] Yeah. I'm seeing this I'm hearing this, I'm worried about this. Yeah. Lots of I's.
Damaged Parents: [00:53:47] That's fantastic.
Thank you so much Kriya for being on this show. This has been fabulous.
Kriya Lendzion: [00:53:52] Yeah. There's some good nuggets in there for listeners.
Damaged Parents: [00:53:55] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of relatively damaged by damaged parents. We really enjoyed talking to Kriya about how she was able to find health and healing while at college, we especially liked when she talked about how easy it is to become de stabilized and acknowledge it. 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
