Darren Waller

Just kind of realizing I was very good at sports growing up and that kind of like,

kind of gave me some inclusion into spaces.

But a lot of times it was like, yeah, why do you listen to music like that?

Why do you dress like that?

Yeah, and it's like the representative of me that I want these people to see.

And that's as early as elementary school, middle school, high school.

And on into high school.

And so I feel like in middle school was really rough for me because that's where I started to start to like act out and like, oh, I want to act out to like, you know, kind of gain attention.

But also it's like the dudes that get all the girls are, you know, acting bad and doing a bunch of stuff.

And so like I kind of want to be like them because I don't really get much attention from girls.

Like I want to be cool.

And it's like that brought me out of really trying to figure out.

who I am authentically as a kid.

There's so much pressure in those times on kids to be socially accepted, which I think is a basic human need.

But at the same time, I felt like I went

above and beyond to try to be accepted to the point where it was just like, I don't really know what I want to pursue because I want to pursue the things that get me validation in the eyes of other people.

So it means for them, they themselves didn't take on those addictive qualities, but they

There's almost like a level of codependence because it's like in those households, you got to find ways to, you know, survive, to cope and to almost disassociate in ways from that.

Yes.

On both sides.