maybe it's not meant for me to be a mom maybe they're better off without me and maybe they don't need me because this entire time that I've had them our life has been in shambles in partnership with unlikely collaborators we've designed perception box questions for communities with shared experiences to help broaden self-acceptance and deepen self-standing this group of people was asked in moments of deep Solitude what major concerns and questions about you tend to dominate your thoughts these are their [Music] answers I fear that if I'm not successful my kids will end up like me if this is your secret and you would like to share your story you can step forward on three 1 2 3 most people that um that know me I'm a pretty happy person by Society standards I'm successful but no one knows the amount of things I've had to overcome to the point where when I went to therapy for the first time she was like how are you not on drugs right now and I'm like seriously that kind of doesn't help me right now trying to get through it but I grew up in South Central LA I'm a part of a a a study that um I found out later on every five years they come and visit me they studied 20,000 kids that grew up where I live there's only 32 of us now that is not on drugs it's not dead or in jail I of 20,000 I've seen homelessness and then I became homeless out of nowhere I was in the first year of my PhD program and I paid my rent I didn't know the house that I was renting the guy was in foreclosure and by default living in La you know hotels ain't cheap and very slowly but surely I went and I ended up in my car with my two kids and anyone knows me if my kids need a kidney or anything like if it's my life or yours it's not a second here it is take it so everybody thought I was fit but the reason why I was so small was because I wasn't eating cuz I wanted to make sure my kids ate every day I went to work as a professional as a manager I had nowhere I had no idea where you and my kids were going to sleep that night and you guys have no idea how much pain that is and I don't ever want my kids to go through sorry excuse me they say go to school I went to school I got my master I got the degrees they say be polite I've done everything that the book so to speak said to do so for me and my kids to end up homeless is ridiculous I don't have any I'm not on any support it's just me I'm the only one it's just me if I fail my kids fell you have no idea how much pressure that is I'm a fighter I'm a competitor and I refuse to let the bad things win because I believe that I believe it's something greater in life up the road and if I have to be the person to sacrifice all the pain to make sure my next Generations to come would never have to go through it so be it if you can directly relate to Deb's Secret you can step forward on three one 2 3 all right and you may turn around surprise I knew I liked you for a reason um you've done so well for yourself 3132 out of 20,000 people you said yeah that's a crazy statistic like absolutely crazy and I think you should give yourself a lot more credit thank you your kids probably love you a lot worry that my career goals aren't enough to keep me from being homeless again this is your secret and you'd like to share your story you can step forward to the mic on three one two three yeah that's uh that definitely uh I feel like like you said I don't know cuz like said I'm an Entertainer and there's no telling like I said where it's going to take me so you know it could possibly happen again you feel me if if I don't play these cards right so I could possibly be homeless again it's definitely uncomfortable when you're homeless when you got to do certain things just to get by you feel me you know I had to do a lot of things that I wouldn't normally do just to uh keep things going like you said I'm still alive so if it ain't killing me it's going to make me stronger so I think it's going to happen for me if you don't risk homelessness for it then it's probably not your dream if you believe in it then you'll risk it all for it so I just like if you want to do it then do it even if it you might got to sleep on a few couches a few buses few trains but if you really want it go get it now I'll ask if anyone can relate to Edward's secret you can step forward on three one two three all right Edward you can go ahead and turn around I my boss he has his own business and I'm his assistant and if anything were to happen at any given time or if he wanted to give up on that dream of his I would be jobless and things would be hard for me um I have two kids so being homeless with my kids is it's like really hard it's just a little bit different you know I can't just go sleep on a bus I can't just go sleep on a train I got to make sure that my kids are all right um so I definitely relate to that I am nervous that if he ever decides to not be what he is anymore I will be jobless and I think that we could possibly face homelessness again I came here homeless fighting it recently lost my car in my house apartment I had a roommate that I was collabing with we were supposed to be making money together his company and my company he chose to sleep in the office to not pay me when the rent was due the next day my dog is dying I had to figure it out and the only way to do that is first accepting that I attracted this kind of person to me that put me in the position that I'm in right now I've been meditating it helps I'm honest with how I feel how do you feel you never know what other people is going like see me I'm doing it differently like you she has kids you got a dog like said I'm doing it just supporting myself no children so you know what I mean it's a little different from me it's like I only have to worry about one it's not different cuz your pain is just like her pain and her pain is like my pain and my pain is like everybody's pain in you so it's not different it doesn't lessen what you're going through and that was my problem fighting this that I felt that I was still fortunate but no we deserve better and the problem is that when we think that we don't deserve better we attract negative [ __ ] and we stay in the same [ __ ] cycle I'm sorry for cursing I had to change my decisions I I I changed the people I surrounded myself and now I have a place I can have a car now because of help my tribe not by myself I chose not to have a car I chose to take the bus because I realized that I haven't been present in my life and my life is slipping away like my dog I mean this is something that I think about pretty much every day it's like um you know I I work I'm a software engineer I work in Tech and everyone kind of just is like oh you do like you know a fanasy career that like any parent be proud of it's like you you're probably safe but like I don't feel safe I feel so like I grew up in an environment where like pretty much everyone is poor and when you grow up in environment like that there's like this big unspoken rule that like so many things out there just aren't for people like you and uh where I am that's definitely one of them it took me a lot of convincing just to even like try to do what I'm doing now and uh you know it's like you know the tech industry right now things have been going really bad um there's been like Mass layoffs from every company of every size I got laid off three times in one year uh it's I'm trying to set a world record um it's uh it's real bad out there and it's like most people that I'm surrounded by um you know they didn't grow up in poverty they don't really have experience with it it hasn't touched their lives they don't know anything about it they'll say the wildest stuff that to like for me to hear that's like oh you definitely just like grew up in a bubble with money and you've never even like looked outside of it and uh you know I just I don't want to be rich I don't want to be powerful I don't want to like be a creative director or anything I just want to be stable I want to feel like I can keep having a home and just not worry about it I had to shoplift and become a prostitute just to survive all right if this is your secret and you would like to share your story you may do so on three one 2 3 well um I became homeless because of addiction uh started out at later life in my 20s came from a boarding school and I didn't learn anything that high schoolers would learn about drugs and so social and all that so it kind of affected me I had uh really low self-esteem so I was um willing to do anything to make people happy so I just how it started um as my addiction grew um I brought me to shoplift and prostitute just to be able to eat and it was uh put myself in dangerous positions just to and in my record like getting in trouble you know so now I'm sober so I'm doing things the right way and I'm currently technically still homeless but I'm in a program and um so it's technically still homeless um now I'm doing good and I have a new apartment coming up and I um have a job and and doing good for myself well anyone going through a similar s situation you were going through back then anyone who can relate to your secret what kind of advice would you want to give them that there is a way out um uh that this doesn't it your situation doesn't have to rule you that um with a little effort you could become clean and sober and on the right path and just don't give up what is one of your greatest hopes for yourself today um to stay sober um to find a a a job even with my background um stable place to stay just things that everybody deserves that I haven't yet achieved yet if you can relate to the secret you may step forward on three okay one 2 3 all right you may turn around no one here can relate but thank you for sharing I want to give her a a round of applause just cuz we're not standing there don't mean that we're not there with you all right like I know people who definitely can relate they just ain't in this room yeah right okay okay I've had two subtle thoughts while being homeless with my kids now if this is your secret and you'd like to step forward and share your story you may do so on three one two three I had Suicidal Thoughts while I was homeless with my kids um there was a lot that led up to it it wasn't just me being homeless it was not having any help it was was not being able to get a job because in order to get a job I needed daycare in order to get daycare I needed money and in order to get need get money I needed a job and it was like a circle of things that I could not get out of I couldn't escape um I didn't have any help and we were homeless in December and it was right after my son's birthday on Christmas Eve and I chose to be homeless because my dad called me after I was kicked out and he had asked me if I wanted to go back to my mom's and I said no and honestly I think that if I would have went back I think that I would still be in hotels I would still be struggling um so even though we I was homeless with my children I would choose that again because I entirely bet on myself and I just really felt like maybe it's not meant for me to be a mom and maybe maybe they're better off without me and maybe they don't need me because this entire time that I've had them our life has been in shambles and I can't figure it out for whatever reason I just nothing's working and um I just felt like I'm not going to live on a world where my kids are not with me so might as well just give them to their dad D have their dad give them a really great life and I don't even want them to have to worry about me maybe they'll just be better off and so yeah I just felt like the only thing for me to really do after all that time trying was just to die so yeah where are you at today what are you proud of about yourself now now all of me literally like all of me I'm proud that I'm not in like a miserable position anymore I'm proud that I have a job my kids are in daycare um they're learning they're smart we're all we're all healthy um I'm honestly proud of everything I'm proud of our little house like I live in the middle of nowhere but we got an extra playroom and everything a front yard a backyard I really have nothing to feel negative about anymore and honestly like if any negativity does come my my way I honestly know [ __ ] could be worse and it's minuscule if you can relate to Nikki secret you may step forward on three one two three hi hi I never experienced uh with kids cuz I gave my son up for adoption but I've been suicidal and uh just just uh pretty much and doing fit and all it's just suicide right there you know any moment I could die and um sometimes I wanted that but just keep just knowing that there's better there's better things to come yeah I mean I I don't have kids uh but yeah definitely like thoughts of suicide about homelessness um I was homeless uh while I was having my first job in my industry in uh the video game industry I had this one um there was like an incident at work where um my manager asked me to do something I misunderstood his instruction so I spent an entire day doing something that they didn't want and uh the way they interpreted that was that I was being uh insubordinate that I was just like doing whatever I wanted instead of doing what they were asking me to do the CEO like sat down with me and said like we don't tolerate this Behavior like I explained that it was just like a mistake I misunderstood but she just didn't believe me and um said like if you make one more mistake then you're fired the idea of living in a life where like I had flunked out of the only career that I was qualified to get is like I didn't know if I wanted to live that life when I left the office when I would go back to you know the the place where I would sleep um I had to walk past like a like a big like interstate and I just kept thinking like it' be so easy to just like oopsie fell into traffic oh darn there he goes uh and just I thought really hard about it but the next day was better The Day After That was better now about four years later much better it's just like when you have those thoughts about ending it all it's just like you don't know what you're giving up and there are so many times when you can just be like pleasantly surprised about how far you can go and uh for what's worth I'm so so glad that you're alive I know your kids feel the same way thank you yeah I've attempted suicide because it felt like I couldn't escape homelessness all right if this is your secret and you'd like to step forward and share your story you may do so on three one two three you know I lost my sister it was my first real loss and drugs were my way out of it because she was my protector my leader she showed me the way I believe in turning your pain into art so I'm not going to sit here and tell you everything that happened to me what matters what are you going to do with your situation are you going to sit there and say why is this happening to me are you listening to what you're saying to yourself I don't want to be rich so you won't be I want to be rich and richness is not money to me I want to be loved the way I love and I wasn't getting that I didn't have [ __ ] to the point all I had was my drug because for that moment I was with my sister for that moment my sister died mad at me she was mad at me I was mad at her and it was the last hug she gave me and it was the strongest because she knew she was dying but I did not so when she died I died too and I wanted to be with her I became homeless because I was so stuck on cocaine but that was that my little escape from reality if there was anyone in the world that didn't want to be here it was me I'm still struggling I don't have it together I may be homeless in a week in an hour or in a month I swear you don't need to know the details you just need to know that I am strong and I got this if anyone can relate to Andy secret you may step forward on three one two three all right you may turn around so no one here a step forward but we all know that there are so many people out there who can relate I also am like very very big on like the way that you vibrate and like the way that you literally manifest being homeless for yourself or negative things for yourself bad things for yourself you're going to be okay and you have to manifest that for yourself you know it don't say those things don't say you're scared about being homeless because that's not even in your future you went through that already you did the hard part you did the work you're doing the self-healing you're okay don't manifest it for yourself anymore that's not the life that you live you're okay you're a really strong woman okay you're okay than you when talk about things like poty and homelessness in the media I think like the representation of is generally like pretty shallow it's just like oh no can't afford fancy candy so sad and then like the rest of your life is just like completely normal but like there's so much depth to what it feels like to be in this situation that isn't really shown as prominently an FYI anybody homeless you can't eat Starbucks every day throws out what what they don't say you're welcome that's the best way to end it with the tip about Starbucks yeah that's a Live Hack right [Applause] [Music]