What Happened To Community When It Matters Most

Your sibling has been missing for 33 days. You file the report, post the flyers, send the messages, follow every lead you can, and still the hardest part can be the people who respond with a shrug. We’re talking honestly about what it feels like to reach out to your loved one’s circle and get vague answers, delayed calls, and that cold “good luck with everything” energy that leaves you stunned.

I walk through the family dynamic behind my recent silence and why I’m choosing to speak my truth anyway. That includes how I handle the unhelpful advice that shows up during a crisis, like being told my mindset is the problem, and how I set boundaries around other people’s fear and pessimism. We also get real about mental health concerns, the limits of what family can control, and how quickly support can evaporate when people do not want to be “involved.”

Then we zoom out to the bigger question: what happened to community? If we hear someone calling for help, or we notice signs that something is off, do we step in or look away? Alongside all of this, I share how stress and grief show up in the body, including autoimmune triggers, oral lichen planus, xerostomia, and why eating and even talking can become painful. If this resonates, listen, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a rating, review, or comment with your perspective: would you get involved?

Transcript

Welcome Back And Why I’m MIA

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Oh, chicawa. What's up, party people? Welcome to another episode of LQ8 Your Life. I'm your hostess with the most tests. L is in the letter L and T as in the key to your heart. Well, uh, most of you are probably wondering why I've been M I A, and I do apologize. Um, I don't want to give you excuses. There's been a lot of stuff happening with the family, family dynamic. And so it actually left me wondering, what am I going to talk about today? But

Speak Your Truth Despite Opinions

SPEAKER_00 0:48

then I realized something that I need to share on this mindful Monday, August 3rd, is how important it is to speak your truth and do not be influenced by others, by others' opinions, thoughts, actions. Um, what am I talking

My Brother Is Missing 33 Days

SPEAKER_00 1:24

about? Well, what I'm talking about is part of the fighting family dynamic I've been dealing with is I my one and only sibling has been missing uh for thirty three days now. And after creating missing persons and filing a missing persons report and speaking with countless family, friends, relatives, posting on social media, passing out flyers, all the while suffering from an autoimmune disease that is triggered by stress. And my OLP that interferes with, I mean, basically, I suffer from nutritional deficiency because of this, even though I have several friends saying, put your mindset to this and do that. I do all those things just to all my listeners out there. I have a positive mindset, I ground myself every day, I meditate every day, I speak positive out to the universe. One of the people I spoke with today was like, Oh, you're not gonna have any luck doing that. And I said, I don't receive that, I rebuke that, you're entitled to your opinion. I don't share that thought process or belief, et cetera, et cetera. Where am I going with this? Where I'm going with this is uh my sibling suffers with some undiagnosed professional, undiagnosed professionally mental health issues, but because of the field I work in, because I'm a reader, because I'm a researcher, because I've known him 56 years, because of attempting to help him with other resources and them confirming. I was quite surprised unpleasantly by the response or lack of response or lack of concern, or maybe people just don't want to get involved. And it just made me think about some things about the day. Um, one, it made me realize, oh, now I see why these people are his friends because they share the same thinking, thought process, et cetera, et cetera. But it just was very interesting for me to hear that people were happy to reach out, knowing that I have all these missing persons, flyers out, that I've done all this and have asked, call the police department or call me. And these people were kind enough to reach out to me, send me a message saying, I last heard he was this, and I last, and then when I asked for any asked any follow-up questions, I was the response was, um, I'll call you if I can, I'll I'll do this if I can. I only talk to them on social media. Good luck with everything. And it just made me realize the lack of understanding, empathy, not people not wanting to get involved.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

And honestly, it just made me very sad because these are people that have known him since high school.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

And so my circle of friends that has seen everything and read everything have come to me and said, How can I help? But the people I reached out to that have seen him, talked to him, heard from him, et cetera, et cetera, responded with, I'll call you if I can. I'm busy working. Or, well, I last saw him here and you can look up the information. Just very vague and yeah, just sad.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Just sad that people can be so

Friends Who Stay Vague And Distant

SPEAKER_01 6:11

cut off, cold, callous, unresponsive, unconcerned. I I don't even know.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

I don't even know how to articulate it in the right way. Anyway, I'd be curious to know my listeners' thoughts and opinions on this topic. I know it's super random and out of the blue, but it just really made me think about humanity, people, patterns, the different ways that people handle situations. While I recognize my brother's an adult, I'm an adult. I also want to acknowledge that he's my only sibling. Grandparents are gone, parents are gone. The rest of the family is kind of all over the place, and we're not really close with them, nor have they really made an effort to be close with us.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

And so it just took me by surprise that here I am reporting.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

I haven't seen or spoken or heard from my brother in 33 days. And he hasn't responded to any of us, not family, not friends, not the person that he was living with, and to have his friends reach out and be very uh just um vague and aloof and unbothered, uh, just made me question humanity and people and intentions. And I feel like I have perspective as far as you know, people don't want to get involved, people don't want to get into

What We Owe Neighbors In Crisis

SPEAKER_00 8:52

other people's business. But the flip side of that is is that the world we are living in today? That if we hear someone in our neighborhood in the middle of the night calling help, rape, fire, whatever, is everybody just gonna go, oh, not my business? I don't know him, I don't know who that is, I I don't want to get involved.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

That's kind of the way I'm uh I'm hearing this from the people that that responded.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

I mean, I I do appreciate that they did reach out and tell me what they did. But upon me saying, listen, I'm concerned because of A, B, and C, would you mind calling me? I just have some questions and I'm I'm juggling a lot right now, so I'd prefer to call than text to where, oh no, I'm too busy. I don't know if I can call, even though I gave them literally a 10 to 12 hour window. It still was like, I can't be bothered. I don't want to be involved, I don't want to be mixed up in this. And while I do recognize people don't want to be involved in the drama, don't you want to see your friend get the help that they need?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Anyway, that's what I wanted to share with you tonight.

Autoimmune Stress And Painful Symptoms

SPEAKER_00 10:52

As far as me being MIA, um, yeah, the month of July has not been good to me physically. I still push through every day. I still go to the gym, walk my dog, you know, get up and do all the normal day-to-day things. It's just by the end of the day when I go to do my podcast. My mouth is sore, my tongue is sore, it hurts to talk, it's uncomfortable. And while I push through throughout the day, usually by the end of the night, it's painful. Not only do I suffer from OLP, but I also suffer from zerostomia, which is a condition of the tongue where it feels like you burned your tongue very badly.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

So it's painful to talk, drink, eat. Again, something I haven't been doing much of.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Everyone keeps coming to me. Oh, you're so skinny. How did you lose all the weight? Well, it's because I can't eat. I I drink smoothies, I I try to put protein in my body.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

I'm mindful about the things that I can and can't eat, but some days are harder than others.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Anyway, I would love to ask of everyone's perspective on tonight's topic, although it was all over the place. I hope you understood that I am just questioning is that the world we're living in? Are we living in a world where we would just rather bury our head in the sand and not be involved, don't want to be asked questions, don't ask, don't tell if somebody is crying for help or rape or fire.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Are we in a society where people don't want to be bothered?

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Because if you think about all of those things and you follow the news, and then you hear later, oh yeah, I always thought that person was weird, but I never said anything. Oh, I always found that, you know, person or action, or I always thought it was weird that they didn't come out to check their mail unless it was dark. I mean, you get where I'm going, right? Like people just don't want to be bothered. They just want to put their head down and pretend that these things don't exist. And it makes me sad.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Not just for my situation, my brother's situation, just in general. That God forbid we should all need to come together as a nation, as a community. What happened to community? Yeah. So these are the things I'm pondering this evening. I would love to hear your thoughts and your perspective. And I hope that I've made it

Questions About Empathy And Humanity

SPEAKER_01 14:38

perfectly clear, crystal clear, that while I have perspective and I can understand reluctance of wanting to get involved in other people's situations, is there no empathy, sympathy, understanding to that you might have the ability to help this person? Or help this family that's trying to help this person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Things that make you go, hmm. Do you remember that song? And does anyone remember that song? I can't go as high as she could, but things that make you go, hmm, hmm, hmm. That's where I'm at. I'm wondering what happened to our world, our community, our people, our neighbors, our friends, our support system.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Is it now every man or woman for himself? Is that the world we're living in now? I hope not. I pray not.

Feedback Request And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Thank you all for tuning in and being loyal listeners. If you're a newcomer, I hope that this episode wasn't too heavy. Maybe it resonated with you or a situation, or maybe you know somebody that you could share the information with. If it did resonate with you, if any of this impacted you, I would appreciate your feedback, a comment, anybody that gives me a thumbs up, gives it a like, gives it a comment. It helps the algorithm, it helps push the podcast out there. And I would really appreciate that. Thank you to my loyal listeners, my loyal subscribers, thank you to my new listeners. And until next time, ciao for now.