We'd like to acknowledge that traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast was produced, the Gadigle people of the Orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present. This episode contains discussions of child sexual abuse, violence, and mental ill health. If any of these topics are triggering for you, please give this episode a miss or. Support is available through the links and phone numbers in the show notes.
It's two thousand and seven and we're in the emergency room of the Orlando Regional Medical Center. Twenty three year old Erika Kramer's eyes are just opening to the feeling of cold scissors sliding against earth eighs. She's surrounded by a medical team cutting off her genes. In the chaos, she hears her husband screaming and arguing with hospital staff. A doctor tells her that she's lucky to be alive after the accident, but Erika has has no idea what
accident she's talking about. She starts trying to piece together the night before a nightclub free drinks and getting into a car. She's in the backseat, her husband and her friend in the front. They're all lucky to be alive this time. But twelve months later they won't have the same luck. I'm Att Middleton and this is Headgame Today. Erika Kramer on rebuilding herself from rock bottom. Eerka, you are known as the Queen of Confidence and you have
an award winning podcast as well, the Confidence Chronicles. Now you haven't always been the Queen of confidence?
Have you?
Because your story is one of wow. Talk about having to survive, talk about having to become your own person, talk about having to really dig deep in finding out who the true you is. Take me back to your first ever memory, Erica.
You know what's so crazy? And I went back to the States last year because my mom was sick, and I drove by a foster home that I used to live in, and nostalgia is so we don't talk about it enough, Like you need to heal from the nostalgia because it was so hard hitting. It was a foster care that I first went to when I was two years old, and I knocked on the door and I was like, Hi, this is weird. I used to live here. The lady was like the loveliest lady. She let me
into the house and the stairs. I remember being two years old holding onto the stairs and the stairs are nothing. If you see the stairs, you're like big deal Erica, what's so cool about these stairs? But I was watching the stairs from above, going, oh my god. I could remember my two year old self holding the stairs, crying.
And I know many people don't remember two or three, but I remember because it was such a traumatic moment that, you know, we remember these traumatic moments, like we can't forget. And I was in foster care because my mom had come into my room. My mom was bipolar. Unfortunately, she struggled with mental illness all my life. My dad left when I was two, so she was a single mother. I got two kids, and my husband is fully helpful.
I can't imagine being a single mother and also struggling with bipolar when mental health wasn't really I mean, we still don't talk about it enough or know about it. Imagine back in eighty three, right, So, she I was sleeping,
It was like two am, three am. I was sleeping, and she opened the door started yelling and screaming, so like I just remember the door opening, the light from the hallway coming in, and her jumping on me and she just slapped me until like I was bleeding, and I was like two years old, and one of my lips is actually I think it's this side. It's still bigger, like it weld so much that like it's changed my lips.
And they took me, they took me away, they put me on a foster home, and that was my memory. I was like holding on to those stairs like I didn't want to be there. I wanted to be back with my mom, because kids don't know even if you beat your child when they're little, they want to be back with you. And so that was my first real memory of life and how life kind of started off for me as a kid.
And you say that your father wasn't present. He left when you were two years old. Do you remember any slight presence of your father or completely.
Nothing, nothing at all until I was like I was like five, and I would go out and I looked just like my dad. Aunt like like just like my dad. I'm very much like my dad, and so people will be like, oh, you look like Angel, and I'm like, shut up, I don't want to look like him. And I remember scratching his photo. But my mom always was like,
he's your dad. She never spoke badly about him, which was kind of cool to see my mom not ever thrash my dad in front of me and allow me to make my own opinion of him, you know.
Yeah, so yeah, So when your mother had bipolar? How did that work with social services? How did that work with school? How did that work throughout your younger childhood? What was your routine? Were you just in and out of care? Were you at school or two? How did that work?
It was really wild. So from two years old until I was sixteen, I was in and out of foster homes. I went to every school in my town, every school, every middle school, elementary school, and high school. I attended so she would be good. I think Wayne Dyer talks about this. He was a foster kid as well, and I remember Wayne Dyer is the only person I've ever heard say I loved it. I loved being in foster homes and as a little kid, I love people and I will go up to strangers, like my team knows.
I talked to everybody, the Uber driver, I make friends with everybody. My husband's like, shut up, stop talking to everyone. So like, I'm pretty sure being a foster kid made me like a community human being lover right, But they don't talk about the dark side. And so I think that when I was five year years old, I went into foster care, like for a long time, and I think that that I don't know, it just created this. It was fun, it was exciting. I would be with
other kids. I wasn't really missing my mom because I loved being with other kids. But when I became like nine years old, I started to realize, oh, she's not good. Oh I think she's getting sick. And it would take my mom three days and so she would stop her meds because it would make her gain weight. And so she had this yo yo going on, right.
And this is all due to the bipolar right, bipolar.
Yeah, so she because it makes you like retain water. You know all the side effects of drugs, right. And there was no mindfulness, meditation, there was no therapy back then. It was like your crazy air quotes. Take all these drugs. And so fifteen pills a day she would take, and she would feel good, and then she would go, I'm going to stop taking them because I do have for my mother the look like I like my hair to look good. I dress up for no reason, just because
I want to feel good. So she would really worry about her vanity and how she looked. She would stop her meds, and three days of her stopping her lithium and all her medication, she would be wild'n out. In her younger years she would be so abusive and paranoid and like manic. And she wasn't until she got older that the depression side of the manic depression came in. So it was hectic. It was very like is she okay? Are we good? Oh? Like that kind of on edge
all the time. And I sucked at school. I was always in detention. I was an angry kid, beating people up.
And when you say you sucked to school, it obviously affected you. Were you a cheeky kid or did the abuse or of rubble on you and you'd be abusive towards other kids or teachers.
That's such a good insight. That's a good insight. And obviously, from person to person you understand this, right, you can't not become. And so when I see a killer or a murderer or an abuser, I have so I don't agree, but I understand them so much because of my own abuse, like the abused abuse. It's unfortunate, but it happens, and so at five years old, I was sexually abused in the foster home I was living in. And that's when my my light, the joyful, energetic baby girl that I was,
she died. It was like darkness, sadness, shame, just like a cloud went over me. And from that moment on, the sparkle died down. And I feel like I chose anger. Some kids choose to introvert and become really depressed and become you know, the emo, and they're quiet and they're like, oh, I hate the world. I was like I was a warrior.
So I was like fighting the kids for making fun of my mom who was sick, and she would like take her clothes off and walk down the street and I'd be like, oh my god, mom, you're naked walking down the street. Like I'm going to pay for that on the playground. So like I was the fighter, I was like shut up and fighting with people. So I fought with everyone and I used anger and I was remember as a kid, I was physically hit. So I learned that that's how you expressed your emotions. Because our
kids don't listen to what we say. They model who we are being. That's what I did. So I wasn't like a bully, but I was pissed off. I have was like the little shit. I had a chip on my shoulder and I really wanted to mess up the world and get everybody back for what was happening to me. I was fully in victim mode, but aggressively in my victim mode.
Where did you get your love from?
Yeah, well I think I was looking for attention. I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be chosen because my dad left, which means you're not good enough to stay for, you know, subconsciously, and my mom left me and I go to foster homes. I had family aunt that was around the corner and they had kids, and now as a parent myself, maybe my uncles couldn't take me. But at that time, as a kid, you just think
more rejection. You're not good enough to be taken. So then the state takes you, like the social worker takes you like you're so bad that nobody wants you. So that's what I got. So then I had sexual abuse again at nine years old my mom's boyfriend.
So you're jumping in and out with social care, you're spending you don't know how long you're going to spend and then all of a sudden they chuck you back to your mom.
It was that cycle a wild Wow, that is it was wild, I know. And then like she got a boyfriend when I was seven, and he was lovely, the only guy in my life that my mom had that was safe. And we went to Puerto Rico, where my family's from Puerto Rico, and we went there and my mom didn't take enough meds for the two week holiday, so she got into a fight with him. She got
me in the car. She's driving it's raining. My mom also had abuse from her past, because you know, you hand that shit down, So she had abuse, and she was thinking somebody was chasing us. So she was driving really fast in the rain in the mountains of Carolina and Puerto Rico, and we crashed into this massive tree, flipped the car. This is just crazy, like that in itself, I can't even believe we went through that. That's just
like its own lifestyle TV show. It's wild. But we came out of that only to realize that my mom had so much worry about men and fear. She was just fear based and it was from her past. Experience, and this guy really fought for me to keep me because they took her away. They put her in the hospital in America. So I sent her back home and my dad ended up taking me. So my dad, who had left me at two, kind of like kidnapped me, slashed saved me from my mom.
WHOA wait, I know, so wait, let me just let me just recapture this. So you get in a car crash and you're you sort of in hospital and the only care and now that you have is all of a sudden, your dad reappears.
We weren't even in hospital. We crashed, and my mom left the scene of the crash, walked for three days and three nights. We slept in patios, we slept in bushes, we slept in some people's cars. The police found us, She's like, we'll be right back. She ran from the cops, and then my dad heard about it through family and then he kind of for me. In my first book, I was like my dad kidnapped me because he genuinely took me away from my mom on force.
Yeah.
But twenty years later my dad came to Australia and a reconnection and he said I was trying to help you because your mom was going to kill you. And I was like, oh my god, I can't tell anyone that he kidnapped because my dad was trying to rescue me from my mother who was not well. And so I didn't I saw his face because I used to scratch his face in photos, and I didn't know Spanish, and I'm like, and I'm pretty sure I called him
a bunch of bad words in English. And I was there for a year, but ant that's where I learned Spanish, That's where I learned about my Puerto Rican culture, That's where I learned about my salsage, my music. So it was a gift but also a blessing and also horrible. And then he sent me back after twelve months to be with her, only to jump back into the same thing,
and then you know, same cycle. Then she gets a boyfriend who molested me at nine years old, and that's when I started to realize, oh, this is really like she's tripping, Like I do believe. I know some people mean well, but like I am happy that they took me away from her, because like it's dangerous. She didn't mean to do that to me, Bless her heart, but like, I don't know how I'm here, like I should be dead multiple times, and the fact that I'm here is a blessing in itself.
And are you starting to feel resentment towards your mom at this stage?
Yeah, well I think I with that abuse. My mom when I was five told me about like my private areas and to always talk to her. And I speak to many women and my coaching that don't tell anyone about their abuse, right, And so my mom told me, if somebody touches you, tell me. So she opened that communication so I would always tell her. And I told her when this happened to me, and she didn't believe me. And then it happened again and I told her, no,
this happened. She kicked him out, and she believed me. And the day that she didn't believe me, after years of telling me, if anybody does this, tell me, I kind of lost my trust with my mother. I was like, oh, and her well being not my sick mother, my mother who's on her meds, And well, I was like, oh,
you didn't believe me, like so crazy. So now when I speak about confidence, like she attracted a guy because of her lack of confidence and thinking there was no one else out there who was unsafe for her child and for herself, and she put up with it knowing that he wasn't good. So it's so important that we as women, everybody, anybody listening, are careful about our own traumas. If we don't heal, we traut with these people that then,
you know. So, I think after that, I wasn't resentful, but I was very like, oh, I got to have my own back. So I was paying money orders, I was paying bills, I was calling shots. I was like a twenty four year old at nine years old. I was just like, I have to take care of her because she's tripping.
Yeah. You know, so you forced to grow up super quick. What did your education look like? And did you go to school too?
Yeah? So, I it was so funny because I think before you asked me, what were you looking for love? I feel like I wanted to be feared. I thought air quotes that fear. If you fear me, then I'm going to get respect. That's what I thought. I don't know how this came to be, but I do think kids take you know, kids take different avenues. I'm gonna shrink myself become invisible fight flight fawn. I was like fight, fight, fight, fight, you know. I was like I'm gonna fight, like come
and come at me. So I was a lot of noise and I don't know if I had the bite, but I was barking, and so that's how I got attention. So people were kind of scared at school. So I was like a I was like a cool boy. Like that's how I would describe myself, like you know, the cool boy in class. It's like kind of sexy and everyone's like, oh my god, and like can you do my homework for me? And the girls are like yes. So I just had all these girls that were good girls and I was like, yo, can you do my
homework for me? Or I'm gonna beat you up? And they were like cool. So like I kind of used so bad. I told my kids and they're like really, Mommy, I'm like, yeah, don't do that. Mommy was in pain, okay, But like I used my I feel like I used my charisma and my you know, my sassiness, my cheekiness, as you.
Say, use what you knew.
Yeah, And I grew up in the hood, so it was it was, you know, you had to be like, I don't know, I think there's a song money power respect and so rap music was really big. Hood music was really big. So I was like, yup, so I'm gonna like I wore size forty waist jeans and like Fila T shirts and like bandanas, and I was like eh, And so that was my what was I gonna do to somebody? I weighed nothing, but I was trying to
get bigger internally because I felt so small. And that worked at a certain time, but my grades, as you would imagine, my grades really suffered, and so I had to start to get my shit together and I went to an alternative high school that was that was the limit, Like I'm a person that has to go to the edge, like eleven and a half the merit points and I'll stop speeding. Okay, no worries, I got you. So I'm
like the edge person, right. So I'm at this alternative high school where literally no disrespect, but everyone's pregnant, drug dealers, like court cases like these are like really like not bad kids, but you know, bad kids, And I'm like I don't have any of that. Why am I here? And I realized I don't want to graduate from this alternative high school. I have to get myself out of here. We're literally coloring maps and we're in grade eleven or twelve.
So I got out of that school, got my stuff together, tried to get mentorship. I had a big sister. I don't know if you guys have that program like big brother, big sister, but it's like a mentoring program. And I had this lady who she helped me. She was the only person I really had because I didn't have role models, and she just kind of kept me in check and I could trust her. And I think it was because
of her that I actually graduated high school. And my teachers that would knock on my door and take me to school like Erica, come on, you got to get to school. So I was that kid, but it helped because I got to graduate, which was amazing.
Yeah, it sounds like you're, you know, huge defense mechanisms. You know that wasn't wasn't you at all? How were your relationships through through your sort of early teens going into later teens? Were they very stand off Fisher? You know, did you have any boyfriends or was it you know, how did that go?
I had one boyfriend and he was really lovely and it was very innocent, and I there was some that my cousin said to me, my older cousin, and he said to me, and this is so cliche, but I don't care. I'm going to say it. Like he was like, stay a virgin until as long as you can just stay a virgin, Erica, you'll have all the power. And
I just heard you'll have all the power. So I was like, okay, okay, I even like and I remember I didn't mess with boys for some reason, and I don't know how, but I had no mom at my house. I had the keys to my house, I had access to her like Centerlink and her money, so I could have just went crazy doing house parties, drinking drugs for whatever reason. This responsibility kicked in and I was paying bills and I was going, you know, I was trying to keep so I didn't have sex with anyone, go crazy,
do any of that until I moved to Australia. Anyway, while that later and I stayed. I swear my cousin. You know, sometimes you get these people that come into your life and they're they're here to tell you something and you're ready to hear it. I'm happy I heard that because I can't imagine.
Yeah, yeah, your mind is obe you're ready to do that.
Yeah, And I wanted to graduate.
Yes, you graduate.
I did by like a hair. I just was so lucky I walked on that field. I graduated. But one of the things that happened in school in high school was in America, in the cafeteria, the people come, like military comes to your cafeteria. Right, So I'm poor, my mom is poor, my grades are horrific, and I'm a little hood street you know, I need to get slapped
up because I have no disrespectful all that stuff. And then the military come and I'm at this point, I wasn't a tomboy anymore because I went through like tomboy phase, super tight painted on clothing phase, and I was in my girly phase. And they're there and they're doing like pull ups and all this, and they're like, if you join, the Army will pay you four years of state college free. So I was like, oh my god, I sucked at school. No money. I'm going to go to the army because
they'll pay for my school. And all my friends were like, how are you going to shoot it gun with your nails, blah blah blah, and I'm like, you forgot who I was, like, I was a tomboy, you know, like I'm doing this. So I at seventeen and signed the paperwork for the military, and my high school trip was boot camp, and I was like, that's my way out, Like I'm not going to get out of here. And it's so funny. A lot of people ask me this. I didn't know, and
maybe I don't know if you felt like this. I didn't know the military was going to give me stability and structure and discipline. I didn't know I lacked that. I didn't know I was going to need that. But my friends are like, I swear subconsciously, number one, you wanted to get away from your mother, which I definitely did. I wanted to move to the other side of the
world subconsciously, and I wanted a way out. And so the military, obviously, as you know, gives you the structure and the discipline, it will slap it out of you. So I was not disrespectful anymore after that.
Joe exactly the same with me. I was brought up in France and I wanted to get back to the UK, and that was one of the excuses that I, you know, to join the UK military. That was one of the reasons and the excuses that I used. It was, you know, I want to get out for answer, I want to go back to the UK. Well, guess what, I'm going to join the military. Didn't think about discipline structure. I just wanted to challenge, wanted to be self sufficient, wanted to be paid a little bit of a wage and
go and travel the world. So yeah, I completely get That's almost like, you know, you wanted to detach yourself from yes, from everything you know, and this was a prime opportunity. So what do you do? Do you jump at it? Do you sign up? And a where you go? And are you just like low Manger in it?
So I signed up. I had a boyfriend at sixteen who was my high school sweetheart, Giovanni, and he was a year ahead of me, and he wanted to join the Marines and I was like, yeah, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing what you did, and that's like that's next level. I was just like, I just need to get out nudge, you know, like I need to get out of here. And I can handle the army. I can handle the US Army, but he joined the Marine Corps and he left first. And so my high school,
you know in Australia they call it schoolies. So my high school senior trip was boot camp, right, and it was two thousand and one, and it was September. And so halfway through boot camp, what happens nine to eleven? So they put us in a room, they put the TV on. I'm like, there's a TV and the second tower is getting hit and it just it got real. I was like, whoa, Like we joined for college everybody then in two thousand and one, let me tell you,
none of those kids joined for that. And my drill sergeants, you know the drill instructors, they don't they spit on your face, they yell at you. It's a whole show that they do. These drill instructors dropped to the ground. They were wailing. People were crying and screaming, and I'm like, is this like, what the hell is this?
Like?
What's happening? And it was legit. They had family and New York people were crying and then they all got their shit together and they were like, you were all going to war after your deployment, we were like what, Like, we're just kids that joined for college money. So it was a wild time. After that, every drill instructor was like, all right, sergeant. They used to call me sergeant's Batchela because my maiden name is Supulvida and they couldn't say it, yeah,
so batchela. Yeah, And they were like, Nick, you know that I didn't choose. So I'm like, okay, it's Batchelor and they were like make sure. So they were so careful with us, which I don't think any I don't think many people got that care and love because of when we were there. They were like, shit, we're sending these kids out to war, so we're going to really have to like show them. And they cared so much, and like the first month they were just yelling at us.
They didn't give a shit. But the second month they were like, all right, soldier, you got this, you got this private and I was like, hold on, yes, I think so they would just show you. And the patients came, and I think they were knowing that they were going to send these all these people off to this we hadn't had war in our generation like that, you know. And so oh and geo's platoon. They got locked down
and they got sent to Iraq for two years. Like my marine partner, who's my boyfriend, who then became a husband because we had a quick marriage, just so that if something happened to him, they would tell me. So it just went America just went crazy. That was a real hectic time.
So Erica, you were what you got married in the in the interval? Yes, just during training.
I know, I finished training. I finished training, went back home, you know, he went back home and he was going off, and then I went with him, and my family was like what are you doing. I'm like, oh, we're moving to California and they were like what. I were like, yeah, bye. And so my mother got sick, and you know what's crazy as an only child with a mother with mental health issues, I felt guilt for the first time at because I was leaving and she came to my boot
camp graduation off her face. She was I don't know how she got on an airplane from Boston to North Carolina, but she was off her face, and I just I was just standing there like, that's not my problem. I was like, I can't take responsibility for this woman anymore. I'm so happy that that seventeen or eighteen year old Erica knew I love you, but I got to get the hell out of here, and that's on you, it's not on me, and a lot of us don't have that.
So I was grateful that whatever powers gave me and I moved across from Boston to California, so all the way on the West coast, and then we didn't tell anyone. We secretly got married and I became a military wife. I became Missus Lopez military wife for two years on a base doing nothing, and no one knew. It was the weirdest thing. Even my husband didn't have me as wife.
So I'm on the base. You know when you live on the base, they're like, Missus Lopez, Missus Lopez, show me your husband's this, and he's just a soldier fighting in Iraq and I'm a wife. And it was the weirdest thing because I couldn't tell anyone.
Wow, what's that relationship like between you two? Is it? It's he's he's your high school sweetheart. Now he's off in the Marines. You're you're in the army. Does that break down or do you how does that work? Out.
Yeah, it was. It was really beautiful. We stayed together, we pen paled, we called I remember he called me from the sprite factory and there was bombs going off and they had just went into Saddan Hussein's house and just wild stuff that was happening. And he's calling me from some remote place and I'm just like this is real, Like this is you know a lot of people, probably your family would have been stressed about you, like you watch the news, soldier dies, who my husband, my son,
my like, you're just so stressed. So it was two years of stress and then he came back. I waited. I was a good I was such a good I don't know how that came to be, because I shouldn't have been good, but I was. I was there, I was waiting, I was all in.
So how long did you do in the military, and you know, was there any any moments in the military where you fought, you know, I can't do this or you know this isn't me, or you know, did you really enjoy your time?
Yeah? I think I was like a National Guard one week and a month and then I went fully active duty, like Monday to Friday. When GEO came back from war. We moved from California the west coast all the way to Florida, so back to the east coast, and I went active duty at that time. And I was active duty in Florida, like Orlando, Florida. Monday to Friday, I wore the camis, I wore my boots, but then at night I went to hair school. I became a hairdresser,
which was so weird for my battalion. They were like, excuse me, you're doing hairdressing as well, Like it was weird, But I'm Gemini and I leve all weird shit at once. I'm like, seventeen weird things at once is my favorite thing. So I was like looking for a way out right. I was like, oh, I'm not going to be in the military for my whole life. This was just a to B. But now this became my plan d Like I got to figure it out. So hair school became the thing I was gonna, you know, kind of transition,
like have my plan out. And I think the military pissed me off and I would love to hear what you think about this. But as an enlisted which means I didn't go to college and become an officer in charge of people. I was like grassroots. I was enlisted, E won you two all the way to eat. Yeah, it was grunting.
You know your non commissioned officer, you know yourum.
So like then you get this high school and remember I had shit around so as a Latina, I had shit around white people that were rich. Like it was like a little bit of racism growing up, like all those white people that are rich, they get everything that they want, and like that's not true, but that's how it felt for me in my life because white people always saved me, like the social worker, the foster home, all that stuff. So I had my own shit around that.
So then here comes this officer who is like twenty. It felt like they were twenty and they just graduated and now they're in charge of us, and they know nothing about what we're doing. They haven't went through the ranks to understand. So it taught me a lot about how I don't want to do corporate America. You know what I'm saying, Like I don't want somebody in charge of me that has no idea. So I was like, I need to be an entrepreneur.
You know.
It was like this is not gonna work. So I think it really taught me that. But also it taught me to shut up. It taught me to like respect and not fight. There's certain things you fight for and other things you just learned to shut up. When someone's screaming at your face, spitting on your lip and they're super close to you, you're just like, I'm gonna get Brad Towell pt for me, so let me just shut my mouth. And I'm probably sure that was a lesson Erica needed.
How did your relationship go with your husband because you got into a terrible accent, didn't you.
Yeah. Yeah, So we were both obviously trauma background. His dad had left and he had his own traumas, I had my own. We get our traumas together, get secretly married, move to Florida, and drink way too much alcohol. I don't know if you resonate with that, but like lots and lots of alcohol, getting blind and one night we got told, hey, come to this party in the city. You know, we've got a VIP booth. And in America, VIP booths are a big thing. Like that means you
just drink for free if you get invited. So you're like, okay, let's go. So when Geo came back from war, his parents bought him a car as like a gift, and they bought him the Fast and the Furious Mitsubishi Evo. And it has no chip. So this car, sick car. Never drove it because I was like scared that it was so beautiful red fast. So where we go to
this party and and we get blind. And the crazy thing is that at this party, at this club, they had a stripper pole and I was like having a ball on the move in my back doing all this ridiculous stuff. Drinking, got in the car, didn't put a seatbelt on. I said, you put your seatbelts on. Him and his friend were in the front, and I hovered to air quotes look after them. We were all drunk. So my husband falls asleep in fifth gear going two hundred and forty two kilometers an hour. His friend has
a seatbelt on, and he has a seatbelt on. I don't, So we ended up hitting We passed our house by like half a kilometer, and I woke up and I'm like, we passed the house. We ate a red light. It was like three am, and my just vision went black. So we hit a ditch. The car turned boot first, so now I'm at the back right with no seatbelt. Boot first. We hit a ditch, we hit a van. The van pushed us into a tree, and then we smashed into a convenience store and I was ejected out
like twenty five feet in the air. Broke my back. So we had a friend who sold drugs anyway, talking about that later, and he was doing some drug deal at two am and said, I saw you. I saw you, Erica on the car trying to get you know how adrenaline works, trying to get out of the car. My back is broken and like my back and my ankle are shattered. So he's like called the police. They took us draws of life GEO. My husband was in a colla. His head was like this big for twelve hours. Thank god,
he was fine after twelve hours got released. His friend had a fractured rib, which is a joke, like how did homeboy get out? I don't know how that happened. And because I didn't have a seatbelt, I broke my back. I had fusion metal. So thirty days in the hospital with morphine pump every five minutes, pumping it because it was so painful, like my ankle has a big old screw and I'm like what happened? So that was like that was a wake up call. And now you know,
nobody knows we're married. So I have a ring and I'm like telling the nurses to take my ring off, and like we're hiding this from his family.
It was just wild, Wow, yeah, no one knows you're married.
No one was married. Take my ring and they're like yours. You need to just calm down. So thirty days in the hospital I got out. I was I was in like a bulletproof looking vest with like a moon boot, and I couldn't walk, And your ego takes a hit when you're I was twenty three and I'm like, what do you mean I can't? And I was swollen and so it took a lot of recovery, but I was like being able to walk again on my own and go to the bathroom on my own was like that's
a win. And it was a wake up call and to be like what are you doing in the army. You didn't come here to be in the army. You wanted to be a performer or an actress or something why aren't you doing that? What are you doing with your life? Like wake up? Like you could go. So I really thought that that was my wake up call. So I started modeling. I know it's weird. I'm a hairdresser, I'm in the military, and I'm modeling. This is the perfect life Erica.
That doesn't surprise me.
With you living no a double life. I have a triple life. Okay. So but it was kind of good because I was selling my calendars to my military people who were very respectful, but they were supporting my work. So thank you guys at the unit. They were buying my calendars. So I started doing like music videos in Miami. I lived in Florida, amazing, and I'm like, this is good. Things are happening for me. I'm going to move out of the military. I'm going to start doing hair and modeling.
And the following year, I don't know if you remember this fight, but it was Oscar de la Ooya and May Massive fight. Matt right. That fight is like that shit went down in history. Okay. So I was just like in America, you do pay per view. Everybody pays fifty bucks, they come to your house, have a party. It was a house party after this. Of course, my husband and I were never drinking and driving. We always wore a seatbelt. Of course, like you almost die, you
would never do that again. So I fully believe that how things happen are supposed to happen now. So we're at our house. I'm like, hey, guys, I've got my one weekend a month military. You can't be late to formation, so I'm going to bed. I go to bed. Everybody's partying. I go to bed. I wake up and I don't see my husband next to me, and I'm like, what's happening. I'm like, where's Geo? And everyone's like drunk on the couch and I'm like, I don't know where he is,
but I gotta go because I'm gonna be late. So I'm like, guys, call him. I kept calling him, his phone kept ringing. I'm like, this weird. He called me at one twenty am. Anyway, we couldn't find him. I didn't think anything about it, and I was like, we're good. Like he's probably fell asleep in the car or something. So I do my formation. It's like ten am. I tell my sergeant. She's like, don't worry. Keep calling him. His phone kept ringing, so eleven forty five, I'll never forget.
I look out the window of my unit and it's raining, and I'm like, where's my husband? Okay, I'm freaking out. Now, I'm freaking out. I'm like, where is Geo? And she sends me home, She goes go, We go to the house. All our friends are looking for him. And I saw the hospital called now the year before, and if any young people are listening to this, don't be silly. Get insurance. Okay, the year before I declined the military insurance. It's like twenty four dollars a month, tight ass Erica, and I
declined it. So then guess what happened when I broke my back. I still to this day, Oh the America, I don't even know probably now five hundred thousand dollars. I don't know a lot of money. So I thought the hospital called for the bills because they always called. But it was seven am and when they called me, and I'm like, that's weird. So I called the hospital. They're like, we can't give you any information, just come in. It was very nonchalant. I'm like, cool, we can't find him.
He's not at the jail. Nobody's calling us. We'll drive to the hospital. So me and his best friends drove to the hospital. We woke in and the guy on the phone's like, oh, just go wait over there in those rooms, and I'm like, these are the room where they tell you the bad news. And I start freaking out. And this little old lady across from the room, beautiful Angel, was like, hey, darling, my husband's getting heart surgery. I'm just here waiting. These are waiting rooms, don't worry. And
I'm like, okay, freaking out, freaking out. The double door's open and there's a doctor and a nurse and they just look at me and they're like, I'm so sorry he didn't make it. And I'm like, excuse me, Well, they just came out like that. Yeah, Like they just looked at me and they were like, we're so sorry. And I'm like, oh this this bitch is talking to the wrong person. Oh no, who are you talking to me? Like? It was like you ever want to see insanity? In
that second, it was insanity. I was disassociated. I was I don't know what's what. I'm like sorry, and then she's like I'm sorry. Giovanni Lopez, your husband. We tried everything we could. He didn't make it. Then I was like, I don't understand. Like I was in my military suit, I couldn't and his friend's on the ground and wailing. His friend from high school, so from Boston. His friend had come and we were just like what And then it finally kicked in and I just lost my shit.
And basically he left the house, which again we weren't doing. That was weird. He left the house, he was on his own, didn't have a seat belt, which again we weren't doing. He crashed into there was a ditch. You know those ditches that just go down those pitchurees are so dangerous because you don't need anything else. He crashed in this ditch. The car flipped and he just landed on a patio with nothing. So we crashed into a million things the year before. There's nothing. It's just grass.
But crazy because I'm like, wait, no, like that's not our story. We're not doing that anymore. It makes no sense. And it's so crazy because that's what happened. And so when I went to the scene to find him, there was a woman who came out and she's like, I saw him, and I came out. The lady who lived there, she's like, I prayed, I held him. I'm like, was he suffering? She's like no, like his ring had fallen off. Somebody found the ring and gave it to me. Like
all this crazy stuff that happened. And I in that moment was like f you God. If there is a god, like I must be cursed, ants like are you kidding me? All that stuff? I was done. I was like, I'm done. I can check out now, like I'm done. It was. I never had anybody died in my life. Nobody ever died in my life. And then my husband died, and I was just like, what is this?
What did you do? Well?
I numbed out. I numbed out a lot. I did the burial went. That was a whole crazy thing in itself because nobody knew we were married. Remember, so now his mom's trying to make plans and they're like his wife, and I'm like shit, yeah, so we got married and I'm his wife, and so like now I can do all the things and you can't do anything about And like we had insurance, you know, military insurance. Yeah, so paid his school. I didn't want his parents to pay
for his college. That got paid paid for all the things. But it was like blood money. Like I'm a poor girl that's never had money, and I get one hundred thousand dollars and I couldn't. I couldn't throw it off me faster. I was like, oh, look, here's money to get your boobs done. Friend, here's money for a car. Brother, like all these people that I just was like, I can't. So we did that. I came back to Florida, and I promise you, I don't remember those three years I
did modeling, seeking validation. Yeah, but all that stuff that you said as a kid, like looking for love, that's when it kicked in. And because I realized I always had a boyfriend or a partner at a young age. So he was gone. I was alone. I was like, I'll do music videos. I'll be half naked in a bikini. Nope, that doesn't make me feel good. I'll get with this guy. I'll get with that guy. Oh my god, like drunk, drinking and driving, still doing bad things.
So you've sort of flipped off. Yeah, eating with that, you've gone onto the drugs. Alcohol.
Yeah, just lots of alcohol, lots of alcohol, pain numbing it. And then and then I went to a hair conference in Las Vegas and I met a man from Australia and I was like, yep, cool, let's do this. I'm gonna move into Australia. And he was like, are you serious? And I was like, sure, let me get out of America. I gotta go. So I thought, I thought, if I moved across the South Pacific Ocean, all my shit wouldn't follow me because I didn't pack it in my luggage. But it came, Yeah, came with.
Me, of course. So so you're you're still you're still in this self destruct mode, I would say, because that's exactly what it sounds like. And then you meet an Australian gentleman? How do you how talk me through that? How? How do you how do you meet this this gentleman?
Oh, gentlemen. The guy in Vegas was very nice on the outside but ended up not being good. So I thought he was cool. I'm like, he's cool, he's different, let's go. So I literally sold my life in change.
Did you use him just to get out? No?
I don't feel like I used him. I feel like he also So I was a hairdresser at that time, and I came to his business here in Sydney. Do you know where Mount Drewid is, Yes, yes, Okay, So I moved from Miami to Mount drew It. So that's that's just in itself a story. But I came because he was like I was working for a hair salon, Paul Mitchell, and he's like, I love like what you
guys are doing. And so I came and worked in his business and made him fifty k extra a week and they were just like, what the hell, how did you do that? I'm like, I'm America. It's called customer service Australia up selling training culture. So like I brought all my stuff and distracted myself with helping and forgot that he was actually not a good guy. Like the way he treated me was bad. The condemnation like you got to clean up your life, you got to messed up,
like story. And so I attracted someone to show me how much I already thought about myself being low, Like I already thought I was a piece of shit. I already thought I was broken and messed up, and he was just going to confirm that because that's what I was. That's what I was drawing in of course, so it wasn't his fault. It was my attraction of him. And so that didn't work. After eleven months and I met another man and aunt same guy, different face, same guy,
same thing, but he was in Melbourne. So then I moved to Melbourne because I'm a loser and I'm now Sydney Melbourne. Now the guy horrible and I know, and he was like, we have to lie to my family about you. We can't tell them you come from a broken family. That was the first time I ever heard the broken family. I didn't know what that meant. I'm like, oh, I came from a broken family. Like delete your photos off Google. I had like four pages of my modeling
photos on Google. He's like, delete them. So I would email photographers trying to delete my past and I was basically not good enough, damaged. And I was with this guy for another eleven months until he broke up with me on my birthday, thank goodness, because I wasn't going anywhere. And I was just like, you're a loser. You don't
know anyone here. Your nail technician and your personal trainer are your only friends in Australia and I just had like a Michael Jackson man in the mirror moment where I was like, wow, I'm at rock like I was at rock bottom, bottom bottom bottom.
Yeah, I suppose you again. Another defense mechanism is it's to keep busy, is to jump into relationships, jump into situations, jump into jobs, jump in and then all of a sudden, all that goes and you're just slide. You by yourself. You look around, you isolated yourself. You are lonely by.
Yourself, and you can't hide from yourself. That's why a pandemic, that's why that lockdown killed people, because you got to sit with you in your home, with you and your relationship and the stuff that you avoid every day you're locked in. And so I was like, I'm so grateful for that moment. It was like I looked in the mirror and I saw myself. Like I look in the mirror. Women look at the mirror all the time, any mirror.
We can't we're like checking ourselves out. But I was like ooh, and I just looked through my eyes and I was like, shit, you are the common denominator in the hot mess that is your life. It's always been you. You were here, it's still you. We got to make amends. And it was like that awakening for me to be like, it's me. I got to take responsibility. I have to respond. I have to respond to that situation.
So that's a classic. You took a good, hard look in the mirror yourself and that moment just flipped your mindset to it.
Well, I didn't know what the work was like, as being from the hood and being poor. I didn't know, like I had therapists since I was four. So this Foster care put you in therapy, but I always again, I thought it was a white lady with a clipboard with glasses judging you. So to me, therapy never felt like healing, like people say, get a therapist, and I was like, I'm not gonna get a therapist, Like there was so much masculine shit about me that was like
not not doing that. I'm not talking about my feelings. But now here I am facing myself seeing that I can't literally escape anymore. I've escaped to another country, which I didn't know where. Australia was no idea typical American. I was like, Austria, where are we going? Sure, let's go, Like okay, this is nowhere. I don't know where I am. I thought everybody in Australia sounded like they were from the UK. Like that's how bad I was. Okay, so I couldn't I couldn't escape. And then I think that
was that moment. So my personal trainer, Hamish, who was literally like kind and lovely, was like, hey, if you're interested, I know this lady that I work with, and she was like a coach, but she was like clayvoyant coach and I was like, what the hell's clayvoyant? What the hell is all that? I was not like spiritual universe any of that. I was very like, what are you talking about?
Yeah?
And so yeah, like what you're a witch? Like what are you talking about? What he did? Witchcraft? Like I don't understand. And so I met her. She was lovely, very practical person but had her you know, she had her energetics, but she was practical and I need practical. I hate fluff. I absolutely like you, I can't be fluff and shit, it's like that's bullshit. So she sat with me and my first session aunt, what do you think? She took me to Geo's death, the thing that I
avoided for like four years. She was like, let's talk about Geo's death and I was like boo. And just know she took me there the first session. She didn't even ease me in okay, And I was like, I'm fine, I'm fine, not okay, but I'm so grateful. Yeah. It was disarmed, and it was really like you got to put that wall down. Like she said to me a long time ago, you're gonna help women, and you can't help women with that nasty chip on your shoulder and all that anger. I was like, I'm not helping women.
I don't care about anybody. I was like, that's what you say now, and she told me, she's like you are going to be such a stand old stand for women and showing up and helping them. You got to clear that shit. And I was like whatever, what do you know? And then obviously thank you. You are right. But like twelve months into it, so Hamish started helping me. He introduced me to his friends, my personal trainer okay, and then we started to like get feelings and I'm like, oh, no, Erica,
here you go. But hey, like I was like no, no, no, I can't. And then literally he was like I like you, and I'm about to go to Brazil for a month, worst place you want you and new boyfriend to go. But he was like, I'm going to Brazil. I got to tell you now. And I was like, I think I like you too. And then and it was like and Hamish, he was gandhi like he was being the change you wished to see. He never talked, he never said you should read this book, you should do this.
He was just being the work, the example, calm centered breath work, meditation on his shit. And I was just like, man, why is this man so calm and amazing? And I would just get drunk, throw plates, just being crazy and oh my god. Yeah, I don't know if I could do it with this crazy Puerto Rican lady, but I would. I would try again and I would mess right yeah. But then he would see me like, you know a lot of people say yea yea yeah, I'm gonna do the work, and it's lip service. I was doing the work.
I was messing up. I was apologizing and doing it again. So I had a podcast recently that I did called people Can Change Because hear me when I tell you, he did not give up on me, and I was being a piece of shit at the time, but I was trying, and so his belief in me while also being guarded and going I'm gonna give you a few more chances. And I just needed a little bit more patience, a little bit more love, a little bit more support. And then twelve months later I kept doing the work.
Twelve months later I was like, all right, Hamish, catch up and he was like, damn, you just surpassed me with the work. Like I just was. I was at his level.
I was like, let's go, Wow, so you've done a complete free sixty. And by the sounds of it, you know, with Hamish, you know you said he didn't give up on you, it means that he just you know that that love that we spoke about, he gave you that no matter who you were, what you've done. And then ultimately you must there must have been a point where you sort of surrendered to that. You know, Yeah, we went through a moment and then boom, a new lease
of life. Right, You've got love that you've craved always, all that respect that you've craved always in a good man that treats you well, that is calm, that looks after himself, and that role model that you've never had in your life.
Yes, and you know how you said, Like, I feel like I was attracting and I talk about this in my book. I was attracting from lack. So I believed I was a piece of shit. I believe that was broken. I believe something was wrong with me. So I was looking outside of myself for people to validate me. Tell me I'm pretty, look at my photos, like me, love me? What do you need me to do? So I would
code switch to be whoever I was, Princess Jasmine. When I came to Melbourne to date that guy, I was literally like hair extensions, cardigans from Country Road, Like I don't wear that, That's not my vibe. I would never wear hoops. So I was like, hold on, I could be who I am. And Hamish was the first man that I told my whole story to and he was like, whoa, You're amazing And I was like wait, what, Like you
don't think I'm broken or messed up? He was like, no, you're amazing, that's amazing, and I was like what, Like I was so like, can't compute, Like I was just like I was used to people being like oh, you're messed up. You got to clean up your past. Anyway, he was amazing, so because he could see in me what I couldn't see, and he held that greatness in me. He held me to that. So when I would mess up, he'd be like, this is who you are. I know you. And I was like, shit, this is who I am.
And so I would always want to rise to my standard of who he could see me and he could see someone I didn't know I was. And then when I got that, I was just like, oh my goodness, Like it was the best thing. Because I spent the next eight years and healing. I didn't care about anyone. I didn't want to help. I didn't want to.
Become a coach.
You know these coaches that they join your coaching program. Three months later they're like, I'm gonna coach people. I'm like, girl, you just got into your stuff. Why don't you keep doing? Like keep doing your work? Is fully in my work eight years and that's when I was like, Okay, I want to help people. And now I yell at women, especially women, to back themselves, and I'm like, don't tell me you can't, because look at my exhibit A. Don't
tell me you can't. It's that you will exhibit Exhibit Australia, Exhibit America, but like, you won't do it. It's not that you can't do it, but you won't do it. So then I'm like become this little loving bitch slap giver to remind them that they're the ones that they need to overcome. It's not the patriarchy, it's not the pay gap, it's not this bullshit. It's you, like, look in the mirror. It's you overcome that person. You can have whatever you want,
doesn't matter what happened to you in your past. You make it. It makes you, It doesn't break you.
You know, Yeah, do you know what's it's so powerful to hear that? You know, just the war truth of everything starts with you. Take a look at yourself. What a message to have, and I love the way you deliver it as well. It's just it's war. It's passionate and you've got a book. You're becoming magnetic And when did you like that?
So that was this year. It came out January fourteenth, twenty twenty five. It's actually coming out in the UK in May. So attracting, right, attracting, what you want and stop repelling, especially single people. We repel what we desire. I repelled Hamish. I was not attracting him, and so thankfully I figured that out along the way. And I never thought I was a magnetic person, but now I look at my life, I'm like, of course I am.
I made friends with the uber driver five minutes before getting here, Like, I talked to everyone and I think magnetism is it's about your energy and who you're being and when you walk in a room, what do I feel? Because we all love that.
Yeah, listen, you are. I could feel your energy and your magnetism through the screen. So thank you. Put a smile on my face. You've you've topped me up with positivity. So thank you ever so much, Erica, your staff, thank you so much much love.
Thank you, my love.
Thanks for listening to this episode of head Game. If you enjoyed it, please leave me a review. I'm at Middleton, See you next time.