"Sensory": an emotional parley for a family coping with the loss of a Mother and Grandmother

Welcome to another episode of the Touched Out Podcast! Today, we have Bekah and Bryan joining us, a dynamic duo who share their insights and experiences on parenting, loss, and navigating the complexities of family life. Bekah, the creator and host of the Yooman Podcast (www.instagram.com/theyoomanpodcast), and Bryan, her husband, have two children together, making their perspectives even more relatable and insightful.

In this episode, we dive deep into the fascinating topic of parenting styles, comparing our own approaches to those of our parents and exploring the transformative shift towards open conversations surrounding mental health and emotions.

Join us as we share our personal birth stories, discussing the mindset and emotions leading up to those life-changing moments. We also delve into Bekah's decision to go no contact with her family, providing a glimpse into the reasons behind this difficult choice.

The sudden passing of Bryan's mother just before the COVID-19 lockdowns forever altered the dynamics of his family, and we delve into the profound impact of this loss. Bryan opens up about the role his mother played as the glue holding everything together, highlighting the challenges his family faced in the wake of her passing and the added complications imposed by pandemic restrictions.

Throughout this episode, we touch on various other thought-provoking topics:

• Light-hearted discussions about why partners shouldn't take a peek "down there" during childbirth.
• The unique experience of cutting the umbilical cord and the emotional significance it holds.
• Bryan's brave account of grief and loss, sharing how one never truly recovers from losing a loved one but instead learns to live with a "new normal".
• Processing "Big feelings" as a family unit.
• Engaging in conversations about religion and faith, while consciously avoiding falling back on them as explanations for death and loss.
• Discovering striking similarities between Bryan and Carter's lives, from their upbringings to their mothers sharing the same taste in music and passing away at the same age.
• Bekah sheds light on the use of a codeword, "sensory," within their family, a tool employed to support a family member in need of emotional regulation. By using this word, everyone respects the situation, turning off the music and engaging in open dialogue.

Join us on this emotionally resonant journey as we explore the intricacies of parenthood, loss, an

Head to the podcast Instagram and hit the bio link to sign up for preorder today.

Transcript

[Carter]: 0:02

Okay, so today we have Becca and Brian. Becca and Brian, husband and wife, been together 18 years and married 16, live in Dallas with two dogs, two cats and a hamster. And... How many children?

[Bekah]: 0:20

Two, we have two boys,

[Carter]: 0:21

two kids.

[Bekah]: 0:21

12 and nine.

[Carter]: 0:23

Awesome. Awesome.

[Bryan]: 0:24

Yeah.

[Carter]: 0:25

Welcome. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for coming on.

[Bryan]: 0:27

Thanks.

[Bekah]: 0:28

Yeah, thank you for having us.

[Bryan]: 0:29

Thanks for having

[Carter]: 0:30

You're

[Bryan]: 0:30

us.

[Carter]: 0:30

welcome. So apart from what I've just kind of summarized, why don't you tell me a little bit about your family and a little bit about your history.

[Bekah]: 0:41

Sure. So one clarification that I saw you laughing about. So at the time of writing that, we had a hamster.

[Carter]: 0:47

Oh

[Bekah]: 0:47

And

[Carter]: 0:47

no.

[Bryan]: 0:48

Oh god, yeah.

[Bekah]: 0:50

he decided to escape. He decided he did not want to be a part of it. We

[Carter]: 0:53

uh

[Bekah]: 0:53

have

[Carter]: 0:53

striding

[Bekah]: 0:53

since replaced.

[Carter]: 0:54

to the trauma

[Bekah]: 0:56

Yeah, exactly.

[Bryan]: 0:56

A birthday

[Bekah]: 0:57

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 0:57

present that lasted what two days three days maybe

[Carter]: 1:00

Oh, okay.

[Bryan]: 1:00

it was a short short lived

[Bekah]: 1:03

He immediately came in, bit everyone, and then ran away. And

[Carter]: 1:07

Oh,

[Bekah]: 1:07

so

[Carter]: 1:07

okay.

[Bekah]: 1:07

yeah, he's

[Bryan]: 1:08

Right.

[Bekah]: 1:08

great. He's...

[Carter]: 1:09

Uh, it sounds like a bit of an asshole hamster

[Bekah]: 1:10

But yeah,

[Carter]: 1:11

then.

[Bekah]: 1:11

he really was. No one was super upset.

[Bryan]: 1:13

For sure.

[Carter]: 1:14

Did you just tell the kids that he ran away and you kind of

[Bekah]: 1:17

Yeah,

[Carter]: 1:17

would just like go away.

[Bekah]: 1:19

yeah, basically, and

[Bryan]: 1:21

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 1:21

it was like, yeah.

[Carter]: 1:24

Hahaha

[Bryan]: 1:24

Yeah, we got him for the 12 year old's birthday. And when it happened, I don't think he gave a shit at all.

[Bekah]: 1:31

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 1:32

He was the first one to be bitten. He was ignored constantly by this hamster. So yeah, it's probably a little bit of a relief, if anything.

[Carter]: 1:39

Oh yeah, no good. Well, I

[Bekah]: 1:41

Hehehe

[Carter]: 1:41

don't have a hamster, but I have a nine month old teething baby and she likes

[Bekah]: 1:45

Oh,

[Carter]: 1:45

to bite as well.

[Bryan]: 1:46

Same

[Bekah]: 1:46

there

[Carter]: 1:46

So

[Bryan]: 1:46

thing.

[Bekah]: 1:46

you go.

[Carter]: 1:47

she might run away soon too.

[Bekah]: 1:49

Hahaha!

[Bryan]: 1:51

Who knows, right?

[Carter]: 1:54

Awesome. So,

[Bekah]: 1:54

Oh.

[Bryan]: 1:54

Yeah.

[Carter]: 1:55

uh, been together 18 years.

[Bekah]: 1:57

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 1:58

It's my

[Bekah]: 1:58

yeah,

[Bryan]: 1:58

turn.

[Bekah]: 1:58

we met. We met when I was 18. I was actually moved to Texas from New York. I was a girl from New York. Not the city, though, but outside of the city. But moved and met Brian through my cousin. Him and my cousin were really good friends at the time. And my cousin introduced us. And I was 18 and he was 19 and basically just have been together since then. just honestly just met and yeah, got

[Carter]: 2:30

Awesome.

[Bekah]: 2:30

married a couple years

[Bryan]: 2:30

Yeah,

[Bekah]: 2:30

later.

[Carter]: 2:31

Yeah. Married two,

[Bryan]: 2:32

long

[Carter]: 2:32

two years

[Bryan]: 2:32

time.

[Carter]: 2:32

later, was it?

[Bekah]: 2:34

Mm-hmm. Yep, two years

[Bryan]: 2:35

Yep,

[Bekah]: 2:35

later.

[Bryan]: 2:35

two years, two years.

[Carter]: 2:36

Beautiful.

[Bryan]: 2:37

We did wait, we waited about four years before we had a child after that. So

[Bekah]: 2:42

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 2:42

we were quick to get married, but slow to start the family building process at least.

[Carter]: 2:47

Everyone has their process. I was with my

[Bryan]: 2:50

Yeah.

[Carter]: 2:50

wife. We were quick with everything we

[Bryan]: 2:53

Ha ha!

[Carter]: 2:54

We met in 2017 in I believe March 27th Feb 2017 We're engaged less than a year later married and pregnant less than a year after that

[Bekah]: 3:06

Nice.

[Carter]: 3:07

and

[Bryan]: 3:08

Wow.

[Carter]: 3:08

Building a house at the same time. So we kind of got everything

[Bryan]: 3:11

Oh

[Carter]: 3:11

started

[Bryan]: 3:11

my god.

[Carter]: 3:11

with within a two-year period

[Bekah]: 3:14

Wow. Yeah, took on a

[Bryan]: 3:15

That's

[Bekah]: 3:15

lot,

[Bryan]: 3:15

awesome.

[Bekah]: 3:15

huh?

[Carter]: 3:16

Yeah, it's pretty cool. She's, um, she's literally my twin.

[Bekah]: 3:22

Nice.

[Carter]: 3:22

We

[Bryan]: 3:22

That's

[Carter]: 3:22

both,

[Bryan]: 3:22

great.

[Carter]: 3:23

we joke quite often that if we hadn't both already taken ancestry tests, there'd be some questions

[Bekah]: 3:29

Hahaha

[Carter]: 3:29

that needed answering.

[Bryan]: 3:33

That probably

[Bekah]: 3:33

That's pretty

[Bryan]: 3:33

makes

[Bekah]: 3:34

good.

[Bryan]: 3:34

a really great couple. Like when you can be friends and you have similar interests and stuff, you know, you have something to fall back on even when things aren't as romantic. You know, everybody goes through that sometimes. So

[Carter]: 3:45

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 3:45

that's

[Carter]: 3:45

that's

[Bryan]: 3:46

great.

[Carter]: 3:46

it. It certainly helps that we're both pretty fucking autistic as well.

[Bekah]: 3:49

No, that's good.

[Bryan]: 3:51

I'm sorry.

[Bekah]: 3:51

No miscommunications or lots of miscommunications, but you know why.

[Bryan]: 3:57

Yeah.

[Carter]: 3:57

That's, that's it. Yeah.

[Bryan]: 3:59

Yeah.

[Carter]: 3:59

Um, so yeah, you had your first baby four years after you met.

[Bekah]: 4:05

Right, so we had him

[Bryan]: 4:07

Four

[Bekah]: 4:07

in 2011.

[Bryan]: 4:07

years after we got married.

[Carter]: 4:09

Okay.

[Bryan]: 4:09

Yeah

[Bekah]: 4:09

Yeah,

[Carter]: 4:09

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 4:10

yeah,

[Carter]: 4:11

Beautiful.

[Bekah]: 4:11

we had him in 2011 and then we had our second one in 2013.

[Carter]: 4:16

Awesome.

[Bekah]: 4:16

So a little after.

[Carter]: 4:18

Do you want to run me through the births of your children?

[Bekah]: 4:21

Yeah, so they were both, but we intended to have both of them. We planned, we had them much faster, I think, than we actually guessed. I assumed it would take a while and it was basically immediate. We were lucky,

[Bryan]: 4:37

like

[Bekah]: 4:37

I

[Bryan]: 4:37

once

[Bekah]: 4:37

guess,

[Bryan]: 4:37

we

[Bekah]: 4:37

in

[Bryan]: 4:38

started

[Bekah]: 4:38

that sense.

[Bryan]: 4:38

trying for him, yeah.

[Bekah]: 4:40

Yeah, exactly. It was like, yeah, maybe we should try. And then it was like, it felt like immediately later, I was like, oh shit, that happened.

[Bryan]: 4:47

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 4:48

I thought it was supposed

[Carter]: 4:48

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 4:49

to take a couple months or something and it was like right there. I was like, well, I guess, okay. But yeah, thankfully it was a pretty easy pregnancy. We always joke that my first pregnancy with my first one was like our just sort of like ideal time. We had these two recliners that we put in front of our TV in the living room instead of a couch. And like the whole pregnancy, we just like sat in the recliners every night and ate like tater tots and ice cream, watched TV, and it was just

[Bryan]: 5:25

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 5:25

a very beautiful time. We always look

[Bryan]: 5:29

It was.

[Bekah]: 5:29

back at that.

[Bryan]: 5:32

It was a wonderful time of bonding. And we

[Bekah]: 5:35

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 5:35

got, I don't know if you're familiar with Dairy Queen, I'm not sure what the reach is for that, but they have this treat called a blizzard and we splurged many, many times.

[Carter]: 5:46

Yeah,

[Bekah]: 5:46

I'm gonna go to bed. Bye.

[Carter]: 5:47

we have Dairy Queen here, but I don't believe it's the same.

[Bekah]: 5:51

Okay.

[Carter]: 5:51

I think, I think

[Bryan]: 5:51

Ah,

[Carter]: 5:51

we

[Bryan]: 5:52

gotcha.

[Carter]: 5:52

just kind of have the name. It's kind of like you guys have Taco Bell and we have Taco Bill.

[Bekah]: 5:57

Interesting. I

[Bryan]: 5:58

Really?

[Bekah]: 5:58

did not

[Carter]: 5:58

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 5:59

know.

[Bryan]: 5:59

That's

[Carter]: 5:59

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 5:59

awesome.

[Carter]: 6:00

I think we might have Taco Bell as well now, but it's definitely started off as Taco Bill.

[Bekah]: 6:07

Yes.

[Bryan]: 6:07

That's the coolest name I've ever heard for a

[Bekah]: 6:09

I know.

[Bryan]: 6:09

taco joint.

[Carter]: 6:11

Just because there's a whole bunch of Mexicans named Bill.

[Bekah]: 6:15

Yeah, right.

[Bryan]: 6:15

Right. It's amazing.

[Carter]: 6:19

Ehh

[Bryan]: 6:19

Yeah, that time

[Bekah]: 6:20

Oh.

[Bryan]: 6:20

was was really great. And that I think the whole delivery process and everything went pretty smoothly. He did have his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck,

[Bekah]: 6:29

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 6:29

which sent me into just a panic. And then when he came out, of course, it was solved within two seconds, you know, none of the doctors or nurses were ever worried about it. But I was for hours and hours

[Bekah]: 6:41

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 6:41

and hours on a panic attack.

[Carter]: 6:43

Yeah. Yeah, certainly.

[Bryan]: 6:45

I'm sorry.

[Carter]: 6:46

And Brian, what was, uh, what was your mental health like in the lead up to becoming a first time dad and, and stepping into that role?

[Bryan]: 6:55

You know, honestly, probably not great, but I was raised in a family where we didn't really address mental health. We didn't talk about it much. And so I didn't know how messed up I was. And you know, not messed up because I guess everybody's got something, but I had no clue. So of course had no way to deal with it, but definitely dealt with lots of anxiety growing up. I was always afraid of thunderstorms you know, tornadoes, things like that, to the point where I'd have to visit the school counselor. And so anxiety was always a part of my life and it was amplified becoming a father. But I don't think I really knew it at the time.

[Bekah]: 7:39

Yeah.

[Carter]: 7:39

So it was more of a feeling than a kind of tangible thing that had a name.

[Bryan]: 7:44

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I'd feel it. And, you know, everybody always called me a worrier. I was just the guy who worried all the time. I'm like, I guess I

[Carter]: 7:52

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 7:52

just worry about everything. I'm just a nervous person. But it was crippling

[Carter]: 7:56

He's

[Bryan]: 7:56

anxiety. Come to find

[Carter]: 7:57

just... Yeah, that...

[Bryan]: 7:58

out.

[Carter]: 7:58

that Brian seems a bit high strung.

[Bekah]: 8:00

Hahaha

[Bryan]: 8:01

Yeah, that's

[Carter]: 8:02

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 8:02

what it was. That's I was always the high strong one. And, you know, obviously looking back now, just classic crippling anxiety.

[Carter]: 8:11

Yeah, yeah, I was I was raised in in quite a similar family dynamic. Even

[Bryan]: 8:18

Really.

[Carter]: 8:18

even though my mother had depression and had been on antidepressants for years, she still kind of refused to put a label on on my shit.

[Bryan]: 8:28

Yeah.

[Carter]: 8:29

And just

[Bryan]: 8:29

Yeah.

[Carter]: 8:29

kind of was like, you know, everyone's a bit sad sometimes.

[Bryan]: 8:33

Yeah, yeah, I feel you, man. I feel you, it's very similar.

[Carter]: 8:38

It certainly is a very, very tedious process unlearning all of that and kind of leveling out and dissipating the shame that comes with all of that teaching.

[Bryan]: 9:04

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's taken, I think Becca probably was a little more in touch with it, you know, from growing up, maybe not as much as you should have been, but you knew a little bit more about it when we got together. And so it took years for, you know, just working together through all of this shit that we went through and everything to even know that it was an actual thing. Like you mentioned, it was just a feeling, you know.

[Carter]: 9:28

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 9:28

So yeah, it takes, it's hard. It's really hard.

[Carter]: 9:31

Yeah, certainly. So have you mainly lent on Becca to find your understanding in mental health or have you sought professional help

[Bryan]: 9:41

in.

[Carter]: 9:42

with yourself or anything like that?

[Bryan]: 9:45

Yeah, for a long time it was, you know, mostly leaning on her. And then I think over the years we've been in a few situations where we had maybe one or two friends who we could talk to openly about that, you know, calling it what it is, but not very often. And so a lot of it had been just the two of us felt like it's been us

[Bekah]: 10:07

Mm.

[Bryan]: 10:07

against the world in that way for most of the time that we've been together until, you know, I guess what, about a year. year and a half, two years ago, kind of started venturing into professional health because

[Bekah]: 10:20

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 10:21

really there was no, we didn't know what else to do. And so

[Carter]: 10:23

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 10:24

finally, as of very recently, maybe, maybe not even a year ago, um, reached out to some professionals still in sort of an anonymous way through, uh, a service where you just go and chat with these doctors, but it's been just tremendously helpful and really life-changing

[Bekah]: 10:42

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 10:43

I'd say for both of us. So should have done it a long time ago, but thankfully we finally found a way.

[Carter]: 10:51

Yeah, certainly. Uh, yeah, just like, yeah, I say it on every podcast that therapy is just such an important thing, um, just, just to learn, just to learn about yourself and learn about, you know, how you operate and your mechanisms and all the neural networks that you have and, or don't have and. Finding ways to communicate with someone, you know, who is their own person. and you know you cohabitate

[Bryan]: 11:18

Yeah.

[Carter]: 11:19

with them and parent with them and it's um It's just an infinitely giving resource

[Bekah]: 11:27

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 11:27

Yeah, yeah. And there's such a, I feel like for men in particular, at least, you know, where we are in America and then zoom down even further into Texas, like men don't go to therapy. What would you go to therapy for? Just suck it up, move on, do your job. And that's so like, thankfully, there's been, I guess, a little bit of a movement in the past few years with everything that's been going on with everybody of like, come on, you know, talk to somebody.

[Carter]: 11:54

Hmm.

[Bryan]: 11:54

You don't need to just hold it all inside, but yeah, there's always been such a stigma about it. That's really harmful. And I'm glad that maybe that seems to be changing a little bit.

[Carter]: 12:05

Yeah, certainly. Are you utilizing that kind of changed frame of mind in your parenting with sons?

[Bekah]: 12:15

Yeah, definitely.

[Bryan]: 12:17

I'll let you expand on it, but I think definitely. Yeah. Yeah

[Bekah]: 12:21

Yeah, no, I was just gonna say, I feel very lucky that both our boys are seeing, being raised by someone by a man who's not afraid to show emotion and not afraid to say like, hey, I'm scared to or I'm sad to. And they get an example of that and they're both thankfully as well, they're comfortable sharing their emotions. I want them to feel like they don't have to be strong or be brave or anything like that. They can be sometimes, but they're also, they're just human. There's no masculine or feminine emotions. It's just everyone feels these emotions. And I think, I hope that I'm doing a good job in helping them, but it definitely helps for them to see, you know, their dad showing them as well. And it's, yeah, it's really good to be able to see that.

[Carter]: 13:10

Yeah, certainly.

[Bryan]: 13:11

Yeah.

[Carter]: 13:11

It's so Bronco.

[Bryan]: 13:14

Oh yeah, I was just agreeing. I mean, I think it's, it's pretty rewarding to see that your kids are willing to talk about their feelings. Cause you know, like I mentioned before, it's not not the dynamic in my house whole growing up with, I had a brother and a sister and you know, we really didn't talk with maybe a little bit with our mom, but dad didn't talk about emotions. You know, my brother and sister, nobody really did. So

[Carter]: 13:38

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 13:38

hopefully

[Carter]: 13:38

definitely.

[Bryan]: 13:39

this will carry out through, through, you know, our boys lives into their families.

[Carter]: 13:45

Yeah, I think it's a, it's super important, you know, with my family dynamic, uh, expressing any form of emotion, apart from like positive emotions where, you know, there was no kind of, uh, clap back or anything like that was fine. But if I was to ever like say to my parents that I'm angry at them for any sort of reason, it would most likely end in like some form of gaslighting. And it was my fault that I felt the way that I feel. And, you know, it was there was never any kind of admission of guilt on their part. And that's that's one of the really, really big lessons that I brought into parenting myself. You know, if I lose my temper and I yell at my kids, I will sit them down, apologize to them, tell them why, tell them the emotions that I felt, ask them if they forgive me, ask them if they need to talk about it any further, ask them if they need anything further from me. And I think, you know, aside from the guilt of, of cracking the shits at them in the first place, everyone cracks the sheets. Everyone's got that hard limit. And kids. know

[Bryan]: 14:56

Yeah.

[Carter]: 14:56

how to push the fuck out of it.

[Bekah]: 14:59

Me too.

[Bryan]: 15:00

Most

[Carter]: 15:00

So,

[Bryan]: 15:00

certainly,

[Carter]: 15:01

so I think

[Bryan]: 15:01

yes.

[Carter]: 15:01

I think anyone that says, you know, they don't lose their shit ever is, is probably not really being too honest with themselves or they just have such a amazing godlike grasp on their own emotions

[Bekah]: 15:19

Yeah.

[Carter]: 15:19

that is just

[Bryan]: 15:19

Yeah.

[Carter]: 15:20

unattainable for 99.9% of the parenting population. Um, but yeah, I think, I think, um, as far as, you know, trying to raise kids to be self-sufficient in their emotions and be able to feel comfortable in expressing their emotions, that's such an important part because they're sponges and they will emulate everything that you do.

[Bryan]: 15:41

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 15:41

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 15:43

Yeah,

[Bekah]: 15:43

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 15:43

absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Hearing you describe just this time your childhood and she's smiling because she knows what I'm going to say, I think. But that sounds like your childhood

[Bekah]: 15:54

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 15:55

and your adulthood, honestly. So I don't know how much you want to get

[Bekah]: 15:58

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 15:58

into that. But that reminds me of your parents to hear him say that.

[Bekah]: 16:02

Yeah, yeah, I mean, same thing. My mom especially has always had just a lot of major like mental health issues that she just never, she's gonna refuse to address really.

[Carter]: 16:16

Mm-hmm.

[Bekah]: 16:16

So just grew up with that. I think, I don't even know, she doesn't have a label necessarily, but there was a lot of ups and downs and manic and depressive episodes that I dealt with when I was starting when I was like seven or eight and I was the oldest. Yeah, it was a lot of like her doing that stuff and then saying, I don't know, nothing's wrong or whatever, I'm fine, it didn't happen. So yeah, that was definitely a fear of mine going into raising kids was like, how do you do this without having a good example at all? But I do think that that was where I met, when I met Brian, I met his mom and his family shortly after, and even though he said, They weren't raising the motion at the same time. His parents were just really overall great examples of parents and so being able to meet him and his family and waited like six years to have kids. But I think in those six years seeing his parents and they did, gosh, they were just really great parents, honestly, so compared to what, especially compared to what I was coming from. And that was one of the reasons why I was like, you know, I think I could do this actually. I think I might, I see an alternative way and I see a way where, you know, parents don't treat their kids like shit and don't gaslight them into thinking that, you know, it's the kid's fault for everything that's wrong in the world.

[Bryan]: 17:45

Right.

[Bekah]: 17:46

So yeah,

[Bryan]: 17:46

Yeah,

[Bekah]: 17:46

that

[Bryan]: 17:47

you

[Bekah]: 17:47

was.

[Bryan]: 17:47

didn't want kids for the longest time. I mean, not for the longest time, we only waited six years, but at first you didn't want kids at all for that reason.

[Bekah]: 17:55

Mm-hmm.

[Carter]: 17:56

Yeah,

[Bekah]: 17:56

No,

[Carter]: 17:56

I

[Bryan]: 17:56

And

[Bekah]: 17:56

I

[Carter]: 17:56

was

[Bekah]: 17:56

mean

[Bryan]: 17:56

it's

[Bekah]: 17:56

just

[Carter]: 17:56

the same.

[Bekah]: 17:57

because

[Bryan]: 17:57

even,

[Bekah]: 17:57

like why would I yeah, why would I have kids?

[Bryan]: 17:59

really?

[Bekah]: 17:59

I'm not Yeah, I mean

[Carter]: 18:01

Yeah, I was exactly the same. I, um, before I met my wife, I didn't want kids at all. I thought, why would I bring, bring kids into not only this absolutely fucking atrocious world, um, full of just hatred and, uh, power hunger and

[Bekah]: 18:19

Mm-hmm.

[Carter]: 18:19

just, just, just really toxic shit. Um, not only that, but, but bring them into this world where I was just not equipped to be a parent in the slightest. Uh, so meeting my wife and, uh, I still remember the first time we had the conversation about having kids. We were actually in Indonesia in Bali, uh, on our, on our first ever overseas holiday together. And we'd been, we'd been drinking cocktails by the pool all day. We were like 12 hours into a drinking marathon.

[Bekah]: 18:57

Nice.

[Carter]: 18:58

And, and, uh, and she'd had one too many espresso martinis and she was kind of cuddled up to me in the pool and looked into my eyes and said, I really, really want to have babies with you. And I was like, fuck no.

[Bekah]: 19:13

Yeah.

[Carter]: 19:13

I was like, that's, I was like, I love you to death and that scares the absolute crap out of me.

[Bekah]: 19:19

Yeah.

[Carter]: 19:20

And, and after that, we kind of talked about it more and I was like, well, You know, I love this, this person so much and I want to spend my entire existence with them and any life thereafter with her. So if this is something that she wants and she needs, because she explained to me ever since she can remember, she has always wanted to be a mother. I was like, this is something that I will need to give her in order to not keep her because that sounds a bit toxic. But

[Bekah]: 19:55

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 19:55

or...

[Carter]: 19:56

in order to

[Bryan]: 19:56

yeah.

[Carter]: 19:56

have her remain in my life. So,

[Bekah]: 19:59

Right.

[Carter]: 20:00

you know, as soon as the decision was made, yep, we're going to have kids. I like got onto like parenting books and how to be a dad

[Bryan]: 20:07

Yeah.

[Carter]: 20:07

and all that. And because of the ADHD, I didn't read any of them. But you know, the thought was there.

[Bekah]: 20:12

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 20:14

Oh, I feel

[Bekah]: 20:14

I'll

[Bryan]: 20:14

you.

[Bekah]: 20:14

bet.

[Bryan]: 20:15

Yeah,

[Carter]: 20:15

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 20:16

I feel you so much.

[Carter]: 20:18

But, you know, the second I held my firstborn, I was like, Oh, I'm I was born to be a father, like the love that I

[Bryan]: 20:26

That's

[Carter]: 20:26

felt. And

[Bryan]: 20:26

awesome.

[Carter]: 20:27

I was just like, I was like, yeah, this is the thing for me. And, and truly, it's, it's just been such a overwhelmingly positive life changing thing for me.

[Bryan]: 20:40

That's great.

[Carter]: 20:41

Yeah, it's absolutely awesome.

[Bryan]: 20:44

You have

[Carter]: 20:44

Excuse

[Bryan]: 20:44

three

[Carter]: 20:45

me.

[Bryan]: 20:45

children, is that right?

[Carter]: 20:46

I do have three. Yeah, I have a four year old girl, two year old boy and a nine month old girl.

[Bryan]: 20:53

Nice. You got

[Carter]: 20:54

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 20:54

the Loud House.

[Carter]: 20:57

it is quite loud. Yeah, my two year old boy was diagnosed autistic last year as well. So

[Bekah]: 21:03

Mm.

[Carter]: 21:03

he

[Bryan]: 21:03

Really.

[Carter]: 21:03

tends to be the loudest voice in the house.

[Bryan]: 21:06

I'm sure, yeah.

[Carter]: 21:08

Yeah, but,

[Bryan]: 21:09

Well,

[Carter]: 21:09

but they're all, they're all great.

[Bryan]: 21:10

that's

[Carter]: 21:10

And

[Bryan]: 21:10

cool.

[Carter]: 21:11

where, yeah, it's a house that's very, very filled with love. Regardless of

[Bryan]: 21:15

That's

[Carter]: 21:15

the

[Bryan]: 21:15

amazing.

[Carter]: 21:16

fights.

[Bekah]: 21:17

Yeah.

[Carter]: 21:18

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 21:18

That's

[Carter]: 21:18

no,

[Bryan]: 21:18

awesome.

[Carter]: 21:18

they're,

[Bryan]: 21:19

Did

[Carter]: 21:19

they're,

[Bryan]: 21:19

you,

[Carter]: 21:19

they're.

[Bryan]: 21:20

I'll ask, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

[Carter]: 21:22

Nah, nah, you're good.

[Bryan]: 21:24

I was just gonna ask you your question, what your mental health was like, on a day-to-day basis leading up to the first child. Were you a wreck?

[Carter]: 21:34

I was incredibly calm, but I owe it all to my wife because I knew nothing of pregnancy and I knew nothing of birth and anything like that. And you know, all I had to reference was movies and media where, you know, you do the slightest thing wrong and the pregnant one becomes a soul sucking demon. And

[Bekah]: 21:58

Yeah.

[Carter]: 21:59

tells you to get out of the house and she hates your guts and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, my wife was none of those things. Uh, she was

[Bryan]: 22:08

That's

[Carter]: 22:08

an

[Bryan]: 22:08

great.

[Carter]: 22:08

absolute rock throughout the entire thing, even though her health was pretty rocky. Uh, she had pretty

[Bekah]: 22:15

Hmm.

[Carter]: 22:15

clamps here. Uh, I believe

[Bekah]: 22:17

Oof.

[Carter]: 22:18

she, I don't believe she had, uh, the diabetes or anything like that, but I think it

[Bryan]: 22:26

Mm.

[Carter]: 22:26

was kind of leading towards that. So she ended up being induced. because her legs swelled up to balloons and like, I would

[Bekah]: 22:33

Mm.

[Carter]: 22:33

give her nightly

[Bryan]: 22:33

Oh

[Carter]: 22:34

foot

[Bryan]: 22:34

no.

[Carter]: 22:34

rubs and towards the end, I was able to like push my thumb into her foot and there was just, just the thumb print, like just stayed in her

[Bryan]: 22:42

Oh

[Carter]: 22:42

foot.

[Bryan]: 22:42

gosh.

[Carter]: 22:43

It was that swollen,

[Bekah]: 22:44

Oh my

[Carter]: 22:44

just

[Bekah]: 22:44

gosh.

[Carter]: 22:45

filled with fluid. Uh,

[Bryan]: 22:47

Yeah.

[Carter]: 22:47

so yeah, the pregnancy itself wasn't the best. She was the best though. Um, which really put me at ease and she was, uh,

[Bryan]: 22:56

That's great.

[Carter]: 22:57

she was not scared to show me. uh, birthing videos and things like that. There's an Instagram page called bad-ass mother birthers.

[Bekah]: 23:08

Oh my God.

[Bryan]: 23:09

Really? That

[Carter]: 23:10

And,

[Bryan]: 23:10

sounds

[Carter]: 23:10

and

[Bryan]: 23:11

awesome.

[Carter]: 23:11

it, it is, it is full frontal babies coming out and a

[Bryan]: 23:17

Wow.

[Carter]: 23:17

pair of apesiotomies and

[Bekah]: 23:20

Oh

[Carter]: 23:20

like

[Bekah]: 23:20

my god.

[Carter]: 23:21

water baths and the pools filled with poop. And

[Bekah]: 23:25

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

[Carter]: 23:25

it's like it's it really is a no holds barred view of birth. So I kind of

[Bryan]: 23:31

Wow.

[Carter]: 23:32

desensitized myself by watching some of those videos and

[Bryan]: 23:36

That's smart,

[Carter]: 23:37

not

[Bryan]: 23:37

really

[Carter]: 23:37

only desensitized

[Bryan]: 23:38

smart.

[Carter]: 23:38

but somewhat traumatized myself.

[Bekah]: 23:40

Yeah.

[Carter]: 23:41

It's full on.

[Bryan]: 23:42

Yeah.

[Carter]: 23:42

Anyone that says birth is a miracle is full of shit.

[Bekah]: 23:45

Oh

[Carter]: 23:45

It's

[Bekah]: 23:45

no.

[Carter]: 23:46

terrifying. It's so graphic.

[Bryan]: 23:49

Just primal,

[Bekah]: 23:50

Bye.

[Bryan]: 23:50

yeah.

[Carter]: 23:51

Yeah. Yeah. It's absolutely wild.

[Bekah]: 23:52

I didn't even want to, I just like tried to avoid most of it. And I was like trying to tell him the whole time. I was like, do not go down there. You stay by my head. I don't want you to look at me differently.

[Bryan]: 24:01

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 24:01

You stay by me. And the doctor was like, come here and see. And I was like, don't do it, stay here.

[Bryan]: 24:06

Both

[Carter]: 24:06

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 24:06

times

[Bekah]: 24:06

Did

[Carter]: 24:06

my wife

[Bekah]: 24:06

not

[Carter]: 24:07

was

[Bryan]: 24:07

the

[Bekah]: 24:07

want

[Carter]: 24:07

the

[Bryan]: 24:07

doctors

[Bekah]: 24:07

him

[Carter]: 24:07

same.

[Bekah]: 24:07

to.

[Bryan]: 24:07

basically grabbed me. Yeah.

[Bekah]: 24:09

I know, I was like, no, stay. I don't want to have anything. They were like, do you want a mirror? I was like, fuck no, I don't want, that's your job.

[Bryan]: 24:15

No,

[Bekah]: 24:15

I don't want to go down there.

[Bryan]: 24:16

a

[Carter]: 24:16

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 24:16

mirror? No,

[Bekah]: 24:17

You keep it.

[Bryan]: 24:18

I don't

[Bekah]: 24:18

I don't

[Bryan]: 24:18

want to see

[Bekah]: 24:18

want to

[Bryan]: 24:18

that.

[Bekah]: 24:18

know anything. That's just mine, I'm sure it's a miracle to other. I was like, I don't know, I don't want to think about it. Let's just get it over with and move on with my life. It's fine.

[Carter]: 24:27

Yeah, my

[Bryan]: 24:27

Right.

[Carter]: 24:27

wife was very much the same. She was like, you're not allowed to look down there. Why would you want to see your favorite

[Bryan]: 24:31

Yeah.

[Carter]: 24:32

pub

[Bekah]: 24:32

Exactly.

[Carter]: 24:32

to? Why would you want to see your favorite pub burn to the ground? Is her exact

[Bekah]: 24:36

Exactly.

[Carter]: 24:36

words?

[Bryan]: 24:38

That

[Carter]: 24:38

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 24:38

is genius. That's the

[Carter]: 24:40

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 24:40

best way I've ever heard it putt, I think.

[Carter]: 24:41

But I think a couple of hours into active labor, I was like, I'm pretty keen to have a quick gander.

[Bekah]: 24:48

Yeah.

[Carter]: 24:48

So I was

[Bryan]: 24:48

Hahaha

[Carter]: 24:49

like, babe, I was like, babe, because the doctor goes, oh, she's crowning. And I was like, can I have a look? And she goes,

[Bekah]: 24:54

Hey.

[Carter]: 24:55

Okay.

[Bekah]: 24:56

Hey.

[Carter]: 24:56

And then I looked and I'm like, you shouldn't have done that.

[Bekah]: 24:59

Hahahaha

[Bryan]: 25:02

Never be able to unsee

[Bekah]: 25:03

Hehehehe

[Bryan]: 25:03

that.

[Carter]: 25:04

Yeah, but I mean, the birth itself was pretty traumatic. I'm sure you've probably heard in previous episodes.

[Bekah]: 25:10

Mm.

[Carter]: 25:10

I won't tell it again, because I don't want to have to retell that in every episode.

[Bekah]: 25:15

Yeah.

[Carter]: 25:15

The listeners will get sick of it. But yeah, I mean, the first time I held held my daughter, I was just as just so overwhelming. You know, she just was just like, wow, you I like I helped make you

[Bekah]: 25:31

Mm-hmm.

[Carter]: 25:32

And, and,

[Bryan]: 25:33

Yeah

[Carter]: 25:33

and now you're my problem for the rest of my life. And that's

[Bryan]: 25:38

Yeah,

[Bekah]: 25:38

Yeah.

[Carter]: 25:38

both very scary,

[Bryan]: 25:39

it's a f-

[Carter]: 25:39

but very exciting.

[Bryan]: 25:42

Yeah, it's a very unique feeling for sure. Like it's hard to process.

[Carter]: 25:47

Yeah, did you cut the cord Brian?

[Bryan]: 25:51

I think so. Yeah, I did. Right. I think

[Bekah]: 25:53

I think,

[Bryan]: 25:53

I was in such

[Bekah]: 25:54

I

[Bryan]: 25:54

a

[Bekah]: 25:54

think

[Bryan]: 25:54

blur.

[Bekah]: 25:54

you did.

[Bryan]: 25:56

I think the doctors pretty much just kind of grabbed me by the hand and walked me through everything

[Bekah]: 26:01

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 26:01

as

[Carter]: 26:01

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 26:01

it

[Carter]: 26:01

he

[Bryan]: 26:01

was

[Carter]: 26:02

just

[Bryan]: 26:02

going

[Carter]: 26:02

kind of

[Bryan]: 26:02

because I

[Carter]: 26:02

went

[Bryan]: 26:02

was just

[Carter]: 26:03

autopilot.

[Bryan]: 26:04

yeah.

[Bekah]: 26:04

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 26:04

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I think I did for both of them. Oh, yeah.

[Carter]: 26:10

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 26:10

Yeah,

[Carter]: 26:10

I was.

[Bryan]: 26:11

I know I did because I remember it being tougher to do than I thought it was going to be. I remember that.

[Carter]: 26:15

exactly what I was about to say.

[Bryan]: 26:18

Really.

[Carter]: 26:20

It was incredible how tough it was.

[Bryan]: 26:24

Yeah.

[Carter]: 26:25

I expected

[Bryan]: 26:25

Yeah.

[Carter]: 26:25

like surgical scissors to just kind of glide through it like butter,

[Bryan]: 26:28

Right,

[Carter]: 26:29

but

[Bryan]: 26:29

just,

[Carter]: 26:29

you really had to put some

[Bryan]: 26:30

it's not.

[Carter]: 26:30

effort

[Bryan]: 26:30

Yeah,

[Carter]: 26:30

into it.

[Bryan]: 26:33

he really did, yeah. It was like a tree root or something, I don't know.

[Carter]: 26:37

Hehehe

[Bryan]: 26:38

It was much more difficult than I thought, yeah.

[Carter]: 26:40

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 26:41

Yeah, that's crazy.

[Carter]: 26:44

So, so I'll go back to Becca, because we did discuss a little bit about your family. But in

[Bekah]: 26:50

Mm-hmm.

[Carter]: 26:50

in your guest submission, you have said that you are semi estranged from your family now, is that right?

[Bekah]: 26:58

Yes, yeah, I've always had issues with them at one point. Let's see, back before my youngest was born, 2013, I did initiate like a about two year period where I didn't talk to them. I did offer to, they were at the hospital for my first born and I was sort of in the middle of that for the second one. And I did tell them like, hey, you can still come to the hospital for your grandson. and they decided not to and they just didn't show up and didn't see him until he was quite a bit older. And then about four years ago, I guess, they actually stopped speaking to me. And so I haven't, I've spoken to them a handful of times, my parents, due to like my brothers were in like a, like an accident or something, went to the hospital or something. And it was like a very brief, like, hey, you know, here's how he's doing. And then that's it, bye. But yeah, so I have not, I do have like a, because I have three younger siblings. Two of them do talk or, actually I don't know for sure. I know my youngest sister talks to them, she lives with them still. And I have like a strained relationship with her. I speak to her, but we haven't seen each other in years. But we're on like, just decent enough terms.

[Carter]: 28:20

Mm.

[Bekah]: 28:21

And then my brother's, one of them does not talk to my parents. but we have a good relationship with him. And then the other one is having his own issues and is off not talking to anybody in the family because he needs, I don't know, he's just off doing his own thing. So yeah, it's very just sort of complicated and it's better and I'm fine since not having a contact with him. Being in contact with him always caused a lot of strain on me and Brian and our family.

[Carter]: 28:56

Mm-hmm.

[Bekah]: 28:56

Every time we were around them, it was very stressful and draining and exhausting. And they're very narcissistic and they gaslight and they just are so just exhausting. And just mentally

[Bryan]: 29:11

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 29:11

abusive, emotionally neglectful, all that kind of stuff. So it's really just better that it's like this. Not

[Carter]: 29:17

yet.

[Bekah]: 29:17

to say it's not difficult still, of course, but it is better.

[Carter]: 29:21

Yeah, certainly. So after, after you kind of went no contact with your family, you, I'm sure both of you were relying on Brian's family quite a bit in the early stages of being parents and things like that. And unfortunately, Brian, your mother passed away just just shy of the American COVID lockdown. Is that right?

[Bryan]: 29:50

That's right. Yeah. I think we the last time we saw your parents was 2018. It's been five years now,

[Bekah]: 29:58

Oh, okay.

[Bryan]: 29:58

which is crazy.

[Bekah]: 29:59

Time flies.

[Bryan]: 30:00

But yeah, I mean, they were everything to us, my parents being they were everything to us and to our kids, you know, really the only grandparents, the only babysitters, the only people that our kids could go stay at night with when we when we go out and then yeah, so I guess about a year and a half after we lost your family, we lost my mom, which just completely fucked everything. Of course, like she was, as you know, I'm sure, she was the glue that kind of held everybody together. So my sister's family and my brother's family and my dad, we all just kind of, you know, with the pandemic and then not having mom to bring us all together, things were wild. Like that's, it was, it just felt like everything was broken. like you mentioned with the parenting, because I feel like you need people outside of just yourselves when you have kids to be able to keep you sane and, you know, watch them for a while, but also love them and give them other attention outside of their parents. And we didn't have that. And my dad is just wonderful with my boys, but he also relied so much on my mom to, you know, set up. meetings or like make the phone calls and remember the birthdays and send the cards and stuff and she was gone. So he was lost for, you know, a good while, a solid year after that just with even with his own anxiety as well. Like he, he, I think had named his nervous feeling for the first time in his life after that too. Briefly got on, you know, I think he was taken Xanax a couple of times here and there for panic attacks, which is something you know, obviously he had never done either. So yeah, everything just felt shattered for, you know, even up to this day, sometimes it still feels that way. But

[Bekah]: 31:50

Hmm.

[Bryan]: 31:51

like you said, it never, you don't ever get over it. You don't ever completely heal from it, but I guess you learn to live with the new normal. And so that's what we've been doing. We're, you know, it's easier now without all the lockdowns and restrictions. We can, you know, get back together with my family, which is... You know, it's not a huge family, but it is a solid group of people who we can love on each other's kids and be there for each other. So

[Carter]: 32:15

Mm

[Bryan]: 32:15

yeah, it's been a hell of

[Carter]: 32:16

hmm.

[Bryan]: 32:16

a few years for sure.

[Carter]: 32:18

Yeah, definitely. First of all, I'm terribly sorry for your loss. We were discussing before

[Bryan]: 32:24

Thank

[Carter]: 32:24

I

[Bryan]: 32:24

you.

[Carter]: 32:24

also lost my mother in 2015 after a

[Bryan]: 32:27

Yeah.

[Carter]: 32:27

16 year

[Bryan]: 32:27

So

[Carter]: 32:27

battle

[Bryan]: 32:28

sorry

[Carter]: 32:28

with

[Bryan]: 32:28

for

[Carter]: 32:28

cancer.

[Bryan]: 32:28

your loss too, yeah.

[Bekah]: 32:30

Oh.

[Carter]: 32:30

Yeah, as we said before, mate, you know, it is what it is. It's not something that you can ever, you can ever kind of, you can't bring them back, but you just have to learn to deal with them and celebrate their memories and You know, I think my biggest hurdle was once I became a father, the fact that my kids never got to meet her.

[Bekah]: 32:51

Mm.

[Carter]: 32:51

And I held, I wouldn't say resentment, but jealousy towards my, my older sister because she had kids that got to meet her and you know, they were old

[Bryan]: 33:00

Ah.

[Carter]: 33:00

enough to have that relationship with her. And she was an absolutely amazing grandmother. But my kids, are very, very aware of who she is. And we have pictures up of her and my

[Bryan]: 33:15

Nice.

[Carter]: 33:15

daughter likes to, I'm not sure on what I believe as far as like afterlife and spirits and things like that go, but when my daughter was two and she was old enough to walk and talk, she walked up to the photo of my mom that we have just behind me. And I had never talked to her about her. And I said, Who's that babe? And she said, that's nan nan.

[Bekah]: 33:43

Ugh.

[Bryan]: 33:43

Wow.

[Carter]: 33:44

And

[Bekah]: 33:44

Wow.

[Carter]: 33:45

like, I've never called

[Bryan]: 33:46

That's

[Carter]: 33:46

her

[Bryan]: 33:46

so

[Carter]: 33:46

nan

[Bryan]: 33:46

cool.

[Carter]: 33:46

nan or anything like that. And I was like, that's nan nan. And I was like, okay, who's nan nan? She said, that's your mommy.

[Bekah]: 33:53

Oh, wow.

[Carter]: 33:54

Um,

[Bryan]: 33:54

Oh wow.

[Carter]: 33:55

and then we kind of, my wife, my wife's super into that sort of thing. I'm, I'm on the fence, you know, some things are just unexplainable and,

[Bekah]: 34:03

Mm-hmm.

[Carter]: 34:03

and whatnot, but we kind of pry it a little bit further and, uh, she said, Nan Nan comes to visit us sometimes.

[Bryan]: 34:12

Oh my gosh,

[Bekah]: 34:12

Wow.

[Bryan]: 34:13

wow.

[Carter]: 34:13

On our birthdays, Nan Nan comes to visit us. And she doesn't say anything, but she's just there to watch.

[Bryan]: 34:20

That's beautiful.

[Bekah]: 34:20

Oh my

[Carter]: 34:21

So

[Bekah]: 34:21

god,

[Carter]: 34:21

it's yeah,

[Bekah]: 34:21

I have chills.

[Carter]: 34:22

it's pretty um

[Bekah]: 34:22

I have goosebumps. That's amazing.

[Bryan]: 34:25

Yeah.

[Carter]: 34:26

It's hard. It is hard that, that, that she's not there, but, um, you know, To my kids, she's there and that's

[Bekah]: 34:33

Yeah.

[Carter]: 34:34

all that matters.

[Bryan]: 34:34

Yeah, I was going to say apparently she is there, which is pretty damn cool. Like that's,

[Carter]: 34:38

It's yeah, it is.

[Bryan]: 34:39

it would

[Carter]: 34:39

It's

[Bryan]: 34:39

take

[Carter]: 34:40

it's.

[Bryan]: 34:40

me a while to even be able to speak again after something like that. That's amazing.

[Bekah]: 34:43

Yeah.

[Carter]: 34:43

It's pretty cool. Yeah, it's super cool. Until like the other night, my son was laying in bed with me and he pointed at the open doorway and he goes, dad a ghost. And I was like, no fucking

[Bryan]: 34:52

Okay,

[Bekah]: 34:52

Hahaha!

[Carter]: 34:52

stop. Ha ha ha. Ha ha ha.

[Bryan]: 34:55

yeah. Yeah, it's all about the timing and what the moment is. Yeah, because ghosts are still ghosts. Still

[Carter]: 35:01

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 35:01

fucking scary.

[Carter]: 35:02

yeah, straight up straight up. And then

[Bryan]: 35:06

Wow.

[Carter]: 35:06

you know, my daughter

[Bekah]: 35:07

Thanks for watching!

[Carter]: 35:07

even like my daughter has such an amazing sense of humor. And the other night, we play this silly game where she'll say something and then I'll tell her that her face is that thing. So she'll be like, I just farted and I'll be like your face is a fart.

[Bekah]: 35:23

Ha ha ha!

[Carter]: 35:24

And then

[Bryan]: 35:24

Hahaha

[Carter]: 35:24

she'll shoot she'll be like your, your face is a fart and then it'll kind of, you know, evolve into something further. And then somehow, I don't know. I don't know exactly how it got to where it got. But she, she turned around, she goes, Yeah, well, you don't have a mom. And I was like,

[Bekah]: 35:40

Oh my god.

[Bryan]: 35:40

Oh!

[Carter]: 35:42

Jesus Christ.

[Bryan]: 35:44

Hahaha!

[Carter]: 35:45

And both

[Bekah]: 35:46

That

[Carter]: 35:46

my

[Bekah]: 35:46

is

[Carter]: 35:46

wife

[Bekah]: 35:46

so good.

[Carter]: 35:46

and I were just like, Jesus, that's rough. And then my daughter realized that she said something a bit mean, and she ended up in tears. And I had

[Bekah]: 35:55

Oh

[Carter]: 35:55

to comfort

[Bekah]: 35:55

no.

[Carter]: 35:56

her

[Bryan]: 35:56

Oh,

[Carter]: 35:56

even though she broke my heart.

[Bryan]: 35:58

right,

[Bekah]: 35:59

Oh

[Bryan]: 35:59

right.

[Bekah]: 35:59

my God.

[Carter]: 36:00

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 36:00

Well, that's the difficulties of being a parent. Nothing makes sense.

[Carter]: 36:05

That's it. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, I love the fact that she can joke about those things, but

[Bekah]: 36:10

Mm-hmm.

[Carter]: 36:11

then also see

[Bryan]: 36:11

Oh

[Carter]: 36:11

the

[Bryan]: 36:11

yeah.

[Carter]: 36:12

see the fault in it. And then, you know, even as a four year old, she possesses empathy, because she's realized that that

[Bryan]: 36:18

Mm-hmm.

[Carter]: 36:18

might have hurt daddy's feelings. And now she's upset. So it's

[Bryan]: 36:22

Yeah.

[Carter]: 36:22

those it's those little things and the little kind of the little gray areas of life where you kind of realize that you're doing a pretty damn good job of being

[Bekah]: 36:30

Yeah.

[Carter]: 36:30

a parent.

[Bekah]: 36:32

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 36:32

Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. We've had, I guess, really similar, I say similar, but like the exact same thing, basically our youngest made a joke like that and then he kind of watched us to see if you're laughing or if you're smiling or crying

[Bekah]: 36:46

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 36:46

or whatever and goes with it that way too. So yeah, it is the gray areas of life. The way you put that is perfect.

[Carter]: 36:55

Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, what else? Let's have a quick look here. Uh, so you talked about, uh, big feelings and, uh, learning how to process emotions and handle big feelings as a family.

[Bekah]: 37:08

Hmm.

[Carter]: 37:09

Can you share some insights on how you and your family learned to process those emotions and the big feelings that came with it?

[Bekah]: 37:16

Yeah. So, so our boys did, they were, they did get a chance to know, we'll call her Mimi, that's what we all called her was Mimi. So they did get a chance to know Mimi quite a bit actually. We, we lived with his parents actually for about two years. Right around my youngest was born. So they were really raised by her a lot. She was like a second mother to them. She would watch them, you know, if we had to go do stuff. And then, and then we even lived very close to them in same city for a couple of years after that. And they would go spend the night at our house, like we mentioned almost every weekend, or she would call to invite them over. And there was just, the comfort level with her was the same, you know, as us. I mean, they viewed her just as another parent. So. You know, she was also, was it 2017, we found out she had stage four breast cancer and it was very sudden and it was like, hey, it's bad already.

[Carter]: 38:21

Mm-hmm.

[Bekah]: 38:22

So

[Bryan]: 38:22

Mm-hmm.

[Bekah]: 38:22

we kind of went through that, she went through chemo and they had to, you know, they were still kind of young. They started kind of process watching her go through that and they watched her lose her hair and she got a wig and we all tried it on and laughed and laughed about how silly. that kind of thing. And they were still, you know, they were still, what were they like, maybe seven and something like that.

[Bryan]: 38:47

Yeah, the oldest was six or seven, the youngest five or so.

[Bekah]: 38:53

Yeah. So then, like I said, she right in February of 2020, she ended up, she had gone through chemo and her tumor marker counts were kind of normalizing. She was feeling pretty good. And then it was just a weekend. She, the Saturday was very sudden and she lost consciousness and passed away like within what, 24 hours or something or 48?

[Bryan]: 39:21

Yeah, yeah, Les. Yeah, she

[Bekah]: 39:25

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 39:26

turned out that she had, what's the term? She had a heart attack basically, but she had

[Bekah]: 39:31

Mm-hmm.

[Bryan]: 39:32

coronary artery disease from, you know, she smoked for 40, 50 years, something like that. You know,

[Bekah]: 39:41

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 39:42

never occurred to us. Like the cancer was the thing, that was the obvious thing. She had stage four cancer for three years

[Bekah]: 39:47

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 39:47

and then something seemingly unrelated. is what ended up happening, which was just, you know, it's like, what the fuck? You can't, you feel like you're making some progress and believe out of the blue happens.

[Bekah]: 40:02

Yeah.

[Carter]: 40:02

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 40:03

So yeah,

[Bryan]: 40:04

And

[Bekah]: 40:04

I mean, they.

[Bryan]: 40:04

so the kids, yeah.

[Bekah]: 40:06

Yeah, so

[Bryan]: 40:06

Go

[Bekah]: 40:06

I remember,

[Bryan]: 40:07

ahead.

[Bekah]: 40:07

you know, they were we were up to the hospital and they had stayed with a family friend, you know, and you never really know quite what to tell them, because, you know, they're kind of old enough to know, but they also they care a lot. I was Mimi. So yeah. So I remember, you know, we had to go get them from after the hospital and pick them up and you know, telling me pulled over to Park and Lawn, telling them that night was, you know, is there a, we had already done all our crying with the family and all that, but having, you know, we all, all the kids were going home. We were all going to pick up our children from where they were. And I remember leaving the hospital and we were like, fuck, now we all have to go tell our children. And that

[Carter]: 40:52

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 40:52

was like just the worst feeling of all of us. It was like, not only did we have to go through that, now we have to go put our kids through that. And. Yeah, that was just

[Bryan]: 41:03

Yeah,

[Carter]: 41:03

explaining.

[Bryan]: 41:03

they

[Bekah]: 41:03

the worst

[Bryan]: 41:03

took

[Bekah]: 41:03

feeling

[Bryan]: 41:04

it.

[Bekah]: 41:04

I've ever experienced.

[Carter]: 41:06

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 41:06

Yeah.

[Carter]: 41:07

Explaining death to your children is, is one of the hardest things I think you can do as a parent because you literally, you're taking away some of their innocence.

[Bekah]: 41:18

Right,

[Carter]: 41:18

It sucks.

[Bekah]: 41:19

yeah,

[Carter]: 41:20

It

[Bekah]: 41:20

it

[Carter]: 41:20

sucks.

[Bekah]: 41:20

really did.

[Carter]: 41:21

You want to shield

[Bryan]: 41:22

It does.

[Carter]: 41:22

them and you and I'm not sure if you guys are religious. semi semi so

[Bekah]: 41:30

That experience

[Bryan]: 41:30

Hahaha!

[Bekah]: 41:31

kind of fucked what was left of it, so I'll put it that way.

[Carter]: 41:33

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 41:33

Yeah.

[Carter]: 41:34

So did you kind of fall back on on religion and heaven and things like that in explaining it to your kids?

[Bryan]: 41:41

I think it's

[Carter]: 41:42

I shouldn't

[Bekah]: 41:42

I mean...

[Carter]: 41:42

say

[Bryan]: 41:42

for

[Carter]: 41:42

fall

[Bryan]: 41:42

us,

[Carter]: 41:42

back

[Bryan]: 41:43

it's

[Carter]: 41:43

but

[Bekah]: 41:43

No, yeah.

[Bryan]: 41:44

right. No, totally, totally. Yeah. We have a long history with like Christianity and the church. We were both raised that way and started to, I guess, deconstruct. Like you hear that word thrown around a lot these days, but prior to that. And so that, like, if we were on the fence and trying to figure things out, that made us like, okay, fuck this. If they're. you know, at that time, we're thinking if there is a God, then why did he just take mom and make us have to explain this to our kids? So that was kind of, I think, our initial reaction. But eventually, we were able to sort things out a little bit with that, I think, and separate it from the harm that we had experienced growing up with from, you know, what we believe really is the truth, which is, you know, souls and spirits and some form of heaven. or whatever you want to, we believe that Mimi was still somewhere. So, uh, yeah, I'd say we,

[Carter]: 42:44

Ahem.

[Bryan]: 42:44

we fell back on a version of it anyway.

[Carter]: 42:47

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 42:48

Yeah.

[Carter]: 42:49

Yeah. When my kids were, or when my daughter was old enough to start asking the questions of, you know, like, why isn't Nan Nan here? I think it was around her, maybe her third birthday. She wanted to know why Nan Nan wasn't coming to her birthday party. Itchy eye, I'm not crying.

[Bryan]: 43:05

Wow.

[Carter]: 43:06

Not that that's a bad thing.

[Bryan]: 43:08

Yeah, if

[Bekah]: 43:08

Let

[Bryan]: 43:08

you

[Bekah]: 43:08

it

[Bryan]: 43:09

are,

[Bekah]: 43:09

out,

[Bryan]: 43:09

it's

[Bekah]: 43:09

we're

[Bryan]: 43:09

okay.

[Bekah]: 43:09

good.

[Carter]: 43:10

I'll cry with all of yous, I don't care.

[Bryan]: 43:13

Yeah.

[Carter]: 43:14

And I was, I was at a loss for words. I didn't know, uh, how, how to explain it. And every part of, I was raised Catholic. Uh, I am not practicing Catholic. I do not have any form of faith towards, uh, religion or anything like that. Um, that's my own journey. Doesn't

[Bekah]: 43:33

Mm-hmm.

[Carter]: 43:33

matter.

[Bryan]: 43:34

Yeah,

[Carter]: 43:34

Um,

[Bryan]: 43:36

we

[Carter]: 43:36

I, I,

[Bryan]: 43:36

understand.

[Carter]: 43:36

yeah,

[Bryan]: 43:37

Don't worry.

[Carter]: 43:37

I, I literally just, I literally just said to her, I, I'm not sure how I can answer you right now. Let

[Bekah]: 43:43

Mm-hmm.

[Carter]: 43:43

me think about

[Bryan]: 43:43

Mm-hmm.

[Carter]: 43:43

it and we'll talk about it another day. And, uh, I'm not sure if you guys know about, uh, dad, which is a, uh, sub Reddit,

[Bekah]: 43:52

Mm.

[Carter]: 43:52

uh, group it's like, I think it's like 7 million members, uh, on Reddit.

[Bryan]: 43:59

Oh wow.

[Carter]: 44:00

And it's, it's an absolutely amazing resource and you have, you know, millions of dads and even moms are on there that like to just kind of watch, but it's, uh, it's been a very valuable tool. for me to workshop my own emotions or ask for advice on how other people have broached hard topics that I didn't know how to converse with my children. So I went straight onto data and I said,

[Bryan]: 44:25

That's

[Carter]: 44:25

Hey,

[Bryan]: 44:25

awesome.

[Carter]: 44:26

my kids starting to ask questions about death. I do not want to give them the religion spiel. How do I go about it? And one, there was a lot of like very pro religion, like, you know, You have to say this, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then there was one

[Bryan]: 44:45

Right.

[Carter]: 44:45

comment out of a couple hundred that just resonated so well with me. And it was just be completely honest, be completely honest with them. And so I sat my daughter down the next day and I said, okay, there's 7 point something billion people in this world, baby. And there are hundreds of religions and... A lot of people believe in this religion, and I listed a whole bunch of religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Catholicism, et cetera, et cetera. They all believe in some form of God and some form of afterlife. Some people believe that you get reincarnated, which means that your soul transfers over to another human and blah, blah, blah, blah. I tried to explain it in, you know, much more understandable words

[Bekah]: 45:36

Yeah.

[Carter]: 45:37

for her. Um, but I, I was just

[Bryan]: 45:38

Yeah.

[Carter]: 45:39

completely honest with her. I said, you know, these people believe this, these people believe that daddy doesn't believe in those types of things. Daddy believes that once you pass, that's just the end. There's just nothing further. Um, Mommy believes in something different when you're old enough. If you want to explore your faith and explore, you know, anything that you're interested in or feel like is drawing you towards. That's entirely up to you. We will never push any form of religion on you. That's your journey. And she was just like, cool. And just kept playing with her toys. And I was like,

[Bryan]: 46:16

Okay.

[Bekah]: 46:16

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[Carter]: 46:17

sweet,

[Bekah]: 46:17

All right.

[Carter]: 46:17

I'm glad I had this chat

[Bryan]: 46:18

Nice.

[Carter]: 46:18

with you.

[Bekah]: 46:19

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 46:21

That's awesome.

[Carter]: 46:22

But I think that really,

[Bryan]: 46:23

Yeah, with

[Carter]: 46:24

really

[Bryan]: 46:24

a kid,

[Carter]: 46:24

laid.

[Bryan]: 46:24

I feel like that's... Yeah, I'm probably going to say the same thing as you. It sounds like that's about as well as you could have hoped that it went... It could have gone.

[Carter]: 46:33

Yeah, it really laid a pretty solid foundation for them to kind of deal with death. Not too long ago,

[Bryan]: 46:41

That's

[Carter]: 46:41

unfortunately,

[Bryan]: 46:41

great.

[Carter]: 46:41

they actually experienced firsthand a death. We were driving home from getting some groceries and we happened upon a horrific accident on the road. I live in a small country town. So all the roads have just got massive, massive trees on both sides and This elderly couple was driving just going about their day. It was a Saturday, Arvo beautiful day and a tree just fell on their car Just out of nowhere while they were

[Bryan]: 47:11

No

[Carter]: 47:11

driving

[Bryan]: 47:11

way!

[Bekah]: 47:11

Oh my god.

[Carter]: 47:13

So I was driving down the road.

[Bryan]: 47:14

Holy

[Carter]: 47:14

I see this

[Bryan]: 47:14

cow.

[Carter]: 47:14

massive tree

[Bekah]: 47:15

Thank you.

[Carter]: 47:16

laid across the road. I've got all three of my kids in the back so I pull over and I Was the first person on saying apart from neighbors they'd come out to see what was going on and I was

[Bekah]: 47:29

Mm.

[Carter]: 47:30

like, what's going on? They're like, there's a car under the tree and I'm like, shit, I'm like,

[Bryan]: 47:35

Yeah.

[Carter]: 47:35

I've got my kids, but like, with my job, I'm trained in first aid and I was like, I can't just leave this,

[Bekah]: 47:44

Yeah.

[Carter]: 47:44

I need to see if they're okay. So the neighbor that was out on the road was like, I'll watch your kids. So I just ran in. And the driver was trying to get out of the car to rip the car door open for him. Uh, and I got him out and there was a bit of, a bit of blood and whatnot. And I was like, you know, are you okay? You okay? It was there. Anyone else with you? And he goes, yeah, I'm okay. But I think my wife's pretty buggered. Uh, and then I looked down

[Bryan]: 48:12

Oh no.

[Carter]: 48:13

through the driver's side, uh, door and where his wife would have been sitting was just a tree trunk. Yeah.

[Bekah]: 48:20

Oh my god.

[Carter]: 48:21

And the instant I saw

[Bekah]: 48:22

Wow.

[Carter]: 48:22

that I'm like, yeah, no, there's, there's no getting out of that one. Uh, so naturally I was, I was

[Bryan]: 48:27

Wow.

[Carter]: 48:27

quite upset and, uh,

[Bekah]: 48:29

Hmm.

[Carter]: 48:30

you know, I was kind of giving him some first aid and whatnot. And then I can hear my kids like screaming for me because

[Bekah]: 48:36

Yeah.

[Carter]: 48:37

they don't know what's going on. They're scared. They've got someone that they've never met watching them. So I was like,

[Bekah]: 48:42

Thank you.

[Carter]: 48:43

I've done all I can. Ambulance on the way. I need to get my kids out of here. You know, they're the priority.

[Bryan]: 48:49

Wow.

[Carter]: 48:49

Um, so, so yeah, so I jumped in the car and, and, uh, did a U-turn and, and left and my kids were full of questions. Uh, cause

[Bekah]: 48:58

Yeah.

[Carter]: 48:58

obviously I'm driving down the

[Bryan]: 48:59

I

[Carter]: 48:59

road

[Bryan]: 48:59

was going

[Carter]: 49:00

with

[Bryan]: 49:00

to say, yeah.

[Carter]: 49:01

tears streaming down my face. Cause I've just seen something pretty bloody traumatic. Um, and you know, kind of, I'm a pretty empathetic person. So I'm sitting there being like, well, this dude's just lost his wife. Uh, I was, yeah, I was very overcome. So that, you know, they had

[Bryan]: 49:19

I'm

[Carter]: 49:19

a

[Bryan]: 49:19

sure,

[Carter]: 49:19

lot of questions

[Bryan]: 49:19

yeah.

[Carter]: 49:19

that I had to answer.

[Bekah]: 49:20

Yeah.

[Carter]: 49:21

And they grieved it in their own way as well. So anytime that I would get angry for the next couple of weeks after that, or like a bit sad or anything like that. My daughter actually was very comforting. My oldest she would come and sit on sit

[Bryan]: 49:36

Nice.

[Carter]: 49:36

beside me and put her hand on my knee and be like he said about that man's mom.

[Bryan]: 49:43

Aww,

[Bekah]: 49:43

Oh

[Carter]: 49:44

So I was like,

[Bryan]: 49:44

that's

[Carter]: 49:44

it was his

[Bryan]: 49:44

so

[Carter]: 49:45

wife.

[Bryan]: 49:45

sweet.

[Carter]: 49:45

It was she goes And I go, yeah, I'm a little bit sad about it. She goes, I'm very sad about it too, dad,

[Bekah]: 49:51

Oh

[Carter]: 49:51

but

[Bekah]: 49:51

wow.

[Carter]: 49:51

that's okay. Cause we can

[Bryan]: 49:52

Ugh.

[Carter]: 49:52

be sad together.

[Bekah]: 49:54

Oh, yeah.

[Bryan]: 49:56

that's amazing. Wow.

[Carter]: 49:57

Yeah, she's

[Bryan]: 49:58

Gosh,

[Carter]: 49:58

pretty cool.

[Bryan]: 50:00

had you seen anything like that first hand before? You said you'd been trained in first aid, but that would really mess me up having not been in a situation like that.

[Carter]: 50:11

Yeah, look, I, um, as far as like seeing death, uh, I was there when my mother passed, um,

[Bekah]: 50:18

Hmm.

[Carter]: 50:18

not only that, but I was her carer for the final 12 months of her life. Um, and, and I, so I watched every day, the cancer just spread, uh, throughout

[Bekah]: 50:30

Hmm.

[Carter]: 50:30

her body, uh, to the point where.

[Bryan]: 50:32

which is horrible.

[Carter]: 50:34

I mean, I still remember like it was yesterday, the night where I realized that there's definitely cancer in her brain. because my mum was 62 when she passed and it was about 3am and I woke up to this incredibly loud music playing coming from her room and I run down and she's up on her phone like hitting the phone and she just looked super confused and I was like what are you doing? It was Nicki Minaj playing by the way which

[Bryan]: 51:05

Wow.

[Carter]: 51:06

as a 62 year old mother you wouldn't expect Nicki Minaj, you know, she was more

[Bekah]: 51:11

Oh

[Carter]: 51:11

into

[Bekah]: 51:11

my

[Carter]: 51:11

like

[Bekah]: 51:11

gosh.

[Carter]: 51:11

Creedence

[Bekah]: 51:11

Ha

[Carter]: 51:11

Clearwater Revival and

[Bekah]: 51:13

ha!

[Bryan]: 51:14

Hey,

[Carter]: 51:14

Kenny

[Bryan]: 51:14

that's

[Carter]: 51:14

Rogers

[Bryan]: 51:14

amazing.

[Carter]: 51:15

and, and things like that. So I was like, what is going on? And she was like, I'm trying to print it.

[Bekah]: 51:21

Oh

[Carter]: 51:21

And

[Bekah]: 51:21

my

[Carter]: 51:21

I was

[Bekah]: 51:21

goodness.

[Carter]: 51:21

like, I was

[Bryan]: 51:22

Wow.

[Carter]: 51:22

like, you're trying to print what she's I'm trying to print the song. And I was like, Oh,

[Bryan]: 51:25

Oh,

[Carter]: 51:26

fuck.

[Bryan]: 51:27

yeah,

[Carter]: 51:27

That's

[Bryan]: 51:27

you knew,

[Carter]: 51:27

that's not

[Bryan]: 51:28

you

[Carter]: 51:28

a

[Bryan]: 51:28

knew.

[Carter]: 51:28

good sign. That's not a good sign. And I think like two days later, we put her we didn't put her but she was sent to hospice, hospice

[Bekah]: 51:37

Hmm.

[Carter]: 51:37

care or

[Bryan]: 51:38

Yeah,

[Bekah]: 51:38

Yeah.

[Carter]: 51:38

whatever

[Bryan]: 51:39

yeah.

[Carter]: 51:39

it's called. And then I think maybe two days after that is when she passed. Um,

[Bekah]: 51:43

Hmm.

[Bryan]: 51:43

Wow.

[Carter]: 51:44

so yeah, as far as seeing traumatic things, I think that really takes the cake, you know, when it's your own

[Bryan]: 51:49

Yeah,

[Carter]: 51:49

mother.

[Bekah]: 51:49

Yeah.

[Carter]: 51:51

Um,

[Bryan]: 51:51

most definitely. Yeah,

[Carter]: 51:53

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 51:54

this is neither here nor there, but I just found it interesting. My mom also was 62, and one of her favorite bands was Creed and Silerotta Revival too. So,

[Carter]: 52:03

Yeah, rad.

[Bryan]: 52:05

small world.

[Carter]: 52:06

Go mums having good taste in music.

[Bekah]: 52:08

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 52:09

Yeah, right, right? Wow.

[Carter]: 52:11

Yeah, apart from Nicki Minaj.

[Bekah]: 52:13

Right?

[Bryan]: 52:14

Yeah,

[Bekah]: 52:14

Hahaha

[Bryan]: 52:14

well, yeah, there was that one thing.

[Carter]: 52:19

Beautiful.

[Bryan]: 52:19

That's crazy.

[Carter]: 52:20

So, I mean, now that the pandemic is over, not over, but like, you know, we kind of just learned to live with COVID and it's not that much of a big deal anymore. And we're happy with people, you know. coughing on us and whatnot again.

[Bekah]: 52:34

Right.

[Bryan]: 52:35

Right, yeah.

[Carter]: 52:37

How's the family dynamic now? Post COVID, post loss of mother, post stopping seeing your parents, Bekah,

[Bekah]: 52:48

Yeah.

[Carter]: 52:49

how do you go about raising your family and how do you go about self care and ensuring that the dynamic stays as well balanced and well-oiled as possible?

[Bekah]: 53:03

We really just have tried, you know, over the last three years, we just made it a really big deal to always just be, we always are really honest with everyone about how we're feeling. We have really learned how to, you know, even the kids, how to say like, hey, you know, do you need time? Like, are you stressed out right now? We... I'm trying to think, I don't know how long it was we implemented, but we have this thing we've done as a family for I think like a year or so now where we have this word, it's just the word sensory. And it's a code word where basically at any point, no matter what's going on, the family, anyone in the family can say the word sensory. And when they say that, everyone has to stop everything. You stop talking, you turn off the music, because that means... hey, I don't need to explain myself, but I cannot take anything else right this second or I'm gonna freak out. And we all respect that. And it's doesn't always, you know, sometimes the kids try to use it to get out of getting griped at. But, you know, and

[Bryan]: 54:09

course.

[Bekah]: 54:09

sometimes they just need a break. Sometimes they do need like, hey, I need to not be griped at for a second so I can process it and that's fine. But that was like, because that came about because all four of us were processing all this shit with. losing Mimi and then, you know, staying home from school and all this stuff that we all just, yeah, there were just so many emotions and so much anxiety and everything from all of us. And I think just having that as well as everything else just kind of shows like we're just really trying hard to like support each other and be open and be like, just speak up and like, hey, I need five minutes to myself. And we all will say that, we'll be like, the kids will be like, I need five minutes to just go to my room. I cannot talk to anyone, I just, I need quiet. Yeah, and that was just a really important thing for us to set up.

[Carter]: 55:01

Yeah, definitely. That's a great idea. An emotional parlay.

[Bekah]: 55:05

Yeah.

[Carter]: 55:06

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 55:06

Yeah.

[Bryan]: 55:07

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah,

[Carter]: 55:10

Yep,

[Bryan]: 55:11

that's

[Carter]: 55:11

I

[Bryan]: 55:11

been

[Carter]: 55:11

reckon.

[Bryan]: 55:11

super helpful and, oh, sorry.

[Carter]: 55:14

No, please continue.

[Bryan]: 55:16

Yeah, yeah, I was just gonna say that's been super helpful and then, you know, the dynamic with my family, it's been more regular occurrences of like, get together for a barbecue or just go and visit, you know, we're able to get together for holidays again, which we weren't for however long. So it's been good. Things are, you know. They've been much better lately.

[Bekah]: 55:40

Yeah,

[Carter]: 55:40

Awesome.

[Bekah]: 55:41

and we also put out there, we also both got on medication in 2021, and that was also a very huge help. I won't even deny that we needed that additional boost just to get us out of that year. So

[Carter]: 55:54

Yeah. Any

[Bekah]: 55:55

yeah,

[Carter]: 55:55

depressants, may I ask?

[Bekah]: 55:56

yeah, yeah,

[Carter]: 55:57

Yep.

[Bekah]: 55:57

LuxPro, LuxPro for the win. So

[Carter]: 55:59

Yeah,

[Bekah]: 56:00

both of

[Carter]: 56:01

nice

[Bryan]: 56:01

Yeah,

[Bekah]: 56:01

us.

[Carter]: 56:01

one.

[Bryan]: 56:01

it's been great.

[Carter]: 56:03

Yep.

[Bryan]: 56:03

And that's something that was totally foreign to me. Like I never ever would have guessed that I would be taking any form of medication for mental health, but it's been great.

[Carter]: 56:16

Yeah, it's, uh, I'm, I'm glad that it's working for you. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for everyone, but,

[Bekah]: 56:21

Yeah,

[Carter]: 56:21

um,

[Bekah]: 56:21

right.

[Carter]: 56:21

you know,

[Bryan]: 56:21

Right.

[Carter]: 56:22

it's, it's a bit of a learning curve and it's a bit of a trial and error kind of thing.

[Bryan]: 56:27

Yeah.

[Carter]: 56:27

So yeah,

[Bekah]: 56:27

Yeah.

[Carter]: 56:27

the fact that you guys are finding, uh, it works for you is super important and super great. Um, now you've also started a podcast yourself, which I believe kind of falls in line with the theme of my podcast. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

[Bekah]: 56:46

Yeah, it's really just a way for me to just meet a lot of different people. I really enjoy, you know, similar to you, learning from other people and hearing their stories and kind of learning about all these different experiences we have and, you know, finding how sometimes it's funny we have a lot more connections and everyone has some shit that they're going through or have gone through, you know. See how it's called the Human Podcast? It's a play on the word human, really. And we, depending on when this is coming out, of course, we're launching May 1st and have a few episodes lined up. And yeah, looking forward to getting it off the ground and seeing who we talk to.

[Carter]: 57:29

Awesome. So it's a human Y double O M a n podcast.

[Bekah]: 57:33

Mm-hmm.

[Carter]: 57:34

That's on Instagram at human podcast, the human podcast. What is it?

[Bekah]: 57:39

Mm-hmm. Yeah, the Human Podcast. Yeah.

[Carter]: 57:41

Awesome. Cool. Shameless plugs.

[Bekah]: 57:43

Ha ha

[Carter]: 57:43

Um, this,

[Bekah]: 57:44

ha.

[Carter]: 57:44

this episode's not coming out for a fair while. Uh, I have

[Bekah]: 57:48

Okay.

[Carter]: 57:48

been very busy with working through my backlog of guests. And, uh, I think we're probably looking around about July, end of July

[Bekah]: 57:58

Perfect,

[Carter]: 57:58

at the moment,

[Bekah]: 57:58

yeah.

[Carter]: 57:59

um, but yeah, I'll, uh, I'll definitely post, uh, post more about it on, uh, on my podcast, Instagram and everything like that. Uh, is there anything else you guys want to add before we wrap up?

[Bekah]: 58:15

No, I don't think so. I really appreciate you having

[Bryan]: 58:18

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 58:18

us on though. This is

[Bryan]: 58:19

Yeah.

[Bekah]: 58:20

a wonderful conversation.

[Carter]: 58:21

Yeah, more than welcome,

[Bryan]: 58:22

It's been

[Carter]: 58:22

you

[Bryan]: 58:23

awesome

[Carter]: 58:23

guys are.

[Bryan]: 58:23

to talk to somebody about stuff that we have experienced and you also have. So yeah, thanks for having us.

[Carter]: 58:30

Oh, you're more than welcome. Uh, you guys are always welcome. Anytime we don't even have to record a podcast, we can always just catch up and have a chat. That's one of the best things about these types of podcasts where there's a bit of raw emotion involved. Uh, you always

[Bekah]: 58:44

Hmm.

[Carter]: 58:44

kind of walk away from it, feeling like you've made a genuine connection, uh, and,

[Bryan]: 58:48

Yes.

[Carter]: 58:48

uh, formed from some form of friendship in the, you know, 60 minutes that we discuss things. Um,

[Bryan]: 58:54

Absolutely,

[Carter]: 58:54

so yeah, I think there's

[Bryan]: 58:55

yeah.

[Carter]: 58:55

something very, very special and very, very unique in that.

[Bekah]: 58:59

Yeah,

[Carter]: 58:59

And I'm

[Bekah]: 58:59

definitely.

[Bryan]: 58:59

Yeah,

[Carter]: 59:00

very thankful

[Bryan]: 59:00

talking

[Carter]: 59:00

for.

[Bryan]: 59:00

to somebody on the other side of the world. And yeah, it feels like we're just sitting here having a beer together. I love it.

[Carter]: 59:08

Yeah,

[Bryan]: 59:08

I would

[Carter]: 59:08

yeah.

[Bryan]: 59:08

definitely like to do it again.

[Carter]: 59:10

Oh, 100%. We will certainly organize it in the future. Thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it. I loved hearing more about you guys. As I said, you're my first couple on the podcast.

[Bryan]: 59:25

Nice.

[Carter]: 59:25

It's always great to have more male representation in this space.

[Bekah]: 59:29

Mm.

[Carter]: 59:29

Someone who's certainly willing to discuss their emotions and, uh, and show their vulnerabilities, uh, even coming from the backgrounds that we both kind of came up in, um, it, it really shows, uh, a defining shift in, in culture. Um,

[Bryan]: 59:47

Yeah. Yeah.

[Carter]: 59:48

So I'm super thankful for that. It was great to meet you both

[Bryan]: 59:51

You too.

[Carter]: 59:51

and have a great day.

[Bekah]: 59:53

Thank you.

[Bryan]: 59:54

You too.

[Carter]: 59:54

No worries.

[Bryan]: 59:54

Thanks so much Carter.

[Carter]: 59:56

See

[Bryan]: 59:56

Good talking

[Carter]: 59:56

you later.

[Bryan]: 59:56

to you. Bye.

[Carter]: 59:57

Bye.