Deep For The Week
This show gets deep every week as address topics that affect us every day . We might make you laugh , cry , and get mad here as we get deep !
Deep For The Week
Facing Demons: A Journey Through Childhood Trauma and Addiction
Can childhood trauma shape the course of our entire lives? What happens when the people meant to protect us only add to our burdens? This week on Deep for the Week, we bring you an emotionally charged episode featuring Azra, a courageous 24-year-old from Detroit. Azra opens up about her fraught relationship with her emotionally distant mother, her role as a co-parent to her younger siblings, and the haunting fears that have shaped her outlook on life. Through heart-wrenching stories of familial abuse, miscarriages, and a challenging education journey, Azra reveals her cautious yet hopeful steps toward healing and self-awareness.
In a candid discussion on addiction, we follow the harrowing journey of an individual who turned to crack cocaine after battling a skin condition. Discover how addiction ravaged their self-esteem, daily functioning, and finances, all while unearthing the deep emotional scars left by their environment and family influences. The episode provides a raw look at the complexities of addiction, the struggle for a better life, and the profound importance of support and understanding. As always, we encourage our listeners to engage with us, share their thoughts, and consider joining us in future episodes. Thank you for your continued support and for being part of these crucial conversations.
Kali: 0:01
It's the Deep for the Week talk show. Are you ready to talk? So this week's Deep for the Week show is about addiction. We're going to talk about all types of things when it comes to that and hopefully get some more understanding to that, so we can get some of the people that have those things going on in their life some help, some real help, some loving help, some caring help, the help that you would want if it was you.
Kali: 0:43
Okay, this is something I want to do in my life. I want to be a philanthropist. I want to help people in so many different situations, and this is where it starts for me. And so I'm going to interview our guest today. We're going to get deep with her and it's not going to just stop there. I'm not just doing this to get views. I'm also going to keep in contact with her and if she wants help, we'll get her some help at the pace that she wants it at and she needs it at. Okay, so let's introduce ourselves today. Again, I'm Kali. Thanks for watching. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe, and comment below if you have any questions. So let's get deep. So what is your name? Tell the people your name Ezra. It's pronounced azra.
Azra: 1:26
Renounce it ezra, I prefer, but um, yes, it's pronounced azra, okay and where are you from? I was born in detroit. For all I know, you know, I never looked too much deep on it, but I was born in detroit so you?
Kali: 1:41
you don't actually know where you were born.
Azra: 1:44
Detroit is where my mother's child was born, just says in the verse.
Kali: 1:49
Are you still in contact with your mother, somewhat?
Azra: 1:52
Somehow I got a sight of her, but not mentally. No, I don't.
Kali: 1:59
Did your mother raise you? Well, yeah, we raised each other.
Azra: 2:01
I would say we raised each other. How old are you? I'm? Yeah, we raised each other. I would say we raised each other.
Kali: 2:05
How old are you? I'm 24.
Azra: 2:08
Can you watch her? My mother is close to 50. Well, I'm mistaken, but yeah. Now, when I say she raised me, I'm not meaning to disrespect her, I'm just saying, from her background and her knowledge of raising me, she really, you know, parents are too much for me to be a first girl.
Azra: 2:26
She got to look serious in my balance, but I'm giving her like an excuse for me being a first girl. That's what. Like the talk wasn't really there Her mom's meet up. I wanted to be in my. I was in a group If she wasn't accepting nothing less.
Kali: 2:40
And what she wants you to do, and be.
Azra: 2:42
So I like her Something that, like you know, she can depend on and look forward to. You know, especially getting old. You know what I'm saying, or how can I say it? My mother, my biggest fear is dying and being forgotten. My biggest fear is dying Now.
Azra: 3:03
I say that to say I never paid attention to like of what my mother would say it would be correct, but I never had the answers Like that. So me talking to her is like I had to think more when I tried to bring her attention. It was my way, my development and my attention, what caught my attention and what attracted me to her. And my mother didn't believe what was getting by to the listeners. It was her way or the highway, and I just had to tell her the story. That was more than any part back then, but still the abuse was there and the abuse I think in official fact was by my mother's raise. So what I did was what she told me, also what I got, what I got.
Azra: 3:41
As being a daughter, I feel like I was a daughter. Also. I took place with mother shit by raising all the other kids, my siblings. No other kid was similar To the point where I was tired. I realized what I had wanted and didn't listen, also not that fast, but I realized I still had a lot of world to do and I was playing the world. I wanted the world. I had no idea mother was everything I wasn't, also everything I couldn't so your mother, she's successful in life.
Kali: 4:11
Yeah, she got a job. Yeah, she's a. She's a nurse. She's a nurse, yeah, okay. So you were the youngest, the oldest girl, the oldest girl. Okay, how many siblings do you have?
Azra: 4:25
all together four brothers. Well, four sisters, four brothers, I will count. You know, my mother lost a child when her mother had her. She said her mother she was a doctor or doctor. Long story short, her mother was once Not to bash, but we used to be, we could have been, but I'm going to say our ancestry, she was our mother. She said our mother was once a slave that my grandfather had bought. Now, thinking back, I wouldn't have had to age or all of that, because my mom, I wouldn't have tried to disrespect us.
Kali: 4:57
Excuse the dog we're live today. The dog is in the backyard. Today we're doing this from my home and my little home studio. So my dog, he marks and everything you know. A dog has a man's best friend. And the little they say that's her, that's what they say. We got a best friend out there, I see. So did you go to high school?
Azra: 5:17
Yeah, yeah, I was high school. Yeah, did you go to high school? Yeah, yeah, alternative Alternative school.
Kali: 5:23
Do you have any kids?
Azra: 5:25
Two miscarriages Never read like two months at least. They all died, really I would say well, who do you want to swallow? Yeah, sure did Say it. No kids whatsoever. Here's the one. I don't want them. No, it's just not right now.
Kali: 5:38
Yeah.
Azra: 5:40
I would say I'm ready for them. But every now and then, with what happened at the moment, it's the moments of what, amnesia, I say it's not just you know. I guess you could say it's my, my problem. But what was I saying? You know, visual here, vision one another, anything else online, for the last of what I can multitask, like, as well as others, if they're gonna see it video, I've been disabled. But I don't know, I don't just look. They say I don't know, they're just a little different when you're lying, but you know I can't see it fully in the mirror, but do the way I've been doing, be in.
Azra: 6:12
So, I don't have a kid.
Kali: 6:15
So, simon, how if I'm not, I'm sure a lot of people want to know with you being so young, how did you become addicted so young, With your mom being a nurse, and how did that happen?
Azra: 6:34
Well, I always knew my mother as new as I was growing up. I just know it wasn't much of productivity in my other ways, in my ways of learning. I was sheltered. Also, it was hard for me to learn to be sheltered. My mother, the way she was teaching, was tell you to stop, do it again, pop, get your phone in. I would exaggerate a little bit because I had never learned that way from the A's. It was just period, it was always a feedback. You know what I'm saying. By the time, no matter what they say, it didn't longer think about the A's. It's different now because she had a different way of learning, of being out here on the streets, some people, she was out of years and I had given in to. What I didn't have was the bravery. I said like I'm brave to stand by some shit that I still don't think some of the people around I'm blaming. But you know I attached to, I'm going to say the right way. So I'm learning about this.
Kali: 7:46
So you keep mentioning abuse, so you think abuse is what made you go to that route. Did you have, like a boyfriend, some friends?
Azra: 7:56
Yeah, that's true, but I'm saying I just felt like you know it's playing. Now I was. You know something from the high house school, you know, and that's the reason why I realized my mother was telling me that. But in the evening you are worried. You're looking for what I was looking for and I was just sexy at the time. Sexy part I can persuade. So you know, I want to know. Get it. Another way of understanding easy way, because I'm not the prettiest girl I've ever, always been.
Kali: 8:20
You are pretty Okay and that's how you're like I.
Azra: 8:29
I want you to look into the camera so that people can see your face. You are pretty.
Kali: 8:31
You are very pretty. You are a very beautiful black woman. I do want you to know that. And she don't have nothing but lip liner and some eyebrows on and her wig. Look into the camera, look at the shape of her face, her wooden structure, her skin, everything like if I'm gonna give her a makeup, uh makeover one day and we'll have a second show with her after I get her to get, I'm gonna give her, do her hair makeup, give her some clothes and take her out to eat. I already already told her that. But yeah, because I want you to see some of your potential, and it's not just physical, but you have to start. That helps.
Azra: 9:11
Well, that's what I was going upon, though, like my institute and also was like ACS for Millie, were embarrassing Some things I didn't see. I was like I couldn't do it straight up. Like how am I as a scene, what do you show them? How it is to see what it is? Then I look at it and also think I have a lot of problems that I've been in, that I always had Like intuition of a conscience, and you know that's what I'm saying. I can do the streets and also for my parents. It's where I'm listening to myself.
Kali: 9:39
I've learned so where do you live?
Azra: 9:43
Well, I'm homeless right now. The world is on.
Kali: 9:46
So your mother or your family, no one lets you live.
Azra: 9:51
Well, it gave me an opportunity. Not just the singers, but still I was a chosen, not sister. It seemed like it was hard with the attention I was given, the adrenaline. It didn't smile. It didn't create different genetics or inner genes.
Kali: 10:05
So when you live, with the your little, without what they have.
Azra: 10:09
They have a lot of ontogenisms and rules yes, and I was bringing back a vibe that wasn't except I forgot. I wasn't my family, but I forgot what they said. You didn't let me bring a shoulder. You know every day when I wasn't, it was my motivation. He was for getting you know a phone, and each of them different. You know very difficult and also you know anything. It was what I looked for in the streets, so I thought it was very good to see of what I was wrong.
Kali: 10:39
So if there was something that can help you get better and change and have the life you picture having, what would it be? What do you think you need to get to start that process?
Azra: 10:55
Question about sexuality.
Kali: 10:58
So you also have issues with that questioning if you're gay or straight.
Azra: 11:04
Growing up with my mom as being a gay person and my biological father not being alive or being Muslim. I don't know. It was just I was racist. They're very.
Kali: 11:14
Oh yeah, they're very. Those two religions are very against that and also the demon children.
Azra: 11:20
it's like some degree I love these, that man, they seem like it's just somebody. It just seems like the boys and people. They're like she. I was a part of them but it's still like I'll never be wifey to you. All that good stuff and, um, me and Lina, you know the sheets.
Kali: 11:43
So how do you? Because drugs are not cheap. How do you get money for them?
Azra: 11:48
chicken treating on a holiday, I don't know. Happy holidays make me hollaways, I would say.
Kali: 11:56
I readily show, and so so I know, a couple months back I seen the police taking you to jail on my street and I wanted to come outside and say something. When they take you to jail like that, what do they take you to jail for?
Azra: 12:13
They say trespass and what I'm doing. I'm just saying this that I said, like my mother on a bitch, but still this is just a highly unlawful disrespect to me being a what I have to say pedestrian walking the streets, being a what I have to say pedestrian walking the streets and being told every black person where my freedom lies and where my family is, and I'm not able just to walk past the streets and not. So where do they expect you to go? I think they say go home, and I'm less of that because of how long I've been for the, the show where I moved to, and they press sign no more new made up word. Thanks to government, I had lots of life, you were staying in like I was staying, you were staying.
Kali: 12:55
So you stayed like in bandos and stuff, and then they Not real warm.
Azra: 13:02
I would say I was in better places, but I was living in River Roots. I've always lived in River Roots. That's where I'm from. I sing now. That's where I'm from, but now I have six years.
Kali: 13:14
So when it's cold and it's, you know, 12 degrees and shit, where the hell do you stay?
Azra: 13:22
I'm up in Lopsore, I try to put me in a facility. When you take a money, take a roll around when you're like 16 times in life, the facility, what is?
Kali: 13:32
a facility.
Azra: 13:39
Is it a facility for drugs or for mental health? Both of them, I mean. They give me drugs to get off the drug.
Kali: 13:43
And does that work? No, yeah it does. Yeah, because you'd actually, since I've started seeing you.
Azra: 13:50
It's like a different drug of emotion.
Kali: 13:53
And then I get out and do it because when I see you, like it like since I've seen you you look like you've gained weight, so it looked like you have not been doing drugs as much no, it's just um, the way my, uh, my routine, without my confidence on it.
Azra: 14:08
I got attention, attention deficit, and so what? Catching my t-shirt at the time I can, and what I my confidence on it. I got attention, attention deficit, and it's what catches my attention at the time. I can forget what I'm, what's up, like you know, ready to say or do, until the point where the audience called attention to where I just moved forward. And, with that being said, it's a visual answer and it all can be. Of what art has not been heard a lot, also sexual connection.
Kali: 14:32
So have they diagnosed you with anything?
Azra: 14:39
They say a skin cell.
Kali: 14:41
So do they give you medicine for?
Azra: 14:42
that Not anymore. I was supposed to have one. It was rising at a point in time when I stopped taking it. I stopped the medicine because at that point in time I was beginning to have one to go back to. It was rising at a point in time when I stopped taking it. I stopped the medicine because at that point in time I was beginning to start to replicate, and the more and more I started doing it, the more and more it was. It's making me. It would make anything that you're ready to put where everybody's seeing as something bad shit, crazy, while at last life were made up as a fake fiction. And that is one of my how can I say it? Enhancements I look up to. That's what gives me my motivation to always stay in the eye.
Kali: 15:21
So when you smoke crack, you just you feel self, you have self-esteem. You don't feel like people are watching. You don't care if people are watching you. You don't feel that anymore. Yeah.
Azra: 15:30
So that's why I do. What I do is what I, what I build. I come with people who are straightforward. What I see is a good looking guy Attracting me. It don't have to be the whole body sometimes you know what I'm saying, but that's what I like. See some people here different and they see it in a way where there was to a right and my right would be that one. So when you don't with fractional crack, how do you feel? Now I just see very bottomed up and you're falling from the scalp and in the body it's only from the head to like, keeping it up to the spot.
Kali: 16:04
So you just feel like you can't function pretty much at all without no non-stating.
Azra: 16:13
It's like a catching up with my function, whereas the fraction it makes you function more. You feel yes, if not without it.
Kali: 16:20
I got to sleep a couple more days and others or I have to stay up. So how often do you need it Like, how much do you smoke a day? How much money do you spend on it? It's funny.
Azra: 16:28
That's the most that, because I break minds down. But honestly I'm not saying I was frowning on it, just in case the Pope was watching.
Kali: 16:35
No, do it, you're fine. So do you want help?
Azra: 16:40
At this moment I would not, because it's up to me. I'm in a short court room. I don't have a man. I don't have a man. I don't have a bro. I come up with something else to like. One thing you need to do Be out here. I've been out here for many, more than 60 years. I just read about it and they got to me. They got a new, newer to remind them, and I ain't doing a bad job. It's just the fact that I didn't want to know was this, don't know, was this a steal? Somehow is getting to me. I have wandered, but I wandered too much. You see, no one is learning it to me. I'm growing anxious.
Kali: 17:13
So if someone came up to you and they had whatever you needed to get help, what would it be Like? What do you need to change your life? How, sir?
Azra: 17:26
I would say a person who comes in not just asking for things. Just come when I'm at, that's when I get most of my degree of what I want to ask, not toss this, and then they give me an answer that I was stuck in a conversation. It's like a celibacy, but it's like what is it Jesus Christ? Not against me, but if I see this, but I'm wishing this ill that good God.
Kali: 17:50
You know what I'm saying. So do you think that you'll ever not smoke crack? Like? Do you think like if somebody gave you all the stuff you need like to have confidence, like a place to stay, a job, um, you know everything that would make you feel confident would you still smoke?
Azra: 18:02
yes, indeed, but more, more or less, I probably would win my support just Just because I got out of the reality job I had. It makes me wonder what I could say, something that I always wanted growing up. You know what I'm saying. Right now I'm at the standby of what my goals and dreams. It's like I want to have a family, but I would be a function of that.
Kali: 18:26
So you said you've been doing this six years, so since you were 18?
Azra: 18:30
Yeah, but I formally practiced bait. You see, okay Side of my brain. They were quite registered. I was there but I was not there. It was like snatching something so quick and the response I didn't get shot, you know what. I'm saying Realistically the stones they were fuel Born a crack baby Was to premature. That's what I said. Had a twin brother pretending to be an injustice.
Kali: 19:07
And what does he do?
Azra: 19:09
Right now I get in jail. I'm sold. He just said that was four years ago. Yeah, just like that he does. He just he's back in jail with my family and all he ever did was see me. I wasn't supposed to let him see me hide. I showed up high, Left him back. A lot of stories for him. He told me about the agency, but I don't know if he just ran away for it or if he told Val what was in a serious way.
Kali: 19:36
So you always lived in this area. The area that she lives in is what you guys watch BMF on TV. We live literally right there, like if I go right now and I'll film, I'm gonna film that liquor store that you see on that show when it come on and that block that they talking about that that nigga used to run. This is that area and it's still not like that anymore, but you can see the after effects of it. You think that if you were raised somewhere else, that you, your life would be different.
Azra: 20:09
It was actually my mother traveled. She traveled from a lot of G, a lot of, I say, some some other defeats not having a dad that was standing fast, you know what I'm saying. But also I've been the only one taking care of the family. Never seen a pride, never seen a submissiveness. I mean, sometimes we had running days. You know we struggled through that. She always had a wish of showing us, but not showing what she wanted.
Kali: 20:37
Does she ever come out and try to look for you and get you.
Azra: 20:40
I mean not as much as my desire would be. She checked our patients while I was thinking, nah see, what happened was me being dependent on her, being independent? I depended on my mama all my life. When I was first out of the church, I was out like a ghost. But it wasn't the fact of me being like a runaway or anything like that at the time. I just always had my mind on one thing, one thing at a time. It was always me, and I didn't know how to take care of her. My mother was a great mother.
Azra: 21:15
Did you date older men? Yeah, my first daughter. How much older was the guy that you dated when you started doing drugs? Don't make me lie to you. I'm just in his 40s. I was 17. I was my first older. He was in his 40s, but I had seen the world. It was just. I came thin. Really, I guess you could say that it was a world of maturity. I was a lot more mature and it wasn't this much of detailing. I was like straight to form. Like you know, sex was considered what was an overation? You know so the levels of sex. You know it's a lot of levels of sex that last a lifetime and after. But that's what I wanted to come in Like. I'm you to tell me I'm not white material, I'm far below adultery.
Kali: 21:52
Well, you can be white material. You still have real looks. That's one thing that men look for and you're still young and you can still clean up and you get 25 years to come. Now I know people that have been in the same situation and they go around and they, you know they, they. They go around and they preach or they try to um practice it, or you know I would help other people that are still in their situation and use their before and after picture as an example of you know. Look how bad I used to be and look at me now. Well, the devil. And so you are actually, like I said, you're still pretty, you still have your looks, your teeth and everything. You can get this going. You can still make it out of this. Know that right. So if you need help, you know we're here to help you.
Azra: 22:47
Thank you so much for believing in it soon stop, show me some before you go.
Kali: 22:51
Show me some of your pictures.
Azra: 22:53
I will not quite finish. This is my little sister. Pause, you isn't my song, you do poetry and yeah, I know what. Whoa. Let's see now. I see it.
Kali: 23:16
Now the photos they can see this here so you gonna draw me a picture. Yeah, I'm gonna finish some of the stuff that I have on my wall so you can kind of see, like stuff I like, but stuff like that, and so maybe that I can draw. Yeah, is that something you want to do with yourself? Be an artist.
Azra: 23:37
Yeah.
Kali: 23:38
Yeah, so I'll get you some art supplies and maybe we can start you with that. You can start working on your art and sell it. I know a lot of those and this is all the other. Yeah, with that you can start working on your art and sell it. I even do a lot of those. Get you a table to sell your art. I'm sure the community would love to see that. Yeah, I just sold one yesterday. Really no, my homeboy sold it without me.
Azra: 23:55
It was one of my first ones.
Kali: 23:57
I'll take you somewhere we take some leather for art. You know what I'm saying. I'll get you some stuff and I'll help you sell it. I'll help you sell it online and shit and all the money I'll give it right to you. But I want you to do something with yourself. I want you to get you a room, get off the street, you know, and start off being a functional addict, like you said. Get you an apartment and still smoke, but still get that far you think you can do that?
Azra: 24:26
I hope so. In that case, let's leave no to die. I don't worry about it, I know yeah okay.
Kali: 24:32
So thank you for joining the d for the week show. Don't forget to like, share and subscribe. And I told you we're gonna get deep sometime. So addiction, that's what this episode was about. And boy was it deep.
Kali: 24:54
I wanted to interview her for many reasons. I see her often on the streets and it hurts my heart every time to see her. She is I think what she said only 24 years old and I knew she was young. Seeing her, I knew she was young, so I wanted to know her story. Like how in the hell are you that bad on crack? She's so bad that she could not even really talk that well, and I knew it probably would be that way.
Kali: 25:31
I was hoping to catch her as sober as possible and that was as sober as I can catch her and I gave her ten dollars to do the interview and something to eat. Um didn't want to give her much money, because we all know what she does with her money. You know she wanted to roam her hotel. I would have did that for her. She doesn't want that because where we live the hotels are very far. So again, I didn't just interview her for the views and the likes.
Kali: 26:02
I'm going to keep up with her and hopefully, in about a few months, I have something better to show you. She got a long way to go, a long way to go Because you've seen her and so work with me. But she's not the only person I want to help like that. I just have my hardest gear to do these things and I will. One day I'm going to be a millionaire and I'll be able to do this at a huge level, like to where she don't get to leave. We're taking her to rehab and I'm paying for it, type shit you know. But with that being said, I have already started looking for rehab for her. Little does she know so that maybe when she is ready, she can go, and maybe she'll be ready when it get cold, because they are starting to.
Kali: 27:04
They have a lot of abandoned houses here in Detroit, and so it's not as hard to be homeless as one may think, because during the winter seasons they go in those abandoned houses and warm up and they stay there and make them their own. But with the city being gentrified and we don't really live in Detroit, we live in River Rouge, which is like literally across the street is E-course, and literally across the street is Detroit and then, yeah, things are changing. They are starting to board these homes up not with just wood, this stuff that makes it hard plexiglass where they can't get in, and so and it's clear so they can see in with police lights. If anyone's in there, the doors are clear so they won't be able to continue to do this. And I worry they don't have any shelters about people like her Getting high and just I don't know if I was or many here on the corner and freezing to death.
Kali: 28:05
But anyhow, we got deep this week. I wanted to get deeper, but you can't. Let me talk to her. She's that bad, but hopefully again, like I said, the next time you guys see her, she's still better. I'm gonna try to keep up with her as much as I can. She wanted to get she. She knew she was getting ten dollars, so she took that ten dollars. She didn't even want to finish talking, so that was a deep for the week show. Again, I thank you guys for watching. Don't forget to like, share, subscribe, comment below if you have any questions, if you have any shows or if you'd like to be on the deep for week show or is there any type of show you'd like to see, let me know. Holler at me again, thanks for watching. Thanks for watching, and our judge's job is not to judge. Our job is definitely not to judge people when we see them like that. Our job is to help them. Again, thanks for watching. The D for the Week show.