Unbroken: A Journey Through Trauma and Healing with Adriene Caldwell

In this episode of Carrie's Always Talking, Adriene Caldwell shares her harrowing life story, detailing her experiences with trauma, mental illness, and the complexities of family dynamics. She discusses her journey through foster care, her relationship with her mother, and the impact of supportive figures in her life. Adriene emphasizes the importance of understanding mental illness and the choices we make in the face of adversity. Her story is one of resilience, personal growth, and the power of gratitude as she navigates her path to healing and self-acceptance. Please be advised- There are some more in depth examples of physical abuse shared in the episode which may be triggering for some listeners. 

Adriene's Website: https://www.unbrokencaldwell.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

Transcript

Carrie McNulty (00:00)

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 that we build empathy and humanity, which is something I think we need a lot more of in the world today. This is episode 19 of season two, and it just so happens to be the last episode of the season for me. I'm going to take a little break. I'll start recording again with folks in January and...

probably start putting new episodes out maybe towards the end of February. So if you are interested in coming on the podcast, send a message to the email. That's the best place to get me. And hopefully, like I said, I'll be resuming in that time. I'm also sort of wondering, do I want to do something a little different with a podcast? And I still want to have stories, and I still want to build connection and community. But I don't know what else we need. So I'm going to think on that a little bit.

Today's guest is Adriene Caldwell. And Adriene and I recorded this episode, I think maybe back in July. So, you know, we've been holding onto it because we're hoping to align it with her book release. And we're gonna talk a little bit about that. I'm not sure that the book has yet been released, but you will get in the show notes a link to her website where you can sign up.

to read the first, the intro and the first chapter of her book. And then you can also get notified when the book has been released. And I think that's coming up pretty soon based on how we're timing it. So that's very exciting. I really enjoyed speaking to Adriene. She talks a lot about her life growing up with various different types of abuse. So I will give the disclaimer now that we talk some about the abuse in explicit detail.

And so this episode may not be the best to be listening with children or if you yourself have experienced physical abuse, that's mainly what we're talking about in this episode. But there's mention of other types of abuse. Just want to give the heads up with that. And I will be making it explicit for that reason, just so that everybody can be aware. It's going to be ⁓ a great conversation. But there is going to be some traumatic discussions that may be overwhelming for some folks. So I'd like to give that disclaimer.

Adrian's book is called Unbroken, Life Outside the Lines, and it explores themes of family, love, and what it means to find your place in a world unwilling to play savior. A gripping firsthand account of the effects of untreated mental illness, physical abuse, sexual assault, pedophilia, and traumatic foster care. Adrian's story is one of destruction and discovery, of darkness given free rein and an innate light that refuses to dim.

And that really was my experience in talking with Adriene is that she really is a light that refuses to dim. And I think that you will learn a lot from what she shares in our discussion today. So I'm looking forward to you all hearing that and for the fact that I finally get to release it because I really enjoyed doing this episode and I think you'll like it too. If you are new to the podcast or if you have been listening for quite a while, I just want to thank you as always. I appreciate you spending a little bit of time with me.

If you are able to join me in making a donation to your local food bank or to a charity in your community of some sort, now is the time of year to do it, and now is the time to do it. Food insecurity is real, it's a continuing issue, and any help that you can provide would make a huge difference.

So with all of that, I'm gonna go ahead and get into the conversation with Adrian and I will be back with you all more than likely towards the end of February. Until then, take good care of yourselves and I will speak with you all soon.

Carrie McNulty (03:57)

Hi, Adrian. Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining me.

Adriene Caldwell (03:59)

Hi. ⁓

Thank you for having me.

Carrie McNulty (04:04)

Yes, absolutely. I'll let you get started, get us going here.

Adriene Caldwell (04:06)

So.

Okay, I am Adrienne Caldwell. I am author of the book Unbroken Life Outside the Lines. It is the story of my life from early childhood to early 20s. And during that time, I was either the witness to or the victim of the sexual assault of a young girl, the drowning death of a child, emotional and physical abuse, extreme poverty.

mental illness, horrifically abusive foster care, bulimia, drug and alcohol addiction, pedophilia, death, suicide, and incest. And if you visit my website, Unbroken Caldwell, C-A-L-D-W-E-L-L, you will receive the prologue and chapter one of my book completely free and no spam.

I will only send you a follow-up email to let you know when the book is available. But Carrie, thank you so much for having me on your show today. Out of that list, which I know it's kind of long, which story would you like to hear today?

Carrie McNulty (05:21)

haha

⁓ goodness. Well, I first want to start saying that I did read the prologue and first chapter of Adrian's book and it is very good. So I encourage you to take her up on that offer and I will make sure to put that in the show notes so that you can click on that link and go there and get that for yourself. ⁓ this is tough for me because as a therapist, like I said to you before we started, all of this stuff sounds interesting. you know, obviously I can't have you tell it all right now.

Adriene Caldwell (05:52)

No

Carrie McNulty (05:53)

you know, when I was reading the first part of your book, the thing that was most interesting to me, and obviously if there's something else you would rather focus on or more around this we can, but the relationship between you and your mom was interesting to me. And sort of how you ended up needing the support and being taken out and going to foster care.

Adriene Caldwell (06:17)

So my grandfather ⁓ was in the Navy, a career Navy, and he was discharged for schizophrenia. And we were stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina at the time. And he told the family that there were tremendous job opportunities in Houston.

and he was moving the family to Houston. So we did. That's how we ended up here. And once we arrived, he promptly abandoned the family up and left. He had a mistress on the side for the past 18, 15, 18 years. And he brought the family to Texas because we don't require spousal support when you get divorced, or as North Carolina does. So

My mother had me when she was 19 years old, so very, very young. She went to work when my grandfather left, that left a gaping hole that was a primary income source. So there are four children, my mother was one in four, all had to go to work and start providing for the family financially. And my mother,

was included in this and that left me primarily with my grandmother during the day. Now in North Carolina, my grandfather had assaulted my mother physically and I believe triggered her schizophrenia.

So she was becoming more and more ill. An example, one time she decided I had to eat beans with every meal, beans at breakfast, beans at lunch. And my grandmother interceded for me and she protected me from my mother.

She kept my mother from hitting me, from physically abusing me. She protected me against my mother's oddities. She was really my advocate. And when I was seven years old, she passed away. And that meant I had my aunt and my two uncles,

who were still very involved because my mother at that point was severely ill and we were not able, she was not able to be independent, to live independently. She needed to live with either her brother and his soon-to-be wife or her sister and her soon-to-be husband. So they were a part of my life.

up until my mother went to social services and asked what it would take for her to receive government housing. And the reason she did that was because she had beaten me with a dog leash while living with her brother and his wife. So my aunt Rose and my uncle John. And aunt Rose

had replaced the role of my grandmother a bit, not to such a great extent because she wasn't even blood to my mother, but she went to my Uncle John and said, you have to talk to your sister. She cannot beat her like that. And that is the underlying motive for my mother going and saying, what do I have to do to live independently? So what it required,

was being homeless. A mother with children who is homeless has higher priority to government housing than a mother with children living with family. So we, and at this point my brother had been born, Joshua, we went to live at the Salvation Army in downtown Houston.

and I do mean downtown with the skyscrapers, but, and that was horrifying in its own way. three months later, we did receive an apartment and that apartment opened the flood gates for my mother to do anything that she wanted. And she,

developed a relationship with a man she had seen on television who had sexually assaulted and murdered multiple women. My mother was in correspondence with him. He was in San Francisco and she wanted to take us there so that she could visit him and be with him. a week before

the end of school, she tried to take us, my brother and me, he was around four at that time, down to the Greyhound bus station to move us to San Francisco. Now, bear in mind, we had no furniture. were, when I say poor, I can't fully explain. We washed our clothes in the bathtub. We used the same soap.

for shampoo and dish detergents and body wash. We used baking soda instead of toothpaste. We had no furniture. My brother and I slept on a mattress. My mother slept on the floor. We had a milk carton that a 12-inch black and white TV stood on. So we had no furniture to move. And when she took me down to the Greyhound bus station,

the two pairs of aunts and uncles, they had fallen out of our lives. We saw them very, very rarely, but rarely is a lot better than none. When your mother is exhibiting very aberrant schizophrenic oddities, telling me things like,

David Bowie was my brother's father and Mick Jagger was her father and my father. And that became very telling later on. I'm going to leave that for book number two. I refused to get on the bus at the Greyhound bus station. I absolutely refused. was 13 years. No, I was 12 at the time.

and she couldn't physically force me. There were people around. So we went, we took the Houston bus transportation system back to Haverstock Hill, our government housing apartment, and the following weekend,

a best friend had convinced me to reach out to the school counselor and explain to the counselor what was going on. And the counselor did come visit the home. And in my report, which you can find on my website, I've posted almost all of my documents from CPS. It reports that it was a stable environment.

So the social worker a week before had said that it was a stable and safe environment.

Carrie McNulty (14:08)

Mm.

Adriene Caldwell (14:15)

That last Friday of school, I got off the bus. There was a convenience store at the front of our apartment complex. I was on a pay phone with my aunt, my mother's sister. And as I was begging her to please come over, to please intervene, a hand reached over my right shoulder and just went click and disconnected the phone call. And my mother took me

in her closet, we had a two bedroom apartment, she took me into her closet, she started beating me with her hand and my head hit a wooden dowel rod, you know the wooden thing that you hang your clothes on? That's what she picked up and beat me with. I'm not gonna go into great detail but at the end of it when I was laying on the ground

She said, if you get your brother taken away from me, I will kill you. And I looked at her, and of course I was just sobbing and crying, covered in bruises and welps. And I said, would you really kill your own daughter? And she looked at me and said, well, if I pounded your head into the pavement over and over again and you died, it wouldn't be my fault.

So this time when we went down to the Greyhound bus station, I complied. I got on the bus and we went to San Francisco and the homeless shelter that my mother had found that we were going to be staying at, that was her plan, they were closed for renovations. Yes, so we were at the San Francisco Greyhound bus station.

with no place to go. So my brother and she went to sleep on one bench. I went to sleep on another, or actually I didn't go to sleep. I waited for them to fall asleep and I ran away. it was around three in the morning. And I had been deliberating the whole time if I could take my brother with me. As I mentioned, he was three or four.

And my difficulty, I had basically been his mother because our mother was non-functional. I had taken care of him all the time except the time I was in school. And I knew that if I woke him and he woke her, that I was literally fearful for my life.

So I had to leave him, which absolutely just, was horrible having to leave him behind. But I actually went upstairs, I called my best friend and her father got on the phone and he said, get away from the bus station and call me when you're safe. So I ran outside, a man came up, pulled up to me as I was running down the pavement.

And he said, are you okay? Do you need help? And so I got in the car with him. Now, many, many, many instances before I had had that inner voice, that inner signal that says red flag, be careful, something's not right. And when the man put his hand on my left thigh, that's when my signal went off.

And when he was stopped at a red light, I got out. And my best friend's father flew out to San Francisco, picked me up, took me back to Houston. Police officers interviewed my mother who had slept on the bus bench the next day. They realized she had no place to go. They took my brother and put him into care in California. And within a week, he was flown back to Houston.

So I was with my best friend's family and her father actually refused to let Children's Protective Services take me away. He did not want to let me go with them. I had been through so much. He was actually standing as an advocate for me. And it was not until his lawyer told him.

that he had to let CPS, Children's Protective Services, take me, that he let us go, my brother and I, and we ended up living with them eventually. But my mother, she came back to Houston, and eventually, within a few months, she relinquished her parental rights, and she was in the room next to me. I was at the building where CPS had their offices.

And they asked me repeatedly, do you want to see your mother? Do you want to say goodbye? And I said, no, absolutely not. I refused. And I didn't. I did not see my mother. And I did not see her again for another 10 years. that's the story of how I came into.

CPS. I ended up living, my brother and I lived with my best friend's family for a while. They kicked me out, but kept my brother. So I'm grateful to them for what they did for my brother. I'm resentful of them because I didn't get their upper middle class lifestyle. In my mind, they thought I wasn't good enough. I didn't deserve it.

that's the story of my relationship with my mother. Now, 10 years later, courtesy of the internet, whitepages.com, I paid $100 and I found a last known phone number for her. I called it, it was a home, a shelter in El Paso, and they said,

Yes, your mother was here. She's not here at the moment, but we'll take your information and if she comes back, we'll reach out to you. And a year passed, a whole year. And I received a call from them saying, she's here. Your mother is here. So bear in mind, this is a decade later, plus a year where somebody had a post-it note with my name and phone number on their desk.

saying if she ever shows up. And when I went to El Paso to visit her, she had her own apartment. It was a government subsidized apartment. Unlike our previous one, it was not in the ghetto. She had furniture. On the center of her dining table was a pill box. She was on medication. She was doing well. And we had

a wonderful reconciliation that I never would have imagined a decade earlier. as I got older, I realized that it was not against me. She was sick and she didn't get the help that she needed, which meant that I wasn't getting what I needed. So we had a visit.

I stayed for a few days and about six months later, we got a call from the El Paso mortician, Morg, saying that she had passed away. So I was the last person to see my mother alive. She did not see her sister or her two brothers before she passed, but I was blessed with the opportunity to see her and to visit her.

and to see her doing well, which my aunt Rose, the one married into the family, not by blood, she had become a second mother to me. I like to say that God didn't give me a mother and a father. He gave me two mothers. while I was living in foster care, she would come and get me every other weekend and I would clean her beauty shop.

And we would talk. I had tried living with her, but when you're 13 with severe abandonment issues and all the issues that go along with having a mentally ill, physically abusive parent, I had requested to leave. ⁓ So she got me and it was not always an easy relationship. I was very troubled.

in my early 20s, lots of self-medicating. actually, I lived with her the first semester of my senior year in high school. And I would tell her, you're not my mom. You can't tell me what to do. And when I was around 23 or 24, I came back to her and I apologized. And I said, you are my second mother. I am sorry.

and I am grateful to have had you in my life. And she is a presence in my life to this day. So, thank

Carrie McNulty (24:11)

That's wonderful. Can

I ask you, I mean, first of all, thank you for sharing all of that because I know that even though you've written about it and I'm sure you've talked about it multiple times, it still has to feel some emotional charge for you. So, and you know, maybe it takes a little bit of a toll energy wise to share it. So thank you so much for doing that.

I have a lot of questions in mind, but I want to ask first of all, I mean, how did you get to the place where you could spend time with your mom and get to the place where you could have the understanding that she really struggled and was unwell and that that wasn't your wrongdoing that made her treat you that way? How did you get to that place after all that you've been through?

Adriene Caldwell (24:52)

I didn't get there during that visit. It took me a decade to, and even longer than that, I didn't fully understand the magnitude of what she did. When she relinquished rights, she was giving us to my best friend's family. That was the plan. My brother and I were both meant to live with them.

Carrie McNulty (25:01)

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Adriene Caldwell (25:18)

And they had never been inside of our apartment, our government apartment, but I had spent the weekend with them. So they knew that we were very poor and I had seen their lifestyle. And my mother knew that they were in a position to care for us, whereas really she wasn't. And I did not understand the magnitude of the loss.

that she endured as a mother willingly giving your children to someone else. I would die before giving my daughter away. And my mother had the wherewithal to know that she was not well and they could probably do a better job. So it was a very selfless

decision that I only realized when I became a mother and really not even then. It's been in the last few years. I've had ⁓ revelations, if you will, over time. It hasn't been all at once, but it took me time to understand that she was sick, that it wasn't her fault.

It took me time to understand that my aunts and uncles were doing the best they could. They were trying to live their lives and raise their own families because there was a bit of resentment. Why weren't they more involved? Why didn't they save me and my brother? And then later, my mother relinquishing rights. Now that was never something I was upset about.

because I was so angry. I was so angry after the beating I endured,

Carrie McNulty (27:21)

Yeah, again, it's just, it's, I'd say pretty much it sounds like a gift that you got to meet her as her finally, you know, with medication and support and living a life where she had some stability. Like what a gift to, it's just amazing to me that you even sought her out.

because after all that you've been through, there was probably a part that still carried so much anger, right? And then there's this part that you become a mother now, so you see things differently and all of these parts sort of working together and you to be like, I'm still curious about who she is and where she is and what would it be like to see her? And then you go and do it and you have these days where I'm sure at first was overwhelming, but it sounds like it took a while to unpack it. And where you ended up was that.

She didn't ask to be sick and did the best she could, even though wasn't what you needed by any means, it was the best that she could do. And that's huge. That's some big time work there to get to the place where you can have all those things be true for you at one time.

Adriene Caldwell (28:10)

Yes.

Yes.

Carrie McNulty (28:25)

You endured

Adriene Caldwell (28:25)

Yes.

Carrie McNulty (28:25)

incredible abuse. You did not have what you needed resource-wise. And ⁓ still be able to see her as a person with her own parts and her own illnesses is huge.

Adriene Caldwell (28:37)

Yes, and I feel very blessed that when I was 18, when I went on whitepages.com and entered her information, and then a year later, the homeless shelter reaching out to me, that's miraculous.

Carrie McNulty (28:54)

Yeah,

that's unbelievable. who knows if somebody else had answered the phone if they would have even taken it, but you got just the right person, right, to hold on to that information for a whole year and to actually call you and say she's here. It seems like it was meant to be. Yeah.

Adriene Caldwell (29:02)

Yes.

Yes, I believe so. I believe

so. As was the visit. When my mother came back to that shelter, they got her a social worker and the apartment and the furniture and medication. And she was thriving. And I got the opportunity to see that. And we told each other, I love you. And

Carrie McNulty (29:32)

Yes.

Adriene Caldwell (29:38)

When I was leaving, we hugged and it was wonderful. I did not need her to be a maternal figure for me anymore. Aunt Rose had replaced her in a sense. I didn't need or want that from her. And we didn't speak directly like that. You don't really, I don't think you really understand your emotions until you've had to.

Carrie McNulty (29:50)

Mm-hmm.

Adriene Caldwell (30:07)

some time to process and figure out what words to use to describe what happened.

Carrie McNulty (30:09)

Absolutely.

I was just thinking there had to be something healing in that that clicked into place for you that no, you didn't need her to be your mother, but you got a chance to know her and the fact that she was willing to take medicine this far into her illness. You know, every time somebody has a psychotic episode or they have a break where they're unmedicated, they lose a little bit more of themselves. So the fact that she was willing to take that medication and get herself together at that time and stage in her life again was pretty unbelievable. You know, from what you shared,

Adriene Caldwell (30:44)

Yes.

Carrie McNulty (30:44)

she started having symptoms around the age of 19, which is pretty common for schizophrenia. Usually women will be a little bit later than men, but that's a long time to go unmedicated and having multiple breaks to finally get to the place where she was willing to take medication and settle in to what sounded like a pretty healthy routine. That's wild.

Adriene Caldwell (30:55)

Yeah.

Well, she

smoked two packs of Marlboro Red every day. But she loved Judge Judy and she would sit in her apartment and smoke her cigarettes and she was great. And I got to see that. I got to see how well she was doing. it was...

Carrie McNulty (31:11)

Not necessarily healthy, right?

Right.

Yeah.

Adriene Caldwell (31:35)

It came full circle for me. It really did it. And she followed up. We wrote letters back and forth. I owed her a letter when I found out that she had passed. So there's some residual guilt there. But ⁓ yeah, it truly was a blessing. And I've always been grateful.

Carrie McNulty (31:39)

Thank

Adriene Caldwell (32:01)

because her sister and her two brothers didn't get that. When we had first come back to Houston from San Francisco, my mother, when she came back, when she eventually relinquished rights, her siblings jumped her case, got very upset with her, saying, why didn't you give them to us?

Carrie McNulty (32:06)

Yeah.

Adriene Caldwell (32:26)

why didn't you give your children to us? And it was so much that she left. She basically fled.

Carrie McNulty (32:38)

know, the shame of giving them to

Adriene Caldwell (32:39)

She was trying to give

us the best life, the best chance at a life that she could. And she saw that being with my best friend's family. the life that she lived during those 10 years, her absence, from what the people at the shelter said, it was very difficult.

Carrie McNulty (32:50)

Thank you.

Adriene Caldwell (33:02)

When she worked, she would work at meat packing plants in a couple of states away. And she would come back for some reason she loved El Paso. It's where she liked. And she had to do things to survive that we don't like to talk about.

she had a very difficult time and I think that probably made her more open to the social worker and maybe taking the medication and being willing to go to the doctor. Which you have to understand, in my family, in the Caldwell family, they do not believe in mental illness. So she, you know,

Carrie McNulty (33:50)

No.

Adriene Caldwell (33:54)

I assume, I don't know for sure, but my grandparents didn't believe in mental illness. I can tell you right now, my uncle, who the only one of the siblings still alive, does not believe in it. He just thinks it is made up. So... ⁓

Carrie McNulty (34:18)

Do you think

that's a really strong sense of denial or do you think, like, do you think that's a protective thing from your perspective with him?

Adriene Caldwell (34:27)

I don't know. I know that my grandfather sexually abused my mother. I know that my grandmother and my grandfather beat their children. And I know that they had, even though it was military, it wasn't military like today with the same benefits, with the same income. They lived on base, they lived in on base housing.

Carrie McNulty (34:33)

Mm-hmm.

Adriene Caldwell (34:55)

Food was never thrown away. They wore hand-me-downs, second-hand clothes. It was a struggle. And they moved every three to four years, which is really important because to understand my family, and this is a chapter in my book, you have to understand that history that they only had themselves. When you move every three to four years,

I went to 13 schools growing up. That doesn't include college. You learn not to invest in friendships or other people outside of family because they're not going to be there.

Carrie McNulty (35:36)

And how tough

are you, Adrian, because you had that mentality and then you didn't have family? Right? How tough are you to be like, well, don't get too invested in these outside relationships. These are the people you can rely on and then you couldn't rely on them.

Adriene Caldwell (35:52)

Yeah, that's very true.

When my mother reached over my shoulder and disconnected the phone call, in my mind, I was thinking that my aunt would come to the apartment and check on me. And the fact that nobody did, nobody did at any point, either set of aunts and uncles.

Carrie McNulty (36:18)

Mm-hmm.

Adriene Caldwell (36:18)

Nobody

ever came. They came when the apartment was being given to someone else. I was wrong. My mother had a dresser. So she had a dresser. We had a mattress, a milk crate with TV and utensils and a few plates. That's what we had. And eventually my uncle brought over a mattress for my mom.

And now we were poor, we were not dirty, never dirty. My mother bleached everything. She used a broom to clean the carpet because we couldn't afford a vacuum, but she swept the carpet. It was immaculate. ⁓ one morning I woke up with a mark on my hand and the only thing I've

Carrie McNulty (36:51)

Mm-hmm.

Adriene Caldwell (37:14)

been able to think is it had to be a mouse or a rat that couldn't find any food and decided to take a bite of meat because our apartment was immaculate. I mean, despite our abject poverty, we could afford bleach and that's what we had. So, yeah.

Carrie McNulty (37:36)

How do you think you got to the place where you could have people who helped you? So let me backtrack a little. They say that you just need, as a kid, just need 30 % of the time a person that you can rely on to help you make it through when times are tough. That's the statistic that they give, especially as it relates to attachment. Who do you think helped you the most?

just able to trust and become who you've become.

Adriene Caldwell (38:09)

⁓ If you read my book and the psychiatric evaluation you will find that I have an early onset reactive attachment disorder.

Carrie McNulty (38:20)

Mm-hmm.

Adriene Caldwell (38:21)

So now there were people sprinkled throughout my life, my third grade math teacher, Dr. Anne Weiss, and believe me, I have looked for her. She stayed with me. So I went into fifth grade. So summer after fourth grade, we were homeless at the Salvation Army downtown Houston.

Carrie McNulty (38:27)

Thank

Mm.

Bye.

Adriene Caldwell (38:48)

Fifth grade, I went to the elementary school next door to the apartment complex, the government apartment complex, where we were literally the only white family. One family, that was it. She came, Dr. Ann Weiss came to our apartment and brought shampoo and conditioner and soap.

whenever she would travel for conventions and things like that, she collected all of those and she brought them over to me to check on me and to give them to me. my senior year of high school, I received a congressional scholarship to do a one year foreign exchange when I was a junior in high school. It was amazing. Thank you. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (39:37)

That's awesome.

Adriene Caldwell (39:41)

So my first semester after the foreign exchange, senior year, living with Aunt Rose and Uncle John, I had this teacher who was an absolute hard ass, but her husband was an executive for Exxon. She taught because she loved it and she was the hardest teacher I've ever had. But she put four computers in her classroom. Now this is 1997.

Carrie McNulty (40:09)

Hmm.

Adriene Caldwell (40:09)

So

she did this out of her own pocket and I came in to school every morning early so that I could get this, look up the addresses so I could send a letter to ask for the scholarship application which they would mail back to me, which I bought a typewriter, first credit card, that was my first and only purchase, a typewriter. I would fill out that application, mail it back to them.

Carrie McNulty (40:27)

I'm

Adriene Caldwell (40:37)

And I did this every morning before school with Mrs. Newton. She was there grading papers or doing whatever she needed. I was on the computer that she provided. And one day I came in and she did not look well at all. And I asked her and she said, no, I'm not feeling well. And six weeks later, she passed.

I asked if I could come see her in the hospital because she and I had developed a relationship. ⁓ I wrote one thing that made her cry and I'm proud of that because she was a tough woman. She was not easily pleased. And to bring her to tears, I felt, and I wish I had the essay. I didn't keep it, I know. But the...

Carrie McNulty (41:20)

Mm-hmm.

Adriene Caldwell (41:29)

I asked if I could come see her in the hospital and she said no because she didn't want me to see her that way. And she told her husband before she passed that at the end, at the end when they were cleaning out her classroom to give me one of the computers so I could have a computer at college. It really is. So a few teachers have been

Carrie McNulty (41:53)

That's amazing.

Adriene Caldwell (41:59)

truly instrumental in my life and I am grateful for them. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (42:04)

So they saw

what we were capable of. Yeah. And isn't, I think that's so special when, you even if these aren't, again, family members, I always say to people, it'd be nice if we got what we needed from our family, but not everybody gets that opportunity. And when you're open to seeing the other people that are there for you and you can allow that in, you will find that you do have people. It's just not always who we expect it to be.

Adriene Caldwell (42:07)

Yes.

Carrie McNulty (42:30)

So I think that's amazing that you were seen and supported, you know, and sounds like that did make a little bit of a difference for you.

Adriene Caldwell (42:39)

It did. It absolutely

did. So... Okay.

Carrie McNulty (42:44)

What

ways do you cope now when you feel triggered?

Adriene Caldwell (42:51)

Xanax? A lot of Xanax. Sorry. It's honest.

Carrie McNulty (42:54)

Whatever works.

I appreciate that. Yeah, and I'm glad that that works, right? Sometimes we just need something to help us get to the place where we can be like, okay, now what do I do?

Adriene Caldwell (43:13)

Yes, I have been

on antidepressants since I was 15 years old. And my aunt Rose, when I was in my early 20s, she went, we had to, I think we saw the psychiatrist at least 10 times trying different medications, trying to figure out something that would work for me. But I compare, so obviously I have major depression.

Carrie McNulty (43:29)

Hmm.

Adriene Caldwell (43:40)

MDD. And I tell people, I describe it, I say, I've had traumas in my life where my brain has stopped making the happy chemicals that other people's brains make. And so I have to give my body those chemicals. And that is the same as a diabetic needing insulin. You would never

Carrie McNulty (43:42)

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Adriene Caldwell (44:08)

look down on a diabetic for needing medication. And that's how I see myself. I need medication. My body doesn't make it.

Carrie McNulty (44:16)

Mm-hmm.

Adriene Caldwell (44:23)

faith. I keep it very personal. I don't go to church every Sunday, but my last suicide attempt did not work and it was not for lack of effort or seriousness. And that's when I realized that God has a purpose for me. I am on this earth for a reason.

Carrie McNulty (44:24)

Hmm.

Thank

Adriene Caldwell (44:50)

Now, unfortunately, I didn't get like a memo saying what that purpose was. It would have been nice. So I just knew and know that I will not be released until I have met my purpose. So that was my last suicide attempt. That was.

Carrie McNulty (44:54)

I don't think it works.

Did you start writing your book after that?

Adriene Caldwell (45:18)

Oh no, no, no. I started writing my book about three, maybe four years ago. So, and I expect it to be out in the fall. I was hoping for September. I think it's going to be November.

Carrie McNulty (45:26)

Okay.

I'm betting you're, you were pretty excited to be at the end of that road.

Adriene Caldwell (45:40)

You have no idea.

It's writing it has been hell. ⁓ I've told you, I'd say a couple stories today, but to go through that roster of stories that I listed at the beginning to get it all down, it's been brutal. And I am absolutely guilty of repressing things and

Carrie McNulty (45:47)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Adriene Caldwell (46:09)

Compartmentalizing I put things in a box the box goes on a shelf and I just leave it there and Don't think about it. Don't worry about it. It's out of sight out of mind and Writing this book has meant that I've had to take those boxes back down off the shelf and open them up and My first draft of this book was my first draft of unbroken

Carrie McNulty (46:31)

right

Adriene Caldwell (46:39)

was just basically a chronicle of events. This happened, this happened, this happened, this happened. And what I've had to do is go back in and turn the event into a story, narrate it, give it emotional context, which is what I did not do in the original 81 page draft. So ⁓ I will be beyond enthused, beyond happy

once it's in print and I'm done with this. As I mentioned earlier, there's possibly a book two. I have the content for it, unfortunately. Things didn't just immediately get better after my mid-20s. There have been a few ⁓ whammies, if you will. So there might be a book two. I'm not sure. It won't be as... ⁓

Carrie McNulty (47:20)

Yeah.

Adriene Caldwell (47:39)

daunting or emotionally draining as this one. This one has been the real deal. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (47:46)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I hope in writing it, it's given you to have to go through and wade through the memories again and pick through them and remember, put yourself in that position again and feel what you were feeling could definitely be re-traumatizing, but I'm hoping that it's given you, empowered you a little to be able to talk about it and in your own voice. And this is what's happened to me and I'm here to tell it,

Adriene Caldwell (48:13)

my husband will be happier than I am once the book is done, because he comes home from work. I'm medically disabled, so ⁓ I'm home all day. He comes home from work and he wants happy bubbly, Adrian. And I just finished writing a chapter on my last suicide attempt. I feel so bad for him. He's been amazing.

Carrie McNulty (48:17)

Really?

And that's not happy bubbly. No, not at all.

Adriene Caldwell (48:39)

through this, but he's very ready for me to be done with the book as well. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (48:46)

Yeah.

Well, you, with that being said, what are you feeling grateful for? What do you make time for to focus on that makes you feel good? Because it does sound so taxing to go through all of this. And of course it is. And I just want to say, when you say, I'm guilty of compartmentalizing, I look at it through the lens of, again, that's something you had to do to make it through that. So it's not, ⁓ that's not a fault. That was survival. No.

Adriene Caldwell (49:11)

Okay, I like that. Thank

you. Thank you. I'll let myself off the hook for it

Carrie McNulty (49:14)

Yeah.

Yes, please do. Please do. It's filming, it's not easy, right? Yeah.

Adriene Caldwell (49:21)

Mm-mm. No. No.

Carrie McNulty (49:23)

But what

do you feel grateful for these days? Yeah.

Adriene Caldwell (49:25)

my daughter. I

call her my angel. I say that God gave her to me and I didn't bond with her immediately. It was two months later after she was born and what I was feeling, what I was telling my husband, we had gotten married for a green card by the way. He was from the UK. He was from England.

Carrie McNulty (49:49)

Okay.

Adriene Caldwell (49:52)

And to stay here for us to continue dating, we had to get married. Now we got a wedding present when we did. Our daughter, she was conceived that weekend when we got married. So just to be clear, we got married for a green card. I was not knocked up. That was not the reason. Yes. ⁓ No, my daughter and my husband, ⁓

Carrie McNulty (50:00)

⁓ surprise.

That came second.

Adriene Caldwell (50:21)

Unfortunately I was widowed at 35. So ⁓ I'm giving away all my TedBeds for book two. You're asking great questions. You've got to stop. So ⁓ I am remarried and he is an incredible man. He's normal. I've never in my life met someone normal. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (50:34)

questions as well.

normal.

Adriene Caldwell (50:50)

He knows all of my history and he can sympathize, he can't empathize because he's never experienced it. So it's not that he had the perfect child, well actually he did kind of have the perfect childhood. He had a normal childhood and they were poor. That's the worst thing. ⁓ But he's amazing and incredibly supportive.

Carrie McNulty (51:10)

Yeah.

Adriene Caldwell (51:19)

And yeah, he has taken on the role of being a parent. So he is more than just my husband. And I am grateful for them. And then of course, Aunt Rose, she's to this day, she's in my life. We're hosting Fourth of July. So we have a pool and the family's coming over. So yeah.

Carrie McNulty (51:27)

you

That's I guess I'm curious. Maybe this will be the thing we can leave it with is I'm curious if if 13 year old you could see what you've been able to build now. What do you think she would think? Yeah.

Adriene Caldwell (52:01)

She wouldn't believe it.

She would not believe it at all.

Carrie McNulty (52:06)

Yeah.

Adriene Caldwell (52:07)

So I am incredibly blessed. And although what I have gone through has been horrific, I wouldn't change a single thing because it's turned me into the person I am today. And while I wasn't a good person the first half of my life, I've worked really hard to be a good person the second half of my life.

Carrie McNulty (52:39)

think that's beautifully said. And we don't all get to choose our circumstances, but what we do with them does matter. You're a test. Yeah. Well, is there anything that I didn't ask you or anything else you wanted to add that you want to leave us with?

Adriene Caldwell (52:45)

Yes, happiness is a choice in my belief.

Yeah.

No, not really. I think you asked great questions. I probably overshared. Yeah, no. ⁓

Carrie McNulty (53:05)

haha

Well, I've loved having you and I know that our listeners are going to love it. I know that the people listening are really going to appreciate you being so willing to be vulnerable and share your story. And again, please check out Adrienne's book because it's going to be worth celebrating, especially when November rolls around and she gets to hit done.

Adriene Caldwell (53:30)

Thank you, thank you

Carrie, it's been great being on your show. Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Carrie McNulty (53:32)

Will.

Adriene Caldwell (53:38)

It is a privilege to be your guest and I've enjoyed myself. It's been a good time.

Carrie McNulty (53:45)

Thank you

so much. Thank you so much. And it's been a privilege to have you as a guest. ⁓ For everybody listening, I hope you take good care of yourselves and each other. And I will talk to you again soon.

Adriene Caldwell (53:51)

Thank you.