Episode 336-From bullied teen to autism advocate: Jessica Danel on resilience, motherhood, and a life worth writing about

A teenager sent to rehab without ever touching drugs. A yellow‑Formica childhood stitched with bullying and bravado. A school shooting buried by a bigger headline. Jessica Danel’s story doesn’t ask for sympathy—it demands your attention and rewards it with candor, humor, and hard‑won wisdom. We sit down with Jessica to unpack the heartbeat behind her memoir, Bucket List from a Redneck Girl, and the Just Saying podcast she launched to give other moms a place to breathe.

Jessica walks us through the chapters that shaped her: Park Circle friendships and Catholic school scars, an El Camino first love on her terms, and a wedding day so chaotic she calls it “Jerry Springer.” She shares how she built a 208‑child preschool from her living room—then watched the 2008 crash squeeze the life out of a thriving business while her newborn needed open‑heart surgery. The conversation turns deeply personal as she details her daughter’s ongoing medical journey, a later genetic answer—16p11.2 duplication—that reframed years of questions, and the daily realities of autism, speech delays, and sensory‑driven anxiety. We talk inclusion that sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, the steep jump from elementary to high school supports, and the small, stubborn wins that keep families going.

Through it all, Jessica’s voice stays warm and grounded. She owns her mistakes, explains how reconciling with her mom reshaped old narratives, and offers clear advice on marriage (be friends, share goals, compromise) and advocacy (document, ask, try again tomorrow). If you’ve ever felt misread by the systems meant to help, this conversation will feel like a hand on your shoulder. Stream the episode, grab the book on Amazon, Apple Books, or Barnes & Noble, and follow Jessica on Instagram, TikTok, and X. If the story moved you, subscribe, share with a friend who needs hope today, and leave a review—your words help others find ours.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Season Kickoff & Guest Intro
• 0:35 Jessica’s Book and Podcast Origins
• 4:44 Early Life: Bullying and Misplaced Rehab
• 9:20 Humor, Relatability, and Writing Voice
• 15:05 Family Discipline and Sibling Dynamics
• 19:59 Draft Reactions and Reader Relatability
• 23:10 Park Circle Childhood and Nostalgia
• 28:58 Catholic School, High School, and Trauma
• 34:40 Marriage, Step‑Parenting, and Courtroom Drama
• 40:35 Building a Preschool and 2008 Fallout

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

SJ Child Show is back for its 13th season. Join Sarah Bradford and the SJ Child Show team as they explore the world of autism and share stories of hope and inspiration. This season, we're excited to bring you more autism summits featuring experts and advocates from around the world. Go to SJchilds.org.

SPEAKER_00: 0:23

The heart of the city, she shines bright. Oh yeah. Stories of love and courage all throughout the night.

SPEAKER_01: 0:35

Hello, we're back at the SJ Child show today. I am excited to bring Jessica in. Is it Daniel? Daniel? I was, I didn't want to mispronounce it.

SPEAKER_04: 0:46

It's Danelle.

SPEAKER_01: 0:48

Danielle. See, I would have, anyways. Thanks so much for doing that for me. Oh, it's so nice to have you here. I'm really excited to get into this conversation, learn more about you, find out what you're doing, how we can support you. So without further ado, please introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about you and what brought you here today.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07

Well, thank you for having me on. I do appreciate it. Um, yes, my name is Jessica Donnell, and I just recently wrote a book about my crazy life. Um, and I started a podcast called Just Saying with Jessica Donnell um about my crazy book and about my crazy life and about what happens, you know, stories about motherhood. Um, I do have a child, I have two children with autism. Um, and um I write about it in my book, and um, I talk about it a lot because it's hard navigating through um something you've never, you know, experienced. And I understand certain things that maybe moms that are just going through it might not know. So I talk about it on my website, but I mean on my podcast, excuse me. And um, but we also talk about other things like um, you know, uh when moms stop feeling uh worthy or they have mom guilt, and which we all get a lot of that. I have that a lot. Um, and so those are some of the topics I I basically based it on my book. So I have a so many different things that I put in my book that I feel people can relate to. And so we talk about, I don't really go by it by chapter, but there are certain things in my book that I can I can talk about that um because I obviously I definitely want to drive people to my book because I think it's a very funny, uh sad, and relatable topics all through each chapter. And I think, like I said, I think people will see a little bit of themselves in my book, and it's an easy read. I have people said, Oh my god, I read it in like a um less than a day and a half, you know, like it was just very quick. And it's very it's like one of those things that's like, well, how I'm talking to you is kind of how I wrote my book. You have a copy of it with you, you can show us. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry, here.

SPEAKER_01: 3:00

Excellent. Bucket list from a redneck girl. Oh, I love that. I gotta put that up really fast.

SPEAKER_04: 3:06

That is so cute. And so all the pictures are I I designed the cover too, and all the pictures are just me, you know, of my life. And um, there's actually pictures in the book too. Um, not that I'm full of myself, but it's because um, you know, Facebook and Instagram, everybody, what do they do when you go to somebody's page? You go straight to their photos and you stock them in the photos, you know. You want to see all, you want to see everything. So I felt like, well, I'm just gonna, I'm an open book, literally. I always tell people that I um I wear my personality on my sleeves and I carry all of my stories in my back pocket. And I used to always do that. And people are like, dude, you should go write a book because those stories are crazy, and I can't believe those are true. And I'm like, I swear, everything I'm telling you is the absolute truth. It knows nuts, but it's so true. Everything happened to me in this way, and I would tell it, and they go, You should write a book. So I decided one day to do it, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 4:00

Congratulations on doing that too. Well, thank you. It's important. It's I think it's important as you know, I one time had a it was a reading uh professor, like he, you know, went and taught all the people about reading, why reading was good, about you know, it was like more than just a reading tutor, like this guy was like the reading professor, and he said something that I'll never forget, and that is if you have a story, you have an obligation to the world to share it because there's something in that story that's gonna be different or relatable for anyone to be able to get in that experience from, so yeah, because no nobody I know of has been well, I'm sure there's people out there, but start my chapter, my first chapter off.

SPEAKER_04: 4:44

It's called Never Believed, and that's because my parents dumped me, and I say dumped, and that's really not the right word, but okay, dumped. They dumped me in a drug rehab when I've never done drugs. Never, ever. Um, and so um here I was as a teenager, you know. I I um wrote um for the school newspaper, I was the school photographer, I did this um a yearbook, I was a cross-country track and basketball in sports, I was an officer for one for my class, um, the rally commissioner. Um, I had lots of friends, and I never went to parties. I think I went to two my whole high school existence, and I write about that in the book too. But um, but like my parents just always just saw the bad in me and always thought I was doing something, and they put me in a drug rehab, and so I was and then when the back then in the 90s was 91 when it happened, um, they took my blood work and said, Oh yeah, she's not on drugs. So then four years, four four four years, four days later, but I had to spend four days in this place with a bunch of drug. And in my lens of um, you know, a sports person, and I mean, I thought I was I was in like prison. I thought I was in a prison. It was terrible. So I write about that in the very beginning, but um I truly believe that I've been through a lot of different things in my life because God was setting me up for the things that I have to deal with with my kids and some things in life. And I felt like um, you know, when I was little, um I was bullied a lot. Um I have a lazy eye, I don't know what you would call it, it's lazy eye. And I um I was always called Popeye. Like kids were mean, and called me Popeye, which was sucked because Popeye was my favorite cartoon. I loved it.

SPEAKER_01: 6:39

Well, girl, look, I have these little ears because it's called outer ear microcia. And my whole life, guess what my nickname was? Little ears, until I was literally in my 30s and someone yelled little ears across the grocery store at me. Come on. Like it doesn't get any worse, girl. So I'm right there with you. And in in fact, I too was put into a place that I was not uh should not have been a part of, and was there un totally against my will because because the adults in my life were being dishonest and were seeing thinking that I was the same way. Sounds like you suffered that same consequence.

SPEAKER_04: 7:22

Isn't it crazy? See, you'll find something. See, I found somebody that can really relate.

SPEAKER_01: 7:27

We didn't even know before we got here, guys. Oh my gosh. So true. And people probably don't know those things about me. So that might be something people are just now hearing for this.

SPEAKER_04: 7:35

See, well, there you go. I'm breaking breaking bread, and we're also learning some things. Um, yeah, so my one of my chapters is called The Popeye Girl. I mean, I lean into it. I have uh um, I had two surgeries when I was younger, and so and as I write my book, I write it in a way where I'm talking to you, the reader, um, as I was thinking it during that time. So some of the thoughts might be a little not juvenile, but um, you know, a little young thinking. And and as I get older, you'll see my thoughts change. And um, you know, I'm growing into my adult self and the confidence is getting better. And um yeah, so I I do feel like you'll see, man, she's full of herself, but it's not true. I always felt like I was less than, but um, I never let people think that I thought that way. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01: 8:27

Yeah, absolutely. No, masking is a big is a big thing that I think that females more than less are are required to do to be part of society. So I couldn't agree more with that. And yeah, the challenges that we do go through in our early life, um, you know, whether or not we can kind of step outside our now lives to look to see how they align, generally do, and generally have kind of set us up for something that might be more difficult for us in the future to be able to embrace and say, hey, I got through that sh I can also get through this.

SPEAKER_04: 9:07

I know one of the chapters in my book, I'm kind of telling you chapter by chapter in a in a way because I kind of want to touch on it a little bit here and there, but one of the chapters was um the belt, the hand, or the hanger. And so if you lived in the 70s and 80s, and that's how my dad would um ask me how I wanted it, he would ask me the belt, the hand, or the hanger. And um, of course, I would say the belt, and why? Because my dad was six, three and 220 pounds, and had his hands were ginormous, and you know, it was forceful when he spanked you. Um, the hanger always left welts and for days, and that stung. And sometimes my dad would hit me with the belt because he'd have me over his knees and he'd hit me with the belt, but he'd it would wrap around and it wouldn't really hurt, but then I would cry harder, like I'd pretend like it did. I'm like, oh gosh, that was terrible. I did the wrong thing.

SPEAKER_01: 9:58

I said, Oh, that didn't hurt.

SPEAKER_04: 10:00

Oh no, not me. I I I was like, that meant no, no more, no more. And I was thinking, like, that didn't really hurt, but whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 10:08

I was dumb. I said, uh, and that didn't hurt. And they went, Oh, okay, a bigger belt. Got it.

SPEAKER_04: 10:14

Yeah, right. I don't think I might have done that one time, I but I probably learned my lesson is what I did. But then it was funny because I was asking my mom, I'm like, I never saw my brothers or sisters because I have two sisters and a brother. Um, I'm the middle girl, so I have an older sister, younger sister, and an older brother. And the brother, of course, could do no wrong. And so, in fact, the the back of my book, it says, Marsha, Marsha, Marsha. If you understand what that means, then you'll appreciate this book. Because I mean it's so true. Yeah, I I I guess I was like Jan, I don't know, but um, so but yeah, that nobody in my no kids in my family were ever uh disciplined in that way. And I asked my mom why, and she's like, I don't know why, you know, you know, um, it's funny because okay, let me tell you a quick story. I'm gonna digress just a bitch. Just just a bit, a bit. Oh my god, I can't see the word like three times.

SPEAKER_03: 11:09

I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_04: 11:11

This is great. Okay, so when I was writing my book, um, after I thought I I got when I when the publishers, because I Christian Faith Publishing took my book, and when they took my book, um I thought it was at a place that was okay fine. I can now share with friends to see if they like it too. And um, I went to Postnet, which is a place here in California, and it's kind of like uh Kinkos or like um a place that you can print or send me all. And so I went to post it and I gave them my book and I said, please print up four five copies or whatever. And they were like a lot of pages, and um, they said come back in like three days, and I did. And um, I went back in, and everybody that was there, and I guess somebody somebody that wasn't there, they go, Um, don't be mad, but we downloaded your book. Oh, and they said, reading it, and this one boy goes, I'm on chapter three, you know. And and so it was like a young man um and a young lady and an older lady, and I guess somebody else that worked wasn't there, but he also was reading at home at home, not just at work. Like, and I felt like saying, like, well, no, but that wasn't great, but I'm I was I was happy to get the feedback. And one of the girls said, I I swear you're you're talking about me in there. And so I just was like, I felt so warm, like that's great, like that's exactly what I want. I really want people to find a little piece of themselves in my words, and um I hope that's what it does for people. Um, I mean, you know, books are hard to sell, not many people, unless you're on like major TV, nobody's gonna read your book. But that's why I'm doing these podcasts because I want people, I want to drive people to my book because it's a very interesting story, and I'm not just trying to toot my little horn.

SPEAKER_01: 13:00

But um, that's what you're here for.

SPEAKER_04: 13:03

It's a funny story. It's a funny story. So then I um I talk about in my book, I talk about my my friends and my neighborhood. They're um the streets, not the street, but the neighborhood we lived in. We called it Park Circle. And so I called one of my chapters Park Circle Friends, and it's really a testament to how close of uh friendships we all had. And it's almost like I mean, like the kind of like stand by me kind of um friends that you know you would play outside until, of course, like everyone says, the lights come on, or right before it gets dark, you know, and you come in and you're all filthy and you you got holes in your knees and and your jeans, and your mom's like, What'd you guys what'd you do? Ah, nothing, you know, and then she's putting patches on your knees, like these shiny patches. Like I could have jeans, and my mom would put satin patches on my knees. Like, don't ask me why. I would have to go through. I would have I would have blue jeans and red satin patches on my knees. You know, she she didn't care. It's like you know, it's so funny, it's like just just leave a holes. Why does it have to have a patch over it? Does it can't nowadays you have you buy the holes, right?

SPEAKER_01: 14:14

You don't even buy whole jeans.

SPEAKER_04: 14:18

Back then your mom was like, gotta put a patch on it. And I'm like, No, you don't. Anyways, um, so but I mean that's just kind of the era we lived in, but which is the best era, by the way, people.

SPEAKER_01: 14:30

Loved it, loved it for real. Love and hate. It's a love-hate relationship with that.

SPEAKER_04: 14:37

And then you know, the funny thing about my book too is I put little Easter eggs all throughout the book. So, like I talk about my yellow for Micah kitchen because everything in the kitchen was yellow. And for my yellow for Micah, everything was yellow, it was all yellow. I mean, and then the cabinets were dark brown, so yellow and dark brown. It would, I mean, it looks like Charlie Brown in my in my kitchen. It was crazy. Everything in my house was like either yellow or brown. I mean, it was gross. But um, yeah, so little Easter eggs throughout the whole thing. You know, I was singing, listening to Linda Ronstadt with my mom's Avon brush. You know, Avon was a big thing back in the day, her little pink Avon brush. But I mean, I just put little Easter eggs in there about what it was like to live during that time. And people read I go, I had that too. Oh yeah, we went down the generic aisle in the in the you know, my generic aisle was white and one was yellow. So those were my generic colors on our in our in our supermarket. But I digress, I'm I'm going off on a tangent. Um so I I went to private school, I went to public school. I talk about um being going to private school and being slapped around by the nuns, or no longer a nun is what it's the chapter is called, because they're no longer nuns, but they still slapped you around like you were, like they were the nun, you know. Yeah, and I went so I went to Catholic school, um, but I used to go to different all my friends is different churches. And so I grew up Catholic, but I'm no I don't consider myself Catholic anymore. I still have Catholic guilt because that is ingrained in you. I mean, and but I but I do um at the time I was exploring different religions and um you know um but I was um yeah, I was raised in the that Catholic school was terrible, but I talk about that in the book a little bit. And then I talk about high school and how important high school was and I wouldn't change a thing, that I loved it so much, it was so great, you know. Uh talk about losing my virginity, which is like the embarrassing, but I do talk about it because it's something that happens in life, and uh mine just so happened to happen in the front of an El Camino. But um, you know, yeah, I'll talk about it. It's funny. Um, I took charge. It wasn't something that it wasn't something I was afraid of, it was something that I wanted to do. So I went there, I talk about it. Um, and then I I had a three o'clock high thing where somebody wanted to kick my butt at school, and uh, anyways, just like in the movies, like I'm gonna get you after school. It was like such a big thing, and it was such a big thing at my school. It was insane. There was a car, there was like a 1520 car caravan on the way to the event. It was just insane. And I talk about that, and then um something something happened terrible to my high school. We had a high school shooting, and it was one of the first in America back in 1992. And the reason why I didn't get a lot of coverage is because the Rodney King verdict came out on the 29th of April, and then the riots, and then the next day the riots continued, and then the next day was my shooting on a Monday. Monday, and uh, we knew the gentleman that did it, he went to our school, uh, graduated a few or a few years or no, he didn't even he didn't graduate with his friends. That's why he came back to the school uh to kill the um the civics teacher, yeah. The civics teacher that didn't pass him, and so he he killed the civics teacher and three of my friends, and um he shot nine others and held like 80 hostages for like 12 hours. It was an event. Um it was terrible, but um, I talk about that in the book, and then also um, you know, there's a movie that was made of my high school shooting with Ricky Schroeder, um, the Fonzie Fonzie, which is Henry Winkler, right? I keep forgetting his name, and then Freddie Prince Jr. They did a movie, um, you can find it on Prime video, and it's um called uh uh Siege at Johnson High. But but the but the uh or you can look it up. Look up Lyndhurst High School shooting and it'll and and the movie, and I think there's two different names. I'm not sure why. I think maybe it was picked up by a different company or something and renamed, but um, you can find both, I think, on Amazon Prime, and uh so they did make a movie about it. It's very, very sad. I can't I've only seen it once, I can't watch it. It's too much.

SPEAKER_01: 19:15

Yeah, oh I bet too much.

SPEAKER_04: 19:18

Um, a lot of things have happened to me, and then so uh there's more to the story. I was hit by drunk drive. I my car almost exploded with me in it, and there's just some other things that have gone on that I swear is the truth. Um, and then um I wanna I have a story, I have a chapter called My God Story because um I was a brat and I took off with my friend to Utah. And um on the way home to California, I because I can get lost in my own neighborhood, like legit, this is the truth. I went the wrong way and we ended up in Idaho.

SPEAKER_01: 19:52

Oh gosh. Not so hard to do, not so hard to do here, believe me.

SPEAKER_04: 19:57

I am the wrong way, and um, we ran out of gas, we had no gas to get home. I was 17 years old, and we made it home, and it's a true, true story, and you will not believe a word of it, but it is absolutely the God's honest truth. Every single last word, it's very crazy, and I'm not gonna say much more because that chapter is so amazing that I I want everybody to like just be like, What the hell? Yes, so crazy. Um, and so then I met my husband in a nightclub. He was a bartender, I was a cocktail server, and we dated for three years and then got married. We've been together 28 years all together. Um married 25 years and staying strong. And um, I mean, you know, marriage is not the easiest thing in the world. You've got to have compromise, and uh, you gotta be friends and you gotta love each other, and you guys have want to have the same goals. Those are my three advices like be friends, have the same goals, and remember to compromise. And we have our roles, you know. I like to cook and clean and do things in the house, and he likes to do all the other stuff outside. So he does his things, I do mine, and we stay, we stay happily married. Um, and we um I have a stepdaughter, and I talk about um her mom um and the relationship between like I call her bio mom, which isn't really nice, but um, it's a terror.

SPEAKER_03: 21:21

I do that same thing.

SPEAKER_04: 21:24

Yeah, she's terrible. I mean, terrible. And we were in court. Um, she would take us to court all the time. I ended up being in court and in labor. I started it was labor, and they didn't believe she didn't believe me. And my husband's like, I need to go, we need to go. She's in labor. She I was having labor pains the night before, but I didn't know it was my first kid, right? So I thought I just had I thought I had a pee lot. So I'd get up every 10 minutes to go to the bathroom. Little did I know. And so by the and I was getting out of the car at the um at the courthouse, and I was getting out and I had my first major contraction because I was stepping down, and whatever I was moving my however I was moving my body, I screamed out loud, and my husband was like, Oh my god, was that a contraction? And I'm like, I don't know. Like, I don't know. And so then he was like, and then I it was weird. I had a contraction, and I was like, Oh, I'm fine, and then I would walk, la la la la la. And then all of a sudden I'm like, oh god, yeah. And I go, oh, I'm fine. It was so weird. And then we we were in the and then all of a sudden this lady there, she goes, You're having a baby, like right now, dude. Like you were having a baby. You better go. I was calling my mom. I'm like, Mom, what should I do? You know, she's like, go home or go to the hospital. And I wasn't about to have my kid in Long Beach because I lived in Palm Springs at the time. And Doug's sister was gonna be the well, she's a neonatal nurse and she was gonna deliver. And so I was like, I want my sister-in-law to deliver my baby. I don't want some, you know, yeah, I just didn't want my baby born in in uh um Long Beach. So then Doug had to stay there because they wouldn't postpone it. And I, my sister, picked me up and she drove me four hours in traffic because that's what it's like from Long Beach to Palm Springs in California, even though it's a two-hour drive, it's a four-hour drive in traffic and drove me home and I had my baby, and Doug got there just like 20 minutes before the baby was born. So it worked out, but crazy mom, back to the story, crazy biomom. Um, I talk about the stories in there, and I know a lot of people will relate to all the stories. If you're a stepmom and you, you know, you totally will see the story. You totally will relate to what I talk about because it's just hard. Um, and I treat my stepdaughter like she's one of my own. And she did eventually move in with us during her like high school years. And I would say like the teenage years was like giving birth, so I always say like she's mine. Yeah, like you know, it's a hard time. Um, so then I um I had a we had a son, and then my daughter came along eight years later. We all our kids are like eight years apart. Wow, I know I have a 32, a 24, and a 15-year-old.

SPEAKER_01: 24:11

Oh my goodness. And I'm 25, 16, 25, 15, and 13. So we had that one big gap, but she's my stepdaughter as well, the 25-year-old. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 24:23

Um, but um, I mean, we have a good relationship, obviously. But I mean, it's was really tough at times and um it was not easy. But um, so then my son was born. Um he we found out has Asperger's. And um, because he like thinks like in a concrete, you know, he won't think outside. He's super intelligent though, like very bright. I mean, super, super bright. Um, and then my daughter eight years later was born. Well, first I skipped a little beat. Okay, so I built one of the largest preschools in Bakersfield. Um, yeah, it holds 208 kids. Um, it was a 10,000 square foot building and a and a 30,000 square foot play yard. And I built it from my living room, and I so I had a daycare at home, and then I I built onto a church or I had a church give me one of their buildings, and I did it there for a little while. And then I had so I had the family and the church together. And then somebody said, My neighbor behind me, which I was watching his kids, he goes, I just bought a commercial property. Do you want to build a preschool on it? And I'm like, um, yeah. And he goes, I'll build the shell, and then you put the you build the inside and the outside. And so um the shell was like 4.2 million. So I was like, Yeah. SBA loan. And I put it together business plan. I talk about it in the book, like I didn't know what I was doing, I didn't have a degree or nothing. I put together a business plan, and then I um I got a loan for$700,000 or just under$700,000 uh for the insides and the play yard. And I was off to the races, and it was great business at first, and then the economy at 2008 came around and it was like wah wah wah. And uh then my daughter was born. Uh, I mean, I held it in. I held it. I we were doing good for a couple years, and then I got pregnant, and then my which was a miracle because I we were trying for so long, eight years, like finally. Um, and then um, so she was born and needed open heart surgery. And um my my focus was not on the school, and I was shelling money into the program because we went from we had like 188 kids down to 88 kids, and it was really difficult to um to sustain that. And my my daughter needed me like by her side at every minute. Um, so she had her open heart surgery, it goes good, but um, I talk about it in the book. I mean, if you've never had your baby, infant, child ripped from your arms to take to be to be taken to surgery. I mean, it's like it is a thing, and a lot of different things happened during that time that are just unique to me and my husband that I you won't believe when I tell you the things that we happen to us. So um that's why the story is pretty interesting. And then um, you know, we had her chromosomes checked, and they said, Oh, her chromosomes are fine, she has no problems there. Um, when two and a half, we found out she had cerebral palsy. Well, and she has speech problems. Come to find out, my poor child, um we just checked her chromosomes this year again after 15 years because they said that technology has changed. Come to find out, my daughter has what's called 16p uh.11.2 with duplication. And anybody that has ever heard that will know exactly what I mean. Or if you look this up, 16p.11.2. Um, and um and with duplication, what it means is um she has like a mosaic of extra chromosomes in this 16 chromosome P thing, and which causes her to one of the things is I'll have autism. The other thing is um delayed everything, uh speech, specially. And my daughter still, she's 15, you still can understand her. Yeah, she leaves off the beginning and the end of a word, and so you kind of have to guess what she's talking about. So now I just say, just type it on your phone. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, girl, type it on your phone. Um yeah, so she she had uh what I thought was uh she was cute and unique, and she's very sociable. This is the thing, and so everybody used to say, Oh no, these she's she's just going through something, she doesn't have autism, she doesn't. And um, but when she's getting older, and you can see that that what she was doing as a little girl, which she was still doing at 13, 14, now 15. And um, you know, she flaps her hands um when she's excited, she's just like does that a lot. And um uh totally you can see that it's not what it's not like what they were saying. She definitely something was wrong. So I had her um a doctor come in and he goes, Yeah, for sure, with the chromosomal and whatever she has autism level one, so it's not like severe, severe, but it's like, and I asked him, I go, Well, do you think that she's somebody that can be live on her own? And he said, No, like just the time that he spent with her. But I pray that that's not the truth. But I um so my daughter went through surgeries, she's gonna go through surgery every 10 years. Um, she's coming up on having to do another one, and um I felt like I had my surgeries when I was little so that I could be there for my daughter, who has this intense. Anxiety. You if she thinks if she was home right now and she thought I was talking to a doctor on the phone, she'd freak out because she has such anxiety about being going to the doctors now. She's like because she has to do MRIs and she has to do all kinds of stuff, and there's different things for her heart. And she just this is like she doesn't even like to do an EKG, and that's like the easiest thing. You just put stickers on and you still ill. Like that freaks her out worse than um like an echocardiogram, which is like doing an ultrasound. She just she'll do the ultrasound, she doesn't like it. But man, the you put the stickers on her, she freaks out. She's like, I can't do that. Um, but um, yeah, poor girl, she's got a tumor now on her back that needs to come off. I mean, she just poor little girl's got so many problems that I felt like some of the things that I went through in my life, I kind of prepared myself to be a better mom for her and um help her through all her little dips and valley, you know, like the ups and downs of what she's going through. Um, she's in high school now, which is if you have any children with autism and you're dealing with a bit in the elementary school, it's one thing. But when you go to high school, it's like they're not as forgiving to allow them in to be inclusive in all the classes. So my daughter is in um in a special needs class. Um last semester I asked if she could do the math class in an inclusive class if she could get that math skills. And she did do it, but this year I tried to get her to go and she cries and she throws it. So I'm like, I'm not sure if I I don't know what the um I don't I just thought I don't want to lose the battle. I I guess I lost the battle. There's my dogs.

SPEAKER_01: 31:41

No worries.

SPEAKER_04: 31:42

The doorbell rang, delivery, and then my dogs were like, I'm gonna eat delivery man, I'm gonna eat them. Um anyway, so but I do talk about that in my book, and I know I went off a little bit of a tangent. But um, yeah, my poor daughter, she struggles. And so I do talk about my daughter a lot on my podcast too, and I and other people that are struggling with similar things, and I'm like, I relate, dude. Like I can, I've been there with you. Um and in my book, I do talk about other things. I mean, um uh one of the chapters, and I'm just gonna say it, but I'm not gonna talk about it. It's called um Shh pretend you're asleep. So that doesn't tell you everything. Uh I don't want to talk about it, but it is in the book, and um, I touch on that a little bit. And then um I had a Jerry Springer wedding. Um, my family could not get over themselves to let me have a damn day. So I call it Jerry Springer wedding because it was it was nuts. I didn't even get all the pictures for my wedding that I wanted. Um I always say, like, oh, we need to we need to have a um a renewer of renewal of our vows. But then I always watch all those um housewife, you know, reality shows, and every time they renew their vows, they break up. I'm like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do it. Did you have that do you? Did you say?

SPEAKER_01: 33:07

Oh no, no, we had we had a great okay. No, mine's luckily. Well, I'm on my second one, so I made sure it was exactly what I wanted the second time around.

SPEAKER_04: 33:18

So I mean, I um and then I I come full circle at the very end. I ended up going back to I sold my business to the landlord. Um, it was terrible. He didn't pay me all that he was supposed to, and it was it was like a shitty thing that happened to me. But then I went back and got my master's degree and um and I now work in broadcast media. I work um for a TV station and a radio company. Um, I kind of have two jobs. I don't know if I should be saying that. They don't know about each other, but um, but I do that and then I do the podcast um on the side, and then I um at the end of my book, I uh I talk about mastering my mistakes because I realize that um I realize that I made a lot of mistakes in life, and my mom and dad did too. And my mom, my mom, I don't care about my dad, but my mom, my mom made mistakes, but because and I realize this at the end of the book, which I don't know if any of you out there, you have a story in your back pocket, write a book because I swear, it teaches you things, and you learn so much about what things that you just did not really see before, and like opened my eyes. And I realized, like, my poor mom, she didn't have the internet, she didn't have support groups. Um, she had a pamphlet my dad handed her and said, I think our daughter's on drugs, you know. And my mom's like, Okay, you know, and so um that kind of thing. Do you know what I mean? Like, and so I kind of understand my mom. In fact, my mom and I are best friends now, and we call each other a lot, and I'm there for her, and she's here for me. And so that's really important. And I realize things about my brothers and sisters, and I don't talk a lot about my brothers and sisters because really it's not a story that I should tell because they're still with us, and it's they're still my siblings. We don't have a very good relationship, but they're still my siblings, and it's not my story to tell, you know. Yeah, but um, but I master my mistakes at the very end and I talk about them, and I do some bad things too. Um, don't get me wrong. I've I mean, I've done some bad things, and I talk about those things too. And um, it's so it's uh it can you're gonna like the book. I swear, people, you're gonna love it. I swear you're gonna love it. And um definitely it's one of those books that you can share, and uh young people can read it because it's not doesn't have a lot of curse words or nasty stuff in there. When I talk about losing my virginity, it's it's so PG 13.

SPEAKER_03: 35:51

I'm like that's great.

SPEAKER_04: 35:53

Yeah, it's kind of like I feel like it's a coming of age story, and and um I'm just waiting for Netflix to pick it up. Now I'm just using it.

SPEAKER_01: 36:01

I love that. No, why not? That's great. I love it. So I just for those, excuse me, for those of you who are listening and not viewing, um just saying.net, J-E-S-S-S-A-Y-I-N-G.net, jesssaying.net. You can find the book, hopefully there, as well as the podcast, just saying. Um, so make sure to go and and check those out and support her. What about social media? Anything that anywhere you want us to go and support you on social media? Does the book have a page, things like that?

SPEAKER_04: 36:36

Well, the book um on my on my website, I do have a um, you can go, there's different pages on my book, so you can or on my on my website. So you can go to podcast and then it'll take you to some shorts, little shorts of my website, but I'll show you where you can go to find my um my podcast, which is like Spotify, iHeart, Apple, Google, all the places you can get a free podcast, that's where I'll be. And then also on my website, you can go to book and it'll explain to you all the places that my book is sold. Um, Apple, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, uh, Google Books, all of those places. I do have a TikTok. I do have um at it's Jess Saiyan, um, and uh Instagram at Jess Danell. If you just look up Jessica Denell and just I have like Instagram, TikTok, uh uh Facebook. I almost called it Family Book. What the heck?

SPEAKER_01: 37:26

Right, is that right on TikTok?

SPEAKER_04: 37:29

Yeah, I know yeah, TikTok, it's uh Jess Jess Saiyan, I think is what it's under.

SPEAKER_03: 37:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 37:35

Um, and Jess Danell is like all the others um for um like X and um Instagram, yeah, Instagram, and my Facebook is Jessica Denell because that's like more personal, but you can go see all my pictures of all my kids and my babies.

SPEAKER_01: 37:52

I'm doing it. Well, I'll make sure to go follow you so that we can support each other. And um I'm excited to hear more about you know what's gonna be coming in the future and and anything, you know, book signings, things like that you're gonna be doing.

SPEAKER_04: 38:07

I am doing a book sign, I don't have the date yet, but it's a book signing here in Bakersfield, it's at Barnes and Noble, but I don't actually have the date. But I am working on a romance novel.

SPEAKER_01: 38:17

Ooh, okay.

SPEAKER_04: 38:20

It's gonna be a um like a three or four part series, and it's about a um well, the first book is about an ER nurse and a fiery, hot, steamy um firefighter.

SPEAKER_01: 38:32

Okay, I love it. That's exciting. You're having all the fun, Jessica. And you know, writing is such a special way to be able to be creative and really just kind of explore, especially when you retinant kind of a memoirs that as you've done, explore the past, like you said, learn more about yourself and your family and your experiences, and then for that other side, that you know, fiction novel to be able to go and ex and and use that creativity and imagination and just let your uh imagination run wild with that one, right?

SPEAKER_04: 39:12

I think so. Yeah, it's pretty the first chapter is like, okay, I need a shower. I mean, it's I try not to make it too because that's not just in my I'm not I'm not that kind of person. I don't do that in public, so I don't do it's not terrible, but it's still steaming to me.

SPEAKER_01: 39:30

I think excited. Well, thank you so much for sharing with us today. And please go and support her and go to the website. Also go to um Amazon and Spotify and all the places you can get podcasts and books to get the book and the podcast and go to her socials so you can support her there. And we will stay in touch so when the next book comes out, we can have her back on and do this again. Wonderful. Thank you so much for your time.

SPEAKER_04: 39:58

I I appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me on. And I I I'm glad that I was able to connect with your audience because it means a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 40:06

Oh, it was so much fun. Thank you so much, and let's stay in touch for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 40:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 40:30

Oh, yeah. Stories of love and courage of that. Love it. Let's talk about it for family softly. Let's see, look at it, get it beautiful, the heart is fist and strong, but this is a melody.