In this third installment of the four-part series on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Krista continues her powerful conversation with Columbine survivor Chris Markham. While Chris has shared the trauma of his upbringing and the violence he witnessed, this episode turns toward resilience and healing. His story shows that even when children grow up with high ACEs, it is possible to build a life filled with love, family, and purpose.
Chris reflects on the role therapy played in helping him work through post-traumatic stress, anger, and grief. He explains how finding healthy outlets, such as Taekwondo, supportive relationships, and consistent guidance, helped him shift from a destructive path toward one focused on growth. Krista and Chris explore the challenges of forgiveness, the weight of intergenerational trauma, and how breaking harmful cycles can allow children to experience childhood more fully than their parents once did.
The episode also highlights how parents’ choices during divorce profoundly affect their children. Chris emphasizes that even when relationships break down, children still love both parents. Respecting that bond and avoiding toxic narratives is essential for preventing long-term emotional harm. His personal experiences reveal the lasting consequences of parental alienation and the importance of maintaining space for both parents in a child’s life.
Ultimately, Chris’s journey is both sobering and hopeful. From surviving Columbine to raising two children of his own, he demonstrates how resilience, forgiveness, and intentional parenting can overcome even the most painful beginnings. For parents, attorneys, and professionals working with families, this episode offers a meaningful reminder: trauma may shape us, but it doesn’t have to define us.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Resilience grows when children are guided toward positive relationships and safe outlets
- Forgiveness frees individuals from carrying trauma into adulthood
- Breaking intergenerational cycles allows kids to experience true childhood
- Parents must respect a child’s bond with both parents, even after divorce
- Toxic narratives create lasting damage and resentment
- Healing requires patience, consistency, and space for reconnection
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
https://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 3 of a 4-Part Series Podcast Transcript
Chris Markham 00:00
So getting into therapy after the Columbine shooting, I had some Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, PTSD and very serious anger, serious anger, where I put my head through a glass window just to scare somebody because they were making me mad. And that’s when I knew I was like, okay, I need to go to therapy. And so I started doing therapy at the school, because they had therapists there every day, and then sometimes even on the weekends, it depended on whether we could balance it for the schedule. And so that therapy, you know, she would listen to me, and she was just giving me guidance about, okay, Chris, try to go focus your time here, because she started identifying factors of people in my life that were positive in my life, and could they be more positive, and pushed me in that direction more and that’s when, you know, spending more time with my high school sweetheart and her family, and more time at Taekwondo, because obviously she identified like my home life still wasn’t good, but my relationship with my parents would survive longer. It was more about me and what I needed and not what my parents probably needed, because that shifted the paradigm in my head about okay, Chris, like you can invest yourself in your time where you feel the most return of benefit with it. That’s what drove my life to be how it was. It wasn’t like I was hiding from the hard things and just trying to turn away from them and ignore them. It was those would pull me back down. Go focus on these positive things and don’t let those things influence you and intimidate you and hold you back.
Intro/Outro 01:50
Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast. Our host, Krista Nash, is an attorney, mediator, a 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 02:40
Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Children First Family Law podcast. I’m your host, Krista Nash. This is part three of our four part series on adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs. In part one, Dr. Kathleen McNamara helped us understand aces from a psychologist perspective. In part two, Chris Markham shared his own powerful story of growing up with abuse, divorce and being a survivor of the Columbine High School shooting. Today, in part three, we continue Chris’s incredible journey, this time focusing on resilience. Despite living through what researchers call high ACEs, Chris has built a healthy, meaningful life. He’s a devoted husband, a father of two, and a living example that while trauma shapes us, it does not have to define us. This episode is about hope, healing, and what it looks like to break cycles of pain for the next generation, overcoming aces. Let’s continue with part three, breaking the cycle. Looking back now, I mean, Columbine was how long ago? More than 20 years ago, 25 years ago, basically, a little bit more. Have you seen a lot of different outcomes now that we’re 25 years later, of people you knew there who are still traumatized, still living in those ACEs that they experienced too. Do you think maybe it created, not any naming names, but that they just have not gotten over it, and their own families are suffering because of it?
Chris Markham 04:08
Yeah, I think there is part of, there’s a desire to hold on to it, and it’s almost wrapped up in their identity now who they are. I think there is some of that
Krista Nash 04:20
But also everybody gets trauma bonded.
Chris Markham 04:24
Yeah. I’m not trying to talk down, because it’s the way that they’ve carried their trauma for themselves, right? And I don’t know how much help they’ve had or if they’ve there’s a part two where you have to lay it down. And what I mean by that is, you can’t carry that one day to define you, and that’s so hard. It’s easy to say, it’s hard to do.
Krista Nash 04:49
Well, I would say too, even though I’ve made you come on to this with me to talk about this, I think we’ve talked about Columbine a couple times. I actually think it really hasn’t defined you, you know what I mean? It is a big part of what occurred, and when people hear that you’ve done it, it’s such a crazy story that you’re like, oh my gosh, tell me all about it, but I don’t think you’re running around with a flag like I was in Columbine, you know? I mean, people just happen to hear about it, but It’s not like, you’re like, hey, I want to go tell my story about Columbine. I appreciate that about you, but I mean, I also think that kids are affected differently in divorce and separation. You’re also a very resilient person. You are dominant and tough in a way that some people aren’t. So, some of them are affected in a way that they really might not ever get over it. It’s just that’s part of why this ACEs thing is so hard, because your kids are not necessarily just going to be okay.
Chris Markham 05:46
And that’s part of the other thing too, is, I was seeing something on social media posts. It was parents being irritated that their kids are not as mature as they once were at that age. I can totally relate to that, and I was like, yeah. Why can’t my kid just be more mature and make her own lunches? You know? But then it finishes into the things like, well, just remember, that’s you breaking the childhood trauma bonds of you having to be more independent because of what had happened to you, and allowing them to still be children. I remember some of it when I was younger. I was just like my other friends; they don’t have these things. They got to be a kid. They got to go do this and still be a kid. I just remember my mom like, you can’t, you gotta grow up. I just constantly grew up, and I’m grown up now to the point where, when I have conversations with my mom now I’m like, Mom, this is where you would have told me to grow up.
Krista Nash 06:44
Have you ever had a reckoning with her about and how does that go? Are you healed through that? You and your mom?
Chris Markham 06:52
She doesn’t want to talk about it, to bring it up, because she doesn’t bring more of a fight on. So she’s trying to start from just a place of being fresh.
Krista Nash
Does she acknowledge it?
Chris Markham
I don’t know if she does. She hasn’t acknowledged it to me, the things that she did that were wrong and that she had allowed to happen in my life, but I think she does know that, because I’ve definitely put that in her face, but from a position of where we are currently today, she has told me she has an immense pride for how well I have turned out and grown into a now 41 year old man. She’s proud of my sister too, because she’s turned out pretty good too. With everything that’s happened, she can’t believe it either.
Krista Nash 07:40
So at the end of the day, what would you advise, since most people listening to this would be listening to this to talk about going through divorce. They’re thinking about getting divorced. They’ve already gone through divorce, and they’re still at war, or for the family law attorneys and therapists and other people listening, what perspective can you just give, sort of, as we close,, what kind of hope can you give them, or what kind of warning Can you give them?
Chris Markham 08:04
When you’re getting a divorce, you’re breaking up the family, which is supposed to be, what a word that we communicate by is love, right? And so the kids are just like, well, I love both of my parents, and so when the parents are battling and warring with each other, the one thing that they need to keep in their mind and at the forefront of their interaction with each other is that my child still loves this person. I might not, but my child does, and if I love my child and if I respect my child, then I shall show a level of respect to this individual. As much as this individual has caused hurt and pain to me, or abuse, or whatever it might be, I still have to come from a position of respect in that because you’re not honoring the next generation if you don’t, and so when you try to plant seeds in their minds that are toxic, even if it might be true, but not from their experiences, be careful with that, because even today, that’s with what my mom did with me. I still carry resentment with it, whether it’s true or not. My experience with my father is completely different, and so her going to plant that in my mind, that keeps my mom at longer than arm’s distance of a relationship, and she won’t ever have the ability to be that close with me because of that. And so my warning is, as good as I’m good with them, what is good? My good is on a relative scale where we’re not fighting and arguing, and we’re not yelling at each other. I would say I’m closer with my dad. I tell my dad more about my life than I do with my mom. But also too, that’s because my dad has allowed that opportunity and that space for that to occur where my mom does not. So he and my mom have always tried to come out like, I’m the better parent. My dad did leave for California, and when I tried to put it from that perspective, and take it from all those other things, did he have other ample opportunities to try to move back to Colorado? I mean, I don’t know, yeah, but I do know this, when I was went back to college, because after being a personal trainer, it’s all that fun stuff and area director and fitness and everything after that and I went back to school. I spent almost a year away from my wife and my first born. He turned two like that year was probably the hardest year of my life, being away from them and not being able to hold them every day. I mean, I FaceTimed them every night. My wife and I, we try to keep it cheesy and romantic and watch the same cheesy TV show every night on Netflix and stream it at the same time. But people were wondering, are you guys gonna break up? Are you breaking up or getting divorced? Like, what’s going on? I’m sitting there going, like, what are you talking about? I moved back to Colorado to finish my senior capstone because we had moved away, and at the same time finishing my senior capstone, I was trying to find a job and get the family to move back out. That was it.
Krista Nash 11:38
So you’re probably like, how could my dad be gone for so long? How could he even do that? That’s the age you were when they separated.
Chris Markham 11:50
Yeah, that’s the age. It was weird. That relationship with my son again, because I had been gone for so many months. It was from May through December. I came back on Christmas, landed the job in January, couldn’t start until a month later, and then started my current career with the same company. So I’m just like, all right, that time, integrating and moving it back out was like spring, like March ish timeframe. So I was like, alright, coming back into his life and him having to take direction from me, I recognized the impact and damage it did to our relationship and created that distance that it took time from him to still reconnect with me, and I knew here I am starting my new career at a job that is very, extremely challenging, and I’ve got this personal challenge too, where I’m reintegrating myself back into my family life, and so that was very humbling again, but I had I knew I just had to be consistent and disciplined in my consistency and keep knocking down that door.
Krista Nash 12:55
Do you feel like after Columbine, you mentioned therapy a couple times? Do you feel like your parents showed up for you in a way that was way more intentional after that? Or, how did the therapy and the healing start with that? I’m wondering if that rocked everybody’s world so much that it was like, we have to help these kids.
Chris Markham 13:14
Not from my mom with me, but from my dad, obviously moving back and then trying to be in my life, and just having the opportunity to be in my life like the door was always open with him, and he would always say that, like, hey, kiddo, I know you’ve got a girlfriend and you’ve got a life of your own and a social life, but just, know, pick up the phone if you ever want to do anything. You let me know.
Krista Nash 13:39
How did you get into therapy? What was that like? What happened with that?
Chris Markham 13:44
So getting into therapy after this Columbine shooting, I had some Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, PTSD and very serious anger, serious anger, where I put my head through a glass window just to scare somebody because they were making me mad, and that’s when I knew I was like, okay, I need to go to therapy. And so I started doing therapy at the school, because they had therapists there every day, and then sometimes even on the weekends, it depended on whether we could balance it with the schedule. And so that therapist, you know, she would listen to me, and she was just giving me guidance about, okay, Chris, try to go focus your time here, because she started identifying factors of people in my life that were positive in my life, and could they be more positive, and pushed me in that direction more and that’s when, you know, spending more time with my high school sweetheart and her family and more time at Taekwondo, because obviously she identified like my home life still wasn’t good, but my relationship with my parents would survive longer. It was more about me and what I needed, and not what my parents probably needed, because that shifted. I’m in my head about, okay, Chris, like you can invest yourself in your time where you feel the most return of benefit with it. That’s what drove my life to be how it was. It wasn’t like I was hiding from the hard things and just trying to turn away from them and ignore them. It was those that would pull me back down. Go focus on these positive things and don’t let those things influence you and intimidate you and hold you back.
Krista Nash 15:33
Well, I appreciate you sharing your story. We could talk all day.
Chris Markham 15:38
We could, man, how long have we been going? I feel like it’s been a long time.
Krista Nash 15:40
I’m gonna get yelled at by the podcast field, but that’s okay. It’s a compelling story, so if I went over, it’s fine, I would have stopped you. It’s totally fine. But Chris, seriously, your vulnerability is just, it’s always been refreshing. I appreciate that you’re willing to share with whoever’s listening, because you don’t know what people are going through, right? I mean, you just don’t know. And people who are getting divorced, they do need to hear stories of how trauma affects kids and do it better, right? Because your story is not, I mean, honestly, it’s by the grace of God that you have a such a solid family and such a solid story of healing, because there’s so many who don’t, I mean, so many who’ve gone through so much less, who have just cannot get past it, right? Or who are repeating those cycles of violence.
Chris Markham 16:25
It is this cycle with them, and it’s sad,
Krista Nash 16:29
Yeah, it’s so, so common and so, I mean, all we can do is what’s in our control, right? Like you said, and try to break those cycles and do it differently. But, you know, anyone who’s listening to this, I just hope that Chris’s story has been one of of hope, and of course, it’s a story of sorrow, but more that than that of hope, that really, if you’re really more intentional in your parenting, and you don’t take divorce and make it this really terrible thing, then you don’t know what’s going to happen in your kids lives. Your parents and their divorcing didn’t know that this little suburban Columbine High School was going to have one of the country’s worst school shootings ever, right? And you don’t know what your kids are going to go through. So it’s just a story of can we try to do this better? Can we try to confirm the other parent? Can we try to let a kid love both parents? And I’m so glad you still know them both and are in a relationship with them both. A lot of times, that’s not the story. A lot of times it would make you not have a relationship with your dad or have no relationship at all with your mom, and that’s not that’s not healthy either. Your kids need to know their grandparents, and we don’t want those intergenerational problems continuing to flow down hill. Right?
Chris Markham 17:40
Right. No, I mean it. The other thing I’d like to add to that, too, is to identify that there is more to it. There’s a veil of ignorance with the cycle, I think, and people can’t see it because there’s a veil of ignorance there that they haven’t been able to lift up and peek under and see, oh, there’s more. There’s this direction. They only see what they can from that paradigm, and it’s like they haven’t been able to shift their mind and their thinking and their thoughts and emotions to direct it in something different. So that is something too like you can’t just sit there and say, do better, right? You have to understand that these people, if they don’t see it, to understand it, they’re never going to know what it is. So that’s something too, to be patient with people, and to understand that people going through this divorce, and you’re seeing how that trauma is happening in their lives, and everything else. You have your truths. They might be very, very true too, or your truth, or their truth, and the fact that this is the fact, this is the truth. But there’s much more dynamic to that than what everybody else is willing to add to it. And so we have to take a step back in ourselves and just recognize that in everybody else, that most people, I think, I would hope most people intentionally try to do their best with what they have and what they know.
Krista Nash 19:07
No one wants to actually hurt their children. I mean, it’s a very rare psychotic thing when somebody does something that they know hurts their kids. Your mom thought she was hopefully, she thought she was doing what was right. She sounds like a broken person who had, were there intergenerational problems before that for her?
Chris Markham 19:32
Yes, so she experienced that as a child or experienced adverse childhood experiences. Her parents were married, but there was something there that had happened that had hurt her too. She opened up to me about it a little bit, but not a lot.
Krista Nash 19:44
This stuff just doesn’t happen, though, in a vacuum, like it doesn’t. It would be very unlikely for a mother to have this need to bring these men in who are abusive and are abusing her kids and abusing her like, if there isn’t anything in the history, correct, you know, it’s. It doesn’t usually happen. I mean, I guess it can happen, but it doesn’t usually just start from scratch, right? People who are raised in healthier places don’t generally, you know, allow that kind of devolving in their own lives. I mean, they can. They can. I’m not trying to be all completely 100% about that, but it’s usually that’s usually a generational component to it.
Chris Markham 20:18
You gotta be forgiving for the kids too, that had come up and things like this and had their parents like that, like, if they’re still carrying that angst and they’re like, they’re probably someone like, no, not, never to forget, nope, whatever you gotta forgive for yourself, let things lie as they are. I didn’t say you have to forget it, but you have to forgive it to become content with who you are, because
Krista Nash 20:42
Do you feel like you’ve forgiven them?
Chris Markham 20:45
I feel like I have forgiven, but I haven’t forgotten, and I’ll never forget it, but I’m that’s also gotten me further, and I think even in my own personal life and in my career, if I kept carrying that, that would have been the thing, and it would have not allowed me to shift my paradigm, to excel further in my career, too, and just that true growth of growth.
Krista Nash 21:10
I feel like I got to be privileged. I mean, I can say just from personal experience with you. You know, I don’t know how old you were when we met. You were a baby. I mean, that was probably 2005 or 2006. So 20 years ago? Yeah, you were a baby. So, I mean, if you just had the fight with the stepdad at 19, like, I have had the privilege of watching some of the growth and watching go from some challenges in your, personal training, or people that were kind of how you were going to handle some of that stuff, like, being wronged, or, you know, things like that, and kind of how you handle that, versus, like, watching you get married, meet Mallory, get married, you know, do all those little steps, watching you trying to figure out what to do with your career, and then landing in this absolutely incredible job that you have made a massive career of now. It’s been a privilege to kind of be on the side and watch that.
Chris Markham 22:09
Well, it’s been a privilege to have you with it like that too, like you’ve been, you have had a massive impact in my life, whether you like it or not. I’ve always thought of you as family, too very motherly and Judd too, fatherly. I even had you guys speak at my wedding.
Krista Nash 22:29
We did speak at your wedding.
Chris Markham 22:30
It irritated my mother, but that’s fine, and I’m okay, and I can live with that, and she has to live with that too. And it’s just one of those things. It’s like, okay, but it’s the people that have privileges to be good in my life, have the privilege to do those things too, right? And to be a part of my life, and my mother and my father, they are part of my life because I’m not willing to let that just fall off a cliff and shut them out and close them out completely.
Krista Nash 23:01
A lot of people do that, right? There’s this whole thing. Now, I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s like, going around the internet or Tik Tok or something like that, but it’s like this boundary thing, like, just cutting people off. It’s this very unhealthy thing. I mean, I guess some boundaries are healthy, if we’re talking about there’s a lot of things you would have a lot of reason to cut people off, because, especially with abuse and not being safe and all of that, but is something really I have a lot of kids in my cases where I represent the children’s best interest, and there’s this massive, even kids of all ages are like, my parent is dead to me. I don’t want anything to do with that person. And it’s like, I’m always trying to help them understand how unhealthy that is for the child, not like for you as a human, or the mother that or dad that feels good about that child is rejecting the other parent. I’m like, you don’t understand there’s like poison in not working through some of this stuff. That doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to have overnights or have the same kind of relationship that you would, but how can we have no relationship?
Chris Markham 24:01
But also there’s the opportunity of being patient from that parent to that child, where they’re like, they’re dead to me. It’s just having hope, creating the space and the opportunity for them to reopen that door or rebuild that bridge and come to them, I think is important too. It only works if you work at it. Yeah, remember me saying that as a personal trainer, right?
Krista Nash 24:29
Don’t make me go there. But it’s true.
Chris Markham 24:33
It’s one of those things where it’s like, even in relationships, the saying you could work with anything starting a business. It only works if you work at it. What does that look like? That’s what people have to start to understand and define. How does that work really? What would it take for me to become good with my parents again or the parent I don’t like? What would it take for me to create the opportunity in space for them to. Be comfortable and to acknowledge that it exists for them to, one day, finally walk across that bridge or open that door and knock on it, whatever it might be.
Krista Nash 25:08
Think about the time too, that this took, right? Because I get parents who are just, they expect me to wave a magic wand and fix what’s going on, or get their kids hearts fixed for what’s going on, or get the other parent fixed or whatever. I mean, they’re literally so impatient. And their lawyers are worse. Their lawyers are like, why aren’t we doing this yet? Why is this not happening yet? It’s just this hard court, you know, full court press. But think about this. Your parents separated when you were two. They divorced when you were four. You have, you are 41 like, it’s taken years to morph. Decades. And now you’ve got two sweet kids, and it’s like, there is a story of patience here, and, especially from your dad. I mean, it’s very interesting, even though he didn’t show up in all the ways he maybe could have, the fact that he didn’t give up and he did show up, and, to your mom’s credit, too. I mean, she’s a victim in a lot of ways. She didn’t do anything, right? She probably had a lot of reasons in her own history for reacting the way she did, and trying to protect you guys in some way, even if she didn’t mean to hurt you in that way. She certainly didn’t mean to have somebody beating you. She maybe could have done more. I don’t know. It’s hard when you realize your parents are just like grown up versions of you. They’re just humans, right? They’re selfish. They have problems they’re prone to.
Chris Markham 26:28
Probably both of my parents would admit that I’m more mature and more grown than them. Both of them like to take some credit for it.
Krista Nash 26:38
They should get some credit for it.
Chris Markham 26:39
But even from the best of situations, they had me go through, like giving you alcohol to get through the night after the shooting. If it didn’t make you grow up and become independent, you wouldn’t be able to do what you do.
Krista Nash 26:52
Now it’s true that these experiences all shape you, but I do think too that, I mean, it is a little bit of a miracle that you aren’t suffering more. Oh, I know one other thing I want to ask you about. So going back to Columbine, what’s happened with that community? Is there now more healing?. I know you said there’s some that are still trauma bonded in a negative way in their lives, but is there also a positive, you know, like we survived through this? I don’t know. Is there anything?
Chris Markham 27:28
I think that’s more, I think that’s a greater amount of the Columbine community. We have lived through this, and we’ve lived through more after now, and we’ve understood that it doesn’t define us, but it’s a big part of our decision in the discerning process of what we are. I remember there was a debate on Facebook. I’m trying to remember where this was or something, and somebody was talking about, like, oh my god, one of my biggest nightmares is having my kids grow up and go through a high school shooting, or, you know, school shooting like we did. And I just remember going, well, you know, one of my biggest fears is having my kids grow up to be one of the shooters, and the people were like, what? Oh, my God. And some people were mad about it. Some people were like, Whoa. I never thought of that. Actually, a lot of them were, and I think for me too, it humanizes the shooters, because if you think about it, Eric and Dylan, they were little boys, they fell down. They got their knees scraped. They had boo boos or nightmares. They got scared. Their mommy and daddy probably hugged and kissed them and took care of their boo boos and those things like, you know, they cried, they got upset, all those things, and it makes them more human. People don’t want to do that to those two individuals, because they feel like it takes away from the other victims. But to me, they were human too, and they’re flawed and made the wrong decision.
Krista Nash 29:00
Do you know more? I haven’t looked into or studied or seen much about Columbine or like now all these like, like, retro, looking back at all this. Do you know more now about if the shooters themselves were kids who had gone through adverse childhood experiences? Do we know that?
Chris Markham 29:21
Me, personally, I don’t know, because I’m not the kind of person that wants to dive into some of that.
Krista Nash 29:28
You’re not, like, scouring the internet looking for all that stuff?
Chris Markham 29:31
Yeah, no. Every now and again, I get somebody saying something stupid about my sister.
Krista Nash 29:35
Are they troubled kids? Do you remember them being troubled?
Chris Markham 29:40
I do remember them being troubled, especially Eric. I remember him kind of being a bit of a loner and at school sitting outside of the classrooms between an off period and not engaging in any way with anything, or even like cracking a book open just sitting there. Dylan was different. He was more active and social. And I don’t know if he was sad or anything. I remember one time I came back home from Taekwondo, and they were all at the house, and Dylan was there, and they were playing Monopoly or something, and he came into the family room, and Dylan’s like, yelling. He’s like, Yeah, you see it. I’m running the board, man. And I’m like, all right, Monopoly, the table hasn’t been flipped over yet, right? And those are things that I go, and I look back and I go, like, man, you know, like they were having a good time drinking sodas and eating chips.
Krista Nash 30:36
Was that close to the shooting?
Chris Markham 30:39
I don’t know if that was my eighth grade year or the beginning of ninth grade. Honestly, I just one of those things where I look back at them being at my house and hanging out and watching scary movies and playing video games on my Nintendo 64.
Krista Nash 30:56
They committed suicide, right?
Chris Markham 31:00
Yeah, I don’t know the extent of it, but I’m pretty sure that they killed themselves there, in the library, right?
Krista Nash 31:08
That’s what’s performing when a school shooting happens. Since, how does that affect you? A lot of them, I was kind of numb. There’s been a lot, because there’s been a lot of them since,
Chris Markham 31:19
Yeah, a lot of men were kind of numb to the one up in Connecticut in Newtown.
Krista Nash 31:24
Yeah, that one because that was, that was little kids.
Chris Markham 31:30
Yeah, that one really impacted me, because at the time, too, Mallory was pregnant, or we just found out she was pregnant, and I was taking this class in college when I went back. It was called Leading Lives that Matter. And it was like, one of those ones that you had to reflect on your life a lot. It was required course at Regis University, and it was one of those classes too that impacted me, but at the time that that happened, and obviously we’re doing these exercises in the course, and we’re going back through and we have to, like, write papers, like describing your house, but you have to use as much detail in your childhood home as you grow up, as much as you possibly could, right? Like, those were some of the exercises and stuff. And so when you’re kind of running through those things, and you’re thinking that some of the assignments were, a lot of them were based upon, like, moral ethics and philosophy type of stuff. And so when those shootings happened, there was deep reflection, especially when that one happened, that just cut deep into me. And it brought out this abundance of memory, a coal mine and emotions, sadness, which led to anger, and then sadness again, and that one really impacted me in that way.
Krista Nash 32:48
Was that the Sandy Hook one? You know that that’s what it was. Yes, it was in Newtown, Connecticut. But I think there were like 20 kids who were killed, who were little like, yes, 26 people died, I think. But 20 were little like six and seven year olds.
Chris Markham 33:02
And you get the crossing boundaries of morality of like guns, and then the gun control debate goes back on and everything and but with all that too, it’s like, I’m processing again, all of those years of therapy in this short time frame again, and I’m like, okay, and I have to get to a point to try to understand that these are humans, and humans are what, like, you could look back through all of history and go through like, Oh, it doesn’t make it right, right? I’m not saying it doesn’t, but it doesn’t mean that these tragedies are more tragic than any other tragedy that came before it, right? And so that is where I come from, in that position of like, this has been happening since civilization, and so it’s where we have to understand, though, like, what is that social contract that each individual has with civilization, and what do we have in those bounds? And I think it comes back to me, anyways, of trying to put that good out in the world that we’re human, we’ve made mistakes. That’s too simple of the discussion, but it’s like that’s wrapped up in a lot of complexity when I say we’re human and we’ve made mistakes.
Krista Nash 34:26
I was looking at some research on this and assuming this is correct again. I didn’t do tons of research on it, but what I looked up said that since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999 there have been more than 420 school shootings in the US, and that have resulted in the deaths of at least 203 people and the injury of 441 and that more than 390,000 students had been exposed to gun violence since Columbine.
Chris Markham 34:56
Well, I mean, Columbine too wasn’t the first. The first school shooting in the history of America was, like, way back, I think 1700s Right? Like, if you were to Google it, man, it’s a really sad story too, to read that one.
Krista Nash 35:17
Actually, I don’t know if this is true, but the Enoch Brown School massacre in 1764, in Pennsylvania.
Chris Markham 35:26
Yeah, but it’s, how do you control it? How do you stop it? Every day? I immediately wanted to go there and think of that. But it’s like, well, what are the outcomes of the trauma of these folks, though, too, right? Like, how are they healing or not healing from this going forward?
Krista Nash 35:39
Yeah. And, I mean, back to, you know, the topic of, you know, I’m so glad that we got to talk today about this, because I just think it’s really important to memorialize these memories. You know, I’m a journalist for my first training. So, you know, what’s really sad too, is I talk to these kids coming out of, like, college now, and they don’t even know about Columbine, they’re like, that’s crazy. Would you go to high school? I mean, that’s just ignorant. Give me a break. You know, that’s culturally ignorant. But, you know, I just think, for anybody who’s made it all the way, which is going to be the end of our second episode with Chris, I just want to encourage parents to do what you can do to keep toxicity low, because you don’t want your kids are going to experience and you want to give them the best chance possible.
Chris Markham 36:21
Damn, hitting the nail on the head. As a parent, you have to do whatever you can to make the life enjoyable. It’s not just a free for all. What I mean by that it’s like to raise good people, because those people, too, are going to experience traumas in other ways of their life through the rest of their life.
Krista Nash 36:41
Life is hard. There’s a lot of things that happen. It’s like, yeah, shoes are dropping. You don’t know. It can be an illness. It could be the loss of a parent. It can be you’ve got an accident that occurs, or, like, the flooding that just occurred.
Chris Markham 36:53
And then regret, like, let’s say the child hates, says they hate their parent, because the seed was planted by the other parent, and so they must hate them too, so they don’t ever want to see the other parent. And then that other parent, they could be estranged from the child. Let’s say that the other parent dies. And then there’s regret. I’ve seen that, yeah, regret of not trying to know their parents, and the deep sadness that is going to impact them for the rest of their life, even further. So then there’s more trauma to that. It’s just compounding. So you hit it right on the nail on the head. It’s like, don’t try to make it harder for them, because they’re going to experience other traumas in their lives.
Krista Nash 37:35
And it’s like, you know, okay, get divorced, whatever. If you can fix your marriage or your family, great, please do it. I was consulting with a couple today who you could see the palpable disdain dripping off of them, because I’m talking about being a mediator for them. And you can just see the risk all over the room, right? It’s like, these auras of hate, you know, and I’m just, like, warning them. I’m like, I don’t care if you hire us to help you or not, but, like, figure it out. Like, you know, like, please go listen to podcasts and just figure it out. I got plenty of work. I don’t need more work. I’m really just here to pound my drum to say, as much as it depends on you. Can you please recognize that you have to co parent and that this dripping disdain is gonna poison
Chris Markham 38:20
Nailed it on the head again. I think it’s like, get over yourself. Get over that situation of them breaking your trust, like, and figure out your own traumas with yourselves, but do not let it spill over on the children. You’re like, yes, you guys had once loved each other. You’re going your separate ways, great, but remember what was made out of that love between these two humans or however many human beings they have, how many children? Whatever it is, remember that this was made out of that, and so that that being comes from both of you, and you both must understand that they will love both of you, and both of you will have this massive impact in their life. And they say, you know, they’re the parents really don’t have that much influence in their children’s lives. It’s not really their friends and their parents, or their friends will have greater influence in their life. Maybe, maybe true, maybe not. I think the relationship that’s harnessed by the parents to the children is the most important starting point.
Krista Nash 39:20
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I mean, you don’t even, you know, you don’t even know all the research that’s out there, because you’re not having to deal in this world, in this realm. But I will tell you that, like, if parents would just listen to their children, and, like, tune in you when you were a little boy, were weeping and asking to see your dad and begging for a different outcome, and if parents would just step back and listen to, you know, the sage advice of children, like the research all supports that now that, like, it is not divorce that injures these kids. It’s what they do afterwards, right? That causes great injury.
Chris Markham 39:54
I mean, you’re just bringing up thoughts in my mind, like not even seeing my dad for that long. Okay? What? Is it all on my dad to come and see me? Or could my mom have made something happen too? Could my mom have taken time off and taken us out to visit him?
Krista Nash 40:09
Well, I’ll tell parents too. Sometimes I’m like, Look, if you have, I don’t know if this was your dynamic or not, but if you’re, if you know you have a co parent who isn’t doing what he or she should do, like you could do things to make it better for your children. So for example, I’ll tell you, like, let’s say there’s let’s say there’s a sobriety problem and somebody has got to, you know, they’re prone to DUIs, or they’re going to go to jail for something, or they’re, you know, they’re going to go to rehab or something. You know, most of the protective or primary parents who you know, who think that person is scum for that, yeah, they’ll take that information and say, well, your parents screwed it up again, you know, you know. And they’ll just, like, dig in on that. Or he doesn’t care. He’s in California. If he cared, he’d be here, right? It’s that kind of thing, instead of, like, giving a parent the other giving the weaker or less effective parent, though, a win. So another example that great parents do is they work with the parent, who’s the drinker, and they say, I want you to record some videos of yourself so that I have them in case you’re gone for a while, so you can read a book to Chris while you’re gone and you’re going to be in some detox or something. Yeah, isn’t this gap. It’s like, oh. Then you can say, well, Daddy’s not available today. But good news, he sent a video, you know, to go, Well, we did this earlier because we want to make sure when he squares it up again, right? You know, no, like, why do you do that? Right? And so, you know, your mom could have been like, Hey, Dad, I know you’re on hard times, or you don’t have enough money, or whatever, I don’t either, but I’ll meet you halfway. Yes, both drive, and I’ll meet you halfway because it’s that important, right? Or give you a gift. Like, let’s say somebody’s gone and they’re like, literally, it will like, can you not cover for that other parent a little bit? Yeah, right? Like, dad sent you this first day of school. Like, or, daddy wants me to get wanted me to give you this or whatever, right? Like, give the guy some wins, right? Like, parents are, like, always weaponizing, you know, they’re like, yeah, he didn’t show up again for your special taekwondo event. You know, instead, it could be like, Hey, I just want to let you know this is really important to Chris. This is a really serious belt that’s coming up, or whatever it is, yeah, I want to do, see what we can do to make sure you’re here, right? Yeah, yeah. What would that have done to you?
Chris Markham 42:25
Oh, my gosh, wonders. Or if my mom would have been like that, because the excuse of not being able to see my dad was we were too young to travel. I was too young for you to put me in the car and drive me to California.
Krista Nash 42:36
Yeah? Like, fly them out here.
Chris Markham 42:38
Fly dad out here. Or dad come fly out here, out there? Yes, they said we were still too young to fly out. I was like, Okay, you could have still made the connection happen without such a big gap in time.
Krista Nash 42:51
I mean, that’s just like, inexcusable. It really is correct. Like this story of having to stand at the truck station to see your dad is not what it should look like. No, even back then,
Chris Markham 43:01
Yeah, even back then. But it was just like, my dad was like, I gotta see them.
Krista Nash 43:06
And the fact that she almost turned around, oh my gosh, it’s like a terrible story.
Chris Markham 43:11
I remember being like, are you kidding me? I remember her sitting there at the flight off the exit. We were at the red light, and I just grabbed her arm, and I was like, I just remember, like, we have to do this. We have to and I just remember the exhale in her body. And like, it was kind of like, I don’t know if it was acceptance, but or irritation. It was kind of irritating, a little bit of both, right? Maybe, or like, okay, we’re going to do this. But also, too, I’m so irritated that I can’t find where this is at. And we’ve been driving all around, up and down here, and we were already an hour late for traffic.
Krista Nash 43:46
The glimmer of what of you were doing, what was right there, you know,
Chris Markham 43:48
Yeah, and you’re right, like doing it. The two parents are so caught up in this broken, literally, what it is, is a broken trust, when you cut it down to all of it, however, this person did this, and then they did that, and then they said this. It’s a breakdown of trust. So how bad this broken trust is, right? They are human beings, that they have to sit here and help see the way through this, and the only real best way to do it is to be amicable as much as possible and just stop pointing fingers and stop pointing blame. And yes, there might be one side that is so bad they’re like, Chris, you don’t understand, like, my situation is totally different. No, I do understand that. I’m wrapping that into that to say, Okay, what else could you do in a way to help them meet you, even if it’s more than halfway. Well, I’m sick and tired of doing that, because it’s all I ever do. I’m like, Yeah, and you know what, your kids are probably going to thank you for going that distance, much further, and then when their dad either probably comes out of whatever they’re doing later in life, is probably going to be extremely grateful and thankful that you did that too. It’s not required at the. You can do that. But in that gratefulness can be expressed in so many different ways. Is it going to be returned to you and money and things like tangible things that you can have and measure at that point? Probably not, but it will be more expressed through generational love and care that you have no idea how far that impact goes down to the next great grandchildren?
Krista Nash 45:21
Yeah. I mean, that is so well said. I mean, I think it’s funny. I’m sure you’re not listening to my podcast, even though you should be listening to it and liking it and sharing it, please, you know, but I’m sure you’re not. But what you don’t know is like it just emphasizes to me, like one of my one guy who’s been on my show a couple times is a really internationally known researcher, and that President of this massive organization. His name is Michael Saini, and he has studied incremental trust building and the fact that it is the absolute core of getting parents back into this place that they can put their kids first. You don’t even know that, right, but you know it, because, duh, right? Duh. Like, obviously. Like, kids know this stuff, but parents lawyers are like, oh, yeah, you can’t trust this person. You shouldn’t trust them.
Chris Markham 46:05
Let’s go to court. You know, right? Or I don’t have the degrees or the credentials to back it up.
Krista Nash 46:09
I have an idea what you’re talking about, and yet you do know exactly what you’re talking about, which is why I’m really, really grateful that you have been with us today. So two hours later, I hope people have stuck with it. I want you to stick around for a second, because I want to talk with you about one other thing, but I’m going to say goodbye on behalf of the show, and thank you so much. Are there any final words you want to share?
Chris Markham 46:30
Thanks for having me on Krista. I hope the listeners and parents, or children too, or other adults could take away something from this, even if it’s just a tiny little bit, and hopefully it adds some sort of tool to the toolbox to help you guys.
Krista Nash 46:45
Okay, well, thank you, and hopefully you have me back again for something else. Yeah, definitely. Let’s think about it. Be Awesome. All right, I am going to say goodbye and thank you for being with us.
Intro/Outro 46:57
Krista is licensed in Colorado and Wyoming. So if you are in those states and seek legal services, please feel free to reach out via ChildrenFirstFamilylaw.com that is our website where everyone can find additional resources to help navigate family law as always, be sure to like, subscribe, and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.