This is a LIVE replay of A Trauma Survivor Thriver's Podcast which aired Wednesday, May 24th, 2023 at 1130am ET on Fireside Chat. Today’s guest is Reverend Kenneth Nixon Jr., Author of the book Born Into Crisis: A Memoir. For more information about Rev. Kenneth Nixon Jr.'s work, visit Author Rev. Kenneth Nixon. Lorilee Binstock 00:03:22 Welcome. I'm Lorilee Binstock, and this is A Trauma Survivor Thriver's Podcast. Thank you so much for joining me live on Fireside Chat, where you can be a part of the conversation as my virtual audience. I'm Lorilee Binstock, your host. Everyone has an opportunity to ask me or our guest questions by requesting to hop on stage or sending a message in the chat box. I will try to get you, but I do ask that everyone be respectful. Our guest today is reverend, Kenneth,Nixon junior. He is the author of Born into Crisis, a memoir about his experience growing up with a mentally ill mother. Kenneth, thank you so much for joining me today. Kenneth Nixon 00:04:27 Thank you for having me. How are you doing today? Lorilee Binstock 00:04:30 I'm doing great. Thank you. How about yourself? Kenneth Nixon 00:04:33 Pretty good. Pretty good. You know, you you challenged me because I don't have an Apple device, so I had to go out and buy one for the first time. Lorilee Binstock 00:04:41 Stop. Did you really oh my goodness. What do you think of it? Kenneth Nixon 00:04:44 Yes. I have a lot of learning to do. Lorilee Binstock 00:04:51 Oh my goodness. Well, I'm so grateful for you. I mean, maybe you could return I don't know if if you're like, oh, this is you know, you get so used to one thing after a while, but I do appreciate your your willingness to come on the show because you have a lot to say, and I wanna hear all about it. Your book brought into crisis, wow. Incredibly. So I I want you to be able to, you know, for our guests who haven't read the book, can you talk a little bit about your childhood? Kenneth Nixon 00:05:26 Yes. So my childhood, if we start right at the title of the book, right, born into crisis, It when I was born, my mother who suffered from severe mental illness, all of her her life, I was literally born into crisis from the standpoint. She was in the middle of Psychosis at the moment of my birth, in which while I was lying on the floor, I was suffering from withdrawals from a medication called thorazine, which is anti psychotic medication that she used to treat those who then suffer from paranoid schizophrenia or other manic depressive disorders. The stuff of that nature. And it was only by grace that my father who was getting off of work, out there in time to get me in the hospital. So I quite literally was born into crisis. But that is the beginning stage of a life and a childhood in which I had to deal with trauma, PTSD, anxiety, and various things of growing up with a mother with severe mental illness. Lorilee Binstock 00:06:44 You know, that's really tough. You know, you you talk about, you know, postpartum psychosis. I mean, I I it sounds like she she's dealt with these issues. But, you know, after, you know, childbirth, post farm psychosis is very real. And and it's it's so such a you know, it's such an issue that people are like, yeah. It doesn't really affect that many people. It affects enough people. I feel like for for someone to raise awareness about it. You know? It's it it is very much a problem. You hear all these stories about these mothers. Kenneth Nixon 00:07:02 Yes. Lorilee Binstock 00:07:15 Who murdered their children or who've attempted to murder their children. Kenneth Nixon 00:07:17 Mhmm. Lorilee Binstock 00:07:19 And, you know, this is this is a problem. Right? So I'm curious for you, you know, for someone who's dealt with so much trauma, especially at an early age, how were you able to get out of that? How are you able to break these generational cycles of of trauma? Kenneth Nixon 00:07:42 Yeah. So what I wanna do first, you hit a good point that I wanted to emphasize about not only prenatal care, but postnatal care. Lorilee Binstock 00:07:55 Mhmm. Kenneth Nixon 00:07:55 My mother because I have older siblings, she suffered a severe bout of postpartum depression with my oldest brother, Kevin, in the seventies. And that was not she did not have effective prenatal care and postnatal care, and that can lead to devastating consequences as well in terms of impacts to mental health if there's not effective care for from others, both pre and post. And particularly in the sixties and seventies, it it was really lacking for women of color. It's improved, but there's still gaps in it. But prenatal and postnatal care is critical too for for mothers to have, but breaking generational cycles. I think it's it's always a work in progress. For me, it began with this deep sense of curiosity as I was growing up to try to understand how my life could turn out in such a way. Right? Is those stages of emotions that you go through from anger to to grief, to resentment, to bitterness, to sadness, and really understanding not only the systems and the environment that that I grew up in, but understanding what was within my control to begin to shift the paradigm, not only in my life, but to also make sure that I don't carry some of those things into my household as I'm raising my children. And I took that personally because I had a a deep sense that I wanted to do things differently from my children so they can have a healthier path to to life than I did. Lorilee Binstock 00:09:57 Yes. At you know, for me, you know, I'm a childhood sexual abuse survivor. You know, I realized my my father was also sexually abused as a child. I didn't know that until I was much older. For me, it was really hard. Even though I it's like, I knew You know, I they also had very erratic behaviors, very just very difficult to be around. And, you know, the yay, yelling, a lot of just erratic behavior behaviors. And, you know, even though I'm like, I don't wanna be I don't wanna be anything like my parents. You know, there are times where I'd get overwhelmed, and I'd get you know, there's just moments with my kids that I was just yelling. And this was before I I got went to residential treatment. I and I was very fortunate that I was able to do that. But before that, you know, I didn't realize. Like, I'm like, oh my god. My children are just behaving this way because And it it it took a long time for me to say, oh my goodness. I'm I'm behaving the way my parents were behaving. And now my children are going to pick up on this. What was it for you where you were like, things need to change, or was this before children? And did you have a support system? Because I feel like that's extremely important too. Kenneth Nixon 00:11:21 Mhmm. So I I would say it's some of both. In terms of a support system, I I would say I didn't have a big, strong support system. But what I did have was my my grandmother, She passed away in two thousand and six, and my father But central to for me was my faith. Lorilee Binstock 00:11:50 Mhmm. Kenneth Nixon 00:11:52 And I'm only speaking for myself, but it was one of those things that I can fully lean on and trust to help me not only center myself, find the sense of peace, but it was something that was dependable and that was consistent in my life. That allow me to have a sense of fulfillment. But as I got older and, particularly, into adulthood, I began focusing on how do I help others not deal with the same situations that I was doing, but also how do I do the things in terms of self care therapy? That I don't carry some of my traumas or inherited traumas into a household where I'm raising my sons. And I will give a good example in terms of that. L
