In this second installment of the Children First Family Law podcast’s four-part series on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Krista welcomes her longtime friend Chris Markham. Chris opens up about his childhood in a family affected by divorce, emotional disconnection, and abuse. He also reflects on the devastating day he survived the Columbine High School shooting as a freshman, bringing to light the profound ways trauma can shape a child’s life. His willingness to share these experiences provides an intimate glimpse into how ACEs manifest in real families.
Chris recounts how parental alienation, strict limitations on contact with his father, and the instability of living with a mother struggling with substance abuse compounded the trauma of his early years. Physical abuse at the hands of a stepfather further deepened the challenges he faced. These experiences left him with a constant sense of disconnection and a drive to seek out healthier role models and mentors who could help him imagine a different future.
Despite the weight of these adversities, Chris discovered strength in discipline and community. Through martial arts, mentorship, and his own determination, he cultivated resilience that carried him beyond the instability of his upbringing. The discipline he adopted helped him counter destructive patterns and provided him with the tools to process his pain in constructive ways. His story demonstrates the critical role that supportive adults and structured environments play in helping children heal from trauma.
Today, Chris is a husband and father committed to building a stable and loving home for his family. He speaks candidly about how his past fuels his desire to break cycles of generational trauma and to model healthier relationships for his children. His journey illustrates both the risks of ACEs and the hope that comes from resilience, making this conversation an important listen for parents, professionals, and anyone striving to support children through adversity.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Growing up with divorce, emotional disconnection, and abuse in the home
- The reality of surviving the Columbine High School shooting as a freshman
- Parental alienation and its impact on a child’s relationship with both parents
- The role of substance abuse and unstable environments in shaping childhood trauma
- Physical abuse from a stepfather and the long-lasting effects of violence in the home
- How discipline and martial arts created structure and stability amid chaos
- Mentors and supportive adults stepping in when family life fell apart
- Building resilience by turning pain into strength and determination
- The ongoing work of breaking cycles of generational trauma
- Creating a healthier family legacy through fatherhood and committed relationships
Resources from this Episode
www.cdc.gov/aces/about/index.html
my.clevelandclinic.org/health/symptoms/24875-adverse-childhood-experiences-ace
www.apaf.org/our-programs/justice/free-resources/what-are-aces
www.samhsa.gov/resource/sptac/adverse-childhood-experiences-role-substance-misuse-prevention
www.childrenfirstfamilylaw.com
All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation.
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ACEs, Trauma, and Hope: Understanding Childhood Pain and Building Resilience – Part 2 of a 4-Part Series Podcast Transcript
Chris Markham 00:00
I knew I had to have something more with myself, because it felt like I was meant for more. And in my heart, I wanted to have more. I wanted to have better. Because I would look around at some of the kids that grew up in families that weren’t divorced, and, , had a bit more of a family home structure, and at least appearing from the outside and looking in they didn’t look like their parents were substance abusers, right? Or they never really showed that they had financial struggles or any of those other situations, right? Or they weren’t experiencing a tragedy firsthand, like Columbine, like my high school sweetheart’s family, and it was night and day difference of seeing how that would model it. And I think , part of that post Columbine situation too, her and her family, it was a big, monumental piece in my life of shaping who I am today.
Intro/Outro 01:00
Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast. Our host Krista. Nash is an attorney, mediator, parenting coordinator and child advocate with a heart to facilitate conversations about how to help children flourish amidst the broken area of family law. As a child advocate in demand for her expertise throughout Colorado and as a speaker on these issues at a national level, Krista is passionate about facilitating and creatively finding solutions to approach family law matters in a way that truly focuses on the best interests of kids. Please remember, this podcast is provided to you for information purposes only. No one on this podcast is representing you or giving you legal advice. As always, please enjoy this episode and be sure to like, subscribe, and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.
Krista Nash 01:50
Hi everyone. Welcome back to The Children First Family Law podcast where we put the focus where it belongs on kids. I’m your host. Krista Nash, this episode is part two of our four part series on adverse childhood experiences, also known as aces. If you joined us for part one, you heard Dr Kathleen McNamara share the science of ACEs and the ways these early experiences can shape a child’s life. Today, we move from research to lived reality. You’re going to meet Chris Markham, whose story brings aces into sharp focus. Chris grew up in a family marked by divorce, emotional disconnection and abuse. He was also a student at Columbine High School in the school shooting, and was in the cafeteria on the day that all went down. This conversation is raw, real and unforgettable. Chris’s story sheds light on the hidden scars children carry when they grow up with trauma, including the trauma of divorce and the courage it takes just to survive. Let’s begin part two, living through aces. Hi everyone. Welcome back to The Children First Family Law Podcast. I’m very excited to have a very old friend of mine and someone who is going to share a very personal story with you all today. His name is Chris Markham, Chris, welcome. I’m glad you’re here. We’ve been talking about doing this for a while. Chris can tell the story of how we met here in a minute. But as I shared in the introduction, I’ve been wanting to have somebody on who really embodies resilience through adverse childhood experiences or despite adverse childhood experiences. And I know that Chris’s personal story involves divorce, but also being present and part of the tragedy at the Columbine High School shooting, which is just an incredible, impactful story. I know that he’s actually landed on his feet and is an amazing dad and husband. I was at his wedding. I’ve gotten to see him live through a lot of this. And so Chris, thank you for sharing your story today. I hope it’s an encouragement to people. So let’s just get it out of the way. Go ahead and tell everybody how we met.
Chris Markham 03:58
Ah, so we met. I was a personal trainer at 24 hour fitness, back in 24 hour fitness heyday, and you came in looking for a trainer.
Krista Nash 04:08
Be careful not to bash me here.
Chris Markham 04:12
You were really looking for someone to whip you into shape.
Krista Nash 04:25
I mean, I went home crying hard after the first day, and I was like, I hate this guy.
Chris Markham 04:29
Let’s calibrate some of the listeners and readers here. This is after you’ve had four children with three pregnancies.
Krista Nash 04:37
I just told Chris, as we started that the day we’re recording this. My youngest kids are twins. Today is their 21st birthday. So we were, whoa, we are old because I would drag those four little kids, my little ducklings to the gym with me. And I guess the boys were maybe two, or something like that. They were little.
Chris Markham 04:54
I remember you coming in like a mama duck, and the kids were all single file behind you. You took the kids to the kids club, and you’re like, I’m getting changed. Don’t start without me. I was like, I can’t start without you.
Krista Nash 05:05
And then the first day he, like, we did this horrible thing across the big gymnasium where he made me do these, I don’t even know what. Wait, actually, I do. They’re lunges, holding weights, and perfect practice makes perfect. Do it again.
Chris Markham 05:19
Do it again. Start over.
Krista Nash 05:23
I went and I told my husband, and my husband, I don’t want to do this. And my husband said, sounds like he’s a really good trainer. Why don’t you train for a long time? We got really integrated. We were really fit.
Chris Markham 05:37
Back then, both of us were very fit, and you got extremely fit. I think I hadn’t had a client take that dedication to the level that you did. I mean, I think you even got, at the time it was the Body Bug calorie app that needed a laptop. So you went and bought a whole nother computer on top of buying sessions and membership and the body bug and getting ready to prep for workouts, to getting another laptop so that you could track your nutrition.
Krista Nash 06:05
It was crazy.
Chris Markham 06:07
I mean, it was, I think it’s average accuracy at the time was 96%.
Krista Nash 06:13
I was literally not even in law school then.
Chris Markham 06:16
No, you weren’t. And it was, you were like, I’m doing this gung ho, and I just remember how quick your results came.
Krista Nash 06:24
I need to do that again, man. I mean, I kind of, I’m kind of barely doing it now.,
Chris Markham 06:29
I think part of that toughness and everything else, I think it made us connect deeper, and that’s kind of why we’ve had this friendship too.
Krista Nash 06:38
Yes, we did. My husband would always say, I don’t know how you’re getting fit, because all you do is talk with this guy. Like, quit talking so much. Why don’t you just lift? I was always like, Chris, tell me about your life.
Chris Markham 06:52
You were trying to pour into me, and you did, and brought me to church and Christ, and you were a major influence of that in my life, and so was your husband, Judd, in a massive, massive, way.
Krista Nash 07:05
I appreciate that so much. We had a lot of conversations about starving people in Africa, and how God is with them, and this kind of stuff. It was that kind of relationship. But I don’t know. I think you’re working out several times a week. I don’t know you really helped me in my life. It was really helping me meet goals. And I remember, I was almost 30, and I was like, oh my gosh, I’m almost 30. No wait, I was almost 40, and I’m like, I’m almost 40, and you’re like, quit rushing it, you’re not 40 yet. And it just was a really special and it still is, but it was a really special time and relationship. And you helped me do things I never thought I could do, like stand on those crazy bosu balls.
Chris Markham 07:40
You were standing on those giant physio balls doing the craziest X curls and shoulder presses and twist rotations, and
Krista Nash 07:49
I almost fell a couple times, and, like, almost broke both my legs.
Chris Markham 07:54
You’re probably one of the strongest pound for pound clients I’ve ever appreciated.
Krista Nash 07:58
I also remember that you were like, we need to get you on an ad for 24 Hour Fitness Fitness with all your little kids around this big ball you’re standing on and I’m like, I’m not doing it unless they pay me, which they wouldn’t do. So, they missed out. So enough about that, but it’s a kind of funny story, and I always want to be real and human and share my own stuff with people. So, that’s how we met, and I remember you talking about your own family and your own childhood, and your parents being divorced when you were really, really little. And then I do remember also, you showing me that you, like we started talking about Columbine High School, which was around the corner, really, from where we were working out. And I was in California working when Columbine happened, and you were what, year in school, freshman? Freshman in school. And, we’ll get into that more. But I mean, Chris literally has scars on his arms from the shrapnel, and so he was really there and in it. So, let’s get started, though, talking about your parents. So you were little. You just told me, as we were prepping, that you were two years old, when your parents separated, and about four when they divorced.
Chris Markham 09:00
It was around my birthday. I remember it was kind of an awkward birthday. On my fourth birthday, we were at a Fun Plex place there.
Krista Nash 09:08
Aren’t you a February birthday? So we’re talking,
Chris Markham 09:11
I think it was around Valentine’s Day they got divorced. But I just remember how awkward that was when I wanted my dad to stay for my birthday, but he, I remember him telling me he can’t and I was like, I didn’t understand it. And I was like, Mom, can you stay? Can you say? And she didn’t even respond to me, and just went about trying to get the party moving along. And my dad just said he kneeled down, got down, gave me a big hug, kiss, and said he had to go.
Krista Nash 09:43
So you were turning four? That’s a pretty early memory for a little kid. Just that you remember that pretty poignantly.
Chris Markham 09:50
I do, actually, because it was my dad. He did stay for a little bit. He gave me my first baseball glove and a bat on that birthday. It was the first time I got a real official baseball glove and bat, and I just remember, we’re trying to do the putt, putt golfing and stuff. And I was like, stay, stay. And he’s like, I can’t stay for the whole party. And I was just like, why? And he’s like, you’ll understand probably when you get older. But he was just like, I can’t tell you either. And it was just awkward. And it was one of those things that I found out as I got older, that it was my mom kind of pushing him out and holding him at bay, and keeping him at that distance and not allowing him to partake in some of those things.
Krista Nash 10:36
And you were, you had one older sister, right? How much older was she?
Chris Markham
Two years older.
Krista Nash
Okay, so what other early memories do you have, then, of the divorce situation?
Chris Markham 10:50
I have. I remember just, like, really strict guidelines of when I could see him. I remember my mom telling me, too. It’s just funny. Remember my mom telling me, like, if I ever saw dad, my dad, like, trying to talk to me at school or pick me up early or anything like that, don’t go with him, and to, like, talk to her or tell a teacher or something, and to let her know if my dad came by.
Krista Nash 11:16
Was it a domestic violence situation?
Chris Markham 11:19
Uh, no, there’s no proof of that, but my mom says that. But my dad says no.
Krista Nash 11:25
And did you ever, do you have any memories, or if your sister does of actually seeing any of that?
Chris Markham 11:30
No. And yet, another weird thing too is like, if you’ve ever met my dad, the guy is a gentle giant. He is a calm, calm guy, and I’m not, I’m high energy, buzzing personal trainer out there, like, in your face intense.
Krista Nash 11:46
And now I’m gonna say too, that you’ve transitioned to be this big dog executive at a major company, which is also very cool. So just that you’re not still personal training, even though that’s a very valuable job. The world needs more and long term personal trainers. But that’s not what you’re doing now.
Chris Markham 12:01
Not what I’m doing now. But I just remember, if you’ve ever met him, like, he’s calm. I’ve never, I’ve seen him yell at me, but if I was being bad, and I just remember, like, the one thing he would do to discipline me, he would just, like, flick me here in my head. And I would just get so upset.
Krista Nash 12:20
So that wasn’t your lived experience of him at all, that he was violent.
Chris Markham 12:27
Right. So when I’m trying to, like, go on with my life, and my mom’s like, you don’t know, you don’t understand, you don’t remember, but then I look at, well, look how he’s treating me. Now I’m not making any sense. That stuff doesn’t just stop, and is just very different. So what my mom was trying to like I guess, put in my mind, versus what my father was showing me was opposite ends of the spectrum.
Krista Nash 12:53
Were your parents physically in the same area? Or was your dad? I think I understood that your dad was on the road a lot.
Chris Markham 13:02
Yeah, from a young, young age, up till first grade, second grade. So it was the summer going into second grade. I think my father was laid off from a major company in the Littleton area that was one of the nails in the coffins. I think that had him move back to California to be closer to my grandparents and be there and closer to his side of the family, because in Colorado, all he had was, like some extended cousins. But he did take some jobs. I remember he told me, he’s like, I took a night job working at a Conoco gas station just to try to make it work. And he had, he had his townhouse that he had purchased too, and he was trying to keep up with the payments of that and everything. And the townhouse was kind of towards Chatfield High School, so kind of around the corner from where we lived
Krista Nash 13:52
Columbine High School and Chatfield high school, just for people who aren’t familiar, are pretty close to each other, and rival high schools, right? Like 10 minutes, maybe not even.
Chris Markham 14:00
Right. So he was trying to make it work and do it however he could. But I think that was one of the final straws in the coffin, plus, with my mom, I think holding us at bay, almost in this weird, tight control, almost gave him permission to just say, hey, look, this feels, it’s just failing completely.
Krista Nash 14:20
Was he in Colorado with you guys trying to make it work, from when you were four till about first or second grade? Do you remember having actual pairing time with him?
Chris Markham 14:29
Yes, he was here for a few years, and yes, we had parenting time on the weekends. My mom would say. Let me give you an example too, because I got chicken pox at a young age. So, my mom was just frantic about the things, and so getting into the bath and having to put that chicken pox stuff on, my mom, here’s, here’s the differences of intensities. My mom was super like rubbing it on me, and it was kind of rough, and it hurts, chicken pox hurt, right? She was just rubbing it on me and not being careful with it. My dad took a Q tip for every single one of them. So it’s like, I would be like, Dad, why does mom not do that?
Krista Nash 15:10
So, I guess he’s not violent and mean?
Chris Markham 15:14
And he was just like, I don’t know, kiddo, and just trying to be him and just trying to make it always a good time when we’re with him. And he understood that I was always craving that connection with him too.
Krista Nash 15:27
Do you remember you or your sister resisting going to your dad’s or resisting going back to your mom’s?
Chris Markham 15:33
Never, never. I did resist wanting to go back to my mom’s and also to my mom. She dated a lot of questionable men after that, and even at that time, there was a guy she was dating too that I didn’t like.
Krista Nash 15:45
And were those men? Were any of them mean to you?
Chris Markham 15:49
Yes. Like, violent, yes. A few of them were pretty abusive too.
Krista Nash 15:53
Like what? Like, screaming at you, hitting you?
Chris Markham 15:55
Physically hitting me or beating me while I slept.
Krista Nash 15:59
Were they beating your mom too?
Chris Markham 16:01
My step dad, the one she ended up marrying at the time. This is years later, too, by the way, too. But it had spun out of control. Substance abuse too. He and I got into it when I was 19, and I put him in the hospital. And then, after that tiff, the police said, Well, he is on the house and he wants you out, so you have to abide by that. So I moved out, moved in with my dad, because my dad had moved back after Columbine from California. And then after that, after he got out of the hospital, he targeted his violence and abusive nature towards my mother, then at that point, and then that’s when my mom finally ended things, when it finally happened to her.
Krista Nash 16:47
So you had a lot of reasons to not go back to your mom’s house. Sounds like she was really struggling. I mean, that’s hard stuff, right? I mean, now might call her an alienator, though. The big word in family law now is alienation. It’s usually an overstated term. It’s usually a kid’s impression that’s negative about a parent is usually a soup of stuff. It’s a lived experience. It doesn’t sound like you had that with your dad anyway, but an effort to sabotage the relationship of your children with the other parent, kind of drum up fears and stuff is what we’d kind of consider that now to be a behavior.
Chris Markham 17:25
That’s totally what was trying to happen was you don’t remember he was abusive. You’re just blocking it out. And I’m like, no.
Krista Nash 17:32
That’s only four when you’re, I mean, you were so little at the time and all. So dad eventually says, I really can’t do this. I’m sorry. I gotta move. You must have been heartbroken.
Chris Markham 17:42
Oh yes. I mean, he says when he came over to hug us, when he was driving out to California, I was more concerned about watching Ninja Turtles, but I remember it being like, I didn’t understand when I wouldn’t see him again. Like, how long that time would be? And it never really crossed my mind, because it would be like, okay, like, I’ll see you soon.
Krista Nash 18:09
No concept of, like, distance or time, and, gosh, this is before FaceTime,
Chris Markham 18:14
Yes. So, I mean, this is still when you had to call long distance.
Krista Nash 18:19
It’s well before, I mean, what year was Columbine? 99? Okay, so he leaves. So then, when did you see him again?
Chris Markham 18:38
I did not see him in person until 94 so, like, fifth grade, the end of fourth grade. I remember my mom telling me that because my dad ended up getting a job doing truck driving across the country, like long haul, what they call it. And I remember.
Krista Nash 19:02
That’s big trucks, the big trucks, the ones you can sleep in and stuff at the truck stop.
Chris Markham 19:07
Yes, he had a sleeper cab and stuff. I remember my mom telling me, like, hey, your dad is going to be here. Do you want to go see him? And I was like, I just remember getting a static, oh my god, like, my neck snapped around, and I was like , yes, yes, yes. We have to go do this. We have to go do this. And I remember on the drive there too because we were meeting up in Commerce City. And if people don’t know this, in Colorado, up in Commerce City, there’s a lot of truck shops up in that area. So there’s a lot of where truck drivers stop over. It’s that I-76 and I-70 corridor.
Krista Nash 19:43
Kind of a pretty industrial area.
Chris Markham 19:49
Yes. And I remember my mom getting frustrated with, like, trying to find the truck stop that he was at to meet us, because he was like, hey, I’m going to be at this truck stop at this time. And there weren’t cell phones or anything to help map it. Is it here or it’s just like, there wasn’t even MapQuest, you could print directions off the internet kind of thing.I remember my mom getting frustrated with trying to find out that she almost turned the car around and went home, and I remember her saying that, and I was like I just remember reaching up out of my seat and grabbing her on the arm while she was driving. And I was like, no, we have to find him. We have to make this work. And she took a big, deep breath, and she was like, okay, we’re going to do this. And so I remember when I first saw him, and I ran up to him in the truck stop, and he bent down and picked me up, hugged me. I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t stop crying for like two hours. It was just so happy to see him, and so bad that it’s been so long. And I was just wondering, oh my God, here he is. And it impacted my mom too at this point, because my mom was between the men she was with in her life at this point. At this point, she’d been single for a little while, and I just remember seeing her and she started crying because she started seeing how much it was affecting me and my sister too. She was crying. And then my mom started crying. And then we hung out. And then I remember, like, my dad’s partner he was driving with. He was telling him about times like, hey, we should get going here.. And then my dad’s like, hey, can we get more time? And then I just remember the guy came back up, and he’s like, hey, we’re going to pull out much later, so you can take as much time as you want tonight to be with him, but we’re going to be hitting the road early in the morning. I just remember that night too. I was so excited too, because I was like, Mom, can dad come back to the house? And so we drove all the way back down to Littleton. He came down with us and rode in the car.
Krista Nash 21:51
That was good of her, at least to allow that.
Chris Markham 21:52
That was something different from what my mom had ever done before. Like this is out of character for her. And I was so excited to show him how we had just gotten a Super Nintendo for Christmas. And I was like, check this out. And we were just showing them the games, and I was trying to show off how horrible I was with it. Not much of a gamer, even now, but it was just, I remember the time I got to spend with him, and it was just those things that were just so precious to me still, and it still are today.
Krista Nash 22:29
I mean, it’s so poignant. It was in what you got maybe eight hours with him, or something like that,
Chris Markham 22:35
Not even that, not even. It was probably like five.
Krista Nash 22:39
in like years, and you’re like this little boy who just loves his dad.
Chris Markham 22:43
And he took pictures, though, and in every picture you could see, I’ve been crying, and my eyes are really red, and I’m trying to smile, get thumbs ups and just be happy. Because he’s like, come on, dude, smile. But you could see it on my face.
Krista Nash 23:04
Did your mom behave during that whole time?
Chris Markham 23:08
She did. She did. It wasn’t the normal aggression between her and him. She gets really aggressive.
Krista Nash 23:16
And as a kid, what did it do for you to see your parents actually get along?
Chris Markham 23:25
To me, as a kid, here’s something that’s pretty powerful that, to me, made me think they could probably get back together.
Krista Nash 23:32
See that happens a lot. I just had a kid share this with me at a home visit. They were like, I asked Santa for my parents to get back together. If you loved me, you would get back together. I mean, kids think this all the time. It’s a fantasy of theirs that is really common.
Chris Markham 23:47
And I thought for the first time they maybe they could make it, like, maybe, maybe there’s something that could be. And it was just you, like you said, the fantasy in my head. But as I got older, I came to understand it as, like they did have love for each other at one point, and they could try to be respectful with one another more and more. My mom was respectful towards him. I don’t ever remember my dad. My mom would get mad at transitions and stuff and drop offs. I don’t know what they call it now, exchanges. I remember my mom always just snapping at him, wanting more, asking for more, giving him more money. And he was like, you’re getting what you got, and that’s all I got. You can’t squeeze blood from a rock.
Krista Nash 24:35
Do you remember that? Were you worried? People talk now, researchers talk about, I mean, at the time, nobody was researching this stuff. And your age, now they are, and it’s a whole thing that they research is this exchange problem and how stressful that is for kids every time those exchanges occur. Because it’s this, first of all, you got to kind of be a shape shifter in the way that you are in one house versus the other, and then just like going across the threshold in this war zone. You’re crossing a borderline every single time. Did you feel that way?
Chris Markham 25:08
My mom had these other men in the house. My mom obviously, there’s still studies, like mothers’ children act worse, and behave worse for their mothers, than anybody else, but my mom would let me get away with some things, but my dad would keep it disciplined, but it was fun and relaxing too. I’m trying to find the words to express that. I always look forward to going to his house, because that structure and discipline, too, made me happier. Does that make sense?
Krista Nash 25:42
Yeah. Because kids, sometimes people think kids do better under no rules, but it’s like a little emperor. It actually isn’t that fulfilling to a kid, right?
Chris Markham 25:53
But then I’d come back to my mom’s too, and she would try to be the “I’m the fun parent too” kind of thing, and then halfway through the week it would shift too, and then it would just be bad mouthing my dad.
Krista Nash 26:06
So then, okay, after the truck stops, you drive back with him, with your mom and say goodbye. Did you do that too?
Chris Markham 26:12
No, actually, it was so late because we got there, this was in the winter time too. So obviously, the sun’s going down, and I just remember, we did actually, no, we did have to get back into the car. We did. She didn’t leave us home alone. We got back in the car. And I remember falling asleep getting out of the neighborhood. I don’t even remember getting on the highway. I think about it.
Krista Nash 26:38
Do you remember saying goodbye to him?
Chris Markham
No, I was out.
Krista Nash
Oh, really. So he just, that was it? He’s just gone? So when did you see him again?
Chris Markham 26:47
Christmas break of 95
Krista Nash 26:51
So when was that? How old were you? I mean, were you talking to him much between that time?
Chris Markham 26:58
So we started doing a thing after that where we really were trying to buckle down weekend phone calls, and calling long distance and just making sure, I would take the time out for me, whatever I was doing, if I was hanging out with friends on the weekend, or hanging out what, playing video games, or whatever I was outside, kicking the soccer ball around, or, I would make sure that I would talk to him and on my week. And then that got pretty frequent. And then there would be parts where it wouldn’t just because of certain things that would kind of break up that consistency, like Boy Scouts Camp trips and stuff. And then all of a sudden we’d fall out of it because we were gone for a week, and then it was like, okay, hold on, let’s get back into this kind of thing.
Krista Nash 27:44
Did you ever go to California to see him?
Chris Markham 27:48
I did that for the first time in 95 at Christmas when we flew out there. And my mom, when we came back, my mom said she felt so bad to have first Christmas without us. Like, it really impacted her too. But I remember telling her too would kind of change her perspective. And she told me this too when we were older. She was like, but think about all the Christmases Dad didn’t have.
Krista Nash 28:20
I was gonna say, like, Mom, you missed one.
Chris Markham 28:23
And it was like, oh, okay, like, insert foot in the mouth kind of thing. And I just remember being out there that Christmas. I didn’t want to go back to Colorado. And then, then, I think we didn’t fly out that summer. We flew out the next summer. So the summer between sixth and seventh grade for a visit. And I remember that visit was really bothering my dad, too, and he was really upset to say goodbye to us. And I just remember there were so many people standing around, and I was trying to go get on the airplane, and there’s all these other adults, and they kind of like, hold me.
Krista Nash 29:01
This is before 911 so you could go to the gates, and could get a lot more emotion happening.
Chris Markham 29:09
A lot more. And I remember just stopping, and I turned back around. I was like, Dad, Dad, don’t. Don’t make me go. Please, don’t. And he told me later that it crushed him.
Krista Nash 29:18
Oh, I can imagine he was actually in a really pretty close relationship with you.
Chris Markham 29:22
Pretty close, yeah, I’d say so.
Krista Nash 29:26
So then at least you got as you’re a little bit older, you got to see him more. I’m toned down after that truck stop visit. Did she kind of choose to tone it down?
Chris Markham 29:32
Of choose she did tone down a lot of the rhetoric that would come out of her mouth about bad mouthing my dad kind of went away, because at that point, too, in 95 she started dating my stepdad and got married to him, and then the abuse got worse, and all the way through high school, and then at the end of my high school careers, where my beginning of my freshman year of college, that’s when everything went down between him and me, and I had to go move in with my dad and all that stuff.
Krista Nash 30:02
So then, before we start talking about Columbine, then, when you think about your childhood, and you think about the divorce and your separation from your dad and all of that, did you feel traumatized? Did you feel like there’s a hole that?
Chris Markham 30:20
Yes, there definitely felt like a huge gait being full in my chest and just something could never fill it up. And I think also too, that would lead to a lot of my acting out behaviors that I had as a young guy.
Krista Nash 30:34
It makes sense . I mean, it does make sense.
Chris Markham 30:37
You couple that with my high intensity and energy you got, you got a chemistry cocktail there that is just a nightmare for every adult.
Krista Nash 30:46
You never had any counseling or anything back then?
Chris Markham 30:51
No, that was not something people were doing. I think at this point is when you would start to hear about kids doing therapy, and therapy would help this situation.
Krista Nash
Let’s talk about Columbine. Then, okay, so you’re a freshman. Also, I don’t want to lose our collective memory about Columbine, because everyone should remember it. So tell us whatever you want to tell us about what happened and your experience of it, because I don’t want to lose the chance to memorialize this for people and to remind people of what happened.
Chris Markham 31:24
So to kind of calibrate the listeners and the viewers, my sister is two years older than me. She was friends with the shooters.
Krista Nash 31:36
So, she was a junior? And the date was? April?
Chris Markham 31:43
So she was in her junior year at Columbine, and the date was April 20, 1999.
Krista Nash 31:47
April 20. And so you’re at the end of your freshman year, and she’s in her junior year, and she was friends with the shooters.
Chris Markham 31:58
So they would come over to my house all the time and hang out. But she, when you see those pictures of the trench coat mafia, the name of the clique, the friend group that they had, like you see all over Oprah and everywhere else, my sister is there and all of that. Okay, my sister was dating Chris Morris at the time, and they were high school sweethearts. They did get married, and then they got divorced.
Krista Nash 32:21
And was Chris Morris friends with Eric and Dylan?
Chris Markham 32:25
He was the guy that was incorrectly identified, I think, by some news outlets that he was a possible shooter. He wasn’t even there in the vicinity of it when it happened. And so there’s all those speculations and conspiracy theories too, like why he wasn’t there because he hadn’t known whatever. I don’t think that at all. I’ve known Chris too, and I thought Chris was just a young punk teenager too at the time, and just wrapped up in the wrongness of what had happened.
Krista Nash 32:58
Do these guys actually wear trench coats all the time anyway? Or is this trench coat thing, like the day of?
Chris Markham 33:03
No, they wore trench coats all the time.
Krista Nash 33:08
Ok, so almost like cowboy dusters, right?
Chris Markham 33:10
You got it, you got it. So the morning of, I go to a couple classes, and then I remember I was kind of late coming down to lunch, because I stopped off in the library real quick.
Krista Nash 33:26
By the way, in the Library is where a lot of the carnage happened, for those who don’t know.
Chris Markham 33:29
Correct. And then I went down to grab my lunch. And then I remember seeing a small number of my friends, so at the group of friends that we stood at lunch together, Daniel Robot, Lance Kirkland, Sean Grazer, and saw them going out the side door to go eat outside, because it was a nice morning that day, spring morning.
Krista Nash 33:54
Yes, like, let’s go outside, smell the cut grass and be outside.
Chris Markham 33:56
Right. And you could tell the school year is ending, and everybody’s getting that summer itch and just ready to go and enjoy their summer, right? And so I remember trying to get my lunch real quick, and then I just got paid for my Subway sandwich, and I remember grabbing a seat real quick and cracking a few jokes with some some friends, and they were just, like, being friends and being teenagers, talking trash to each other. And then I was like, I’m gonna get up and go and turn around and go outside. And then I remember hearing the boom as I stood up, some loud boom. And I was like, what? And made me snap my head around even faster. And then you start hearing the sound of, kind of like it’s gunfire, but, like, you’re thinking like, where is it at what’s going on? And you see, you hear what you would think is kind of fireworks, right? But it’s not like the normal fireworks that you are used to. Something was off. It was more broken up at a different cadence. You’re kind of going, like, what’s going on, what’s going on, what’s going on. And I remember looking out the window, and I could see Daniel Robot drop to the ground getting shot. And then I remember seeing Lance Kirkland trying to jump over the fence that they just recently installed off to the side, there were the stairs that led up on the exterior, the outside, and then Sean was trying to push his way back into the door, and that’s where he was shot too, as well. And so I remember kind of grabbing him and pulling him in. And teachers were coming out of the teacher’s lounge, because it was around the corner, and they’re like, what’s going on?
Krista Nash 35:37
And you notice, at this moment, like when do you realize oh my god, this is a school shooting? Those are your friends that you just saw go outside.
Chris Markham 35:45
Right as I was coming down the stairs, I could see them heading outside.
Krista Nash 35:49
Are they? Were they freshmen, too?
Chris Markham 35:56
Yes. And then that’s when, like, another kid, Matt Katz Meyer, like, grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me back. And that’s when I just realized, like, this is what’s going on. This is a shooting. Oh my god. And I remember running through the cafeteria yelling, like get down and screaming. And I just remember, like, a tidal wave of people just went down like a wave and jumped underneath the table.
Krista Nash 36:17
Something about you, you could have just left and you didn’t. I remember you telling me the story a long time ago that you could have protected yourself more, but you were trying to help other people.
Chris Markham 36:29
Right. I could have just ran out and just ran across and not said anything else and yelled it down. I just had this, the fight or flight kicked in with me. And, like, I did have some flight because I went running through the cafeteria to run away from the direction where I had identified where the firing was taking place. But this urge of this loud scream came out of my body, my gut, and it was the loudest I think I’ve ever been. And I’m a loud person, and it was like get down, and I just at the top of my lungs and deep from my chest, and part of me felt I needed to do more. I needed to do something else, because I ran around the corner, and then I came back out again for the bathrooms on the other side of the cafeteria, leading into these tucked away bathrooms leading into behind the auditorium stage, and they came back out and slid down at these tables. And then I remember seeing the janitors. And I remember seeing Dave, the teacher, running through and then I
Krista Nash 37:33
I remember he was a teacher that passed away, right?
Chris Markham 37:36
Correct. He was, well, what was his last name, Sanders,
Krista Nash 37:39
So, I’m a Bear Creek High School graduate, which is another Jefferson County School, and Dave’s daughter was somebody who was in my time frame at Bear Creek, so, I remember that in that connection as well, that he was killed in it and his daughters had been at Bear Creek. Bear Creek’s pretty close to Columbine, like these are all really close high schools. But I graduated while you were a baby. So it was a long time ago, but his daughters were in school with me, and so it just hit the entire community. So, okay, so you saw Dave coming.
Chris Markham 38:17
I look at one of the janitors too, and he’s trying to run around and help the kids and figure out what’s going on, too, and he’s telling other kids to keep down and stay down. And I’m like, hey, what do I do? He’s like, stay down. And I just remember thinking, I gotta do something. I gotta do something. I remember looking across the way, and there was this classmate of mine, Brooke Allison, was at this table, and I think Jamie Thurman too as well. They were over there, and I just remember looking at them, and I was like, okay, I gotta do something. And I just remember them looking at me kind of like, cool. What’s going on, what’s going on? Everybody’s asking what’s going on. And I was like, there’s a shooting. There’s a shooting. Something’s happening. There’s a gunman. And at the time, I didn’t really register that it took multiple months of therapy to kind of bring more of the tragedy out and reconnect it, because I witnessed the accounts can only take you so far, but since then, I remember much more details. But I remember then jumping over the railing and climbing up, jumping over the railing to head up the stairs, and then I went down one of the main halls, the secondary main, I don’t call it the main hall that led down to the front office. This one kind of does, but it goes down towards the library into the school, all the way down towards the English and Math halls. And I stopped at the concert room, choir concert choir room, and I banged on the door and opened it up, and I was like, I yelled, get out. There’s a shooting. I ran out the door, and I just remember I interrupted everything that was going on in there. And then one of the kids I was running with, and it was kind of like slow motion at this point too, he pulled on one of the fire alarms to get everybody to get to leave. Mm. And I just remember he’s like, let’s get out of here running. And I was like, good idea. We booked it down that hall. And then no one’s running up the stairs yet at this point. And then as I start to turn to where we’re at the other end of the school now, I start to turn around the English Hall, going to the English corner. I ran into two other classmates, Stephanie Lorenz and Katie beer, and they’re like, what’s going on? And you could look back and because they’re looking behind me, and I could just see this tidal wave of bodies running and screaming coming down the hall. And I was like, there’s been a shooting. Come on. Let’s get out of here. So we turn down the English Hall, and this now is going between the English Hall is the secondary primary hallway, and the main hallway towards the front office of the school in front of the building is where the English Hall is. And so we remember, we turn and we start heading down there. Then we hear pops, and I hear glass breaking, and I push them both down to the ground. We slid and then I picked them up real quick, like under each arm, real fast, almost, and then stood them up. And I was like, let’s run out of here. And I kind of carry them a little bit. And we ran out the exit between the English Hall and the math Hall, and then ran across the street, ran across Pierce, down the steps, across Pierce. And at this time too, there were a bunch of people, but people were worse, like, doing a fire drill, and they were exiting out, and they’re like, what’s going on? And you can hear the gunfire happening. And they’re like, oh my god, oh my god. And then I just remembered, there were some other kids that could drive. They’re like, what’s going on? I’m like, dude, let’s get out of here. I’m like, I need to get out of there. Get in the car. And one of the students was in Boy Scouts with me. And he’s like, come on, get in. And so I jumped in when I was in Boy Scouts prior. And so we started driving this, driving me back to my neighborhood, and because I didn’t live too far. But he remembered the Jeffco Sheriff at this time, at this point too. They’ve already blocked off Pierce. Okay, so they’re trying to stop cars from coming down as best as they can. And he’s like, where are you guys going? I’m like, we’re going home. And he takes me to my house, and I can’t get in. My mom and my stepdad are not home, and usually they’re home at this time because my dad had this day off, and my mom was not working. It’s like, oh my God, and where’s my house key? Well, my house keys in my backpack, my backpack, I left at the table, and I didn’t grab it when all the chaos started happening. And then so my neighbor a couple of doors down was really good friends with my mom. I went down there because I knew she had a house key. My mom had given it to her for some cases of emergencies and stuff, and some of the situations, crazy situations with my former stepdad. So there was an abusive situation there too. But she was like, hey , I was listening to the police scanner. She would do this, and she had, like, a little small daycare business out of our house. So I just listened to the police scanner, and I heard that there was a shooting at the school. So I went out on my back deck and yelled across to my next door neighbor’s backyard, because my stepdad, at the time, was out back building this shed that we had backyard, and she yelled out there that, hey, there’s been a shooting at the school. And so they quickly grabbed what they could and got in their truck and drove down there. And if you look at some of the pictures of the triage and you could see my mom wearing these blue pants and a bikini top because she took her Hard Rock Cafe shirt off and cut it up to use as tourniquets as kids were coming out of the library. And she learned all that she said from my boy scouts and stuff, because we had to do so she was just , Okay, this is what I got. And so she gave me a key to go to the house and to get in. And then one of my mom’s other best friends, Cheryl Palace, she is pathway, bless her, but she had come over and stayed with me, and she because she was really terrified about my sister at this point. I was terrified for my sister, because my sister was in the cafeteria too for lunch. And I’m like, I don’t know what happened
Krista Nash 44:22
Beforehand did you know she was there, or you just?
Chris Markham 44:25
I was never allowed to acknowledge her existence, or whatever, that kind of thing. She’s like, don’t talk to me. We are siblings. If people find out, okay, but if they don’t, don’t say it, don’t acknowledge me.
Krista Nash 44:35
Do you remember actually seeing her there, though, or you just knew she normally was?
Chris Markham 44:39
Yes, I do remember seeing her sitting at her table? I mean, this school at the time, it’s probably changed a lot since then, but this school was very clique heavy. I mean, like, insanely, like, they make fun of it in some movies, Mean Girls, and stuff like that. But it was, it was way worse than that. You weren’t allowed to go outside those bounds. I was one of those weird kids that would go outside those boundaries.
Krista Nash 45:02
So did you see the actual shooters?
Chris Markham 45:06
I did. I saw, oh my gosh, I’m drawing a blank on his name. Dylan. I saw Dylan as he was standing up against the window there real quick. Yes, this is something I’ve remembered later with all the therapies that I had at the cafeteria. And he knocked on the window with his gun. And he took that on the outside of there, on the outside of it, and he was like, get out of here. And then he took the saw off shotgun and shot Lance Kirkland in the face point blank with it.
Krista Nash 45:39
What do you mean? Get out of here. Get out of here. Just get out of here. Okay? And then you saw him shoot Lance in the face.
Chris Markham 45:45
I did see. I saw him take the gun and put it down and it ended up being Lance.
Krista Nash
And Lance was your friend?
Chris Markham
So then after that, I wasn’t allowed to be friends with him because of my sister’s relationship that she had with the shooters.
Krista Nash 46:01
So then, he didn’t? Lance wasn’t killed.
Chris Markham 46:05
No, he lived. He has, like, they’ve, I don’t, I haven’t talked to him or seen him in a while.
Krista Nash 46:09
But so you your family then was, like, ostracized a little bit from because she was in that friend group, So how long did it take, like, the aftermath of this? So you are finally at your home, you’re safe, mom and stepdad, finally come back. Your sister, like, I’m sure this is a massive I mean, I cannot even imagine the stress that this caused everyone and the trauma. When did everything start to actually register?
Chris Markham 46:33
It registered. And my mom that night made me drink, take shots of alcohol to try to, like, get me to get drunk and pass out and just, like try to try to get this day behind us. So I was , All , guys, I did. I mean, like, I’m a high school kid, like, okay, for sure.
Krista Nash
Have you had alcohol before?
Chris Markham
Nope. That was the first time.
Krista Nash 47:01
Really? Oh my gosh. Okay, well, that’s kind of questionable, but
Chris Markham 47:06
Definitely questionable. And was it, was it a good or bad thing?
Krista Nash 47:12
I understand she’s trying to help, but, like
Chris Markham 47:17
Right, but it’s probably the bad way of doing it, like, thinking back, could there have been better consoling? Was there consolation from my mom? No, my mom was also more focused on my sister and to console her.
Krista Nash 47:31
Was your dad? Did he find out and go, I’m coming back? Or what happened? They heard about it. And I was in California at the time too. I was working in marketing and PR. I remember so vividly because my dad, I’m saying, I was saying where Google is now, it was in California. I was in my little PR firm. I was, No, I wasn’t pregnant with Vivian yet. I was almost there because she was born in 2000 but I remember so clearly hearing it on the news, and somebody coming in my office and saying, this happened in Littleton, Colorado. And it was like, Oh my gosh. So I was in California at the time too.
Chris Markham 48:07
My dad tried calling a bunch of times. It was just a busy time, and no calls were coming through to our house. It’s not that our phone was off the hook or anything like that. It’s just all the phones and the cell phone towers were tied up because of all the other loved ones and extended family loved ones we’re trying to ask if they’re okay? Who’s Okay? Who’s not? And then we’re glued to the TV trying to watch updates of what’s going on.
Krista Nash 48:33
By this time, by the way, there were very rudimentary kinds of block cell phones.
Chris Markham 48:41
After the shooting, I didn’t have that nice Nokia.
Krista Nash 48:47
The technology was starting to move forward a little bit.
Chris Markham 48:50
Correct. And I remember my my Great Aunt Kathy finally got a hold of us, and they lived down in Castle Pines in Colorado, and they got a hold of us and were able to then relay back to my family in California, my grandparents and my dad, like, we are okay, and nothing had happened too much to us at that time too. So, and I just
Krista Nash 49:14
Your dad came out, though, and you said he moved back after that, right?
Chris Markham 49:18
Uh, yeah, that summer too. There was, I ended up getting a job as a lifeguard, and that summer, he came out with my cousins, and that was when he was just, like, really serious about returning to Colorado and trying to find a way to make it work fine.
Krista Nash 49:37
He’s not been able to. You guys have both just gone through the most horrific trauma anybody can go through.
Chris Markham 49:43
Right. And so, like, he had tried to make a life for him out there in California too, and just tried to make this long distance thing kind of work. And we did summers out there, and it was him kind of, it was like a wake up call for him too. Like, no, I need to be closer again. And so. Oh, I remember that because I think this summer, the first episode of the prequels of Star Wars came out or something.
Krista Nash 50:08
Oh, right, actually, my husband’s not the greatest gift giver. I’ll just say I shouldn’t put that out in the public zone. But for our anniversary in May, he took me to this movie. I could care less about this. He actually bought the tickets on the internet. He was super proud of himself. Like, even now he’s so not a techie, it’s just crazy. But he’s like, hey, we’re in San Francisco. He bought me tickets to go to this movie for our anniversary. And so I know exactly when that was.
Chris Markham 50:38
And so there was kind of a family reunion for the Markham side too, like, at that time too, when they came out, my grandparents came out too. And I was bugging him, because I was like, dude, let’s go see it. Let’s go see it, because he used to let me watch Star Wars. And so it was kind of our thing. And he’s like, All right, well, he made me a promise. He’s like, I promise you, we’re gonna go see it when I get back. I was kike, so you’re coming back? And he’s like, yeah. And I was just ecstatic. And so he had left, or it was weird, he rented a U haul truck here in Colorado, because he had a storage unit here, and he had it in that then he drove it out. And here’s probably why, because he had some other things too, still in California, and it was kind of like, okay, let’s just unload the storage unit. He got a place. Already figured out where he was going to live, but he had to get his car, so he went back there with the U haul truck, came back out after a few days towing his car. And then I helped him move into his new place. And then that began kind of trying to reconnect. But it was weird too, because at that point too, and here’s, and probably something I haven’t told a lot of people, I haven’t even probably given anything of, is like, with that alienation too, with my mother also came with a lot of you have to be independent, and you have to know how to be independent, make your lunches, do all these things that I see my wife still do for my older kids. And so there was a lot of maturing that I had to do at a younger age because of the divorce, and so coming back in and trying to tie my dad back into my life at this point in my age and with everything had just happened, like, I’m trying to understand my life and what’s normal, what’s not, and then obviously I can understand that this isn’t normal, but this is my life, and where I’m viewing things through, right? So I’m trying to make sure from a social structure and interaction at high school that I wasn’t just this crazy pariah and nothing’s ever going to come of it, and might as well switch schools or something. So luckily, I was able to make some new friends that ended up being much closer friends of mine and my circle of friends drastically down to three people, and then from there, work, being with my dad and just trying to spend every weekend with him. My sister really didn’t, she’s a young adult about to finish high school. She wasn’t coming over every weekend and trying to spend time with him, and he would make those comments to me, like, hey, you think you get your sister to come. I’m like, I’m trying. She’s just not willing right now, keep pushing Dad. Let’s keep trying to do something.
Krista Nash 53:32
Do they have an okay relationship now?
Chris Markham
They do.
Krista Nash
They do. Interesting because a lot of parents, I tell parents, have to be really patient with teenagers if you haven’t had the relationship, or if there’s strain there, and be more focused on the broader relationship, the lifetime relationship, than that moment. So, your dad could have run off to court to enforce more time or something, but not doing so might have preserved it.
Chris Markham 53:56
Right, and even at this time too, like, I wouldn’t it was like, because I think he had to pay child support up to when I was 26 or something.
Krista Nash 54:04
I think you’re only supposed to pay it till 19.
Chris Markham 54:13
So then there was an agreement I got my mom to just agree with. This is like, I had already finished high school, and I was just like, can dad stop paying child support? And I was like, he’s still trying to get his life still pulled together as he’s coming into Colorado, took him a few more years, right? And he’s not a wealthy person. Doesn’t have a very fluent job. He’s a blue collar truck driver. Even today he still doesn’t do long hauls. He does local short hauls, but he’s hauling big concrete pipes.
Krista Nash 54:50
And is your relationship with your dad good?
Chris Markham 54:57
It’s good. He knows my children and just FaceTimed with them on Monday.
Krista Nash 54:59
Okay, so well, a couple things I want to know. So first of all, we started talking about, adverse childhood experiences. I want you to just reflect a little bit on this. Because, I mean, I just tell listeners a little bit that this ACEs study is this groundbreaking study, really, that was a public health research project that started in the 90s. Interestingly, I kind of remember when all this was happening, and it looked at 1000s of people and identified 10 serious types of trauma or adversity in childhood, things like abuse, neglect, witnessing violence, violence and parental divorce and separation, as when it’s high conflict or involves emotional neglect. And it found that the more ACEs a child experiences, the greater the risk later for things like mental health struggles later in life, even substance abuse, chronic illness, difficult relationships and even challenges in being a good parent themselves. And this can be something that really, really can struggle across not just your childhood, but your whole lifespan and impact, even your children and your children’s children, like multi-generational. You had almost all these risk factors, right?
Chris Markham 56:06
I mean so when you think of abuse from my parents, well, from my mom, my stepdad, and then you had the actual physical abuse.
Krista Nash 56:10
Yep, you had a really toxic I mean, it didn’t sound like the divorce itself was that toxic, but you definitely had bad co-parenting in terms of not affirming your relationship. You have this alienation going on. You had, and then you were part of this, not just the horrific shooting, but the social aftermath of somehow, it sounds like, which I wasn’t even aware of before, being in some way blamed or associated with blame because your sister was friends with these, with some of these people, and she had no idea they were going to go do this. How would she know that? Right? So when you think about that, and mean, just to fast forward, you met your beautiful wife, Mallory, who is, like, one of my favorite people. And you guys have these two beautiful boys. How have you recovered? How, how does somebody get through this stuff without having your whole life wrecked?
Chris Markham 57:06
And so at the time too, before the shooting, I was really into Taekwondo. Through high school, and then post high school, Taekwondo has been a big center point in my life. And so that’s also, too, where I drew a lot of influence from other older males being there. And I would be there every day, from before the school would open, I’d be mopping and sweeping and cleaning and then helping the from the youngest, tiny Tigers all the way, and I’d spend it all the way till when the school would close till nine o’clock, go home, do my homework, and I’d ride my bike. Or when it was snowy, if I could get my mom to drink, take me or pick me up on time, that would have been awesome, but she was never on time. Obviously, like, using and substance abuse. And that substance abuse that I saw my mom use was marijuana, and she was a chronic marijuana user to the point where she, I remember one time I asked her to take me to Taekwondo, and she couldn’t even lift her arms up off the couch. She’s like, hey, you just ride your bike. It was not a close bike ride, I’ll tell you that. It was going all the way from Ken Caryl and Pierce all the way over to Southwest Plaza. I’d cut through the neighborhoods to try to make it as much of a shorter ride as I could. But if anybody knows that area too, there’s a lot of hills and stuff, and I only had a single speed, so I didn’t have a way to go faster. And I was just like, if I’m going to do this, and I love this, and I had to get out of the house away from my stepdad, that’s what I did. And so for me, and how I transitioned and healed, was talking about what has happened with me and sharing those experiences, especially with some close friends and people that I wanted to pull and connect and know those with you, pulling it out of me, and also, too, just recognizing, the only person that’s really going to come and save me is me, and the only way that’s really going to happen is just understanding from that almost, and you can say from a biblical aspect, what discipline and self discipline does for you.
Krista Nash 59:21
Your kids are still pretty little, but have you, I mean, little ish, I guess not super little. But although I did see that you’re older one went on a date, which I’m like, what are you doing? That’s not a good idea. At this age, you said you were chaperoning. You think his mom thinks it’s a good idea? You might agree with me, right? But do your kids know about these experiences that you’ve had?
Chris Markham 59:42
Yes, I’ve shared it with them.
Krista Nash 59:45
What have you shared with them?
Chris Markham 59:49
Oh, all of my experiences and in situations that had, like, times where my stepdad would just randomly beat me while I slept, and I’d be waking up to it, and punched in the face and just thrown around and tossed around and just getting beat on. Like what happened to me? I call mine, obviously my littlest, my youngest, he doesn’t understand that stuff. My oldest is understanding it, and can discern like, okay, that’s wrong, and understand from uh, not necessarily from a moral patient, but a moral agent type of person, to being able to understand this is a person that what, how you’re supposed to behave and not supposed to behave, and these are bad things. And this is what’s happened to dad and dad’s life. But it doesn’t define that. And I’ve made that consciously known to them, like, when they get upset or they fail at something or or land and lost in a wrestling tournament or something and and he’s upset about it, I’m like, okay, you lost, but it doesn’t define who you are, and don’t let it define who you are. Don’t let this moment define who you are. You’re more than just sad, and so using that to help parent them and encourage them to be more, because it’s I knew I had to have something more with myself, because it felt I was meant for more, and in my heart, I wanted to have more. I wanted to have better, because I would look around at some of the kids that grew up in families that weren’t divorced, and, like, had a bit more of a family home structure, and at least appearing from the outside and looking at them didn’t look like their parents were substance abusers, right? Or they never really show that they had financial struggles, or any of those other situations, right? Or they weren’t experiencing a tragedy firsthand, like Columbine, like my high school sweethearts family, and it was night and day difference of seeing how that would model it. And I think part of that post Columbine situation, too, like her and her family, it was a big, monumental piece in my life of shaping who I am today.
Krista Nash 1:02:10
So she was not part of Columbine?
Chris Markham 1:02:14
No, she was not. She went to another high school that was kind of nearby, a little bit of ways away. Mullen, a private high school.
Krista Nash 1:02:19
So what did you see in that family that made you want to model, that gave you a model?
Chris Markham 1:02:27
She’s like, okay, my parents, I just have to let you know they’re Catholic, and they do Bible study. And I was like okay, they like God and Jesus, I didn’t know much about this at the time, right? And so I’m like, oh, okay, my friends at school would talk about Jesus. We went to a youth group a little bit, but my mom never took me to church, and we never read the Bible, not with my dad either. So it was kind of like, okay, your parents are Catholic, and you got a little brother, and so trying to be respectful, acknowledging and just attentive and in the moment with them, a parent with them, was one of those things that helped me, I guess, win them over to a little bit. And then when they started hearing about my home life and what was happening at my house. They were more like, no, you need to come over here. You need to stay over here.
Krista Nash 1:03:27
So now, as you look at your own family, do you feel like you’re, I don’t know. Do you feel like you’re modeling that and that you feel like you’ve kind of put aside, aside, like the generational risk?
Chris Markham 1:03:41
Yeah, I would say Maureen’s parents showed me how healthy love looks, and her dad just his consistency too to provide for the family and do what he did, and probably still does, and model good behaviors, and he would have some in depth conversations with me about morality and about becoming a better man, and what is that going to look like for me when I finish high school and it was more than just what are you going to do?
Krista Nash 1:04:13
It’s interesting encouragement. I didn’t expect to talk about you today, that you have all these people despite all this trauma. When you think about it takes a village, sort of thing that can become very cliche, but the fact that you had to take one of the men that you had, like, your girlfriend’s dad and probably teachers and people in your life who modeled different things for you that you don’t really realize that you’re having that impact on people. I think it’s easy to just look at each little family as its own thing, and not recognize that you might have an opportunity to help somebody’s trauma from another family that you don’t even know you’re having that impact on.
Chris Markham 1:04:51
Yeah. I mean, part of that too is I was open to receiving it. And I know some other people my age that had similar experiences to me, they were not.
Intro/Outro 1:05:09
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