The Fuzzy Mic

Laughter, Regrets, and the Healing Power of Storytelling

• Kevin Kline

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Sometimes, the strength we need comes from the stories we hear; Sarah's is one such tale. Through her eyes, we witness the formidable choice to leave an abusive relationship with a partner enmeshed in narcotic addiction, and it's a stark reminder that our vulnerabilities are not weaknesses, but bridges to connect with others. Her incredible journey illuminates the podcast, providing hope and reinforcing that we are never truly alone in our battles, no matter how isolating they may feel. As someone who's engaged with mental health professionals for over two decades, I don't claim to be a therapist, but I do understand the profound impact of sharing and the collective healing it brings.

Laughter and learning go hand in hand as we recount a personal misstep that could have cost me a dear friendship. The power of words, the gravity of regret, and the salvation found in reconciliation shape our discussion, proving that the humor and honesty we share can mend even the deepest of rifts. So join us, lend your ear, and perhaps, find a piece of your story reflected in ours.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Fuzzy Mike, the interview series, the podcast, whatever Kevin wants to call it. It's Fuzzy Mike. Hello, and thank you for joining me on another episode of the Fuzzy Mike. Last week's episode was a different kind of episode. We didn't have a guest, and we talked about a current event that has happened recently in St Louis, Missouri the student fight at Hazelwood East High School, and I want to thank you for listening to it. I want to thank you for downloading it, for watching the YouTube version of it, and I want to thank you for your comments about that, and I'm going to share a comment that was received about another episode that we recently did with the Fuzzy Mike, and it's going to lead us to what we're going to discuss today.

Speaker 1:

I am still waiting for responses from some of the guests that I've reached out to about when we can reschedule, and as soon as I hear back from them, I expect that we'll get some experts on, Because somebody asked me the other day you know you talk about mental health, Klein. Are you a therapist? Are you licensed? Are you a doctor? No, I'm none of the above. What I am, though, is somebody who has spent since 1995, at least every 16 weeks, sometimes even shorter, going to psychiatrists and psychologists. So I do kind of feel like I'm maybe an expert in the field because I've been dealing with it for so long, and basically what this is is I'll just share personal stories of my own dealings with my own mental health issues, and then when comments and emails come in and I get permission from the author to share those with you, then I'll do that as well, Like the episode that we did a couple of weeks ago with Akamia Deadwiler, whose book is now available called Daddy's Little Stranger.

Speaker 1:

Sarah actually reached out to me and talked about a trauma that she had gone through, and Sarah has given me permission to actually read her letter to you. And I do this because, number one, it's so brave of Sarah to share this with us, and also it's incredibly humbling to me that something that happens on the fuzzy mic resonates so much with you and actually hits Sarah so deeply that she wanted to share her story with me and with us. And so I share this as a thank you and a thank you to Sarah for being so brave as to share it with us. And I also share it with you because when we think we're going through something really, really hard. We forget to think that there's other people going through things maybe just as hard or even harder than what we're going through right now. And we talked about Brenda's story a couple of weeks ago and how she was sexually assaulted at 18 and basically shunned by the rest of her family after that happened. And now she's 42 and still dealing with the ramifications and repercussions of that. But she's getting better every day and now she's a wife and a mother, and this it just brings to perspective what we're trying to accomplish with this mental health kind of focus that we have right now with the fuzzy mic. And so when I read these words that Sarah wrote us, I want you to think about how, when you're going through something bad, that there's somebody out there who's going through something equally as difficult or maybe even more. So this is a tough read right here.

Speaker 1:

Sarah wrote me after the Acamea Deadweiler episode and she says the moment I knew I had to leave a narcotic addicted husband when he lit me with gas, I knew I had to go in four months I had witnessed the love bombing and thought we'd fall in love, but for some reason I've always had concerns that kept me back. While I kept my own life running over time, I realized that my concerns were not for nothing. I found out that he had consumed excessive cocaine for years, Although according to him, he stopped pretty much when he was with me. I didn't agree and then he told me that I made him finish life. He drank a lot at first, which I didn't like because in the past I went out with an alcoholic, but then he seemed to drink less. He admitted to cheating his ex-wife several times. That knocked me down and I pulled him on it and I told him how shocked I was.

Speaker 1:

He didn't seem to have much empathy at all for his ex-wife. He always chatted about ex-friends, called them psychopaths and, worse, Explained domestic problems and struggles they had. I had enough. I made subtle blows to stop him. So Sarah's no longer with this guy and I think what happens and what you can infer from this is, if you have somebody in your life who doesn't have much empathy for an ex or a friend, an ex-friend who calls them the psychopaths and worse, then somebody who you need to examine, Examine this if you believe them or if they're covering up for what they actually are.

Speaker 1:

Because I read this and I'm like and I wasn't in that situation and I obviously know where this story is going because Sarah shared it. But even at the very beginning of this, when she talks about how he lit her with gas and he was love bombing that right there, those are red flags, man, those are serious red flags. And Sarah, number one, I am so happy that you got out of that situation and I'm so happy that you're living a better life now and you're thriving, and I thank you for sharing that horrific story. Anytime you share something like that, you have to relive that experience and I thank you for sharing that and for allowing me to share that with our listeners. When I'm feeling a little bit down, I'm going to remember you in your words, Sarah, and I'm going to remember Brenda in her words, and I'm not going to remember it because I'm going to compare myself to the level of, I guess, torture that you had to go through, but I'm going to use it to remind myself that there's somebody out there who's struggling like I am and I'm not alone. And so maybe if I focus my energy on the way that you're feeling and not the way I'm feeling, maybe that will change my way of thinking and maybe I'll pull out of it a little bit sooner, a little bit faster. So thank you, Sarah. I appreciate that I'm going to share a little snippet of the upcoming Tuttle and Cline podcast that I'm a part of.

Speaker 1:

My former radio partner and I are back together. We spent 28 years on the radio together and I retired. He's semi-retired and now we're back together doing a podcast with new episodes every Wednesday. But we don't go in with a script and we don't have anything in particular planned for any episode. And this one kind of went off in a weird direction. We talked about things and how we can't be offended. Ok, we just will not allow words to offend us. And we were talking about that and let us to talking about things that maybe we've done in the past, that we regret. And I used this example of how I knew at this particular point in our relationship which was this was very early that he could not be offended. No, you and I agree with this. Nothing could ever be said to me that would offend me.

Speaker 2:

Nothing, nothing. Okay, you can blast, you can blast me with honky cracker.

Speaker 1:

You know, all that I laugh at that, but then again.

Speaker 2:

And Eddie Murphy, remember when he did, hey, I'm the white guy On Saturday Night, live his white guy stuff. And you know the Wands Brothers when they did the white shit, I don't care no it doesn't bother me. I don't I know who I am.

Speaker 1:

You know and here's the example that I was going to use to perfectly illustrate that you can't offend Tim Okay, I was so mad when you did not tell me that you were going to Indiana for your dad's funeral. He didn't tell me. Okay, I had to find out from a coworker that you went up to your dad's funeral. I thought I should have heard that from you. Now, this is when we were really new together and I was like I was like I, I was hurt, Okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but Kev, it was like two in the morning, one in the morning. I get it, I get it. I know, I know that, I know that. And my mind is elsewhere.

Speaker 1:

My dad just died dude, totally understood, totally understood, and now I understand it. Yeah, okay, but I thought you know he doesn't like me and you know he, he doesn't respect me and and I don't mean anything to him, and so that was the chip that I was wearing and when you came back I did say I'm sorry and but my comment, and you got to understand Tim's dad was his fucking hero and and in my comment, because I was still butt hurt, was you know, cancer is just population control and he did not punch me. He did not punch me.

Speaker 2:

No, no, yeah, yeah. That's a bullshit thing to say.

Speaker 1:

It was.

Speaker 2:

But I I and this is how I think is I actually felt sorry for you, that you had to go there and say that in order to soothe whatever shit goes on in your head.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I felt sorry for you. I was like, wow, man, you, that's, that is you. I mean, you just scraped the bottom, you took, you took that pool skimmer and you went straight to the bottom where the scum is there and I, I I felt bad for you. I was like, man that, because that that's something that probably down the road you're like, oh, I shouldn't have said that.

Speaker 1:

Oh I, I work. That's probably. I don't have a lot of regrets. That's definitely one of the top three.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when you said. When you said I'm glad your dad died, it's population control.

Speaker 1:

I didn't say I'm glad he died. I did not say that. I said okay, that's, that's how I have it in my head, yeah.

Speaker 2:

That's how the story goes on. Here's what Kevin did. He said he was so mad. He said I'm glad your dad died from cancer, and then he kicked my dad's corpse, yeah. And he said he said every single year on this date that he died, I'm going to come to his grave and take a shit on it. That's what Kevin said to me.

Speaker 1:

It's not, but that's that, that that's the depth of hurt that that probably should've or would've caused you the only. Yeah, I know, and that's why I'm saying it, you can't offend us, because if that didn't offend him I don't think anything can. I've held onto that for geez, since 1996. So I don't know how many years that is I suck at math but I've held onto that regret for that long and never shared that with with Tim. That I regret saying that. And after we did that episode and we recorded it, which, incidentally, new episodes of the Tuttle and Client Show air on Wednesdays, they, they, they post on Wednesdays. Just look up Tuttle and Klein K-L-I-N-E. But after I told him that and how much I regret that and seeing his reaction, that you know he turned it into a joke and that that helped me cope with my regret, and it shouldn't be about me, it should be about the remorse that I feel, and it is. It's about the remorse that I feel for having said that to him, but it also it feels better, you know, feels better that I got that off my chest, that I've been harboring that regret and not sharing it with him and and not letting him know that that still bothers me to this day that I said that to him and it was because I had a massive insecurity that he didn't tell me that he was going to his dad's funeral. I found out from somebody else and automatically I started thinking, well, shit, he doesn't like me, you know, he doesn't think that, he doesn't think that I deserve an explanation from him and somebody really thinks to me. You know, that's insecurity, that was insecurity on my part and then it led me to passive, aggressive comments like, well, cancer is just population control and I don't know if I realized at the time that that would hurt him or that it would cut as deeply as it probably did. But he didn't show it. So I've been carrying that, like I said, regret for that many years. And being able to explain that to him and being able to see his reaction number one, just getting it out of me, was a massive release. It was a relief. I feel lighter. I really do.

Speaker 1:

But also, you know, in letting my radio partner of 28 years, my friend of 30 years, know that I regret that and I'm apologizing for that. I don't even know if I did say I'm sorry. I guess that was inferred, I guess that was implied that I regret it. So obviously I'm sorry about it. But now, knowing that he knows how I feel about that, it just, I don't know. It makes me lighter, it makes me I'm comfortable again, and maybe that's a stupid word to use, but I thought about that often and it was just weird how that came up in conversation during our episode.

Speaker 1:

But basically what I'm getting at is, if there's something weighing you down, if there's something that is causing you a heavy feeling and you can do something about it, do it, do it. You know, if there is something that you said in the past that you want to make amends for, do it. You know, if somebody has wronged you in your life and they're still in your life and you just can't get over this. I don't know if my tactful way to bring it up you know, look, I hate conflict. I really do. I will avoid conflict at all costs, any kind of conflict, and for me to bring that up with Tim was I mean, we're in a way better place now. We're in a way different place than what we were then, but even so, that could have caused conflict, that could have caused a discussion, that would have been uncomfortable and I would have only had myself to you know blame, I guess, for that. But what I'm saying is, if you're going through a situation where you might have said something wrong in the past and it's causing you discomfort, get it out in the open. Get it out in the open. I am here to tell you that I feel so much better now that Tim and I are on the same page with this, and that I've said what I said and how it made me feel. So you know, if you have that opportunity, definitely take that opportunity.

Speaker 1:

And if you're going through something as tragic and as horrific as what Sarah has gone through in the past and you're in it right now, there's got to be a friend that you can reach out to. There's got to be somebody in your life that can lend an ear or can give you an outside perspective. You know, when you're in that you might not be able to see it, you might not be able to feel it. You just you're in it and that's what you think life is. That's what you think it's about. It's not. That's not what life is about. That's not love, absolutely not love. That is, as Sarah explains, psychopathic and worse, and it's narcissistic and it's. There's no room in your life for that. There really shouldn't be.

Speaker 1:

And so if you're in the middle of a situation like that, help is out there, and it might be in the form of a family member, it might be in the form of a friend assuming you're allowed to still have contact with family members and friends Sounds like Sarah was taken away from that during this period that she was with this husband. And if they're trying to, if somebody's trying to put you in a box and remove you from loved ones and friends, that is a big sign. Big sign that things are really going to be a long and hard road for you. So just be aware and reach out to people. That's what this thing is all about. That's what the fuzzy mic is all about. It's about taking these fuzzy thoughts, these mental issues that we have or that we see in others, and helping bring them to light. And who knows, maybe you'll be saving somebody's life. Who knows, maybe you'll be have your life saved by somebody.

Speaker 1:

It all starts with conversation, it all starts with opening up, and that's what this is about here at the Fuzzy Mic. If you want to get in touch with us at the Fuzzy Mic, you can just email us thefuzzymicatgmailcom. Or you can just follow us on YouTube, subscribe on YouTube or follow us on all of the platforms that we air you know, apple, spotify, all that kind of stuff and download the episode and share the episode. Maybe I'm saying something that you want to say to somebody but you don't know how to say it. Or you're afraid to say it. Share an episode with them. Say, hey, you know what. I came across this podcast and this dude's saying exactly what I want to say, but I don't know how to say it. Or maybe you think they're going to be upset or angry with you for saying something. Hey, this dude's saying it for me, so get pissed off at him. Yeah, I'm just trying to help you. Just get pissed off at him. Anyway, thank you so much for joining me again on the Fuzzy Mic. New episodes air every Tuesday and don't forget the Tunnel and Client show. It airs every Wednesday on those very same platforms and on our YouTube channel.

Speaker 1:

The Fuzzy Mic is hosted and produced by Kevin Klein. Oh, by the way, do you like my Taylor's version heavy metal shirt? My wife liked this shirt. She actually liked this shirt. She typically doesn't like a lot of my t-shirts because they're mostly dealing with heavy metal and death metal, but she liked this shirt, taylor's version with yeah. Anyway, the Fuzzy Mic is hosted and produced by Kevin Klein, production elements by Zach Sheesh at the Radio Farm. Social media director is my wife, trish Klein. Thank you again for joining me. Don't forget to subscribe and follow and all that kind of stuff, and if you want to drop us a line, you can do so at thefuzzymicatgmailcom. I appreciate you, thank you. That's it for the Fuzzy Mic, thank you. This is Fuzzy Mike with Kevin Klein.