Carrie's Always Talking
The podcast all about stories and connection. Every other week there will be stories from people just like you, or perhaps it will be YOU! Stories are a part of the foundation of life, and they are one of the main ways we learn about one another. Hearing someone share their experience can be healing not only for the person sharing but also for those listening. You might laugh, you might cry, but you also might also learn that we're more alike than you think.
Carrie's Always Talking
Finding Peace After Adversity with Julie Barth
In this episode of Carrie's Always Talking, Carrie speaks with Julie Barth, a mother of six and trauma survivor, about her journey through grief, emotional abuse, and the challenges of parenting a child with special needs. Julie shares her experiences and insights on resilience, the importance of support systems for women, and recognizing red flags in relationships. The conversation emphasizes the need for community support, the lessons learned from adversity, and the significance of finding peace in life after trauma.
Julie's Website: https://www.juliebarthauthor.com/
If you have a story you'd like to tell, send me an email at carrie.always.talking@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.
You can also find me on Bluesky- @carrie-is-talking.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/@carrie-always-talking
Carrie McNulty (00:00)
Hello and welcome back to Carrie's Always Talking. I'm your host, Carrie McNulty. This is the podcast all about stories and connections. I believe that when people share their stories with one another, it's the main way we build empathy and humanity, which is something I think we need a lot more of in the world today. This is episode 17 of season two, and I have a guest. Her name is Julie Barth. She's a writer, a mother of six, trauma survivor, and the founder of Colin James Barth Outreach, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting women-led households
in times of crisis. Julie's memoir, Notes from a Blackberry, is a deeply moving account of love, loss, and resilience, chronicling her journey as a special needs parent while navigating the heartbreaking realities of her first husband's battle with cancer. After navigating the complexities of her daughter's rare genetic condition, she found herself a widow in her late 30s with four small children. Perhaps her greatest struggle is enduring years of emotional abuse at the hands of her second relationship.
and unpacking all that came with going from surviving to thriving. Julie and I had a really good conversation and she had so much from her history that she was generous to share and also provided a lot of great warning signs, red flags, tips for women who may be in relationships that are also abusive. So there's a lot in the episode and I think that you'll enjoy it. If you're new to the podcast, thank you for listening.
And if you've been following along and listening, of course, thank you too.
Please review and rate the podcast wherever you're listening and share it with people who you think will like it in your life as well. if you want to come on the podcast, reach out. My email is always in the show notes and that's the best way to reach me.
I'm going to continue to ask that if you are able to please donate to your local food banks. This is something I started doing in March of this year myself because I could see the writing on the wall that there would definitely be a greater need for food resources. And unfortunately that's sort of come to fruition. So if you are able to give, be it financially or with your time in some way to your community, now is a great time to do that.
I won't keep us waiting anymore. Let's get into the conversation with Julie and I will talk with you all in another couple of weeks.
Carrie McNulty (02:28)
Hi Julie, thank you so much for joining me.
Julie Barth (02:30)
Carrie, I'm glad to be here.
Carrie McNulty (02:33)
⁓ Julie's story was one that stood out to me when we connected ⁓ because you've been through quite a lot and found a way to build something that helps yourself continues to help yourself and then other women. So I was thinking maybe we could talk a little bit about that today.
Julie Barth (02:50)
Yeah, absolutely I'd love to.
Carrie McNulty (02:51)
Yeah.
when I say you've been through a lot, what does that mean?
Julie Barth (02:55)
Sure, so I'm the mother of six and ⁓ I released a book last year, but it's chapter one of my life. And I think there's like 20 chapters if I wanna, yeah, as everyone does, I think everyone comes to the table with their backstory. key points, guess, are I have a daughter with primordial dwarfism, which means that she's four foot tall and she's...
Carrie McNulty (03:05)
Mm.
Julie Barth (03:15)
just about 24 pounds and 24 years old. So, you know, I married my grammar school sweetheart and we met back up again in college and, you know, was like finding the better half of me truly, he really was. But we ended up having my son and then I wanted a big family so we got pregnant with my daughter and from the get go, like everything just went wrong. She stopped growing and it was 2001. So there was no Google, which again,
blessing and a curse and that. But people kept saying, well, she's going to be sick. We just don't know how, which is for anyone who's pregnant, why don't you just tell me the worst thing possible and then not give me anything to do about it? Because we couldn't even plan what was going on. went from she has trisomy 18, which is three chromosomes, to no, not that because we had an amniocentesis too. She'll come out and not be able to breathe. So it was just one thing after another.
Carrie McNulty (03:45)
Yeah
I couldn't imagine
the anxiety of sitting with that, not being able to really research it much. Like you said, double-edged sword there. Yeah.
Julie Barth (04:13)
Yeah, it was.
right. you know, there's something about the medical profession and I love them just fine because we couldn't survive without them. you know, if they have never learned to, if you don't know, just don't say anything. everyone we would see would be like, I think it is. I think it is. And you're sitting in this room and it's almost like they don't really understand that you're connected, you know, like.
Carrie McNulty (04:39)
That you're a person,
that you're a person growing a person. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Julie Barth (04:43)
Yeah, right. And just because they're throwing these things out as theoretical
or whatever that, you know, that it's not devastating to you. might, because they're like, maybe, maybe, maybe, I don't think they know the devastation that you're feeling, you know. So it was about eight months of that and ⁓ nine months, I guess. And I think that they delivered her more because I couldn't take it anymore. I think I lost weight in this pregnancy. So.
Carrie McNulty (04:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Julie Barth (05:07)
They just weren't equipped for her. came out and she was only three pounds. They thought she was going to be sick. So in their life saving technologies, they ended up like doing a whole lot of damage to her throat, which they lied about for a year and a half. And so it was just a mess. was like traveled around the United States, getting different opinions, and again, no Google. So whatever specialists we saw would have the old fashioned handbooks
You know, like going through syndromes, flipping through it. Like, ⁓ she doesn't have that one because she doesn't look like this picture, you know, literally. So, you know, I just kind of resigned myself to say, well, she's got her name is Tatum. I'm like, she's got Tatum's, you know, Tatum's syndrome, whatever it is. And it wasn't until she was four, we had airway reconstruction and everything was going along as well as it could.
Carrie McNulty (05:34)
flipping through.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (05:58)
she had defied every odd, know, she's still here, she's doing great, that we found out that she has something called primordial dwarfism. And the way that we found out is because it was a Discovery Channel show. And it came out like 2001. And people were coming up to me in like random stores and being like, is your daughter the one on that Discovery Channel show? And I was like, ⁓ I have no idea what you're talking about. ⁓ But it happened like three or four times. And you know, I was in Chicago, but it was just...
Carrie McNulty (06:21)
Wow.
Julie Barth (06:27)
And then one of my friends called and said, I know what she has. And so I did at that point, it was 2001. I think AOL must have stepped up to the plate because I Googled it or AOLed it and popped everything about her. I mean, it explained everything. And, you know, it was a good and a bad. Colin came home, who was my husband, and I was devastated. was like, come here, come here. And I said, I figured out what Tatum has. And he read it. And he looked at me and he was like.
Carrie McNulty (06:36)
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (06:52)
So it's for dinner. And I'm like, what do you mean what's for dinner? Like, this is devastating. he was like, Julie, did you really think that she was going to be completely OK and normal? And I was kind of like, yeah, I I did. So I was living in this land where because everyone kept saying, she'll catch up. Someday you won't. That's what people say. Someday you won't even know she had the rough start. And so.
Carrie McNulty (07:08)
Right?
Hmm.
Julie Barth (07:18)
I mean, the good thing is that he was right. Like, he's like, nothing has changed. She will be who she is. She's going to be perfect no matter what she is. And that's just how we always approach things. So then we moved on. had two more children at a door family and we were having this huge Halloween party and he was a trader down at the board of trade and just really disconnected all of a sudden. And we were, you know, again, I'd known him. He was my first kiss in like third grade or sixth grade.
Carrie McNulty (07:29)
Mm-hmm.
my goodness.
Julie Barth (07:48)
Yeah, and he just wasn't acting like himself. So I was like, just go to the hospital, you know, don't leave until, you know, because every guy goes in and probably downplays it. So within four hours, I was told that he had stage four pancreatic cancer. And at that point, they said he had two weeks to live and I should just go home and let him say goodbye to his
our youngest being six months, our oldest being 10. And I think after everything I'd been through with Tatum,
I was like, okay, you like, you say this, I'm going to choose to believe this. And we got him into a trial and he was doing really well and actually ended up living for 16 months before he passed away. So
Carrie McNulty (08:35)
That's incredible.
Julie Barth (08:36)
yeah. you know, some of them are really good months, others not so much. But his mother, it was a genetically linked cancer and she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in her 40s and ended up living until she was in her 70s. So we just kind of had hopes that he would, you know, follow.
Carrie McNulty (08:40)
Mm-hmm.
Wow.
would do the same.
Julie Barth (08:55)
my children, you know, they'll be tested for their genetics. But yeah, my...
Carrie McNulty (09:00)
Thank you.
Julie Barth (09:03)
My oldest son was tested and the medical professionals told him when he was like 16 that he had the gene without telling me that they were going to tell him. Yeah. So, yeah.
Carrie McNulty (09:14)
Oh, I'm
surprised they tested him at 16
Julie Barth (09:19)
he ended up having pancreatitis and he also had colitis. So they tested him at that point. So he should have been tested, but they didn't give me a heads up. you can't tell a 16 year old, he's finally coming around. He had a good decade of not caring about his health or.
Carrie McNulty (09:31)
That's not okay.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (09:42)
really
destructive behavior because if you think your dad passed away when he was 36, so he was like, why should I even bother? Because at that time, especially, there was nothing that could be done. We had gotten him into a trial, and that's why he was doing so well. ⁓ So yeah, I'm a big proponent of donating to pancreatic cancer. So anyone out there?
Carrie McNulty (09:47)
Right.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Julie Barth (10:06)
Feel free to do that. So anyway, yeah. Moving on. So
Carrie McNulty (10:08)
Agreed. Yes. Yeah.
Julie Barth (10:13)
we lost him in 2009, which led to I ended up kind of not wanting to be me anymore. You know, we where we had lived in this very small town and everyone was great and came out and supported us and donated to us. When he passed, it was like I was the beacon of sadness and
You know, I lost a bit of him every day in 16 months. I lost a piece of him. So when everyone else was just like coming to the table, like with grief and, and, you know, just processing it, I was kind of like, I can't sit in this anymore. you know, so I met somebody who was younger than me. and it just seemed like I wanted to start my life over. You know, I felt
Carrie McNulty (10:47)
Yeah.
Julie Barth (10:56)
I'd lost like a good chunk of my thirties and I was like, I'm just not going to be me anymore. I'm just going to, you know, put that all away and move away and start over. And, which led to about a decade of emotional, pretty tragic abuse. So.
Carrie McNulty (11:04)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Julie Barth (11:13)
I thought putting it in my past would keep it there, but it didn't.
so that's why I opened up a charity, which I'm going to introduce now. ⁓ My husband's name is Colin James Barth. So I opened up a charity that is meant to tackle all the different phases of me, whether that's women that suddenly find themselves head of household. You know, that doesn't necessarily mean single because, know, I wouldn't
Carrie McNulty (11:22)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Julie Barth (11:42)
⁓ Colin was diagnosed, you know, you just find yourself in this position where you're not just like, mom, all of a sudden you're breadwinner caregiver and all of these other situations. And, you know, you go to the government and the government's like, okay, well, unless you're poor, unless you've lost everything, you know? And so, you know, it's that weird thing where you, you go back and you're like, okay, I've lost everything now. Yay. And then you're like, ⁓ damn, I lost everything.
Carrie McNulty (11:51)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Right,
Julie Barth (12:10)
You ⁓
Carrie McNulty (12:10)
part of me has to celebrate that so that I can get some support and the other part of me is like everything that I've worked for. Yeah, we have no safety net for anywhere in the middle at all whatsoever.
Julie Barth (12:14)
It's devastated.
No.
we actually are trying to fashion ourselves after like a concierge service where, you know, there are so many organizations out there that already tackle different parts of it. So we don't want to replicate any of those things, but we, when you come to us, we hope to be like, you know, you're eligible for this, you're eligible for that. And for whatever else is in the, in the middle ground. ⁓
Carrie McNulty (12:32)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Julie Barth (12:45)
kind of where we want to help. if somebody else is out there doing it, we're trying to partner with other organizations. You don't know until you hit crisis what you actually need. And I found out the other day that there was this woman that what she does is she takes your animals when you have to be displaced. And I'm like, that is so cool that you wouldn't know unless you have an animal. And then you're like, well, I don't know where to go with it. So it's those little things that mean so much that we're trying to.
Carrie McNulty (12:53)
Yeah.
No.
Julie Barth (13:11)
match the people that need it with the people that want to give it. So that's kind of where we're trying to make those connections because, you know, the last thing you want to be doing is researching where to go when you need help. You don't even have time or you don't know what you need. yeah.
Carrie McNulty (13:15)
Yeah.
Right. Yeah. Or capacity. If you're caretaking,
being a mother, working, you don't really have the capacity, you know, to be searching and searching for resources. man, what an awesome thing. And I can say, I did case management for a long time. I've been a therapist for, don't know how many years now. And that is one of the things that keeps people from seeking help sometimes is they don't have any place to put their animals. That's safe.
So that's, you know, that gave me chills when you said that, because it's like, that's such a huge thing that people don't always think about and very needed.
Julie Barth (13:54)
Yeah,
I mean, especially if you have kids, your primary thing is my kids. And then all of a sudden, what are you going to lose? Your family dog when your kids are already like, it's just all those things that you don't think about. But they do, they keep you stuck because you can't even, when you're in that situation, most people stay in horrible situations because they're like,
Carrie McNulty (13:58)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (14:16)
I don't even know how to, it's so overwhelming to me that I'm just gonna stay stuck because it could get worse and the thought of something getting worse will keep you stuck in what you're doing. Even if it's terrible, you know, it's that devil you know kind of thing.
Carrie McNulty (14:24)
Yeah. Always. Always. Well, right.
Because if I can tolerate it, then I can stay here, but I don't know what's coming next. And I might not be able to tolerate that or survive that. yeah. Wow.
Julie Barth (14:39)
Exactly. You're just looking
to minimize the damage. And we believe that no woman, first of all, should ever be in a position where they can't protect their children due to resources, which you do. I was in a terrible divorce. I couldn't even go for what I knew was right and protect them because an email was costing me $20 just to ask a question.
Carrie McNulty (14:52)
Okay.
Wow. Yeah.
Julie Barth (15:04)
Yeah,
and that's where you get, when you even decide to divorce, you you walk in somewhere and they want a $2,500 check just to retain them. And you, you know, if your money's tied to somebody else, you know, you put it on a credit card, and then what do you do? In two months, you're broke, you know. And the fight hasn't even started. That's the problem.
Carrie McNulty (15:19)
Right.
Yes, this is just
this is just the first step of trying to get the help to separate.
Julie Barth (15:28)
Yeah.
Carrie McNulty (15:30)
did you have a couple other additional children in the second marriage?
Julie Barth (15:35)
I did.
yeah, I had two children. So after I left ⁓ my hometown, I left my family, my friends, I just kind of picked up and barely even said goodbye and moved to really a place in the mountains that was completely destitute. That's the way he wanted it. He didn't want neighbors. He didn't want anything. ⁓ And then my daughter Tatum, the one with special needs actually came down with a rare form of connective tissue cancer.
Carrie McNulty (15:43)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (16:03)
when we got to the mountains ⁓ in Charlotte.
Carrie McNulty (16:08)
how was it trying to get her help when you're in the middle of nowhere?
Julie Barth (16:12)
Well, the thing about it is that the only way to cure her cancer was removal. we had to like have a series of eight or nine surgeries. We were very lucky. We had a good surgical team that knew what to do with it because he had to send it out four or five times to figure out what it was to begin with. But it was really at that point when I figured out that I was completely alone and on my own, you know, that he didn't go to.
Carrie McNulty (16:29)
Hmm.
Julie Barth (16:38)
My ex-husband didn't come to the hospital. He literally didn't care. It was like a burden to him. So I'm running around trying to take care of kids and get her to the hospital. it was just a really, you know, like I don't even remember it. That's how truly chaotic and yeah, yeah.
Carrie McNulty (16:52)
How hard? Yeah.
Tell me more about Tatum because she sounds very special. So I wanna know, like, what's it like to be her mom and what's it like to face some of the challenges that you've had with her and her unique health history
Julie Barth (17:11)
⁓ you know, I, she's, I, I, I go back and forth. She's either the like most unluckiest person I've ever met or the luckiest. And it really depends on how you want to perceive it. You know, I've taken her in for like a regular doctor's appointment and she's flatlined by the end of the day. ⁓ I've also been told she'll never, you know, crawl. And the next thing I know, she's running up the stairs. So.
there's no reason on earth that she should be here, but she is. And she really was a catalyst for me doing what I do and speaking out. And ⁓ she's a self taught artist. So she does her artwork and we sell it online and all of her, the proceeds from her artwork goes to fund the charity. Yeah. And yeah, she's really, really tiny, but I wouldn't mess with her.
Carrie McNulty (17:38)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Wow, that's cool.
Julie Barth (18:01)
⁓ so.
all of us, we don't see her as special needs anymore, different than anybody else. But I will say that sometimes I'll see a picture and I'm like, God, she's so tiny. Because you forget, you know, it's like when you walk into your house and there's a particular smell that your house has and you don't really notice until you go on vacation, then you come home and you're like, what's this? That's kind of how it is. know, I think that when I had her,
Carrie McNulty (18:10)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Barth (18:32)
and then proceeded to have more children young in life. There was a perception like I was being stupid, maybe, or irresponsible. I think there's that stigma, like you already have one, you should focus on what you have. And I don't think people mean it to be mean, but I think there is kind of that stigma of like, you got your hands full already. But I will say if I didn't have the desire to have a big family, I think it would have been a very lonely.
Carrie McNulty (18:35)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Julie Barth (19:00)
existence for her. ⁓ Yeah, I there were several times when having a special needs daughter, you know, where you people have their expectations of what they want for your child. And you really have to kind of reconcile like, okay, I appreciate that that's what you want for my child, but this is what I want. So for the first three or four years of her life, she had a trach and you know, I would take her to the pool and the nurses would gasp, you know, she could she could die or
Carrie McNulty (19:02)
Yeah!
Julie Barth (19:29)
take her to the mall and she could pick up a virus. And I was always kind of like, what good is a life to preserve if you're not gonna let her live it? that was one of the biggest lessons that I learned as a special needs mom to not second guess yourself. Just because your goals might be different than the teachers or the therapist or whatever it is, it's your child, you know what they need. And I never wanted her to feel like she couldn't.
Carrie McNulty (19:47)
Yeah.
Julie Barth (19:59)
do something, not because she couldn't, but because somebody told her she couldn't. So whatever it was that she wanted to do, I was going to support it, you know, 100%. And she does, you know, I was like, sometimes she'll come to me and she'll, you she's just such a sweetheart and she worries so much about me, bless her. And like, I'll, you know, I'll say like, oh, something broke, like the water heater and she'll go, oh, it's okay. I'll pay for it. And I'm like, oh, that's so sweet. And then
she'll come to me with this like handful of money. And I'm like, how did you get that money? But she does, she sells things online. And I'm like, I almost feel like she's like got a Dexter's lab in my basement. Like, what are you doing? Like, she's just a little miracle. She really is. Yeah. Yeah. So anytime I feel down about my situation or, you know, I think it could always be worse. That's kind of my mantra in life is,
Carrie McNulty (20:31)
Aww.
Yeah.
Yeah.
⁓ absolutely. Yeah. We don't want to call in anything negative energy-wise there. It could be worse, but it's not. And that's the thing that we're focusing on. Yeah, it's not worse. But she sounds awesome. And I love that you let her have the experiences that she wants to
Julie Barth (20:54)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's not ever. No, no. Yeah.
Carrie McNulty (21:09)
instead of limiting her, you know, and saying, well, maybe that's not the safest or the best or the, know, you're letting her have her life,
Julie Barth (21:09)
Yeah.
Well, yeah, but still, she doesn't drive. We all have to take her someplace. yeah, mean, again, COVID really hit her hard. And I think that is when I really recognized she is socially where she should be for her age. She can't make change. I don't know that she could say the full alphabet.
Carrie McNulty (21:20)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (21:39)
But if you go to her with a problem, she will listen and she will just give you her two cents. it's like, sometimes she lives with my mother in the cottage behind my house and I say they're like two little ladies over there just like bitching at one another. And this is a side note, but my mom was a huge Trump, total Trump supporter and I'm apolitical, so I don't support anyone. But Tatum came over and she was like,
Carrie McNulty (21:49)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (22:05)
Grandma wants me to vote for Trump and she's gonna make me vote. And I said, well, if she's gonna make you vote, just tell her you're gonna vote for Kamala and she'll keep you home. So, I mean, that's Tatum in a nutshell. She's definitely the loudest one in my house. And again, I would not mess with her. know, one's like, oh, she's so sweet. And I'm like, she can be. I'm leaving it at that. So, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Carrie McNulty (22:20)
you
Yeah.
Yeah, but she can also kick your butt. Yeah.
So you got yourself to the place in the second marriage where you were ready to go. And what was that like for you when you decided, I've got to do something different here for myself and for my kids? What was the moment that you were like, okay, I'm done?
Julie Barth (22:51)
I would love to say that I had had enough of being, you know, talked down to you, but the truth is we had separated one time for real, you know, it was six or eight months and right as I was gaining my stride and getting back into life, he came back and said, okay, fine. If you know, if you're going to beg me back. And I wasn't begging, but at that point I still wasn't, I felt bad for him. So I let him back in and within a couple of months, my younger son,
Carrie McNulty (22:53)
Mm.
Julie Barth (23:18)
He was really, really brutal to my younger son, more so than I care to admit to myself after all these years. But he came to me and he said, like, I don't know why you keep letting him back. He's threatened to kill you. He's threatened to kill me. And you just keep looking the other way. And I fashioned my mom and myself as mom first. And in that moment, I really had to take a good, hard look in the mirror and recognize that I wasn't being.
Carrie McNulty (23:42)
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (23:45)
a good mom, like that I wasn't putting them first. And it was at that point that I was like, I don't, I don't care what I have to lose or what I have to do. I'll never put my kids in that position again. And that was the beginning to the end, which was not easy. ⁓ he did exactly what I thought he was going to do. He'd been setting me up for years, video recording me, you know, he'd push my buttons and then screenshot our texts and send them out to his chains of his friends and
Carrie McNulty (24:00)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (24:14)
you know, he was smear campaigning me back home and I, just, when I left, I left and, know, I, I kind of just put that in my past, but he, he was going back there and telling everyone I was crazy and I was playing right into it. Cause I was behaving crazy. So, ⁓ you know, I think I really questioned myself, you know, why did I do that? Why would I let somebody, you know, talk down to me, talk, treat my children badly.
And it was in having to defend myself to the court because he was telling the court that I was crazy. I was a drug addict. I was an alcoholic that I committed adultery, you know, just painting me as the exact thing that he was. And in having to protect myself is really where, you know, I found out who I really was because I had to, you know, look in the mirror. And so that's.
I guess that's where the strength came from.
Carrie McNulty (25:13)
Mm-hmm.
it is not easy. think a lot of people hear stories and think, well, why didn't you leave sooner? Or why didn't you just do this? Or why didn't you just do that without understanding how complicated and difficult it is, especially for women to walk away for lots of different reasons. Is there anything you can say to speak to that in case there is somebody happening to be listening that thinks anything like what I just said?
Julie Barth (25:42)
Yeah, I think unfortunately these
relationships will not work. They cannot work by design. They want them not to work. So, you know, I say like it does get worse before it gets better. I'm not going to say that you might not lose everything that you think is everything, you know, because I think that's the biggest fear. can remember waking up at like two in the morning, like, oh my gosh, I'm going to lose everything. But when you get on the other side of it, you know,
Carrie McNulty (25:48)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-mm.
Julie Barth (26:10)
everything that you thought you needed were the very things that were keeping you stuck. I was like, I'm gonna lose my friends. I guess think about it this way that if your friendships are so fragile that they won't give you the room to talk, that they won't come to you and say, hey, I'm worried about you, what's going on. And they're so willing to believe an alternate version of you, then you really didn't have them to begin with.
Carrie McNulty (26:15)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, they weren't your friends. No.
Julie Barth (26:37)
No, and that's
a very, you know, these were kids that I went to like grammar school with, you know, so that was, that was a, and I'll be honest, like, I don't know how they felt about me. I, I, when, when push came to shove, I kind of just said, this is all toxic to me. have to leave it in my past. And, know, if at some point, you know, there's, there's healing to have, then that's fine. But I kind of just had to shut it off and say, well,
Carrie McNulty (26:41)
Mm.
Julie Barth (27:04)
it felt like I was constantly apologizing to people. Like, I'm really not crazy or like, look how nice I am. And I was being this version of myself that was just dancing all the time to just like say, I'm not crazy. Everything's good here. Don't look over there. Don't, you know, listen to me. These kids are doing great. The house is not on fire. I don't care if you see flames. It's not true. And it was exhausting. I mean, it just was so exhausting.
Carrie McNulty (27:07)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Well,
when it sounds like you didn't even have time to grieve that either, right? You had to put on whatever face was necessary to prove whatever to the people in your life. couldn't be authentic in that time. That had to have been really hard to carry by yourself.
Julie Barth (27:42)
Yeah.
Yeah. And I think that those things that get us through the defense mechanisms that we have that do serve us so well in times of crisis. If you don't learn to pivot them to adjust to your new situation, you continue on that path. It's like a locomotive that just runs through everything and you don't even know it. I had a very hard time accepting help. I had a very hard time telling people things that it wasn't okay.
Carrie McNulty (27:54)
Mm-hmm.
Yes.
Julie Barth (28:12)
You know, because when you encounter people, especially in illness, they say, how are you? And they want you to say fine. And if you don't say fine, there's a very uncomfortable like, I should have said fine. So you just keep saying fine. And you learn very quickly that if you don't play the game, you're going to be isolated because people don't want to be uncomfortable. And it's not you. It's just they don't.
Carrie McNulty (28:13)
Mm-hmm.
Yes. Yes.
Julie Barth (28:39)
when it's uncomfortable, kind of, great, okay, well, I'll call you. If you need anything, give me a call. That's like, yeah. So you learn to just hide those parts of yourself and you want to be with them. So you want to pretend like your life is just as unencumbered as theirs. But yet at the same time, you're in a conversation that, I always say it's like when you're pregnant and you go out with a bunch of friends and they start drinking martinis and all of a sudden you're like, I don't understand.
Carrie McNulty (28:44)
Right, right. Yeah, yeah.
Thank
Right.
I'm not on whatever level you're on right now. I have no idea what's going on here. Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Barth (29:07)
Yeah, yeah. You're speaking a different language. And I think that's how it goes is like,
and the last thing you want to do is be like this, you know, bummer. Like if you even are able to get away from something, whether that's, you know, your abusive husband or your sick husband, you know, the last thing you want to do is, hey guys, let me tell you, you know, like nobody wants that. So you just.
Carrie McNulty (29:25)
Mm-hmm.
Right. Which is
really hard because that's what real life is. That's what real relationships, that's what you, we all need. Like that's what real connection is. That's the whole reason why I'm doing this podcast is that we, we do need to make space for people to have their real life experiences and to connect on that level.
It's not only that somebody's story matters if the same thing happened to you. Somebody's story matters because they're a human being and they're going through something really hard or multiple things that are really hard. And I think we do, we move so fast, right? I just spoke to somebody I had on my podcast about grief and the expectation of you get three days off and then you just keep it moving, right? and are you, you're still upset about that? There's a part of you that's going to be upset about that forever.
Julie Barth (29:53)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm Yeah.
Carrie McNulty (30:21)
Yeah, yeah, forever. There's a part of you that's going to be hurt and upset about that forever. There isn't a time where you're be like, I'm cool with it. Yeah, I'm good. But that's the expectation. Don't make people uncomfortable with your stuff. And that sucks.
Julie Barth (30:27)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right, yeah,
so then you hide it and that's even worse because then you just feel like you're alone, you know, and there's nothing worse than living your own, you know, because you're in your mind all day long. But then when you see people, you're like, hey, you know, this like completely unauthentic person. A lot of people too, I think that they think it's like, there's a start and a finish to it. Like, ⁓ you know, well, you know, and we all know those stages of grief, right?
Carrie McNulty (30:49)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (31:05)
And what people don't know is that those stages were actually written for somebody who was told that they have terminal illness for them to accept dying, which, you know, for the caregiver, you do all of those stages with that person and then starts all over again in a different way. So, you know, there's this misconception that grief is what the stages of grief are according to that book. And for care, yeah, yeah. Or that it.
Carrie McNulty (31:19)
Yes.
Absolutely.
Right, that it's linear. Yeah, that it's linear. I go through this
and then this and then this and then I'm done. And it's like, or all the stages happen at once or out of order or are ongoing.
Julie Barth (31:40)
Or
you just stop it too. Because I think I stopped it too. And that's OK. Because I think you reach a stage that you can handle at that moment. And if it's too much, you just put it away. it took me, my book, my first book that I really sat on my laptop for 12 years because I could not bring myself to read it. I literally took everything of Collins.
Carrie McNulty (31:43)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Julie Barth (32:07)
put it into like a little bin and it went to the basement. And my second husband, we weren't allowed to talk about him. It would make him mad. just after 12 years of opening it up, it's almost as if you have to, it has to callous for you to be able to go through it again. Because if you're still bleeding, it's like, it's just a dagger. Everything is just, you're on high emotion.
Carrie McNulty (32:26)
Thank you.
Yeah.
Julie Barth (32:34)
You can't even process it. you just, what I did was I was like, if I just pack it away and I'm just not going to be me and I'm going to start over. that was just, you know, that didn't really happen. I'm just going to do what I want to do and have, because I wanted a plan for my life. And I was like hell bent on having that plan. And whatever didn't fit into that plan was no longer of concern of mine. And unfortunately it's like a band playing all the time.
You can't make it go away. You can hush it for a bit. But it's always going to interrupt what's going on.
Carrie McNulty (33:09)
yeah it's right there under the surface. mean it's not that far, you know, it's not buried that far. And I think what you did is very, again, very human and very natural. It's so much, it's so so much that trying to look at it in its totality might have taken you down, right? And so your system did what it needed to do for you to survive. Yeah.
Julie Barth (33:15)
No.
Yeah,
100%. Yeah. you know, the body just like childbirth, you know, your body does certain things to hide something from you so that you can exist in this world. Because sometimes if something is, you know, I think that's why multiple personalities, that's why they exist is because the brain is like,
can't handle that. We're going to do this and we're going to pretend, you know, whatever mechanism is over there can deal with that, you know, and keep it spinning until I can get over there and deal with it.
Carrie McNulty (33:58)
Yeah.
Well, the parts of our system are really brilliant. Some of the things that people turn to to protect themselves that are called maladaptive, like substance use, eating disorders, whatever. All of those things that people think are super bad, I look at them as parts of us that are trying to help us survive in a very tough time, because they don't just show up for no reason. They're
and our system does the best it can. It's like if you have a firefighter that shows up to your house, they're not like, are those new carpets and new windows? Because we're gonna do everything we can do to avoid destroying those while we put out this fire at your house. They put, the whole thing is ruined. It is just, it doesn't matter, right? Because then the crisis is taken care of in that moment. And that's how our systems are. It's like, if you can keep surviving, there's a part of us that's gonna come in and take care of it, we don't get to choose.
Julie Barth (34:33)
you
Yeah.
Carrie McNulty (34:50)
how that shows up, you know? And so it, yeah. it totally is. I say to some of the people I work with have the most wonderfully defended systems, you know, that these protectors that are working so, so hard.
Julie Barth (34:53)
Yeah. And it really is brilliant by design. know? Yeah. Yeah.
I am, am,
yeah, my design, I, you know, I can't decide if like the mold should be broken or because I, well, know study, yes. I don't know for good or bad, but ⁓ yeah, because I did become so good at smiling and being like, everything's fine, you know, like.
Carrie McNulty (35:09)
you
Or studied.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. ⁓
Julie Barth (35:27)
And I see myself and I'm checked out. Like there's nothing going on up here besides just making it to dinner or lunch or yeah. And like I said, think, yeah, I'd like to believe that I wouldn't have gotten into the second relationship. Might have, because I'm a pleaser by nature, but yeah, I definitely think that you do what you do in the heat of crisis. And that's why I'm a huge proponent of like,
Carrie McNulty (35:29)
Yeah.
Yep, the next thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Right.
Julie Barth (35:54)
don't beat yourself up because it's so easy to be like, well, that was dumb. you know, nobody's presented with situations and they're like, this one's gonna burn my house down, destroy my life. I'm going with that. You know what I mean? I'll take that one. Yeah. Versus this really healthy one. Yeah.
Carrie McNulty (35:56)
Yes.
I'll take that one. That one looks good. I like a challenge. right. That
sounds boring. I want to do the thing that sounds like it's gonna blow my life up. No, you're right. We don't get the benefit. Like I said, at the start of this hindsight, looking back, you can have a different perspective, but when you're in it, you were making the choices that you wanted to make and needed to make to keep living your life. You couldn't help it that the person that you found was predatory. From what you're sharing, it sounds like that was the case.
Julie Barth (36:18)
you
Yeah.
Carrie McNulty (36:37)
You know, one thing I wanted to ask you is if there are people who are in relationships and they're not really sure if it's maybe the healthiest or the safest, what are some things that are red flags for people to look for in their partners? You know, let's say somebody else is like looking to reconnect after having a lot of grief or trauma in their life and they think they found somebody who's great, but there's a little part of them that isn't sure. What are some things that stand out that are like, ⁓ that's probably not a good sign?
Julie Barth (37:04)
I think
just confusion. I think that the hardest part of my second relationship was just confusion. I would say the sky's blue. And he would say, no, it's purple. And I'd go, huh, looks blue. And it got to the point where I was like, I guess it is purple. And you just readjust yourself. you think, I can't even tell you the level of depravity that
Carrie McNulty (37:20)
Hmm.
Julie Barth (37:26)
he was capable of. And I would gaslight myself and be like, Julie, you've been watching way too many crime TVs. You know what I mean? Like, and I think you convince yourself out of it because it seems so outlandish. And you don't want to admit that somebody that you cared for or that you chose could do something bad to you because that almost reflects poorly on you that you made a dumb choice. So I would say, you know, if you are Googling
Carrie McNulty (37:39)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Julie Barth (37:55)
I mean, I can't even tell you how many times I Googled like, how do I save my relationship or is he a narcissist? If you are asking those questions, that's all you need to know. Because if you were in a relationship where you could save it or it was healthy, you would have that conversation with them, not with Google. Like you shouldn't have to go outside of your relationship with somebody.
Carrie McNulty (37:58)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Right.
Julie Barth (38:18)
to figure out how to have a relationship with someone. No, that's not to say sometimes we don't have ineffective ways to communicate. like, if you go to a therapist, that's fantastic. But if you've been to five therapists or you're going all on your own because you believe if I just fix me, it'll all work because that's what I did. and the other thing is I was so worried that if we broke up,
Carrie McNulty (38:26)
Right.
Yes.
Right.
Julie Barth (38:43)
He was going to go on to have a healthy, happy life, and it would be my fault. As a wife and a mom, you don't want to fail. That is the worst thing you can ever think of. But if I can impart one thing out there, it's like it doesn't matter who's at fault. It doesn't matter if you are the most insane person in the entire world and caused all of this carnage in your wake.
Carrie McNulty (38:51)
Yeah.
Julie Barth (39:08)
It doesn't matter if you're not happy. It doesn't matter if it's their fault, your fault. You need to move on. You only have one life to live. And if you can't find resolution in it, it never, it takes two people. Even with a narcissist or sociopath, it still takes two people. Because there were many times and I should have walked away, but should have, could have, would have is not the answer. Do, you know.
Carrie McNulty (39:27)
Mm-hmm.
so you're saying at the start, as soon as you start Googling, how do I make this work? What's going on? And you don't feel safe taking that conversation to your partner, then that's a big sign. Hey, this is, yeah, right. Because by the time you've gotten to where you got, you weren't even sure what you were thinking and wanting anymore, it sounds like. So be very tough. I'm so glad you're to the place where you're saying, I don't blame myself.
Julie Barth (39:42)
I would say so.
that was a long hard road. because it's easy. I think that, again, you know,
Carrie McNulty (39:57)
Yeah. How did you do that?
Julie Barth (40:05)
I think I've looked at the totality of my life and it's like, forgot who I was. You know, it's like I spent the first half of my life being a good mother, a good wife, protecting, trying to make things work, put out fires. I didn't do anything differently in the second one besides put my energy in the wrong place. So that doesn't make me a bad person. It doesn't mean, was I stupid? Probably at certain points did, but
Carrie McNulty (40:07)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Julie Barth (40:34)
If you go into a situation with good intentions and it doesn't work out the way that you want it to, that doesn't mean that you made the wrong decision. I have two beautiful girls who I adore and my life would never be the same without them. So whatever decision I made was the decision that I was supposed to make. I believe in the universe and I believe we're all here for a reason. And you usually don't know what it is until you get beyond it and you look past it. You know, you look and you are like, ⁓ that's
Carrie McNulty (40:42)
Yes.
Julie Barth (41:05)
That's why I had to go through that. Like, I believe in those lessons that we have to learn. I think maybe the universe kept throwing it at me like, okay, you're gonna listen now. So, yes, I'm listening now.
Carrie McNulty (41:06)
Yes. ⁓
feel like it does that. I feel like
it does that. It's like, you don't like to ask for help? Well, guess what? We're gonna keep, because I've been there. That was my lesson as well. Like you're gonna figure it out. You're gonna figure out how to let people help you. And we're gonna have some pretty shitty things happen to you in order for you to get there. Okay, yeah. So.
Julie Barth (41:23)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And I also believe that the
universe does that so that you can make an impact on other people. ⁓ So quick story, when Tatum had a trach, we were in Chicago. It was really impossible to get babies out of hospitals back then because if they had a trach, you needed around the care nursing. But if
Carrie McNulty (41:39)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (41:53)
they would deny it so that you would give up, take your child home. If you took your child home, then you would admit that you could take care of it on your own and you wouldn't get nursing. So it was all a design. So yeah, everyone kept saying, don't take her out of the hospital. So I was on Channel 5 News, of course, me going after the insurance company. I had this whole feature on Blue Cross Blue Shield. Well, of course, nothing came out of it for me. She came home a couple of weeks later and I was like, well, that was whatever, wasted energy.
Carrie McNulty (42:02)
You can't win.
Julie Barth (42:22)
But ⁓ my friend called me about six months later and she said, I gave so-and-so your number because she's got a son that was just born with a trach. So the woman called me and first thing out the gate, I was like, I know, I thought I had really good insurance. Your first move right now has to be.
there's this little subdivision in Chicago that will take care of babies with trachs because your insurance company and she's like, oh no, no, we're fine. And I'm like, no, you really don't understand. I thought so too. And she's like, no, there's this woman on the news like six months ago. And because of her babies now with trachs get automatic nursing care. And in that moment, like that's how I believe the universe works. Like that is my whole sum up of why we're here, what we do.
Carrie McNulty (42:59)
my gosh.
Wow.
Julie Barth (43:08)
you know, that's really the basis of my charity is like, if we all have to go through something really hard, if we all stop to like make it a softer landing for the next person, the world would be such a greater place, you know, instead we all just kind of, when we go through something hard, we're like, whew, glad that's in my past. But if we took the time, you know, then maybe someone wouldn't have to trip up and fall, or at least not as hard.
Carrie McNulty (43:18)
Mm-hmm.
You you didn't get to reap the benefit in that moment, but you you're talking to the person that was like, well, there was some person on the news and you're like, oh, that was me. I was the person. Yeah.
Julie Barth (43:44)
Yeah, and it makes it all, you know,
yeah. And I think when you go through tragedy, that is those little nuggets are like what make it all. Because if you don't make meaning out of it, then it's easy to falter and feel sorry and resentment and anger. you know, but if when Colin was dying, I said to him, like, something is going to come of this, like your struggle, your pain, all of this is not going to be for not. And after he died, I
Carrie McNulty (43:54)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (44:11)
you know, kind of put it away. I had always wanted to give back because our community was so good fundraising. And so like that was always kind of there. But then I was like, you know, and I'm just going to do me. And then I went through two more situations. And finally, after all of that, I thought, you know, I made a promise and I'm going to do it. And someone said to me, like, what happens when you get burnt out? Like, what happens when?
Carrie McNulty (44:17)
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (44:34)
And I said, well, if that ever happens, then I hope it's almost like building an army of soldiers. Like, then I'm going to pass the baton to the next soldier and they're going to carry out, you know, the goodness that it's paying it forward. So.
Carrie McNulty (44:47)
Yeah.
And the resources that you have, is that part of the website that you have that I can share with people so that people can get connected that way? Yeah.
Julie Barth (44:58)
Yes, so if you go to
Julie Barth author.com, I have links on there for Tatum's art, everything that her artwork can be put on anything and all the proceeds go to fund the charity. And then there's another tab for the charity. So you can get involved, you can donate if you need help. You know, we just started, in our infancy. It's really just me and a couple of board members. But even though I don't have resources right now,
the best thing that I've been able to do is just like remind people of who they are. I've been fortunate enough to help some women who feel really stuck in something. And on the other end, things start to pick up and they feel better, they say to me like, I could have never done it without you. And my answer to them is always, no, you just forgot who you are and I was the mirror to remind you. You could have done it without me.
Carrie McNulty (45:39)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (45:50)
but
you forgot who you are. And so if there's someone out there that is stuck in that Googling, is a narcissist, call me. I'll let you know. Don't take one of those quizzes. Yeah, yeah. Don't take the quiz. Because the quiz is going to sell you yes, because they're trying to sell you something. ⁓ yeah. So yeah, we're always looking to partner with companies that want to take women that will work remotely so that you can make a lucrative career instead of just a minimum wage job. ⁓
Carrie McNulty (45:56)
you
⁓ I have a quick sheet I'll go down. Yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (46:19)
Yeah, so we're trying to tackle many different fronts, but anyone who'd like get involved or just learn about our organization can just go to my website.
Carrie McNulty (46:27)
Cool. Yeah, I'll definitely put that in the show notes so that people can connect and maybe that this will be the window that there's more that can be offered. We get connected with people that have additional resources that can support. I think that what you're talking about and what you're giving women is amazing
Julie Barth (46:46)
I'm very cognizant, like, because I grew up, you know, ⁓ Generation X women, we were told like, you can do it all. And I was like, well, I don't really want to do it all. I just, I kind of just want to be a mom, can't I? You know, and it like for the first time, it was like, what do mean you don't want to be a, you know, in the corporate world? Like, I remember hiding what I wanted to be because I was like,
Carrie McNulty (46:52)
Mm-hmm.
Well, do I have to?
Julie Barth (47:10)
can't tell people I just want to be a mom because it was like the stigma of like, ⁓ so you're lazy. I'm like, no.
Carrie McNulty (47:13)
Mm-hmm.
And I love how the pendulum
has swung back the other way now that it's like, if you say you don't want to be a mom, and you know, you want to focus on your career, now you're horrible. Like, I feel like there's no way for us to make the right choice. any somebody's gonna have a problem with no matter what it is, you know, societally. Yeah.
Julie Barth (47:20)
Yes.
Yeah. No.
Yes, yeah. Yeah, well,
hopefully that's my mission is to try and change a little. Can't we all just want to be what we want to be? Whatever you find your calling is or your usefulness in the world, why not just do that without someone? That's kind of like everybody putting their, what your child should be on you. Yeah, in fact, my daughter who is sophmore in college,
Carrie McNulty (47:45)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Julie Barth (47:57)
the reason that I got the idea of like at first I wanted the charity to like give away mortgages, give away, and then she was trying to get a scholarship and you everybody's going for the full ride and Piper didn't do that. She was like I'm gonna take 2,000 here, I'm gonna take and that's what I want to do with our charity. Like can I offer a full ride? Probably not, but I can probably find you 2,000, can find a dog sitter here, you know, and then you will have a full ride.
Carrie McNulty (48:03)
Yeah.
any bit of help and support that people can get, that kindness and those resources help people feel more confident in themselves again.
could make a decision that changes their life forever. And it happens every day. Yeah, it happens every day. It has nothing to do with being smart or not being smart.
Julie Barth (48:38)
in a second. Yeah. ⁓
And that's like one of the quotes in our charity was, everybody stands to lose everything in an instant. Everybody. You can lose everything in an instant. We all live under this cloud that that can't happen to me. And I think we vilify people when it happens to them because it makes us feel less vulnerable. Well, if I vilify you, you deserve that because then it
Carrie McNulty (48:53)
Mm-hmm.
Well
Julie Barth (49:06)
It's not random, it can't just happen. Like they deserve it. So I think there is a big push to vilify anybody going through a hard time.
Carrie McNulty (49:13)
Well, absolutely,
because again, like we were talking about earlier, you even trying to discuss your situation with friends and learning very quickly that you couldn't, that you had to be fine is because they didn't want to be close to that. Like they could catch it.
Julie Barth (49:28)
Yeah, yes, people do think they can catch stuff like that. Maybe they can. I don't know. Maybe I caught it from someone else who knows. I'm going to have to re-examine that. Go back to my history. Who gave that to me?
Carrie McNulty (49:43)
Yeah,
who did this? Who told me their story about a situation that I ended up having to deal with it? Yeah. is there anything that I didn't ask you about that you wanted to share?
Julie Barth (49:45)
And it got rubbed off on me.
I think the only thing that I, it's taken me all of my many, many, many years here to learn is that as women we're so guided by like, what are people going to say? What are people going to think? And, you know, my biggest message is it doesn't, nobody else has to live in your shoes. No one else has to live your life. And if people don't like you and you've done the best that you can, then the person they don't like is the version they've created of you, not you. So.
Carrie McNulty (50:05)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Julie Barth (50:23)
You know, I think I made a lot of decisions throughout my entire life based on how are people gonna, what are they gonna think of me and my decisions or whatever it was. And being able to just say, don't care is a very freeing feeling. You know, it gives you a sense of who you are again. And that's really important to remember.
Carrie McNulty (50:43)
Yeah.
thank you for coming on the show. I've really loved having you. I think your story is going to impact people. And I love the idea of what you're doing with resources. So I'm definitely going to share that so that we can get more, maybe some more support going and just so women know there's a place to go. I love the fact that you took some really hard situations and made
Julie Barth (50:46)
you
Carrie McNulty (51:05)
something that sounds like you're pretty happy in your life right now.
Julie Barth (51:09)
I am, I am, you know, I would say, I always say happiness is overrated. I'm peace, I'm at peace, you know, like, I don't even care about happy anymore. is an illusion, I think, like, I just, wake up in peace and there's nothing, I would give anything up. I would never give my peace up again, but it is the best place to be. yeah, peace is really good.
Carrie McNulty (51:14)
Yeah.
Yeah, peace is good. And hopefully, yeah, happy's
hard to sustain. Yeah.
Julie Barth (51:33)
Happiness, yeah.
Well, you can't be happy without peace. that's a cornerstone of
when you don't have to hide those pieces of yourself. You know, if you're just standing out there like naked, like here I am, pleaser and all. What are you gonna say now?
Carrie McNulty (51:47)
Now what? Yeah.
Well, thank you again for coming on. For everybody listening, I'll be back in another couple of weeks with another episode. And until then, take good care of yourselves and I'll talk to you soon.
