Episode 10: Empty Toolbox—with guest Alicia A. Armstrong

Episode Notes
Written By

We interview Asheville-based painter and artist Alicia Armstrong about her experience growing up Gen X with feelings of alienation. She describes the empty toolbox with which she found herself as she emerged into adulthood. She shares what she has learned along the way about tools for life, self-care, and sanity. Alicia paints primarily on wood panels using graphite, oil, and charcoal; her process produces highly textural works, whose layers convey the beauty and struggle of movement and transition, capturing moments.   

00:00 Anne and Alison catch up

We talk about homelessness, childhood emotional neglect, feeling defective, and mental illness.

25:43 Interview with Alicia Armstrong

Self-care and life toolkit which includes regular strength training, meditation, and being sure to fight for others to have the same privileges we have.

Music is song "One Cloud is Lonely" by Proxima Parada.
Audio mastering by Josh Collins.

Show Notes:

Introduction:

Interview:

Guest Bio:

Alicia Armstrong currently lives and works in Asheville, North Carolina. 

She began taking art classes in middle school in painting, printmaking and ceramics.  Eventually, she made her way to University of North Carolina, Asheville where she received her BFA.  Two pieces from her exhibition were purchased by the University for their permanent collection.  

Alicia’s work is collected internationally and has been published in national publications such as American Art Collector, regional publications such as Carolina Home & Garden & local publications such as Asheville Made.

Alicia paints primarily on wood panels using graphite, oil, and charcoal; her process produces highly textural works, whose layers convey the beauty and struggle of movement and transition, capturing moments.   

When she's not in the studio, you can find her on the tennis court, yoga mat or in the kitchen whipping up her favorite curry for her two teenage boys.

https://www.aliciaannearmstrong.com/

Transcript:

Alison Cebulla 0:08
Welcome to latch key urchins and friends.

Anne Sherry 0:14
Were you thinking I might take singing lessons? Are you a singer? Hell no. Oh, no, I wasn't sure. I think I'd like to I think I wanted to everything I want it wanted to do. Feels like it got shut down. Like yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I wanted to be in the art classes, but I didn't get the this is gonna be a wherewhere moment. I don't know, I tried out for singing the sixth grade musical. And me and this other girl didn't make it like everybody else in it. We have to sing my No, no, I know. So I like I was bad. I was like, sixth grade musical. I don't know. i And yeah, we were on the side. We got we got sidelined. performance anxiety. Yeah, I bet I let's introduce ourselves. I'm out. cibula Sorry, I just go right in like, everybody just knows everybody. And Sherry. Hi.

Alison Cebulla 1:15
And, um, yeah, we got some, we got some feedback. You got some feedback from Tom and I got some feedback from my brother. And I always love my brother's feedback. It's always fair. It's always in the pursuit of excellence. So he was kind of like, could you guys like define your terms? More, you know, and

Anne Sherry 1:34
not heard of Google? I feel it, I feel there's a lot of like, assumption that you know, this or so. And we know, I even

Alison Cebulla 1:47
like, I probably want to say like, who am I? You know, so like, I work. I work in public health. I have a master's degree in public health. I work in a, I help people understand how the how child abuse leads to different health things. Later on. We'll work on thing called adverse childhood experiences, science, and we communicate the science of that if you have a lot of stress, when you're a kid, you're going to have more health risks later on in life. So that's the field I.

Anne Sherry 2:16
So that's the famous term, ACEs. ACEs, right? Yeah, I

Alison Cebulla 2:20
have a lot of people's dream job. Like, seriously, like, a lot of people are like, I would just absolutely die to work in the ACEs field. Because when people learn about it, it feels like such a huge lightbulb moment of like, yeah, Everything makes sense now. Right? Um, and so I'll just pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Right? Right. Right, right. You don't have boots, or shoes, or socks or heat even.

Anne Sherry 2:47
And it's gotta have an impact on who you are. What how your life unfolds, I imagine.

Alison Cebulla 2:54
Exactly. Um, and I was just, I also want you to explain to the listeners what you do, but I'll segue into like, yeah, I very unfortunately, I can't pull myself away, have been listening to this podcast called outsiders. I was looking for a new good podcast, and I just found it on like best podcasts of 2020. And it's about Olympia, Washington homelessness in Olympia, Washington. I'm downloading it. Oh, my, it's so good. But it's so heart wrenching, and they absolutely talk about ACEs. And what they they start interviewing different homeless people. And apparently there's kind of a mis, misconception that for homeless people, like one or two bad things happened, and all of a sudden they were homeless, but what they're kind of saying is like, no, it's really systemic. Like, yeah, Child Trauma leads to homelessness. And the people that you see on the streets who have severe mental health disorders are people who experienced insane amounts of trauma, like an inhumane amounts of trauma, many of which are in this, like in the Seattle area, like people who may have indigenous heritage and gather lots of trauma. Yeah. Cabramatta talks about that in his book in the realm of hungry ghosts, that all of the homeless and mentally ill people that he's treating for addiction, a lot of the population disproportionately are indigenous Canadians, for First Nation people and it's so heartbreaking. So if you want your heart broken up in this week, outsiders

Anne Sherry 4:29
and the book I'm reading is called are listening to and I downloaded the book, I think invisible child, which I heard the interview on Chris Hayes's, why is this happening? And so it follows. One follows a family, primarily the oldest child. I think her name is Dasani. And that's in Brooklyn. I think it's a New York and it's it's it's It's terrifying that we have this in our society and feel whatever ways we feel totally helpless to eradicate it or it's complicated or what can I do? Of What? What? Homelessness homelessness? Yeah, yeah, house lessness.

Alison Cebulla 5:20
Okay, but we so and but my best Tiffany after listening to this podcast, which you'll soon hear is that they're saying like, what this is just what happens when wage income wealth disparity gets to be this high. So like, I, my first time visiting a quote, unquote, developing country, like a call, like colonized country, was Peru, I went to Peru in 2007. I studied, I studied abroad there for like, a little j term a little one month in January. Yeah. And when you're in Peru, you know, if you're on a bus traveling between cities, once you get outside the urban center, then that's when you see, you know, the cardboard tin, you know, like, you know, a whole nother city made out of trash, right? Yeah, that's like, yeah, so depressing. And you just, you know, for me, like white girl, you know, from the US, this was my first time seeing that. And so I'm like, my jaw is dropping, and I'm like, Oh, my God, how do people live like this? Like, it's, I mean, I think it's so important for people to travel and get to see that and actually understand. But I suddenly a light bulb went on, for me listening to this podcast of we are on our way, we are well on our way of having just that kind of society that we think of as, quote, a third world country, which I have heard. Yeah, we are. We are literally going there. Where now if you go to LA or LA used to live in San Diego, and you know, there was one section of town that was just tent city, is that you will drive through a part of town that looks just like that part that I saw in Peru now.

Anne Sherry 6:51
Wow. Yeah. So it's a neglect on steroids. I mean, the multi the multi level marketing scheme of America's is is crumbling.

Alison Cebulla 7:08
Yes.

Anne Sherry 7:10
Yeah, but there's just too much at the top. There's no, there's it's all been it's all been sucked up to the very, very top. Why?

Alison Cebulla 7:18
People? Keep it all? Why don't I want to keep it all?

Anne Sherry 7:22
I have no fucking clue. It makes no sense. No,

Alison Cebulla 7:27
we're gonna feel better share some of that.

Anne Sherry 7:31
Like, I don't know. And the prosperity Christianity is driving that train, it's must be I mean, there is all of that there's something wrong with you, if you're not wealthy. If you don't have enough, if you aren't happy, it's your fucking fault. It's your fucking fault. Something's wrong with you.

Alison Cebulla 7:55
So you better tell her tell our listeners what it is that you do for work.

Anne Sherry 8:01
looked like you were about to just put your hand and put your hand headed your hands and give up. I'm a therapist. I'm a therapist, I work one on one with people with with adults mostly. And try to help people find come to terms with what it is to be a human. And, and also, yeah, and try to illuminate systemic issues where it isn't just you. And that can be I think we've talked about this before, but that can be pretty eye opening. Not that you can do anything about the all of it. But it does alleviate some of the pressure and it is a it's it's I think it's pretty radical to say, oh, it isn't all me.

Alison Cebulla 8:56
Right if you want and go in for therapy. And your therapist helps you understand the class inequality or the patriarchy or childhood emotional neglect, then it's like, Oh, I thought I was I literally thought I was defective. And you know, that's kind of my my path to awakening. I found Denise Webb's book The running on empty when I was 31. And after I read it, I couldn't I mean, I couldn't stop crying for like four months because I hadn't I thought there was something fundamentally bad about me. Because I struggled with drug addiction I struggled with. Couldn't really keep a relationship going for more than you know, a couple years couldn't really stay in one place. I still struggle with a lot of these types of things. I'm not a drug guy anymore, but I still struggle, but I thought it was because I like I came out of the womb bad.

Anne Sherry 9:48
Like I'm broken. Yeah, it's a really convenient message for people to do really well. It's really terrible. I've started to like listening Spirituality Y'all said you listen to it, you really listen to some dark shit. I like some really i I'm like, why and then did multi the dream? binging on that when? I mean it's all important stuff it feels like to listen to but I really am seeing more and more holy shit. Who are these people with axes that just keep chopping up? Everything? Yeah, this div I know I mean, divide and conquer. You know? I mean, it's it's a battle. That's that works in war and battle. But why are we at war? Well, so is this was this anyway, you see us society as a war ward.

Alison Cebulla 10:43
This is a situation growing more and more to love epic, epic battle films that have like a very strong good and evil like, like I was telling you last episode that I've been we just finished watching the Lord of the Rings, and the high and the Hyatt and we watched the whole Harry Potter series or a couple months ago to and always have like a really strong good and evil and then they try and dissect like what is so Harry Potter is amazing because the Voldemort character, what you discover about why he's evil is his childhood trauma. Yeah, extremely abused and abandoned and neglected in childhood right and now he's evil, which I love that but

Anne Sherry 11:22
you have to take on I mean, that's one response to extreme trauma is is take who had the power and extreme trauma the perpetrator so I'm going to adopt perpetrator energy and it's really hard for us to I mean, we know this like abusers are usually have been abused but so awful that perpetrator energy that we want to we want to divide that away we want to say well, that's not me or that person's horrible and that completely a completely that that is the exact tool of whatever this fucked up shit. We're in dehumanizing, and humanizing and other ring. Rather than saying, Oh, my goodness, this is a symptom of a highly divided unequal culture. And that is some pain. That is some pain to really look at that, because it is so easy to hate. So easy to hate and say, well, but you know, all the phrases there but for the grace of God go I if you really can live into that and say every single one of us is exactly equal, exactly equal, like so if any point you're walking around going with God, damn, that's a loser over there, because they're drinking on the corner and don't have a job or, God, I work out all the time or something I'm able to take care of myself.

Alison Cebulla 12:50
Yeah, we were talking about this before earlier today when we were catching up. Because I relate to that a little bit differently, based on my personal experience, so I grew up in a poor neighborhood, a low socio economic neighborhood. After my parents got divorced, we had quite a number of pretty rough years where it took my parents a little while there was an economic downturn in the early 90s. Yeah, that was like definitely Wall Street's fault and Reagan's fault, like for sure. And you know, a lot of people like if some of my family members filed bankruptcy last homes, not at all my parents went through divorce and it took them a while to find good paying jobs. So we were pretty poor for like a good chunk of the 90s. And so I grew up in this lower socio economic neighborhood that we were a little out of place because my parents are like college educated, you know what I mean? It was it was like it was a weird fit for us but I got to see a lot of like, a lot of kind of homeless mentally ill people on the street, like wandering around yelling things, there was one guy called diaper man and he was just would wear like just a diaper and nothing else. And, and, and we also had quite a number of people who like lost their license for alcohol related reasons. So there were like, a lot of like, kind of kind of creepy vibe like alcoholic men like riding around on bicycles. And so this was like, kind of the, the environment that I grew up in, like seeing all of this like on a daily daily basis, like homeless people rummaging around and trash like, you know, across the street from my house, you know, people living in their van. Yeah, um, and my mom is like, probably like the most compassionate and big hearted person that I know. So she always went out of her way to help you know, like, be really kind to like this guy that people called the diaper man like, be really like acknowledge His presence, talk to him, trying to see if she could help them find meals. And she she always did that my, my whole childhood, so I didn't grow up with this thing of like judging people as being better or worse than that. Yeah, in that way. Mm hmm. But the judging voice is definitely in there. It's just it's different. It's not. It has nothing to do with socio economics. But I think, because I grew up so poor and saw it so acutely. Mm hmm. I experienced I was like in it, dude. I mean, there's just no way that I can just, there's just like no way that I can judge people on their circumstances. So I think almost feel like if you don't grow up with that, it's a lot isn't easier. What am I trying to get at? Is it easy to judge people if you don't grow up in it? Or something? Yeah, I

Anne Sherry 15:31
mean, it sounds like, you know, what were you exposed to? Right? I mean, if you're exposed to me, this is the story of the Buddha, right? Like he grew up in this extremely wealthy. Right, right, right. Vironment. And then you know, and his parents certainly tried to keep him so their, their lineage would keep going right? of wealth and whatever. But he peeked out and he saw human, whatever, they're on some road to somewhere, but he peeks out, and he sees all the human suffering, and he cannot. He can't unsee that. And so I don't know, his heart breaks open or he goes, his entire lifetime is searching. What is this suffering, you know. And so it's, you know, the brings like, like, the, what I have always been interested in is the concept of the bodhisattva vow, which is I will not attain enlightenment until all humans can attain enlightenment. So there is this thing of like, I could ascend to heights of, I could leave this earth or however that works, I don't know, go to, I don't know what enlightenment is actually just but you get to leave this plane of suffering. But the bodhisattva vow is No, I will stay on this earth in this body, and work through compassion until all beings are free of suffering. So that feels that feels like a pretty good message. But I think what happens, then we get overwhelmed and like, well, I have to do it all. No, it can lead to overwhelm. Right? I

Alison Cebulla 17:06
thought of my point. Yeah, I thought of my point, which is like, even though I was seeing, like, have compassion for these people, is that I also am having a human experience and a human body with a fear reaction. Sure. And so a lot of these people scared the shit out of me. And I also think

Anne Sherry 17:26
Reagan for that reason, dismantled everything. I guess, all the social programs are just dismantled. You know, you

Alison Cebulla 17:35
can have hypothetical compassion from your rational brain from your prefrontal whatever low. Yeah, yeah. But the fear is, that's a different part of your brain and a different system, that nervous system that like, Is someone going to assault me is somewhere to Cat call me is do Am I safe? I mean, like, there was a murder that happened, like around the corner, you know, like, Am I in danger. So even though like I'm getting this messaging on the one hand of like, Go out of your way to buy this homeless man a meal, or like gab dehumanize him, at the same time, I'm experiencing that it doesn't feel safe. So when it comes to like, judging, I think what I'm trying to get at is like, what was your experience of fear? Growing up, like how safe or unsafe did you feel and how you heal that or not? Because I think that's always going to be that push away instinct of like, you're away from me. Like, I don't want to engage with you or anyone else? Because I'm afraid or I'm carrying that early fear.

Anne Sherry 18:35
Sure. I mean, to me, that makes a lot of sense. And I don't think whatever your 56789 I don't know how old you are. You're not equipped. Yeah, yeah, handle a severely traumatized human. Yes. Walking around. That is for professionals and shelf environments, where we, we actually say, Oh, God, somehow our society has created situations where this amazing human being is completely dysregulated we must take care we must spend money on that we don't give a shit. We somehow the people in power or whatever, they've decided they don't give a shit. So yeah, see, we're back to the structure, the structure. And for us to be curious what makes me so afraid. What makes I mean it somehow it seems like it's had an impact on you. You have you have found yourself I would imagine working in a place that is trying to change structures, right. It's so hard. I know but we talk about do that little I mean, how we don't know how all this is going to turn out but I mean, so I think a lot of people probably like Well fuck it,

Alison Cebulla 19:51
I've got money and I'll just go try like I really had a fucking feel the full to that. Absolutely. I really want to I really do want to just open returned my desk. Yep. Walk away. Yeah, I really do this week I, um, this week, I really had a full a full, you know, full melt? Yeah.

Anne Sherry 20:11
Yeah. Sorry, it has to get that big for you to what take care of yourself.

Alison Cebulla 20:16
Right. I think that's a great question is like, what?

Anne Sherry 20:22
What I mean, do we being able to have an impact on how we work in the world? Or how do we advocate for our I don't know, just whatever environment you're working in, if you guys, if your specialty is working on trauma, like and you guys are seeing and reading and publicizing. I mean, it's all like trauma stuff. Yeah. Y'all really need to have some balancing pieces. And that's missing kind of releasing what you're seeing what you're hearing, you know, it's been

Alison Cebulla 20:59
missing. Yeah, I think I could do better. On an individual level, you know, like more theater and more personal choices. And then as a company allowed me to do Oh, no, there. No, I definitely wanted to talk about that. It's I know, I gotta forget, absolutely. I forgot to

Anne Sherry 21:16
like 10 people right now that I have to say I can't I my my caseload is is overly full right now. And it's devastating, because I don't know, I don't know, who has I do have outlets where I can say, you know, try to find, try to match people up. I think we probably need to start doing more group therapy started working together.

Alison Cebulla 21:41
I know because A and other 12 step meetings exist. And that's like a great free resource, especially like the ones that are open at any one from dysfunctional families. He and talked about that in our interview. Yes. Like the Al Anon and an adult children of alcoholics. Yeah. Any any person can go and I love I highly recommend those players. My, here's my, I mean, they're great. It is a great system. And it is a little bit culty. But, um, um, there's no therapist in the room, which really bothers me. Yeah. Because sometimes, sometimes the people who are It depends, it depends on the room like allanon I've had really good experiences with that's usually like some shell people, a actual a meetings can get super, super toxic so fast, because the people who are very wounded often hat can have like, the biggest egos to compensate for that wound, and they want to just dominate and tell everyone what to do. And it can really hurt

Anne Sherry 22:41
us to be any crosstalk. Right.

Alison Cebulla 22:45
I mean, that's immediate talk, there's after the talk, where, sure, and a, you know, an old timer will come up to you and say, You're not supposed to mention, you know, hard drug use in these meetings. This is alcoholics only and, you know, just stuff that's not helpful and shaming people for you know, yeah, sure.

Anne Sherry 23:02
Sure. Yeah, it's, it's, uh, I mean, I'm also heartened with this surge in I'm, I, I whatever's going on in my system is bigger than me and I need to be in relationship with someone else that can help me sort this out. Like this is a so there's, there's the surgeon wanting to work on stuff is not a bad thing. It's just hard to find that person. So we're gonna do it. I know we're gonna do a whole episode how to find how to find a therapist or other healing or to recognize that this help is is actually working for you and not reinforcing messages you may have inside that I'm not enough that's not good enough. It just accept the Lord Jesus Christ into your heart, and then everything will be better. That doesn't work. I mean, not just just one thing isn't going to work. Just the one thing and anybody who says, I've got the answer for you. The answer is complicated. We're not going to get this guarantee of how this is gonna go and you got to show up anyways, somehow,

Alison Cebulla 24:16
you know, and that's what we're going to talk to Alicia about that. I think she does really well, because I can get really caught up in the structural stuff. Yeah. And by Alicia is like, No, you need to show up for yourself.

Anne Sherry 24:26
You need to show up for yourself. Yeah, I love it was sort of a therapist. Yeah, thing of like, put your own oxygen mask on before you help others. Right.

Alison Cebulla 24:36
But I just get so mad about the structural stuff like I just I go mad, it's

Anne Sherry 24:41
designed to do that. is designed to do that, you know, it's social workers in working in the programs that are underfunded, been broken down by Reagan and I don't have a good grasp on on a lot of history. But I hear enough that I know it was Reagan that like slash social programs. Yeah. So. So you can't, you can't do it all. You can't do it all. So it's okay for you to take care of yourself. And one more thing I'll say before we introduce Alicia is we have talked about this before you have got to find a way to bring pleasure and joy into activism. You have to you won't last you will not last in it. So,

Alison Cebulla 25:28
okay, we gotta you gotta turn someone on who's an expert in that I can. Yeah, we can brainstorm. But I would love to dive into that. Yeah. Okay, here's Alicia.

Anne Sherry 25:39
But you know, damn well. All right. We're here with Alicia Armstrong. She's an artist in Asheville, North Carolina. You have your you have a studio now downtown as well, right.

Unknown Speaker 25:54
Yeah, I have a Studio Gallery downtown with my college buddy, Jeremy Russell.

Alison Cebulla 26:01
Congratulations. That's so amazing. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Really? Well, it's so impressive because the artists in Nashville are so good. You have your own studio downtown. I'm like, Oh, good. Like you're you are.

Anne Sherry 26:16
I'm actually sitting here looking at a piece of your work. That's how we met. I was trying to think I was like, How the hell did we meet?

Unknown Speaker 26:23
Because you saw my work at Attilio a chick right there in a 2009. And you and Tom were not married yet. Right? And he bought it for you for a gift. And he came to my studio. What a great day. And I was Tom. I was like, I love this dude. He's crazy. And he's my my people. And then I met I met and I was like, extra my people. Yeah. And you and

Anne Sherry 26:53
Spencer had together another artist friend and then we were getting to know Spencer at this. It was just magic. Once I started buying art in Asheville, I just met the best people on the planet so

Alison Cebulla 27:06
are so so great. Yeah, no,

Anne Sherry 27:09
I mean, I take one painting.

Unknown Speaker 27:12
They're like they're hard on are good, some are bad.

Anne Sherry 27:18
And it takes a long time to get super damn good, man. That's some dedication. I took one class I was like, Well, shit, my people like, Oh, I saw your art. I was like, hell no, I wouldn't try to paint that is hard. And it's hard to do. So. So I did take one painting class with Arcilla. Gallo at No. Yeah, at AB Tech. I got no stamina for that shit. No, I don't know how you do it. So um, yeah. So I just try to make as much money as I can. So I can spend it secretly on? Yeah, that's one of those places where Tom doesn't get the full, full story

Unknown Speaker 27:57
picture of what's right. Oh, shoes are whatever.

Alison Cebulla 28:04
That's hilarious. Okay, so Alicia is an Asheville artist. She has a BFA from a University of North Carolina and Asheville. And she's, we're super excited to have her on our podcast today to talk about different lots of different topics to talk about the whole gamut, but a lot of stuff around being growing up being Gen X and feelings of alienation. And you know, and and I really started this podcast to cover to cover all the different topics and subtopics topics about childhood emotional neglect. And the reason a lot of people don't quite have their finger on the pulse of what childhood emotional neglect is and and that author who wrote running on empty does this really well, is she says, You can't know what you didn't get. That's true. And so you, you'll go your you'll go your whole life and you'll be like, I feel empty. I feel empty. I feel like I don't know why I'm not enjoying life, or I'm not. I can't, it doesn't feel like anything. Or you know, and but it doesn't, because it doesn't, you didn't get a thing. Like at least if you're like say like abused or something. It feels like a thing. You're like, Oh, I saw my parents fighting or it's our you know, and I'm not, obviously that's very terrible. But the childhood emotional neglect is sneakier. Yeah. And Alicia, we've

Anne Sherry 29:32
talked about this through the years Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like go to this therapist trying to get in with this. I was like, Yeah, I don't know probably struggling with it. I don't I don't think I really noticed what childhood emotional neglect was until kind of recently it kind of it's keeps sneaking up on you as you go through the stages of life and you're like, oh, I don't get this. I can't make the next transition. So I don't know for you.

Alicia Armstrong 29:58
Because it's I mean, the other thing about Childhood, you know, emotional neglect is like 99.9% of people suffer from it. You know? It's not like your normal.

Alison Cebulla 30:11
Yeah. Thank you.

Anne Sherry 30:14
I mean, it's true.

Alicia Armstrong 30:15
I mean, in some form or another, like, there's no need to be human is to be wounded. I mean, period, you know, I mean, that's just part of the experience. So, and I mean, I'm, I totally fucked up my kids somehow. I don't know how but I'm sure I'll find out maybe in 10 I

Alison Cebulla 30:35
have to have therapy every

Anne Sherry 30:37
day say this. Again. We keep saying like, okay, when they when you're, they'll come to us in 20 years, and we'll have him as a guest on the podcast. Yeah. Rail. Yeah. The other thing we talk about a lot, too, is just how structural Oh, wait, culture is how chopped up it is how divisive it is.

Alison Cebulla 30:58
We don't have a nurturing culture. And then we wonder why we don't receive nurturance at home. Well, we don't even have like people don't even get paid parental leave, you know, and that sort of thing. So it's like, but I wanted to ask you Alicia to start which which is our little Krista Tippett moment. Um, if you identify with being a latchkey kid or an urchin, or you know, sort of like what was like your emotional environment, like in your childhood?

Alicia Armstrong 31:25
It's funny, because when I saw the name of the podcast, I was like, I literally was like, was Eilat like I don't know, you know, and that's kind of like Alicia, when she was young. I don't know. Like, I know. It's weird. I mean, I I know. And me, both my parents worked. And my mom was a nurse, and my dad was a pathologist, and he was on call a bit. And we had we were one of the fighters families. And so we had a woman, you know, like a nanny, you know, so, we did have someone there for us when we came home, okay. When we were young, you know, my sister, there's four of us and my sister's four years older. So as we got older, I'm sure I just the weird thing is I really don't have a lot of memories of being an elementary school. And I'm not sure if I just have a bad memory or if it was like, I was scared. And I, I don't know why. But yeah, um, but my mom stopped working full time, probably when I was in maybe high school. She went back and forth, like she worked as like weightwatchers, you know, nutrition, a nurse in nutrition. And then she worked as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. So she kind of intermittent worked and didn't work. And I can't remember exactly when that was. But yeah, when I was really young, we did have someone nice. You know how they are when we got home. So

Alison Cebulla 33:02
what's it good?

Alicia Armstrong 33:04
Yeah, I mean, I really liked them. I mean, I really liked the women like one was an older woman named Mary. And then there was a younger woman. I think her name was Keisha. And I loved her. And but yeah, I mean, it was guy loved on. Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Anne Sherry 33:24
I mean, I think, like, how much sort of what we're finding Tom and I took us a little while to do this is like, Well, how do you have a family? Like, how do you create family memories? So this, we just, I mean, we were like, Oh, you actually go and do stuff. You get in a car and you maybe drive and you go on a hike together? You have like, experiences together? So I don't know if you had

Alicia Armstrong 33:52
we just did we, we I mean, we traveled a lot, but it was to see grandparents. Like we had one set. That was our stuff to and Philly, and one set in Florida. I mean, Michigan, and then they moved to Florida. And then we had a set in Philly, and then some family in New York, like upstate New York. So we kind of went out of town to see family or to the beach. So we didn't do these things like, you know, cyclical. And you know, my mom, it was the classic American like, my mom made dinner every night, we sat around and we had dinner and I think for me what made like now when I reflect on it, what would have made family would have been to have like really honest, thoughtful talks, you know, and I mean, like, yeah, just, you know, more like, how are you feeling about this or that's scary Are you know, and I mean, just kind of acknowledging that like to be human to, you know, go into middle school or then go into high school or things like that. And yeah, they're just like, What time's your bollocks. All practice. Okay, general six. Okay, that's okay. We're going on here. I mean, it just kept going through the motions. So and going through the motions way we were very normal. I mean, on the surface, you know,

Alison Cebulla 35:13
when did you realize that that there was something a little missing? Like when did you when when was the first realization that you're supposed to ask how people are feeling?

Alicia Armstrong 35:22
Well, my mom was sad a lot. So like probably late elementary, I noticed like she was pretty preoccupied. And she was definitely a shopper and she would like take us to wallpaper stores, which we can touch on later, because I'm painting a lot of wallpaper in my house. At their back to tie in. But anyway, so I remember like, literally for hours after school, my mom would take a wish she would look you were Do you remember those big wallpaper books?

Anne Sherry 36:02
Yeah, so

Alicia Armstrong 36:03
we would just look hours, and she would like never decide, but just keep looking and looking. And then she started collecting wallpaper. And so I kind of started getting the impression and that she was not really all there, like there was, she would would cry a lot like her and my dad would fight a lot. And she a lot of her upset would be about him not listening to her or them not being connected or things like that. So pretty early on, I got involved in their miracle relationship, you know, and I became, you know, I was third born, and I was probably the most the most mediator mediation type kid, like I wanted everybody to get along. Um, so, you know, I would encourage my mom to talk to my dad, I would tell my dad to do nice things for my mom and pretty early. Yeah, okay, no.

Anne Sherry 36:57
emotional neglect. You're like, Well, I'm gonna make all my shit go away. I'll have my needs. I won't ask for anything. Because I got to keep this family together. Right?

Alicia Armstrong 37:08
Yeah. And I basically my main memory, like, what when I think of like, grief, or wounds or sadness is I just wanted my mom to be happy. Totally. I just wanted my mom to be happy name. Say, I didn't care as much about my dad. Not that I didn't love him more. But it was just like, probably a mom, daughter thing. I don't know if I was a boy. You know, if I was a son, I would feel that way about my dad. But I really wanted my mom to be happy. Like, I wanted to have friends and do fun stuff. And she just was doing that. Never went out. Never heard. Yeah, no, no, she didn't. She didn't. I don't she didn't like this, that. I mean, she she lived in Philly her whole life, except when they moved to Michigan. And so she, you know, she lived in her city and had 30 cousins around and she just she's kind of introverted. So to move to the south in this neighborhood where you'd like have to do and say the right thing was buried, you know, proper, like, she just didn't feel like she said,

Alison Cebulla 38:05
can you talk a little bit more about that actually, because this like Southern culture? Yeah, yeah. People are maybe listening and aren't from the south. What are some of the key pieces around that? Because I've heard that before. It was definitely

Alicia Armstrong 38:18
like, I mean, you were we were we grew up. I mean, like, when I would go spend the night at friend's houses, I would get kicked under the table if I didn't say Yes, ma'am. And we just didn't grow up like that. You know, less

Anne Sherry 38:31
I kind of shit. Yeah, yeah. I grew up like old

Alicia Armstrong 38:35
and we weren't vibe vibrant. And you know, boisterous. And even though there was a side separate thing going off my mom and dad that just the way that they raised us was more northern and yeah, we just like the way people smiled and acted fake. Like, my mom wasn't like that. So for all of her, her junk or whatever, she was pretty, like, you could read her. She doesn't put on airs, you know, to fit in. Yeah. So that was kind of odd. And so I definitely grew up like, you know, more middle school and high school feeling like I didn't really fit in because we went to so my mom tried like we went to this giant Presbyterian First Presbyterian Church in downtown Columbia. And you know, the girls names were like Mary Clark and parent and you know, like just Farrah Catherine. You know what I mean? I mean, no, no offense to Sarah Catherine's Mary Clark's out there or whatever. But I'm just saying

Anne Sherry 39:30
that if you if you got to first names you are you were in it as immediate tickets in roads into the south.

Alicia Armstrong 39:38
Yeah, sure. So I immediately felt now my sister did better. Like she just my older sister. She just kind of rocked it a little better. But I yeah, I felt like you know, I was like, a little fat and maybe like, my hair wasn't thick and long and like pretty. I mean, it was you know, like weird, stupid, weird girls. stuff, but I definitely, you know, kind of related to my mom in that way like not like I

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