The Radiant Mission
The Radiant Mission
117. Healing Childhood Trauma Through Faith: Candise’s Journey with DID
Candice joins us on the Radiant Mission Podcast to share her courageous journey of healing from childhood sexual abuse and managing dissociative identity disorder (DID). Hear her talk about how she navigated through feelings of contradiction and unexplained mood swings, finding comfort in the power of gospel music. Candice's path to healing began with a heartfelt plea to God, which led her to uncover suppressed memories with the help of a spiritually gifted church member, demonstrating the incredible power of faith and forgiveness.
As we explore the themes of overcoming trauma, we touch on the complexities of family dynamics and the impact of past experiences on one's sense of self-worth. Candice’s story is a powerful illustration of resilience, showcasing how facing life's adversities can lead to unexpected grace and new opportunities. We discuss her journey of personal growth, including strained relationships and the challenges she faced while working with homeless individuals, which unexpectedly brought her back to places of past trauma.
Our conversation opens up about the intricacies of surviving family trauma and the healing power of parenting. We discuss the emotional challenges of breaking generational cycles of abuse and forming nurturing bonds with children. With poignant anecdotes about her own family, Candice sheds light on the importance of open communication and unconditional love.
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The Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission Podcast. My name is Rebecca Twomey and we are on a mission to encourage and inspire you as you're navigating through your life and with your relationship with Christ. Through your life and with your relationship with Christ, we have been in a series on being countercultural in a secular world, and today I welcome a very special guest who has so graciously agreed to share her testimony with us today. Her name is Candice and her story is extremely heavy and heartbreaking. As a victim of sexual abuse, she was later diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, which is also known as DID, and she has endured so much hurt, suffering and pain. But God is so much bigger and her story is a true testament of that. So, candice, thank you so much for being here today and for being willing and open to be vulnerable with us and open to be vulnerable with us.
Candise-Kay:Hi, thank you so much.
Rebecca Twomey:And it's an absolute pleasure being here, amazing. So we're just going to jump into it and I'd love for you to share with our audience a bit about your story, how your journey began and how it's led you to where you are today Okay, journey began.
Candise-Kay:and how it's led you to where you are today, okay, well, I'll start sort of somewhere in the middle, because there's just so much, but the gist of it is that about going on.
Candise-Kay:Three years now, I've been on an incredible journey with the Lord. I had gotten to a point in my life where I just kept running into brick walls. I couldn't understand why, every time I thought I was making progress in my relationship with him, but also in life in general, why I kept hitting the spot where everything just fell apart. The minute I gained some traction, it just disappeared. And if, well, if people had to describe me, then they would have said to you that I was quite a contradiction, in terms of one day I would be happy, go lucky, and then I would have extreme downs, and then I would have debates or arguments or say things that I had absolutely no recollection of. And it got to the point with me that I could barely stand 10, 15 minutes without listening to my music, because music is something that calmed me down quite drastically, because there was just so much noise in my head.
Candise-Kay:A lot of people don't relate to that?
Rebecca Twomey:What kind of music did you like to listen to?
Candise-Kay:I love all kinds of music, but at that particular point I was only listening to gospel, um, worship music, um. It was the music that kept me at peace and I could just have my, my voice, my internal monotone, and I could hear God, okay, um, yeah. So the minute that music stopped, then there was just all sorts of voices and I had no idea at the time that I had DID. I knew that there was something very different about me because people had made various comments through my life, and also the memory loss. The memory loss is a big thing, feeling like you're out of your body, like you're experiencing something from another angle, anyway. So I got to the point and I begged God. I said, please, I know you know me and I know that you exist, but I need you to just intervene. I need to know what I'm here for, because I've been through so much hurt and you know it just keeps spiraling. Once you start your life as a child, being um, being violated and molested, um, nothing gets better for a very, very long time, um, and even then, it's just like putting a band-aid on it. You're just living your life as best you know how, but you're broken, um, so immediately the Lord answered me and said well, you can listen. And I was like okay, let's listen.
Candise-Kay:What came about after that was a lot of information I had never expected to get. I knew I had been through so much pain. I knew I, I knew things had happened to me when I was a child. I knew that the relationship with my mom was toxic, um, and I could never understand why she she couldn't, um, connect with me or or anything. The minute we had a moment where we might be considered mother and daughter, then there was this massive wall and a lot of anger. So what I found out going through this whole process of healing with the Lord is that the person who had molested me was, in fact, my grandfather. My mom was dead. This was quite a shock to me when I recovered that memory.
Rebecca Twomey:So that was something that you had suppressed. It had occurred, you knew something happened, but you didn't remember all the details of it.
Candise-Kay:The memory that I held was that it was a silhouette. I could remember the room I was in, I could remember the feeling of being so small and scared and I could remember the smells of the room and I knew what happened to me me but I could not see this person, this. There was just this black shadow, um and through. I think it was probably about my fourth or fifth um. We call it a prayer meeting, but it's like it's almost. It's basically like a deliverance or pray um healing pray and everything. Um, I was very, very, very, very lucky I'm not lucky blessed to um be going to a church with a woman who is profound and in and very well anointed with that um healing ministry and she walked with me for two years where I would see her every month, or sometimes twice a month, but yeah, so we started recovering those memories and I had to start dealing with that, because you know you can't say you've forgiven people or you've moved past it or you've healed. You don't actually remember what happened. You're forgiving the wrong people for the wrong things. So through that I realized, well, I had a dream.
Candise-Kay:I had a dream one night, and it was definitely an intense dream where I had different versions of myself.
Candise-Kay:I had a dream that I had a mom, me and a me, and they were busy dying and were disappearing and they left me a note telling me to go find a Nicole Holt my surname is Holt and I went on this mission to find this person who was also me, this person who was also me, and I found myself in a factory of me's.
Candise-Kay:It was a very dark, scary factory and there were gatekeepers there and they didn't want to let me in. And then a 12-year-old version of myself came running out and said no, no, no, she's with us, it's fine. And they let me in and I was in an entire waiting room of myself, various different ages, small, big, pregnant. I have two kids, so there was that. And then there were babies, baby knees, and I could not understand what was happening, but as we were going through each room and there was babies left alone to do very dangerous things, and then there was a group of knees and learning to bind and loose and pray, and so there was hope in in that then, and so there was hope in that.
Candise-Kay:Then these knees knew me and I had no idea who they were. So, after having that dream, I woke up and I was very, very confused. No-transcript. So there were 27 these that were constantly speaking in my head all the time, which is why I could not function. I could not stop without listening to music, I could not actually think about anything and I cannot tell you how the walk with the Lord has actually calmed my entire life, down to the point where I don't even get upset with people. I don't get upset with people, I don't get frustrated really anymore. Everything is opaque. The change over in me is so profound that even the people that like my family that would have said to you no, this is just how she is, she's just not well. They've even come and they've said wow, there's a big difference in you. And that really was that healing.
Candise-Kay:Once I had been diagnosed and we actually acknowledged that there were these parts, and we actually acknowledge that there were these parts we go through a process where you integrate and ask each part do they know Jesus and are they willing to forgive the hurt? Because each part holds a memory, holds a memory, and then you let them go, as they're not dead, they're still part of you, but they've now integrated into the part they're supposed to be, if that makes any sense. So the way it happened with me is that I had a bunch of little versions of me young, with some 3, 4, 12, 11, 7, and that was where a lot of the suffering was and a lot of the hurt and rejection. I couldn't understand why my mom didn't want me those sort of things, and we created in my mind a home for all these parts and it's really quite interesting because you can actually, or I could, see this home in my mind and it was like being there, I could communicate with my system, all my parts, and actually get to know each and every one of them and what their function was, what memory were they holding. And after going through all of that and getting to know those parts, but also myself, there was a lot of healing and release through that. And, yeah, in one of the prayer meetings that we had, we asked well, yonitaita, that is her name. She asked do I feel that my parts are ready to go with jesus? They're not going to disappear, they're going to be with me. And and we asked the lord to please put each and every one of them, one back where they should be, because they all form the whole me. Does that make sense? Yeah, sorry, I feel like I'm speaking in spirals here. I hope I'm making sense, but you know it was.
Candise-Kay:It's quite something to know that you have been hurt in such a way as a child that has made you break and split apart to function, to function, and that in itself I think it's such a hectic enemy tactic. I'm from South Africa, cape Town. We have so many women, so many young children, boys and girls alike, who go through the same thing, and repeatedly. So I really feel that if people could just get to know more about this and and know that there is actually hope and healing at the end of the day, um, never in my life would I have guessed or even believed that I could feel the way I do now Something that the Lord showed me while I was busy trying to forgive, struggling immensely to forgive my mom specifically.
Candise-Kay:I feel bad saying that now, but I mean I held such a lot of pain from the rejection of her not wanting me, so I was really battling with that. So the Lord showed me like a circle, like we're a circle. The circle is our life and in the middle of that is a little dot and that is God dot and that is god um, but everybody's a circle. So what he showed me is that when we're living our life, we bump into each other and that causes either an outward bump or an inward bump that separates us from him or it separates us from other people. But the more we hold on to those bumps, the more spiky we get or the further away we get from God. So what we need to do is take that bump and give it to him and then all of those bumps will make him grow bigger in us and eventually we'll be so full of him that when we bump people we won't hurt them. We will just give a little bit of him. So that made me feel like I could do that. I could actually do that. I could take that hurt and not have it separate me or hurt anybody else with it, but I could use it to get to know God more and to grow that relationship. And then he started revealing to me the purpose of everybody in my life, which was another beautiful thing that he did.
Candise-Kay:You know, you think sometimes I was so little. Where were you? Where were you, god, like? Why didn't you stop that? Why didn't you let anybody come and hug me when I was like that? Or, you know, why was I so badly unwanted? And the Lord showed me each and every reason why people were in my life.
Candise-Kay:I have a dad who's not my biological father. He married my mom when I was four and and he was definitely amazing when I was younger. But as I've grown over the years and you know, things have happened that have caused issues in the family and resentment. In many ways, that bond is gone and the Lord showed me that if it wasn't for my dad, I would have struggled very much to understand the father side of God you know, the one who sees rules and justice and you know all of that but also very loving and nurturing. So I needed to love my dad, um, regardless of what our relationship was like and the other.
Candise-Kay:The other thing that happened I was working for my family. I was working in a family business and I was living with them at the time and through doing some renunciations of the bloodline things on both sides, I ended up getting into a massive fight with my mom and they threw me out and fired me immediately the same day. So so, wow, um, yeah, so, um, I, yeah. I was like, wow, okay, now I need to, I need to hustle, I need to survive. I have my son, he's he now. I need to hustle, I need to survive. I have my son, he's now 10.
Candise-Kay:Then he was eight and yeah, so very graciously, his dad helped me, like survive, and I got a job about two months later at a place called uturn which helps homeless people um, get off the street to rehabilitate them and everything. I'm not. I was not qualified for this job, but the lord said apply. So I applied and I got the job. This job was me assisting the people on the program to get jobs once they had reached a specific level. But when I started there my first day, I realized that I was in the area where a lot of my teenage trauma had happened. So I'm going to go through this with you now. So the main office was in between a place where I was abused by my dad's mom, with a little bit of emotional abuse, and then another road to the right of that was where I was gang raped at 13. So I asked God why.
Rebecca Twomey:What is happening?
Candise-Kay:Like why are you doing this? And he said just trust me. I asked God, why? What is happening? Like, why are you doing this? Where am I? And he said just trust me. So I was like, okay, I will trust you. And I was like, well, I'm just going to focus on this job, I'm just going to be very, very grateful for this job. And he was like this is not forever. And I was like, okay, well, well, let's just do this. Um, so, as it happens, part of that job was me traveling to the different um, what do you call them? Like different sections of the of the company. They had one in every little area and some of them were stores and some of them were workshops, but I had to go to all of them and each and every point that I had to go to was a place and that something had happened. Um, no, way.
Rebecca Twomey:So every place that you were sent to for this job it was a piece of your story, where in the past you had traumatic experiences that happened to you in those places. Wow, that is wild yeah and that must have been terrifying. And I mean first of all, I'm so sorry for what happened to you. I'm so sorry that's, was that a very dangerous, like was that a common thing to happen. Well, to go in those areas and for gangs like that to do things, do those, do that to women.
Candise-Kay:I would um I would say yes and no. Um, so I was quite. I went through a phase when I was 12 to 13 where I was immensely rebellious, 12 to 13 where I was immensely rebellious. At some point I just had enough and I just wanted to go.
Candise-Kay:I figured nobody wants me here anyway, so I will just leave, and I started running away. Getting involved was the wrong crowd. There is definitely a lot of gangsterism in that area, but it was also very. There is definitely a lot of gangsterism in that area, but it was also very hidden from the most middle to upper class families, and so if they weren't specifically looking for it, they would not have noticed it. This group of spies were gangsters and they were drinking and doing all sorts of things, and you know. So I didn't know at the time, but there's the hierarchy in gangs. If that person is a higher level or something like that, they have to go along with whatever he says, because otherwise they're in trouble. And the person that came to visit the one night while we were drinking just happened to have terrible intentions and he got the five of my friends to rape me, so it was quite something.
Rebecca Twomey:I'm so sorry.
Candise-Kay:That's a very so.
Rebecca Twomey:I'd like to kind of walk us back a little bit through your story, because something that you said it's important for you to, you want to point out to other people or make other people aware of DID, of dissociative identity disorder, which I think can also be called multiple personality disorder, but something that I'd like to point out about it. You mentioned the personalities part, so it usually typically means that someone has maybe two or more identities, or maybe alter egos they might call it or alters but this is something that's a psychological response to trauma and specifically in early childhood, and that's something that I learned through researching this. But of course, you're going to know way more than I am about this. But I'm following along with this story that you're sharing with us that when you were very small you had a sexual trauma that you repressed for a long time, but you continued to experience trauma in this dysfunctional I don't know if that's the right word, but dysfunctional relationship with your mom.
Candise-Kay:It definitely I would use that.
Rebecca Twomey:Okay. It sounds like she also had a lot of dysfunctions in her past, led to now she has a child. She's not treating you well. She's not treating you good. There's dysfunctions, other things are coming in and you're feeling unloved and unwanted. And as you're continuing to grow now you're starting, like you said, 12-ish you're getting rebellious. Nobody wants me here, I'm just going to leave into the arms of other evil who also abuse you and traumatize you.
Rebecca Twomey:And now it sounds like there also was a layer with the emotional abuse with your dad's mom, which I don't know at what point that happened. But all of this is explaining what happened with this DID and you breaking apart as a person, because you just I mean all that you're seeing and all that you're facing as a child as you're growing is heartbreak and disappointment. So I just want to that's what I'm hearing. I'm breaking this down as you're going through this and I hope that our listeners are understanding that, I think, is DID. They say that it's sometimes really it's a coping strategy to survival or the trauma that you're experiencing.
Candise-Kay:So we, we, everybody just associates in some level. You know like it's. It's a natural response. Your, your body and brain needs some time to just rest or focus. But in situations like mine and various others, you're too young to actually have the emotional capacity to deal with what you're currently facing. The hurt is immense.
Rebecca Twomey:That makes sense, because our brains don't stop developing until what we're 25 to 30, 25 to 27, something like that, yes.
Candise-Kay:And so I called my grandfather Opong it's the Afrikaans word for grandfather. I grew up in their house because my mom had me out of wedlock and she was always out trying to work and also still be young she was 18 when she had me so I spent a lot of time with my oma, um, which is my gran, and her mom, and that that was my um. My safe place was with my oma and she was my everything. She gave me love and you know she spent so much time with me. I have the best memories of her.
Candise-Kay:And then the man that used to play dominoes with me and all that stuff is also the man who hurt me so horribly. I cannot tell you how often it happened, I don't know. I have left those memories where they are because you know the things that I worked through. I believe that you know don't scratch where you don't need to. So the things, I've acknowledged who it was, I've acknowledged that it hurt and I can just um, I'm just very grateful that I was able to actually separate myself that, that that, even though it's um, it's quite a difficult thing to live with, that somehow the lord had blessed me with a brain that was able to separate that, because even thinking about it now, um, I wish I was there to save myself.
Candise-Kay:It doesn't make sense, of course, because it's just the person you trust, the people that are supposed to nurture you and love you and keep you safe, are the very people that are abusing you and confusing you.
Candise-Kay:Because, you know, I specifically remember being told that everybody knew about it and if I complained they'd give me away. Um, so I'd always had this fear that I was just going to be given away or like left somewhere. So that was an intense fear that I grew up with. And then, you know, later on, finding out that the would never tell me who my real father was, who my biological father was Her answer was that she doesn't remember his name, or, you know, it's not important and then finding out that it was very much a likelihood that my grandfather is my father and I could very well be my mom's sister. So I really like it's. So it's very intense having that come out of my mouth, because that means that I'm the result of something terrible. That means that I'm I'm the result of something terrible, um, and that's not you, you are what is you are not terrible, it's.
Rebecca Twomey:you know I, I get what you're saying. There's that's, that's so hard I'm sure to just even wrap your head around. I know it is for me that first of all he could do something like that to his daughter, but then again, to his granddaughter, who also is his daughter. Yeah, in a sense um you know, that's just a cycle. Now you said your grandmother was alive for a period of time when you were little. Yes, did she know about what was going on um I suspect that she did.
Candise-Kay:Um, she's not alive before me to ask anymore. She died in 2014, before all of this came out, but I suspect that there must have been some form of knowing. I mean, you can't not know. My grandfather had some icky friends that used to sit and they would work on cars and drink beer outside and whatever, and then they would come and ask me come, do some cartwheels, show us how you do cartwheels.
Candise-Kay:And I was wearing a dress and my gran would call me inside, very upset. She would be like come inside, and she'd say don't do that. When they asked you to do that and I remember not understanding why, um, or like, there was a an occasion where one of them would come into the house and, um, and I was sitting watching tv like a little tomboy or whatever, maybe like my legs weren't folded, just enjoying my time watching tv, and I didn't notice. But my grandmother walked in and she got very upset and shouted at me like I was doing something to entice this person. So I think she must have been aware that there were things with kids that were not kosher. Have been aware that there were things with kids that were not kosher, um, and you know why? Would my grandfather be hanging out with them if he wasn't that way in time?
Rebecca Twomey:sure, yeah, that's. That's very interesting. Did you feel like he ever gave you an indication that this was something that he did outside of the family? Or it almost kind of sounds like keeping it in the family was how he kept the secret?
Candise-Kay:Yeah, I'm not 100% sure what his other hobbies were. As far as I remember, he went to work diligently during the weekend. He was at home on the weekends Every Sunday. Me and him would go out. On the Friday he would buy me a dress and on the Sunday we would go. I was wearing my little dress and we would go and get fish and chips and then go and walk around the dam. And I have a complete blank of what else we could have done. We spent the whole Sunday together every Sunday and all I remember till now is going for fish and chips and then going to the dam. Till now is going for fishing trips and then going to the dam. I know that that was probably the time that those sort of things were happening. That's the only time that we would have been really alone.
Rebecca Twomey:So I think that's really what was going on there and in the grooming I was going to say you were really his focus.
Candise-Kay:He was focused on on you during that time this was an immense amount of frustration and jealousy from my mom's side. Believe it or not from your mom? Yeah, there was I it or not From your mom? Yeah, there was. I think maybe there was a little bit of like a Stockholm syndrome type thing.
Rebecca Twomey:Yeah, I bet, because it sounds like he was probably doing the same thing to her. Yes, and now you come along and you're yeah, sorry, yeah.
Candise-Kay:So you know, for all those years it had been her and then I was born and she was nothing. In fact, my grandfather wanted very little to do with her and then I was everything. I got the dresses, I got the attention, everything. I've got the dresses. I've got the um, the attention, um.
Candise-Kay:You know, I used to resent my mom so much for for, for the way she treated me. For that Um, I couldn't understand why you wouldn't be happy that your child was um, was loved by somebody, um. But you know, looking at the situation, it's really really not a normal situation. But you know, looking at the situation, it's really really not a normal situation. It's so complex. And if I think about just who my mom is and the fact that she has not dealt with any of that, I mean she cannot actually acknowledge it within herself either. Right, I understand why it was so difficult for her being a mom. I have a brother who she is completely opposite with. She's able to nurture and love him and care for him and she's able to give him hugs.
Candise-Kay:I think the first time I got a hug from anybody that wasn't my grandmother was when I was 21. So I was not affectionate at all. Physical contact still for me is very difficult. Even I have a daughter now. She's just turned 18 and it's been quite difficult for me to push past um becoming my, my mom to her, um, you know, having to actually force myself to to relate because I don't know how that's done. Um, I don't, you know, I want to love her and and I do love her, but there's just always that like I don't know how to hug, sort of thing.
Candise-Kay:So, yeah, I think I understand from my mom's side that pain must be immense. I mean, there was also a lot of rejection in the womb, um, when she was pregnant with me, I'm quite sure she she had her own emotions and um didn't know what to do with this child, and I think it was quite um, quite honorable of her at least to keep me. Um could have gone another way. Um, yeah, and you know she was also treated very badly in the hospital. Um, when I was born, I was actually, I had a cord around my neck and I was blue, I was not breathing, um, and they took me and they just walked up with me. So she didn't actually know whether I was alive or dead.
Candise-Kay:Oh man, I know this, I have felt it many a time is that going through that memory is almost. I can feel the level of relief with her feeling like this is not my problem anymore. And then my Omo, my gran, coming in with me in a blanket nurturing me, and then she was like there's that fear and frustration and rejection. Again it's like, oh okay, I have to still do this. So there is that constant yo-yoing in our relationship. That really was quite painful, yeah.
Rebecca Twomey:Yeah, wow, that is a lot. That is very heartbreaking. First of all to hear and I guess I have some questions about your mom did end up getting married to your stepdad and had a child with your stepdad, your brother and I imagine that must have been very hard for you, as you mentioned that she was different with him and more affectionate and things like that, and I'm sure once you started to understand the dynamic of what happened with her and why things were the way they were, it helped to explain a lot. But I think that's the thing that's so hard about being a child going through all of this is you don't know, you don't, you can't comprehend it you can't understand it, you have no clue.
Rebecca Twomey:You're just an innocent child in all of this. That's experiencing the hurt of that person who's hurting you, which I do believe that you can experience, feeling an emotion in the womb and at birth birth. So you'll hear I talk a lot about that on this podcast. But you know, that's something that I feared too I was when I was pregnant with my son. Our family dog died, she passed away and I cried every day for a month and that whole month I was so worried that I was going to damage him by being so distressed.
Rebecca Twomey:You know having so much distress and but I hear that with women's stories all the time of going through some sort of trauma or divorce or death and going through that trauma, and the baby feels that it experiences it too, it goes through it too.
Rebecca Twomey:So that's interesting, that that I'm glad that's something that it sounds like you've explored and explored healing from too. I'm just so proud of you in hearing how how much you've gone down all of these healing paths and healing all of these different moments in time and pockets in time, and that God has revealed things to you and shown you like, hey, this is not who you are who I made you to be and you are my child, child of God. You're my child and these hurt people have hurt you but at the end of the day there has been healing from him, and that's what I'm hearing in your story. So I know I had you kind of go backwards a little bit, but you were sharing about working for this homeless association that was sending you to all these places of trauma. So I'll let you kind of go back into that part. I'm sorry for diverting you backwards no, no, that's fine.
Candise-Kay:Um, so yeah, at least I've given you a little bit more of a picture of why I was the way I was, how I ended up in so many different situations. Sometimes I have to take a breath because I'm like this is actually my life. I did go through it and you're strong.
Rebecca Twomey:I just have to tell you you are a strong, resilient woman.
Candise-Kay:You are strong thank you it's it's weird to think that, um, that I might be strong, because at the time you don't think about those things of course um you're surviving, surviving, yeah, um, and then, looking back at it, it's it never really feels like, oh, yeah, I survived.
Candise-Kay:It's normally like, oh, it's like, yeah, it hurts, yeah, but now, um, going through all of these things and and healing from them, I can see um the benefit of potentially inspiring other people to push Through my teenage years. I tried to kill myself 13 times, unsuccessfully, obviously, but there were 13 suicide attempts and I can honestly say I, yeah, I. If anybody understands how it feels to want to just disappear, um, it is me, um, but yeah, I really hope to just give people some hope um.
Rebecca Twomey:God is using you right now.
Candise-Kay:He is using you right now in this moment, as you're sharing your story.
Rebecca Twomey:there's a reason why he didn't let you go all those times, cause now here you are, you know, sharing that. Um, I'd love to ask you a little bit about your relationship with your kids, and do you feel that you've been able to have you been able to talk to them about any of this stuff, or has it been something that you kind of kept for a while and told them later, or um?
Candise-Kay:so I have, um, the best two children, uh, that are just so amazing, completely different. My daughter is very soft, my son is very outspoken and he's not scared of anything, and him and I are extremely close. My daughter stays with her dad because when she was about three or four, I had relapsed into the drug world and things, because I was not coping with life in general and I asked him to please take her because I didn't want her to see what was happening and I had no sense of control. I really didn't, which was a difficult thing for me, but he did such a good job with her and she comes to me every weekend, um, and she's a great sister to her brother and and it just the dynamic ended up working very well. Um, through the years she was happy and I didn't want to take her back if things were good there. You know, did you say she's 18? She's 18 now. Yeah, she turned 18 in October.
Candise-Kay:Wow happy to hear Thanks. So you know, my kids know, they know that things happened to me. They don't have a lot of detail, I didn't go into too much detail but they also know how people have treated me. They've seen firsthand. You know the gaslighting and being the scapegoat for everybody's things and always being the one who's crazy your kids pick that up. And being the scapegoat for everybody's things and always being the one who's crazy your kids pick that up. And I think the lack of love that I got I had to go through sort of doubled in what I poured out in them. I was like it was a thing for me that both of them knew, and continue to know, that, despite what my life might look like or what's happening, they are wanted and loved, that it didn't matter, nothing was ever going to change that, that they were not mistakes and they are not a burden and they are just perfect and it's it's a gift to me that they are alive. So that's sort of how I've. I've raised them knowing that.
Rebecca Twomey:Um, so you know they're both more aware of the fact that their mom has been hurt a lot, but you know that is beautiful, that you've been able to have that opportunity to kind of do it over again in a sense, right Like you went through this trauma with your mom and the dysfunction and her just not knowing how to love you the way that you deserved to be loved by your mother. So to have that awareness of I want to make sure my children know that I love them and that they're not a mistake is a beautiful thing.
Candise-Kay:Thank you. They really are such a blessing to me and I think they are a big reason why I keep pushing.
Rebecca Twomey:I was going to ask do you feel like becoming a mom has been healing and helped to heal you on your journey?
Candise-Kay:um, actually, I was telling somebody the other day that with both of them when they were born um, it was almost like it was with mishka specifically um, it was like a veil, um lifted, um, like I saw things in a completely different light. I was like, no, no, no, um. It's time to be very, very smart now with your decision making, and you know this, this little, this person that's just appeared here is, is your responsibility and you need to start making better decisions. And so I feel like there was just um, yeah, there was this veil lifted or whatever.
Candise-Kay:I was living in in my mind changed when she was born, um, and then with my son um, the same thing, actually it was. It was the minute I looked at him. I was just filled with this. I don't know what it is. I think it's just it's that love that you have for for your child and knowing that that you you need to look after them and care for them, and that I didn't think it was possible to love anything more than I love my daughter. Not that I love her more, but there was just this overwhelming sense of oh, I didn't know if it's possible to love anything this much.
Rebecca Twomey:And I know that feeling for sure. You have that baby. It's like it, just it's instinct.
Candise-Kay:Yes, and then I think it's just for the second one.
Rebecca Twomey:it just doubled up, yep that's the funny thing about having more. Is you? You hear like people wonder can I ever love as much as I did the first time? And it's like, yep, you can you can even more.
Candise-Kay:Um. So it's it's been, it's been a quite a journey. I'm very, very grateful that um I was able to do that um for them that, and I I do believe that that, at least that part, was what I received from my grand um I she was a very big influence in my life and you know I remember conversations with her, clear as day um which she would be. She would say to me you know, you can, you can. You don't need to be the smartest person, you don't need to have a lot of money, you don't need to do this, but what you do need is manners. You do need to treat people nicely and you know, if you're kind and you have good manners, you will do well in life. Um, that was always her the thing. Um, you know, treating people fairly. At that time, when I was small, it was still very much apartheid here. Um with um, people were separated, so um, she made a very big effort to teach me um to to love all people um and just be good and kind. Um.
Rebecca Twomey:Why she did that, I don't know, but um, I'm very very grateful that she did I wanted to ask you about the faith side of this. Were your, did your grandparents go to church at all? Did your grandma go to church? It sounds like you didn't grow up in the church. How, how and when did that progress? Was that not until you were an adult, until a couple of years ago?
Candise-Kay:or tell me about your faith journey so um, yeah, I I knew nothing about jesus or church up until I was much older, I mean, other than what we learned in school, and even for some reason that was also very little. But I think I'd stick put in the church once. Um, both sides of my family were very much into the occult Interesting, yeah yes.
Rebecca Twomey:And what is? Can you tell me any more about that?
Candise-Kay:I don't have much detail. I know that my, my gran, comes from Kimberley, which is a mining district, so they've got this big mining thing which they've dug deep, deep, deep down into the ground and she grew up in those mines and those mines are well known for people who do witchcraft and all sorts of crazy things. There was a lot that came up through my deliverance but I don't have details okay so it wasn't like you were weren't being taught this stuff.
Rebecca Twomey:You just kind of knew that there was some weird stuff, that there was some weird things that they were maybe into.
Candise-Kay:Or my grand used to say, um, like if we were naughty and we we ran away from her, like to avoid getting getting a hiding or getting into trouble, she would say that her third eye would come out and, like we would get hurt. And that would happen. I mean if, if we ran away from her when she caught us doing something naughty and we would get hurt, we'd fall, trip over something and um, like, yeah, um, yes, so that sort of stuff. But I was never, like she never taught me anything funny like that. But they didn't teach me anything about God either. Um, so I and my teenage years I knew there was something, but I had believed that he didn't know I was around because, like, if he was around, like why would he let all these things happen? So he must have forgotten that I am there.
Rebecca Twomey:It sounds like there was a lot of darkness and demonic spirits in and around that situation. But, for all you know, as a child and as a teenager, you're like where well, why isn't? God, here for me yeah, he was a little bit blocked off. I think absolutely.
Candise-Kay:I think, um, you know, and then there was also the deep belief that I was a mistake. Um, so, you know, when we start believing these things, we there is that, that riff. But, um, when I was 21, um, I was in rehab and, um, it was a Christian facility and at first I watched the movie about the rapture, which I was like, oh please, I don't want to be left behind. And I said to myself, well, if God is real, then he will. He will let me know somehow, because here I am in this kind of facility and I said quietly in my heart if you are real, could you please let me know if you exist? And it wasn't.
Candise-Kay:Even a couple of nights later there was some strange lady that came to this house and we were 15 girls in the house and she was just coming to paint nails and do things, and I never fitted in with that sort of vibe. I was always on the outskirts and I was watching all of these girls have fun and talk about things that I didn't have any clue how to join in on. And this woman looked at me and she said she's like I have to tell you that God wants me to give you a message that seems very obvious to me, but maybe it means something to you because he won't, let me not tell you. And she said she looked at me and she said he wants you to know that he does not make mistakes. And immediately I started crying and she was like, does that mean something to you? And I was like you have no idea how much that means to me. I had believed that all my life and I had never told anybody that. So God has to be real, because how would she have guessed that? How would she have known? And so she continued to tell me. She said you know he loves you so much, he sees you and he loves you so much. She said I'm overwhelmed at the love that he has for you. And I could, I just I didn't know what to say. I was just a puddle of tears.
Candise-Kay:At that point. I was just so grateful to know that he loved me and that he saw me and that it wasn't true that I was meant to be here or that he made me. There was a purpose at least, that all of this was not for nothing, and that has been my peg in the ground for a lot of years. That was in 2009. I think I got baptized in just sort of the middle of 2014, after my son was born, and then, yeah, then I started taking things a little bit more seriously and reading more of the Bible.
Candise-Kay:But the last two, three years has actually really been when I've had the most intimate, most beautiful moments with God and he's given me so many more pegs in my ground. He just expanded my tent and it's been wonderful, and I wish I could share this with everybody else. That, to you know, it's so hard to watch people have a lukewarm or a tepid surface relationship, where there's a God that you would love to love, like that, and he loves to love you. Um, don't you just want to get to know him a little bit because he can take away all of that hurt and frustration and confusion? Um, and he really is something special.
Rebecca Twomey:And he really is something special that is so beautiful. And I know that everything that you've shared and everything that you've been through, I mean I can say it's probably tenfold what most people are going through. And yet here you are, sharing your story and saying God is good and God loves you and he loves me and he can heal and he can help us heal from the brokenness that we've experienced. And that's the most beautiful part and I totally agree with you. I wish that everybody could feel what I feel and that's why we're talking about this right.
Rebecca Twomey:So I would love, if you could, for others who might be struggling, whether it's with trauma or, you know, maybe emotions or just you know life in general. What words of encouragement or advice would you share, kind of based on what you've been through?
Candise-Kay:um, me, I think, um, the biggest thing is, uh I don't put this in words um, there's the there is light in in the darkness. There is, there's an immense amount of light in the darkness, and if you could find it within yourself to ask God honestly, show me where you were, please explain it to me. Or I don't understand, or whatever it is that you're feeling, and I mean, mean you have nothing to lose other than to try and just break that, that barrier between, um, that hurts, or your stubbornness, or that depression, whatever it is that you're feeling, um, and just say I can't anymore. Can you please take it? There's not been one moment in my life when I've done that that God has been like no, you deal with it yourself. He doesn't do that. He takes that burden, and there's such sweet relief from that. He really does want to be there for you. He's not too busy, he's not uninterested, he's not pointing fingers either. I'll actually use this One of the things that I was shown when I was in worship.
Candise-Kay:The one day I had a vision of me carrying a whole bunch of dirty clothes and dirty laundry, and while I was walking along, I bumped into Jesus and all the dirty clothes fell on the floor and each item of clothing was a trauma. So those were the traumas that I was carrying around. They were like dirty clothes that I was just lugging around everywhere with me. And Jesus came with his little bucket and he said sit here. And he lifted up an item of clothing and he said tell me about this and then he would wash that one. While I told him the story of what happened and before I knew it we'd gone through all of those clothes and I told him all of those things and each and every one of them, those items, was folded nicely and each and every one of them, those items, was folded nicely.
Candise-Kay:And that was his way of showing me that I don't need to clean my mess. All the mess that I feel I am is not for me to have to scrub, clean or hide or run away from. He is happy to just take it and go through it with you. You don't even have to scrub the clothes. He sits and does it, while you're relieved from that burden of having to clean up yourself. It's no word to describe it really. It's just, it's a blessing and it's it's a miracle really that people that are hurting can can go to. So he's just amazing in that way, something special, that's beautiful.
Rebecca Twomey:What a beautiful vision and what a beautiful, just moment to walk through. I am in awe of the healing journey that he has brought you through, because so many people in your same shoes might not have down this path. So that is definitely. I love your encouragement and your encouraging words to just say don't give up. There is light and cast your worries on him, because he cares for you and he will take that burden. Yeah, that's what he tells us in his word. I love that. Was there anything else that you want to share with listeners today?
Candise-Kay:Um, I think you know um, at this point in society, in the world, I mean, there's a lot of um, there's a lot of fear and concern and and everything. And you know, for me, I just I just really hope that if whoever's listening, whoever's struggling with anything, they really just um trust in trust, god, um, that's that's what we need to do. Keep your faith, keep your hope, keep something in the midst of everything that is happening. Don't lose heart, because he keeps us and he will work it out. He does, he works it all out nicely. So I really hope that people will just start taking those steps closer to him.
Rebecca Twomey:That's beautiful and I have to tell you, one of my favorite parts of our conversation today is how we got started, and it was pretty somber sharing this. And as we've, been talking hearing you laugh. You have the most beautiful laugh. I love it. Thank you, I love it. Thank you so much, candace, for sharing this powerful story today thank you very much for having me.
Candise-Kay:Yeah, it's been sure quite cool sharing this. It's been awesome.
Rebecca Twomey:Thank you. I hope that it continues to help with the healing process too, and to know that your testimony, others are going to hear this and relate and say, yeah, I'm going through this and this is now encouraging me to continue going. So don't ever think for a second that what you share, god is using you right now, and I believe this wholeheartedly. You have changed and shifted my heart during this conversation and encouraged me, so thank you. I'm just so glad that we got to chat tonight. Thank you so much. Thanks, and thank you to our audience, of course, for tuning in and for being on this journey with us. If you would like to follow along outside the podcast, you can do so on Instagram, at the Radiant Mission, facebook, at the Radiant Mission Podcast, and if you're not watching this on YouTube, you can also watch this in video format on YouTube.
Rebecca Twomey:And today we're going to close with Jeremiah 33. This is a verse that Candice picked, that helps her to feel that God is giving her great comfort. And again, jeremiah 33, three call to me and I will answer you and tell you and even show you great and mighty things, things which have been confined and hidden, which you do not know and understand and cannot distinguish. We're wishing you a radiant week and we'll see you next time. Bye everyone.
