Jacoby Shaddix

And when he left and it just, it broke me.

It just totally broke me.

And it wasn't that he was ever abusive towards me at all.

It just left this like,

hole in my heart you know and how old were you and I was at this time I was probably like six or I know seven or eight actually when they finally split it was a back and forth and back and forth you'd come and go and I just always was like where's dad you know and he was always absent and

and once they finally split he just disappeared from my life and that was like true that was traumatic for me just because it was like he was my hero that's abandonment yeah oh it was her it sucked into anybody that's gone through that it's just it's terrible it's just it's

And so I vowed to myself, I didn't want to, you know, repeat that cycle.

And so I think that that was the beginning of this, like this trauma in my life that I didn't really know how to heal from.

And, you know, my mom started dating and she met this guy who eventually became my stepdad.

And I was a horrific stepson in the beginning.

I remember we were celebrating his birthday this one time and my mom got the cake and they're singing happy birthday.

And I like,

threw the cake on the floor, you know, like just like, Oh yeah, I was, I was, I was, you know, I look back on it and I'm kind of like, okay, like it's not so bad, but then I just was that, that abandonment.

Right.

And I think that I, I didn't fully recover from that until I was probably in my mid twenties.

I think when I finally sought him out, um,

And, uh, you know, had a deep conversation with him about who he was and why he left and really never turned back.

And it's, you know, it's so wild.

Like once I got to know him a little bit, it was, you know, I spent a couple of days with him and we got deep.

I just remember sitting on this hilltop and he was telling me the story of his life.