Christina McKelvy: 0:13

Today we're going to be speaking with Tomoko. She shares her story about being sent to the USA from Japan, which was only 12 and not knowing anyone. We discuss how she experienced her life, her work and her perspective. Tomoko is an MFT intern, marriage family therapist, working at Spill and Tea Cafe and exploring Honolulu. Spill and Tea Cafe specializes in mental health care for youth, with a special emphasis on supporting gender diverse and LGBTQ plus teens.

Christina McKelvy: 0:42

If you are in Honolulu, please check them out. We'll be right back after this short break. Welcome to Hopology Stories of Hope, healing and Resilience. I'm your host, christina McKelvie. Today we have Tomoko here today and I repeated myself and I said today twice. Sorry, listeners, but you know what it has been a day. It is 4-eleven and Tomoko what time is it? Where you're at?

Tomoko: 1:24

It is 1-eleven.

Christina McKelvy: 1:27

Oh, and you're in the middle of the Pacific. Yes, in Hawaii, oh, hawaii, I love it. That's where I'm from too. We're from different islands, but I am no longer in Hawaii. I am in Arizona, and it's hot. It's not supposed to be hot where I'm at. So how are you doing, tomoko? I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. Of course, I'm really excited to talk to you. So I met you when we were volunteering for the Hawaii Crisis Responders for the Line of Fires, and we were on a team for an hour, you myself and a professor from the Midwest somewhere. Yes, he actually sent me some of his website and he did a lot of studies on resilience.

Christina McKelvy: 2:21

It was amazing studies. So, yes, that's where I met you, and we didn't really have anyone show up for us for our crisis group, and so we got to know each other and I heard a little bit about your story, what you shared, and I found it very fascinating.

Speaker 2: 2:38

And.

Christina McKelvy: 2:39

I wanted to. You know I invited you on, so thank you so much for telling the world, or the handful of listeners I have, your story, and so let's start, you know, with tell us a little bit about you and a little bit about your background, and we can go from there.

Tomoko: 2:51

Sure. So I was born and raised in Japan. Tokyo is where I grew up. I am a middle child of three children. I have an older brother or had one he was two years older than me, and a younger sister who's five years younger. Most of my family or immediate families my immediate families, you know they all still live in Japan. I grew up there until I was 12. And at 12, I was sent to California alone to initially live with that relative, live with relatives for several years to learn English. But I ended up in a boarding school by the age of 13.

Christina McKelvy: 3:44

Dave, you know that you were going to go into a boarding school when you first moved to California to live with your family.

Tomoko: 3:54

So an interesting side note. I'm sorry, I don't mean to like rear off on this. I don't know, have you heard of the comedian or up and coming like she's getting a lot of trash in now they say his her name is Asako Katsuka.

Christina McKelvy: 4:10

Yes, she's, hilarious.

Tomoko: 4:13

She is amazing. She recently came to Hawaii and I had to go see her and she shared her story of being kidnapped. She said and made it into a comedy skit, she was taken from Tokyo, japan, to California when she was eight, I believe. So the similarity in our stories are just incredible and, you know, the timing that I heard about her story was incredible. I thought I would just kind of throw that in there. Yeah, no, so very similar, yeah, and it's just. I mean, obviously I've never met anyone who's you know, left Japan to the United States in the in the way that I did. So I thought that was really interesting. I would love to talk to her one day, but anyway, yeah, so I know, actually I did it, and the interesting thing is that I think I was probably like maybe 11, close to 12.

Tomoko: 5:14

My, my mom just basically said hey, you're going to go to school in the United States, you're going to live in California, you can live with, you know, with your relatives, and that was it. So it was almost like presented as if, like, hey, we're going to the store. You know, there were no preparations, they didn't ask me questions, they didn't ask me to ask them questions. No English lessons. I didn't know how to speak English, write, read nothing, not not a bit, and I was 11, 12 years old. I had no idea what to expect or how to even prepare mentally for this. You know, I just all I knew was that I visited there before I visited my relatives. It was fun when I visited. So I went with that mentality of like, oh, okay, it's gonna be fun.

Christina McKelvy: 6:11

Yeah, so what was the boarding school that you went to? Was it only in English, or did they teach it in Japanese? So you didn't know English. You know how to write English in English, you didn't know how to speak in English, and then you're thrown into a school in California.

Tomoko: 6:30

Yeah, so I initially lived with my family or relative and then attended an elementary school. So I graduated from elementary school in Japan and then was sent away. I attended an elementary school in California while living with my relatives. I remember like just holding an English Japanese dictionary and just walking around pointing to things. That's how I could. That was the only way I could communicate. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was very obviously very difficult adjustment because I had to adjust to the environment, people saying goodbye to everything I knew, lifestyle, culture, even the way we, you know, the way I eat, the things I ate were different. You know, I went from like eating rice every day to, you know, meat and potatoes and things like that. So just that alone was a huge adjustment. But I had to go through every other kind of adjustment. You could imagine, wow, at 12 years old, at 12 years old, yes, yeah, yeah, it's big shot.

Christina McKelvy: 7:54

It is. And you mentioned, you know, the comedian. You mentioned her, yeah, and you know she had a similar story. I know, yes, you know she. I think she went to live with her grandma, yeah, and she didn't know if she thought it was a vacation and her mother believed, had or has schizophrenia. Yes, and I'm curious, you know, it sounds like her story is one of the only stories you've heard that similar to yours.

Tomoko: 8:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was just interesting to hear because it's my. My story is still very rare, so to hear her on the stage tell her story, that's very similar. And of all the places in the United States, she also moved to California I think it was Southern California also, and for me so it was sort of cathartic moment for me to hear that story.

Christina McKelvy: 8:58

You knew you were alone, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm wondering how that felt. You know that at 12 years old how that can feel the confusion. It sounded like you didn't know why you didn't. You weren't expecting anything. You were thrown into this.

Speaker 2: 9:14

You know what that does for you then, and also what it does for you now, you wouldn't even think about that.

Tomoko: 9:21

Yeah, I've had. I've had a lot of different moments to process everything on different levels, at different each it was. I feel like I'm finally in a space where I am very comfortable talking about it. I'm okay to talk about it. Yeah, I'm actually writing a book about it, about my life, nice and I'm hoping yeah, hoping that I can help others in overcoming trauma, childhood trauma, and so in a sense, I feel like I'm in a really good place. But I've had to process them in different stages, even as recent as this past year, and sometimes I will have memories thinking about what happened back then and I cry for who I was.

Christina McKelvy: 10:37

What did that look like? Like how did you mention this? Getting into the space, like you're now in the space where you can talk about it, where you can process it, and you said it kind of happened in stages. Tell me a little bit more about that, like what those stages looked like for you.

Tomoko: 10:52

Okay so, I'll also build it. So, like leaving, being sent away at 12, that is just a small part of this traumatic childhood that I had, on top of not being properly prepared or talked about how my life would change and being thrown into the situation, literally. But I was also. I went from an abusive house situation to another abusive situation, living with my relatives, and then I eventually escaped and I think I lived there for seven months, whereas I was supposed to, or I was told I would live there until I finished middle school and then, from high school, I would attend boarding school because I would mature by then, I would know English by then, and so the plans were abruptly changed, in a sense, and so I, you know, instead of three years, seven months later, I left my relatives house and I was supposed to go back home briefly, but I couldn't due to my student visa situation.

Tomoko: 12:19

So I was placed in a foster system and lived with the foster family, who was again not very kind, and still my English was, you know, seven months. My English was very broken. Now I'm living with strangers, not very nice, and my first, you know, I spent my first Christmas away from my family and home with strangers who were abusive. So it's like there were layers of abuse that took place by the time I was 13. And so, you know, I started attending boarding school maybe six months after, in January, after I turned 13. And then, of course, this school was very difficult because it was middle school and high school.

Tomoko: 13:20

That can be difficult, oh my gosh. And I was the youngest at the school. Still, my English was very broken, gosh. I was bullied. There was a lot of racism that I experienced, so it's just you know layers and layers of a lot of difficult times, traumatic events, and I had to deal with all of them and come to terms with them at that moment in a way that I could with my very underdeveloped brain you know, at 14, 15, you know.

Tomoko: 13:57

So in that sense it had to take different stages in over many decades for me to process them. Because I mean, gosh, I had CPT. You know I had developed CPTSD which I wasn't diagnosed for decades after. I didn't even know.

Christina McKelvy: 14:21

Yeah, I think it's even a new, a relatively new term.

Tomoko: 14:26

Yeah.

Christina McKelvy: 14:27

CPTSD Right right.

Tomoko: 14:30

Yeah, I didn't know about it until really recently, several years ago.

Christina McKelvy: 14:36

Complex PTSD.

Tomoko: 14:37

Complex PTSD. Right, I realized I had PTSD, you know, many years later because I would have flashbacks. I would have. I had very, very bad anxiety, depression. You know all of everything. All of the above on the list of PTSD symptoms. Yeah, if it was listed you had it.

Christina McKelvy: 15:06

I'm sorry If it was listed. You had it. Yes, exactly.

Tomoko: 15:10

Anyone yeah, right. And so, yeah, I feel like it needed to take. It had to take over, you know, it had to happen over the years the processing and healing of it. And really I feel like I want to say it took me when I had to make a really strong determination that I'm going to focus on healing and focus on working on myself and my pain and all the unhealthy attachments and personalities that I've developed over the years because of my childhood trauma. So it really took I would say I would say at least 15 years, maybe more, to a constant, constantly working on healing. And I've tried everything, read all of the books, wrote everything meditation, acupuncture, chiropractic therapy, I mean just all kinds of different methods of healing and they all did part in getting me to heal and to get me to where I am today.

Christina McKelvy: 16:30

They all had a part. Yeah, I would say so.

Tomoko: 16:33

It has to be very holistic. I think so.

Christina McKelvy: 16:37

Yeah, I'm glad you pointed that out, that it has to be holistic, because you mentioned again that you had to heal. You healed in parts and it took 15 years. You start off like when you're 12, just kind of figuring out what was going on.

Christina McKelvy: 16:55

And then over the years, reading, writing, understanding, getting that diagnosis of complex PTSD, understanding that and it seems like for a lot of us I feel like trauma, we're never fully healed from trauma. Yeah, we're learning to navigate with our trauma, navigate life with trauma. And you mentioned it has to be holistic, there's not just one thing that works. So what did the holistic approach look like for you? Because you said chiropractic, acupuncture, writing therapy, chinese herbal, I mean really kinesiology.

Tomoko: 17:37

I mean you, you, you, you know, if you've mentioned any type of healing methods, I've tried it.

Tomoko: 17:46

I've tried the Western way, using medication, and then I used more holistic way, like homeopathic remedy, essential oil and flower essence. I mean like I tried everything because I really really just wanted to get out of this dark, dark place that I felt like was really slowly killing me and I didn't want, but at the same time I didn't want, to give up on life. I mean, there's so many times where I thought why you know like what, what's, what's the what's the best way to get out of this dark place? You know like what's, what's the point, but I really just firmly believed in deserving to live a good life and I slowly started to shift my mindset, really slowly and at my pace, and that's why it takes 15 plus years to heal from trauma like this. And I realized that I had to take your time and the biggest thing I realized I had to do in what ultimately saved my life is that I have to do this myself and I have to own things, I have to believe in myself.

Tomoko: 19:10

I had to like basically rewire the way I thought, you know, just the way I saw the world. No-transcript.

Tomoko: 19:21

So you had to shift your thinking, your beliefs, oh yeah, in so many ways, and meditation and affirmation and things like that. Really really, I mean, it takes time. It's a practice, you know, just like going to the gym, just like practicing sports or yoga or whatever. You slowly build it and slowly shift your mindset. Because what trauma does in one of the worst things traumatic events or like abuse can do, especially when you experience them as a child is that it creates the world and the views and perspectives for you. So if you were traumatized, if you were neglected, if you were abused, then that's the set of lens you're going to see the entire world for the rest of your life. Then, unless you heal from them or, you know, really heal and change the perspectives yourself and the belief system yourself.

Tomoko: 20:32

And I feel like that's where a lot of people struggle, because we want somebody else to fix it right, like we want the therapist to fix it, the doctor to fix it, the medicine to fix it. But ultimately it's really up to you. It's hard work. I can tell you that it's hard work. You have to be patient, you have to be most patient with yourself. But once you get there, it's really incredible. Life really changes yeah.

Christina McKelvy: 21:24

The part of healing from trauma is finding ways to shift your perspective or change the way you see the world, like you mentioned. I know earlier I mentioned I don't feel that we can fully heal from our trauma. What I meant to say is the term get over it or things like that. When I think of healing and I also think of scars, you know like the scars heal but you might still have remnants of it Definitely yeah, yeah.

Tomoko: 21:56

And so I think, and I totally agree with you, the way I see it is more like when you're traumatizing, you can't get over it and you struggle because you have these terrible aftermath mindsets and the way you react to things and the way you hurt, the way you take things. It's almost like your wound is just not healing and you're walking around with all these cuts. Yeah, but once you heal or once you are in a better place, yeah, there are scars, but they don't hurt anymore.

Tomoko: 22:33

You know and so, yes, definitely you still have scars. Some days you still you know, some days I still cry and remember and even react to things. But now that I've done the work for so many years, there's more subtle like calmness to my reaction, because I'm not reacting from this fearful anxiety-injustice place and that's.

Tomoko: 23:06

I didn't mention this earlier, but I'm trying to get licensed in MFT and that's how I try to help my clients to help them to lessen their calm their nervous system, because without calming your nervous system it's really difficult to come out of trauma or trauma mindset.

Christina McKelvy: 23:33

You're always hyper vigilant. You're reacting. Yes, yeah, yeah, I will say you're very calm.

Speaker 2: 23:41

Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Tomoko: 23:47

I it wasn't. It didn't happen overnight. My kids can tell you.

Christina McKelvy: 23:55

Not having kids, I'm sure is. Oh, god has its own stories.

Tomoko: 24:02

Oh yeah, oh yes, oh yes yeah.

Christina McKelvy: 24:06

I'm wondering how being a mom has played into your perspective, you know, since you're sitting away as a child and you mentioned you had trauma even before. Yeah, and the people that you were supposed to care for you and you were supposed to trust. You could not.

Speaker 2: 24:22

So I'm curious how that yeah how being a mom has just been a perspective or what that was like for you.

Tomoko: 24:27

Yeah, I appreciate you asking me that, because that is a huge part and I didn't know until I experienced it and my therapist mentioned it that you know, people often relive their trauma through their kids, and that's exactly what happened, and it freaked me out because I'm like what is happening?

Tomoko: 24:48

What's going on? Why am I reacting this way? I really had adverse reactions, like when my oldest son turned 12 or, you know, was about to turn 12, I was having major anxiety, just worrying and overthinking, and I had no idea what was going on until my therapist said I think this is connected to you know your experience and you're reliving it through him, and so your anxiety is heightened and I'm like that makes total sense Because you were 12.

Christina McKelvy: 25:20

Yes, Right yeah, wow yeah.

Tomoko: 25:25

And so there were a lot of reliving moments. I also lost my brother when I was 16 and he was 18 in a carts event. So I relived that through my oldest son and then I a lot more subtle because of where I am now but in a sense I'm reliving it again through my second son because he's getting close to the age that my brother died and he everybody I mean including myself he reminds us the most of my brother. He looks like my brother, he acts like my brother, and so it's. It can be very heavy sometimes just looking at him, both, you know, in a negative and positive way.

Tomoko: 26:08

Negative way, it's like being reminded of the loss, but then also positive is that we sort of get to see his life through my son in a in an interesting spiritual way, I guess, and so there's a lot of mixed emotions and, of course, as an abused, you know, I was pretty severely abused as a child, physically, mentally, and so I knew that when I had three children, or before I had children, I was like, okay, I got it, I got to make sure I don't become, you know this an abusive parent.

Tomoko: 26:56

And then when I burst three children, I was like, oh my gosh. I got to really make sure. That was another, another big reason why I decided to focus on my healing because I knew that I needed. I did not want to repeat because you know I, when I studied psychology, the statistics of of abused person becoming an abuser was the percentage was so high and I also made many mistakes as as a parent and I wanted to correct them. I wanted to be better, I wanted to to raise healthy children. So it's a lot of discipline, a lot of determination to to focus on that as a mother.

Christina McKelvy: 27:52

You wanted to break that generational cycle, exactly.

Speaker 2: 27:56

Yeah.

Tomoko: 27:57

Yeah, really needed to.

Speaker 2: 27:59

Yeah.

Tomoko: 28:03

And the I feel like the beautiful thing about it, now that I am where I am, is that I somehow knew that I like I knowing that and, you know, doing something about it is is huge, right, like I can even say that for myself, it's huge. It is not an easy path to you know, and it is a path that you have to choose because it has to be determined, it has to be something. You say I am going to do this and I'm going to consciously work on this, and and knowing that, somewhere inside I believe that I could. Yeah, I feel like that's huge too. And then I mean, yes, I made many, many mistakes and it's it's. You know, guaranteeing is still very, very challenging, but I feel like, for the most part, I've done a lot better than had I not made that determination to break the cycle, and so, yeah, I feel very proud of that.

Christina McKelvy: 29:13

You made that choice.

Tomoko: 29:16

Yeah, that's super hard.

Christina McKelvy: 29:19

It can be. You know, there's sometimes there's a lot of barriers sometimes for individuals like maybe they want to make that choice, but there's something that gets in the way.

Tomoko: 29:30

And also, you know, societal expectations and people not knowing what I've been through and I me feeling like I need to live up to everybody's expectations. You know I mean just all kinds of mess. It's a lot, it's a lot of complicated stuff that that takes place. I think any mother could relate to it.

Christina McKelvy: 29:56

Those expectations. You need to live up to them. I mean because being sent away at 12, I know, when I was 12, I was always people pleasing, still am and to an extent you know, and at that age you're that's, you know, you're so impressionable. So being sent away, like what messages? You know just that 12 year old self-receive and how does that carry on? Like you said, through your belief system, how you see the world, parenting, you know everything like that.

Tomoko: 30:28

Definitely, yeah, it affects everything in your mind, and not just your childhood, but years and decades later. So it's it's very complicated and you have to like essentially undo all of that, you know, basically in order to heal and in order and you, there's a lot of growth in that too, of course, as hard as it is. So, yeah, it was very, very difficult and very long path, but I'm really glad I chose that, yeah, and now you're here, yeah, and I'm here.

Christina McKelvy: 31:11

This is wonderful and getting and working on your MFT, which is marriage and family therapy.

Tomoko: 31:19

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's. You know, when I was in college, during my senior year, studying psychology at University of Hawaii at Manoa, I dropped out because of my CPTSD and I was not diagnosed at that time, and so there was a lot of internalizing happening. Oh my gosh you know, my anxiety was way up there, my depression, my, you know I was reacting to everything I used to tell people. It's almost like walking around and not having any skin, anything that brushes against me hurt.

Christina McKelvy: 32:02

Your nerves are raw Exposed.

Tomoko: 32:04

Yeah, exposed and raw, and that's that was the only way to help others understand what it's like to be me, and I feel like I would still use that. That's how difficult life was at that moment. I was 22, 23, dropped out Senior year. I didn't even know. I didn't even know until many, many years later, when I decided to go back to school and like I should finish getting my, my bachelor's. I only had one class, so I did that back in 2017. I got my you know, bachelor's degree in psychology.

Tomoko: 32:46

Finally, after all the years, and I'm actually really glad I did it the way I did, because had I become a therapist back, you know, in my twenties, I would have probably been a mess because you know it, just you you really have to heal from, from your trauma If you want to help others. You can't help others until you help yourself. Yeah, so I'm really glad. And then I just continued with it. I'm like you know, I never, ever, thought I would get my master's. I never thought I was capable or smart enough, all the things on the list but like, oh, maybe I can. And I did it. I graduated and, yeah, I'm really, really glad I did it the way it did. I mean, sitting with a bunch of 20-something year olds was very intimidating. I'm like oh, I'm anti here, hi you know like anti yeah.

Tomoko: 33:45

Brilliant young people. And I'm going to school and I'm like, okay, I'm a little bit late in the game, but I'm trying. But again, I'm really glad the way that I'm doing it, the way I am, because it just it's yeah, it's such a, it's such an incredible work and I feel a lot more comfortable doing it.

Christina McKelvy: 34:13

Yeah, because you like, so you healed or you're healing.

Tomoko: 34:19

Yeah, yeah, and I feel like I'm in a good place to tell people or I shouldn't say tell people, because that's not what my job is is as a therapist, but like guide them through their challenges I feel like I'm in a much better place to to provide the guidance I always tell my clients. Just think of me as a GPS and you know. I like that I'm just a GPS helping you from. You know get from A to B. You know, if there's an accident I'll find you a better path.

Tomoko: 34:52

You know, but I'm not here to tell you what to do, or you know. So I'm. I'm a much better GPS than I would have been in my 20s.

Christina McKelvy: 35:07

In your 20s you would have been the beta GPS. Yeah, the.

Speaker 2: 35:12

AOL version.

Christina McKelvy: 35:13

Oh my goodness, Did you ever find out, or did you, why you were sent to the United States?

Tomoko: 35:27

Yeah, I did. That's an interesting thing too. I, in my 30s, I did have a moment where I was able to kind of confront my parents and basically what happened was when I was living in Japan, I was sent to a very prestigious school all girls Japan Women's University, but it's like it's almost, like, you know, like Punahou here. Yeah, it's from preschool all the way to well. This one is all the way to university.

Tomoko: 36:06

Punahou is high school, but it's a very like if you get in your set. And my mom went there and she wanted me and my sister to go there. We got in, but it was really difficult. It's one of the top schools in Japan. If you mention, oh, yeah, you know, I went to the school. Everybody in Japan knows what that is. It's very, very, very difficult school.

Tomoko: 36:38

When I attended there, you know, because of the situation at home, nobody helped me. I was on my own, whereas all my classmates this is a type of school where all the parents are hands-on with every homework, every prep for tests, exams and all that I didn't have any of that, so I failed a lot, which is not acceptable. It's a very, very typical Japanese system type of school, but like on the steroid kind of thing. It's a very cookie cutter. If you are not getting straight A's, then you know you're not meeting their expectations. I definitely wasn't. Nobody helped me not once anybody helped me with homework from first grade to sixth grade. So basically at sixth grade you transition into middle school and it's another campus and your parents meet with the principal and they'll tell you, okay, you're transitioning or, I'm sorry, you're not good enough. And basically the school was like, yeah, it's not good enough. And I didn't know that. My mom didn't tell me Until your 30s. Yeah, when I asked her, Wow.

Tomoko: 38:01

So the way I'm interpreted well, the way I've interpreted it is that she was too ashamed to tell people that I got kicked out. But if she said, oh my gosh, she's going to school in the United States, it sounds fabulous. And instead of because, in you know, I feel like my perception or it about it is correct, because If it was with more positive intentions, you know, I would think she would have explained why I was going to the United States, she would have prepared me better.

Tomoko: 38:40

I would have at least had English lessons or, you know, been able to ask questions. I really basically had to pry that out of her and she finally got very upset and said, well, you got kicked out. And I was like, oh gosh, I didn't see that coming, yeah. And so, instead of sending me to a public school from middle school, she chose to send me away.

Christina McKelvy: 39:09

You said it, you feel that it was more of a pride for her on herself.

Tomoko: 39:16

Yeah, definitely, and I was able at that point to tell her. Well, because of this decision and because I didn't know anything about it, I struggled and then I also went through a lot of abuse, bullying. I was also molested when I was 14. So, like all these things happened you know, by the time I was 16, I've had so much trauma happen in my life that it was so difficult that I it took a long time for me to confront my family. Yeah, and of course, when I would try to, it was very not a Japanese girl thing to do to confront my parents, you know, seeing as very disrespectful, none of my statements were taken well, taken well or taken properly, I guess you know. So that was hard, but I navigated through those things over the years and overcame them.

Christina McKelvy: 40:39

Having that discussion with your mom sounds like it was one of those pieces for your healing. One of the parts for your healing.

Tomoko: 40:46

Yes, definitely, and I didn't know this then because it did take I think I was about 33, 35 maybe, but it took another 10 plus years to be where I am now Real and realize that that was, that was still a very toxic moment.

Tomoko: 41:07

Yeah because she initially denied, like kind of played, like I don't know, I don't know why I sent you, and I would say well, you threw me away. That's how I see it. You threw me away and she's like oh my gosh, no, no, I didn't throw you away. I'm like so why did you send me away? And I pushed it. I can be like that. You were determined, you were determined to find out why that happened to you because it shaped your perspective.

Christina McKelvy: 41:39

It shaped your life Exactly.

Tomoko: 41:42

Yeah, yeah, and I pushed her enough that she got very upset and kind of blurred it out. I don't think she had intentions to tell me. And when she blurred it out it was obviously a very shock for me to hear, because I had no idea I hadn't been kicked out and I was like I don't know. I guess it's in a sense that that moment they confirmed I don't think like this anymore. But back then, you know, like gosh, I must not be good enough or I must be disposable because my parents don't love me. You know that mindset I lived that in that mindset for a very, very long time. So that sort of confirmed that Like, oh, I got kicked out. Even the school didn't want me, you know, and then it forced my parents to throw me away, and so it was very traumatic again in a sense, like it just things were confirming that I'm worthless. Yeah, that was very painful.

Christina McKelvy: 42:53

How did he navigate?

Tomoko: 42:53

that In that conversation it blew up into a huge argument, only because my mother lost her temper and I just had to walk away. But it was a lot of tension after that and a lot of anxiety that came up, so like triggering my PTSD. I think that was. You know, in hindsight that's what was happening A lot of nightmares, a lot of anxiety, a lot of crying and then just going through the depression. I mean, gosh, I've had so many depression, I don't have it anymore. But back then it would easily come up. Just any kind of those types of moments would trigger my depression, and it would be anywhere from like two weeks to weeks where I before I snap back out of it. But interestingly, I was really good at putting the happy face, so I could do that. And I assure you I'm not doing that right now. I'm not putting a happy face, I'm really happy, yeah. And so, yeah, that's a huge difference.

Speaker 2: 44:15

It's a huge huge difference.

Tomoko: 44:16

Back then I got very good at putting the facade. People believed I was a very happy person. They knew I was struggling here and there, but not to the extent of I was. I don't think people had any idea. But yeah, again, the 15, 20 years of healing really closed them out of that.

Speaker 2: 44:43

Yeah.

Christina McKelvy: 44:49

Yeah, amoko, it's interesting to hear your story, you know, because what I hear is that it took time.

Christina McKelvy: 45:08

Healing takes time and it takes trying many different things and being okay with, oh, this didn't work, so I'm going to try this.

Christina McKelvy: 45:19

I'm going to confront one of the people that instigated that drama. Okay, that might have not worked for that moment, but in the future maybe it did help. And you know, so I I love hearing that journey and it's so real because I think many of us that have gone through a trauma that is our experience is it takes time and you have to figure out the different things that work for you. We're getting speaking up time, we're getting close to time and one thing that helps a lot of people, you know, with their journey with trauma or healing, even moving forward as hope. And that's why my podcast is called Hopology, because I love hearing stories of hope, healing and resilience, which you have spoken about a lot is that resilience that you have? And so I want to ask and I asked the same question to all my guests and I I got this idea from a friend who did a podcast and he would ask and a question at the end of his episodes too, and so I like to ask what gives you hope?

Tomoko: 46:23

What gives me hope? I would say I mean there are many things, but one thing that really gave me hope for my gaming journey was that I'm capable of changing that. I can rewire my, my mind system, my thought process, If I I just have to really believe in myself and give myself credit, and there there's a lot of hope in that that I can change. Things can change.

Christina McKelvy: 47:01

You're capable of changing. Yeah yeah, that's the hope for you. Yeah Well, I really appreciated this conversation and I know you also have a nonprofit. What's that name of your nonprofit?

Tomoko: 47:21

Oh no, I don't have a nonprofit. I it's not registered as 501 C3. I just do these projects every year. That's it. Yeah, yeah, one is called stuff, a purse project. I collected gently used purses and collect sanitary items for donations. I do it for my birthday every year. Invite all my girlfriends, I cook for them. I love to cook, so I cook for them. We talk, story and then stuff all the bags with sanitary items and toiletries and we've been giving them, donating them to incredible nonprofits like my movement and other houseless projects that help house list teams girls. Because there's another story behind that, maybe I can share next time.

Christina McKelvy: 48:20

Yes, I want you back, for sure, yeah.

Tomoko: 48:23

Oh, thank you, yeah. So yeah, I do, I love doing, I love volunteering. I try to volunteer as much as I can.

Christina McKelvy: 48:31

And that instills hope in the people that you're serving, but also I builders, you know it helps us to know when we volunteer, so thank you. Well, thank you for being on here and let me know when your book is out. Yes, have you back on.

Tomoko: 48:49

Thank you so much. Thank you for having me and listening to my story. Thank you, of course.

Christina McKelvy: 48:59

I hope you enjoyed listening to Tomoko's story and it's just incredible to hear the resilience she had as a young girl and later circling back, you know, with her family to ask questions and try and get that closure. You can find more information about Tomoko through the show in the show notes. Excuse me, and also, as I mentioned, she really wants to promote the tea cafe, which again serves LGBTQ and gender diverse. If you enjoy today's episode, leave a review, share it. Also, consider supporting the show. This is a passion project. It's just me, and if you would like to be on the podcast and you have a story to share, feel free to email me at homologypodcasts at gmailcom. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 50:03

And tonight yeah.