Daisy Opens Up About Her Dysfunctional Family | REPLAY

told everybody you know that my dad passed away. And I was like, I should probably, you know, do something a little deeper about this and tell people, give people a little bit more information about what's going on. My husband prompted me to do that first of all, because he was like, you just don't share enough, and you're like, you keep things you know. And then it's funny because Pastor Shelley wrote me something the other day. She's like,

you're like Melissa Manchester. He's like that whole remember that song Don't Cry out Loud? Yeah, inside oh, And I'm like,

oh my god, that song. Yeah. So anyway, so my husband encouraged me to do it, and then I talked to you and Valin, our producer Valin, and I was like, I don't know if I'm comfortable with doing that, but I but you guys encouraged me to do it, and so I thought, you know what, we'll just talk a little bit about that because I figured I'm like the only person that has family issues or a dysfunctional family, and you were like, I assure you that You're not

the only person, and when you said that out loud, you would not believe. I mean, already I started getting a lot of people writing and saying, Daisy, like I have a really dysfunctional family, let me tell you about it. And just the support that I've already gotten with people not even knowing what's going on so or what had happened in my family at all. So it just the support, the love, the encouragement, the sweet words. So appreciative of people in our community. We have the best community.

But are you okay? What can I do? And how did I like tell why I should I tell?

you shouldn't be consoling me. I'm just like, I don't I can't believe I'm having to tell you this. Oh my god. And she feels terrible me. I'm glad it was her that, you know, that she's the one that told me. I mean, I can't think of a better person to tell me in that moment, right, But she told me. And then I'm like, what, like, what is even going on? And then come to find out he had had he had had lung cancer for four months and I didn't know about that. And then after, you know,

you you kind of have to backtrack. You have to go backwards after that. So, you know, during that day, I sort of things were unraveling, like the onion was peeling back, and I started learning things about like there are other people in my family that knew that. Not not immediate family, obviously, but there are other people in my extended family that knew that he was sick, and and I didn't know. And I guess some of the people were sworn to secrecy and they weren't supposed to

tell tell me that that he was sick. And so it was just like this weird feeling of betrayal. Like I was sad. I was like all the emotions, every emotion you can think of, a big roller coaster of emotions. So I had not spoken to my father for the last time I spoke to my father was three years ago this February. I have a bunch of stuff written here because I have to remember, because it's like the past thirty years of my dad have been kind of a like a shit storm. The first eighteen years of

my life with my dad were great. I had a great childhood. I grew up in a really loving household, two great parents. I feel like I was pretty well adjusted up to that point, like my.

I was what nineteen? When I was nineteen, I came home from college and I just remember, like I didn't come home from college much when I was around a junior in college because by that time, you're pretty established in college and you don't like coming home. You like being a college more than you like being at home. And so I came home and I remember my mother wasn't she just wasn't well, Like she was real thin. You could tell she was just like something was going on.

She was frazzled. Things were not good in the house. And I don't know if I can't remember if that was the reason I came home, but I just remember coming home that weekend and I found out that my dad was he had been cheating on my mother. And so up to that point, everything in everything was great, like my parents' marriage was, at least to me, I thought it was a wonderful marriage. Everything was great, the house was great, our family was perfect. Everything was wonderful.

So I'd found out that he had been cheating on my mom, and I know, we all just sort of, I guess, recognize the fact that he had probably been doing this for several years. And so in that moment, like I just I figured, Okay, well the guy that I knew was no longer you know, the guy that

I knew. Right, So everything flipped for me that weekend, and I called a family meeting because I think he was just going to assume that he was going to go on living his life like he was going to keep cheating on my mom and then being married to my mom, and so I said family meeting. And so I called a family meeting, and I was like, all right, here's a deal. So you can't stay married to mom

and keep doing this. You need to gtf up. And so he left, He packed his step and he left, and so in that moment, I became I went from being a daughter to being like this object of opposition from my dad. And so it wasn't just him changing for me. I changed for him. I think that I went from being you know, like this this person that he liked, to somebody that he probably didn't like very much anymore. And because you called him on an I called him on his shit. Yeah, And so it wasn't

just me that looked at him differently. He looked at me differently, and we just were never the same after that moment, ever, And and so it was both of us, you know, it was a mutual thing, and we just kind of butted heads from that point forward. It just it never recovered. My sister always looked at him, even in the times where I think she was sort of like on my side where she was pissed off and you know, she was like, you know, I'm mad at dad for this, and I'm I'm you know, looking at

him a little. She just she's still really, you know, adored him, and that's okay, that's fine. That was like her. She had every right to do that. It's just that I didn't. And so we just didn't have the same relationship from that point forward, and it never recovered. And thirty three years were just like you know, ups and downs, ups and downs. There were times where I tried to

have a relationship with him, like you always. I always was the one who extended the olive branch, and I always was the one who was like, Okay, well I'm going to try to you know, go visit him. I'm going to try to have a relationship with him. I'm going to try to make this work. I'm gonna, you know, do my best to have some semblance of a father daughter thing here. And it just never stuck. You know, we never got to the point where we could get back to the place that we were. It just never

got that that stable footing, if you will. So we just never got the like I remember, you know, when my husband and I, I was married once before, and that we were never close during that marriage. And then when I got divorced and I got married to my husband, my now husband, we were getting ready to get married and my dad was like, hey, you know, we'll pay

for the whole wedding. And I remember going through that whole process and it was like this he wanted this over the top thing, and I just I went to him and I said, you know, what. It's not really our style. We're more casual. We don't want all this like you know, steak and lobster stuff. We don't want anything fancy. And so we butted heads about that, and I said, you know what, We're just gonna go ahead and pay for it on our own. We're going to

have something really casual. We ended up having like a six hundred dollars wedding, you know, and it was like the reception was at our house and I was barefoot, and it was you know, really it was the way that you it was the way that we wanted it right, and he hated that. He just hated it. So we butted heads about that. I mean just little things along the way that were like that. And so that was. It was stuff like that all during this, like trying to have a relationship with them.

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slash Chicks do it. But then, you know, like when my daughter was born, I tried again to you know, have this relationship with him because I knew that since there was this this baby girl there, that she may want to have a relationship with him, and so I

tried very hard to extend it all a branch. I would invite him to every single birthday party that she had for the first five years of her life, you know, cause those birthday parties are like people standing around and watching this sweet little baby, you know, shovecake all over the place. And so I invited him to all those

birthday He never came. He never There was always an excuse for him not to come, whether it was some weird logistical thing or if it was you know weather, I remember there was.

you can stop here and come see your granddaughter. And so it was it was always that I had to to make arrangements to do the things, and I felt like there was just again, it was like, it's just this reject this feeling of rejection and abandonment that was just lingering all the time in our relationship. It was just there, it was like right there on surface, and so I felt like I was always the one having

to do that. And then he would complain that I was trying to somehow keep my daughter from him, which was absurd. It was completely absurd, and so that was that. So anyway, so that kind of hung out during during our entire I guess relationship, if you want to call it relationship. And then there were times we just didn't talk, you know, because we would argue and we would fight

a lot, and there was that. So anyways, the past three years we have not spoken, and what happened three years ago was my sister was getting ready to get married. Her husband is now deceased. He passed away unfortunately, gosh during year. Yeah, I married a year. They were married a year and he passed away during a surgery. It

was awful. But she was getting ready to get married, and she told me that she was going to have a very very small wedding and no one was going to be invited and that so nobody was nobody going to be there. So my mother and I were not going to be invited, and nobody's going to be there, And come to find out, she was inviting people. However, my mother and I were not invited, and so this was going to be broadcast on Facebook and it was going to be on social media. And I was devastated

for my mother. I mean, I could handle it because I thought, Okay, no big deal, because you know, like whatever I'll see, We've seen some stuff, We've been through some stuff, so whatever, I can handle that. But my mother was going to be devastated by the fact that, like my dad was going to be there, my step mom was going to be there, his whole family was going to be there, and my Mom's going to be

left out. Of this, and she was going to be watching this and social media devastated because she was not invited to her daughter, her oldest daughter's wedding, right. So I was pissed, and so I called my dad and I said, I cannot believe she lied about this. She is a liar. And he hung up the phone on me, and that was that, and that was he never he never reached out, he never called me, and he just hung up on me because he didn't want to hear that.

And so they went through with the wedding and they were all there and my mother and I were excluded, and they they just left us out of everything.

daughter or my husband. For that matter. I mean, there was just nothing, absolutely nothing over the past three years. So I didn't pursue it. I didn't. I just kind of thought, well, this is what he wants, and so I'm I'm done that and I have. I've extended a lot of olive branches. I at this point in my life, I just figured, Okay, I'm done with that. And so the weird thing about it is that there's a weird narrative in my family that I am somehow the reason

for it. Like I'm somehow the reason for the space, like the reason for the distance and the reason for the rejection and the abandonment. And it's it's so weird how that's somehow put off on me and I just sort of own it, like I kind of go, okay, well, I guess if that's the narrative, then I just kind of go with it. And but it's weird how you after years of it and you just if you don't push back, you end up with that label on you.

It's just bizarre. It's bizarre how narratives get formed in families and you just if you don't push back, that's you end up owning those narratives. It's just really strange to me.

I didn't show up for the funeral. I did call her and I you know, told her listen, you know, I'm very sorry, and and you know, basically I love you and if you need me, you can call me. But I'm I didn't show up for the funeral.

was very strange for me. And the family hates me for that too, because they think that I should have been there, but they didn't think that I was good enough to come to the wedding and the and be there for the the life they had together. It's just a very bizarre thing. And my family wasn't good enough to be there for the either of those things. I just it's it's just bizarre. So the whole, you know, the abandonment thing is real. Now. I look at like my dad and I think, Okay, so for four months

he knew he was going to leave this earth. And you know, I've had discussions over the past week with my with my husband about this, and I think, Okay, you know, I he knew he was going to go. I mean, it's you think that in your in your last days, you would I just wonder what I would

do you would not do this. I wonder, like with my children, and I wonder if I if I had some sort of beef with my first of all all three of our children, I mean I would always I just I feel like I would never stop communicating with my children. I just can't imagine not not communicating with them.

If that's just me. I mean, everybody to each their own right, But I just can't imagine taking anything to my grave if I were, if I were angry, or if I I can't imagine having that much hate for one of my children where I would not want to say something to them before if I knew I was

going to go. It's one thing to not know, but when you know four ments an advance, when you know that you're going to go, to not be able to not want to say something to them, or to say something to your only grandchild, or.

an eye opening week or two for me. And and then another thing that's super eye opening is that I normally I would have just not said a thing. I would have not done this. I would have not I would have just talked about it with her and would have kept it with my family. But I think that there are a lot of people that deal with this

kind of stuff. I think they're One thing that you know has been very eye opening for me is the amount of emails and messages I've received from people who I don't know personally who are writing me their personal stories and saying you are not alone in this this kind of stuff, like here's my family story. This is what happened to me. I was a strange from my father.

I was a strangth from my sister and my brother and my mother, and this is what happened and like similar stories, and that has really touched me because I you know, I honestly when I last week, when I mentioned this to you guys, I was like, I'm the only person who's dealing with Oh my god, only like

my family is so messed up. And I honestly thought, like, it's so hard for me to be able to even share this, like with people that I semi note, like even people that I work with, because I'm just like, you kind of want to act like you have everything together, you know what I mean, and you're just like it's fine, I've got it's it's totally fine, Like my family's fine,

it's fine. But you know, you would be surprised how many people are dealing with stuff like this and that you know, they they go to work, they have friends, they have you know, their lives, and then they have this looming in the background and they do feel abandoned by summoning their family, or they do feel rejected, or they're dealing with just the emotional upheaval of stuff like

this and you have no idea. So I appreciate the messages and the love and the support of all y'all, because, man, it made such a huge difference just reading some of that stuff.

And I have the greatest friend in the whole world. I have this great community. I'm so grateful for so many things. So I mean, like I win you know what I mean, I win the lottery with that. Like seriously, I've won the lottery with life. It's like I cannot, I cannot be more grateful for all that stuff. So I didn't think I was gonna cry. Damn, why did you do that?