Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, welcome back to She Pivots. This is Tasmin Carter.
Speaker 2: Welcome to She Pivots, the podcast where we talk with
Speaker 2: women who dared to pivot out of one career and
Speaker 2: into something new and explore how their personal lives impacted
Speaker 2: these decisions. I'm your host Emily Tish Sussman.
Speaker 1: Today.
Speaker 2: I'm honored to have Tasmin Carter on the show to
Speaker 2: share her story and with the world for the first
Speaker 2: time ever. Her story is one of resilience, strength, and
Speaker 2: empathy after going through some unimaginable hard times. When I
Speaker 2: first met Tasmin, the first thing I recognized was her
Speaker 2: warmth and kindness. It radiates around her and you'd never
Speaker 2: know the hardship she's gone through. Tasmin is the daughter
Speaker 2: of an affair between her mother, who is black, and
Speaker 2: her father, a white man with a family from the Midwest.
Speaker 2: It was a complicated relationship for Tasman that would eventually
Speaker 2: come full circle for her later in life. Beyond her parents,
Speaker 2: her childhood was equally tumultuous. She was placed into foster
Speaker 2: care when she was a young teen. Then at just seventeen,
Speaker 2: she made the heart wrenching decision to place her baby
Speaker 2: for adoption. With no high school education and nowhere to go,
Speaker 2: Tasman was homeless, staying with anyone who would take her in.
Speaker 2: But she knew this couldn't be it for her, so
Speaker 2: she worked tirelessly to earn her ged and started applying
Speaker 2: for temp jobs. Smart and hard working, it's no surprise
Speaker 2: that the very first company she worked for loved her
Speaker 2: and kept her on full time. Single handedly pulling herself
Speaker 2: out of an incredibly dire situation, Tasmin began to build
Speaker 2: a life and a family. She got married, had her son,
Speaker 2: got divorced, then put herself through night school and finished
Speaker 2: after twelve years. Then Tasman's life took another dramatic turn
Speaker 2: when she is diagnosed with stage three cancer, a battle
Speaker 2: she faced with unwavering faith and courage. Now Tasman has
Speaker 2: channeled her own experience and started Forward Hope, a nonprofit
Speaker 2: dedicated to providing a home to those who have aged
Speaker 2: out of the foster care system. This is just scratching
Speaker 2: the surface of tasman incredibly inspiring story. This truly is
Speaker 2: an episode you won't want to miss. Before we get
Speaker 2: into Tasman's story, I want to take a moment. To
Speaker 2: note that this episode contains references to abuse and other
Speaker 2: sensitive topics.
Speaker 1: Please listen with care. My name is Tasman Carter. I
Speaker 1: am an executive assistant at Tiaa, a financial services firm.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're going to wind all the way back.
Speaker 2: Tell us about little Tasman. Where were you born? What
Speaker 2: was her family like?
Speaker 1: So, little Tasman was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, the South,
Speaker 1: born and bred. I love to say it that way.
Speaker 1: I am the third daughter of my mom and the
Speaker 1: third child of my dad. I am the product of
Speaker 1: a biracial relationship, which was highly unusual in the seventies
Speaker 1: in the South. And in addition to that, my dad
Speaker 1: was married, always was married. So he do someone other
Speaker 1: than your mother? Yes, So he ended up fathering a
Speaker 1: child in the South that his family was unaware of.
Speaker 1: He met my mom when he came in town on
Speaker 1: a business trip and she was singing in the lounge
Speaker 1: of the hotel that he was staying at, and she
Speaker 1: got off the stage to take a break and he
Speaker 1: called her over, and you know, it was like, hi,
Speaker 1: you know, what's your name? And so they ended up
Speaker 1: talking and he goes, what's your sign and she goes,
Speaker 1: I'm a Taurus. He goes, what's your birthday and she
Speaker 1: goes April twenty first, and he was like, that's my
Speaker 1: birthday too, and she was like, no, you're lying, pull
Speaker 1: out your license, pulls out the line, and then thus
Speaker 1: begins the two year affair, which I.
Speaker 2: Was the result of. Your mother must have had a
Speaker 2: lot of of charismas like a lot of spice.
Speaker 1: Did she bring that into the rest of her life. No, Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm going to say so. She ended up being the
Speaker 1: single parent of three daughters, and I think that that
Speaker 1: takes a little bit out of you, trying to do
Speaker 1: everything on your own. She would be married a couple
Speaker 1: of times here and there, but never anything that had
Speaker 1: lasting effects to it. So life just kind of got
Speaker 1: the best of her. So she still has it, but
Speaker 1: I don't think she ever used it to the potential
Speaker 1: that she could have.
Speaker 2: What did you picture for your future when you were young?
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 1: I was very much in survival mode from the time
Speaker 1: I can remember really just taking the day as it
Speaker 1: came and almost bracing for each day, not really looking
Speaker 1: forward to anything but trying to see how I could
Speaker 1: survive the day or endure the day. I can't remember
Speaker 1: a time until I was grown that I could look
Speaker 1: with anticipation to the future. What was the relationship like
Speaker 1: with your father? So I never knew who my dad was.
Speaker 1: My mom did not tell me his name until I
Speaker 1: was sixteen years old. On my sixteenth birthday, I receive
Speaker 1: a card in the mail and it says, happy birthday,
Speaker 1: can't wait to see you, love your dad. I was
Speaker 1: like what. So I go into my mom like she
Speaker 1: proudly hands me the card to like, here, you've got
Speaker 1: mail today, and I read the card and I go
Speaker 1: what is this? And she goes, he's coming in town.
Speaker 1: I said what, I said, what is his name? And
Speaker 1: then that's when she told me his name. I didn't
Speaker 1: even know the man's name until I turned sixty. You
Speaker 1: curious or not even Oh? No, absolutely. I had asked
Speaker 1: multiple times about him, like where is my dad? Do
Speaker 1: I have any other siblings? Who is my dad? Why
Speaker 1: do I look so different than the rest of my siblings?
Speaker 1: So all I knew is that my dad was white.
Speaker 1: That's all I knew. Yeah, So what was that first
Speaker 1: time meeting your dad? That was very uncomfortable? He came
Speaker 1: in town and we had dinner, and he's fifteen years
Speaker 1: older than my mom, so totally different culture. He's from
Speaker 1: the Midwest, we're from the South. And they were just,
Speaker 1: you know, getting along so well, and I felt like
Speaker 1: I was more of a onlooker. Oh, your mom was there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she went to dinner with us. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be with him alone. I didn't know who this man was.
Speaker 1: What did he tell you about the rest of his life?
Speaker 1: He said, And I did ask. I said, why haven't
Speaker 1: you told your So that's when I found out he
Speaker 1: was married. He told me that he was married, and
Speaker 1: I said, well, why haven't you told your family that
Speaker 1: I exist? And he said that it would kill his
Speaker 1: wife if she knew that he had been unfaithful and
Speaker 1: had fathered a child outside of their relationship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how did that make you feel? Like? Nothing?
Speaker 1: Still, she tried to maintain a relationship with her father.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the best relationship, so he had set up
Speaker 1: a po box for me to write too. He maintained
Speaker 1: the secrecy throughout his entire life. He never divulged to
Speaker 1: his family that he fathered a child outside of that
Speaker 1: primary relationship. So he would call me from time to
Speaker 1: time He would write letters for you know, birthdays and
Speaker 1: major events, but it was never anything that was It
Speaker 1: just didn't have any depth. It was very superficial and
Speaker 1: like he would never like I never called him dad.
Speaker 1: He never said I loved you. What he would say
Speaker 1: at the end of the conversations was.
Speaker 2: God love you.
Speaker 1: That's how he would in the conversations, God Love you.
Speaker 2: Tasman's childhood was anything but stable. By just eighteen, she
Speaker 2: had moved over sixteen times. They were always very quick.
Speaker 1: It would be from not paying the rent, or her
Speaker 1: being in domestic violence relationships, in needing to escape. Nothing
Speaker 1: was ever planned that I can remember. I remember days
Speaker 1: when she would leave and say, okay, I'll be back
Speaker 1: tonight and when I come back, I'll bring food. And
Speaker 1: she would come home at the end of the day
Speaker 1: with a loaf of bread and a pack of sandwich
Speaker 1: meat and maybe some kool aid, and that is what
Speaker 1: we would eat for that day. I remember often going
Speaker 1: to the food pantry, always using food stamps to pay
Speaker 1: for food, often just going hungry.
Speaker 2: That charismatic woman that Tasman spoke about earlier didn't show
Speaker 2: up for her in that way, let alone protect her
Speaker 2: as Tasmin grew up, things got.
Speaker 1: Worse, so I was abused from the age of three
Speaker 1: to thirteen. At the age of thirteen, I was removed
Speaker 1: from my home and put into foster care. I had
Speaker 1: told my mom regularly over the years, because she had
Speaker 1: three daughters, she was really a magnet for pedophiles, and
Speaker 1: she never really grasped that. So me and another sister
Speaker 1: would always tell her, you know, we're having to endure
Speaker 1: this not only from your husband's she was married five times,
Speaker 1: but also from their friends. So pedophiles have friends, and
Speaker 1: they bring the friends along whenever they have free reign
Speaker 1: to the children. So we told her regularly and often,
Speaker 1: and she just refused to believe us. She would say
Speaker 1: that we didn't want to see her happy, or we
Speaker 1: were lying, or she any excuse that She just did
Speaker 1: not want to accept that the man she had chosen
Speaker 1: or who had chosen her, was capable of doing this,
Speaker 1: so she left us in situations for long periods of time.
Speaker 1: So I've been groomed by several pedophiles, had to endure
Speaker 1: several of their advances. But when I got to eighteen,
Speaker 1: I've learned that pedophiles have a particular type in an
Speaker 1: age group that they like. And so at that point
Speaker 1: I was starting my body was starting to you know,
Speaker 1: I was heading into puberty and his grooming was and
Speaker 1: I knew that if I didn't get out of that
Speaker 1: home soon, that I would be at a point of
Speaker 1: no return, like I wasn't going to be able to
Speaker 1: come back from that. I still had some resilience, I
Speaker 1: still had some fight, I still had some you're not
Speaker 1: doing this to me. But you know, after so long
Speaker 1: of an adult not responding to your cries for help,
Speaker 1: then you can easily get to the point where you
Speaker 1: feel like there's no hope. So I don't know how
Speaker 1: they do it today because of all the technology, But
Speaker 1: back in the day, there were posters put up on
Speaker 1: the walls in my school and it said if you
Speaker 1: need help or if you just need someone to talk to,
Speaker 1: you can call this number, and it was for kids.
Speaker 1: And both of my sisters at this point had left
Speaker 1: the home. So now I'm at home by myself. So
Speaker 1: you're about thirteen here, and I am knowing that I
Speaker 1: need to do something. Now she's not going to do it.
Speaker 1: So if something's going to get done, I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to do it. So I called the number and
Speaker 1: I was just talking to the guy was a young fellow.
Speaker 1: His name was Jake. I'll never forget his name, and
Speaker 1: he probably was in his twenties. He probably was getting
Speaker 1: his graduate degree. And this was probably, you know, hours
Speaker 1: towards that, because I could tell he was really young.
Speaker 1: And when I started telling him what I was having
Speaker 1: to endure at home, he started asking very poignant questions,
Speaker 1: what school do you go to? So now I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not telling you that, like you're not wrecking my life.
Speaker 1: Like I wanted help, but I didn't know how to
Speaker 1: get out of the situation. But he was so good.
Speaker 1: He asked me just enough questions to where he could
Speaker 1: figure out where I went to school, who my teachers were,
Speaker 1: how he could help me. And the very next day,
Speaker 1: I'm at school and I get called out from one
Speaker 1: of my classrooms into the guidance office and there's a
Speaker 1: police officer, there's a social worker, and there's a guardian
Speaker 1: at item. And that's when they informed me that I
Speaker 1: would not be going back home. And oddly enough, as
Speaker 1: scared as I was, my time in foster care was
Speaker 1: the safest that I ever felt.
Speaker 2: How you feel safe?
Speaker 1: And secure and scared out your mind and truly is
Speaker 1: an ox smron But I knew that finally I was safe.
Speaker 2: Had you ever thought that you would be taken from
Speaker 2: the home like it had been something you had contemplated could happen. No,
Speaker 2: it never.
Speaker 1: Occurred to me that they In my mind, in that
Speaker 1: child's mind, he was going to go and I was
Speaker 1: going to get to stay. It never occurred to me
Speaker 1: that they were going to take me. But when they
Speaker 1: took me, there's what psychologists call a light bulb moment
Speaker 1: or memory that you always remember all of the details,
Speaker 1: the smells, all of that, and I'll never forget. It
Speaker 1: was the very first court hearing, and this court hearing
Speaker 1: was going to decide when I was going to be
Speaker 1: able to go back home and under what circumstances. And
Speaker 1: we're in there and the judge is like, did anyone
Speaker 1: tell her mom that this court hearing was happening today?
Speaker 1: And they were like, yes, we informed her by several means,
Speaker 1: And so he kept pushing off, will go to the
Speaker 1: next case, waiting for her to arrive, and so she
Speaker 1: never showed up. So on that day they actually put
Speaker 1: so the judge said, you will now be a ward
Speaker 1: of the state, so she chose the husband.
Speaker 2: She was in and out of facilities in foster homes
Speaker 2: for the next several years. Like most child welfare policies,
Speaker 2: the goal is always reunification sometimes no matter the circumstance,
Speaker 2: and Tasman's experience was no different. She was eventually placed
Speaker 2: back into her mother's home. So after I was put
Speaker 2: back in the home. So the marriage did not last
Speaker 2: between my mom and that husband, so he ended up leaving.
Speaker 2: I was able to go back, but the relationship at
Speaker 2: that point was not salvageable. We would live together sporadically,
Speaker 2: but she would always I would do something and she
Speaker 2: would ask me to leave, so I was always in
Speaker 2: and out of the home. So by the time I
Speaker 2: was seventeen years old, so now we've got a few
Speaker 2: years of me being back in the house. I ended
Speaker 2: up getting pregnant, and statistics say that children who age
Speaker 2: out of the foster care system, sixty percent of the
Speaker 2: girls become pregnant within the first year of leaving care,
Speaker 2: and that was me. So I found myself pregnant at
Speaker 2: the age of seventeen, ended up going back home. She
Speaker 2: allowed me to come back home, but when the child
Speaker 2: was six weeks old, she asked that we leave. He
Speaker 2: had his days and nights mixed up, so he would
Speaker 2: be up throughout the night crying, and I didn't have
Speaker 2: any place to go.
Speaker 1: So I'm seventeen, I have a six week old baby, newborn,
Speaker 1: no pampers, no formula, and a girl that I had
Speaker 1: just met.
Speaker 2: Her mom said, I will allow you.
Speaker 1: And the baby to come and live in the basement
Speaker 1: until you decide what you're going to do. So I
Speaker 1: was there for about four weeks and a woman that
Speaker 1: I went to church with ended up broke ring a
Speaker 1: private adoption. The family that took him for me because
Speaker 1: I could not care for him, had agreed to open adoption,
Speaker 1: but they did not keep their word. So in the
Speaker 1: state of North Carolina, after thirty days, all of the
Speaker 1: birth mother's rights are terminated. And so when the thirty
Speaker 1: day mark was up, her husband came to the apartment
Speaker 1: that I was in with my mom at the time
Speaker 1: and said, it's time for you to move on. We're
Speaker 1: not going to provide you any updates, any pictures. You
Speaker 1: need to move on with your life and we're going
Speaker 1: to move on with ours. And so from that point on,
Speaker 1: They never responded to any messages, any phone calls, any letters.
Speaker 1: They just kind of left me out there. And that
Speaker 1: was the beginning of a very very, very dark and
Speaker 1: depressed period for me. There's actually large stretches of time
Speaker 1: for a few years after that that I have no
Speaker 1: memory of at all. It was very difficult. I remember
Speaker 1: not being able to hear a child cry. I would
Speaker 1: like Mother's Day was the worst day ever. It was
Speaker 1: just several years of a very deep and dark depression.
Speaker 1: And I was also homeless during that time as well,
Speaker 1: just living from pillar to post. I remember one time,
Speaker 1: I mean, I can laugh at it now, all of
Speaker 1: the belongings that I had in the world actually fit
Speaker 1: into a laundry basket. One laundry basket, so everything that
Speaker 1: I possibly owned. And when I went from this house
Speaker 1: to this house to wherever I could stay for a
Speaker 1: couple of days, I had that laundry basket with me,
Speaker 1: not even a bag, but a laundry basket.
Speaker 2: Tasmin was in an unbelievably hard situation and she was
Speaker 2: just seventeen. But Tasman was Tasmin optimistic, kind and hard
Speaker 2: working found her way out after the break. We hear
Speaker 2: how Tasmin went from one of the hardest times in
Speaker 2: our life to breaking into corporate America. Stay tuned. I
Speaker 2: think for a lot of our listeners that it's really
Speaker 2: when you're in something hard, it's hard to see that
Speaker 2: you may ever get out of it. At that time,
Speaker 2: you said you were just surviving. Was there a moment
Speaker 2: that you felt like, I can get out of this
Speaker 2: and I will get out of this.
Speaker 1: I was in another state and it was New Year's
Speaker 1: Eve going into nineteen ninety nine, and I remember the
Speaker 1: clock counting down. I was in a club and I
Speaker 1: remember going outside onto the patio and I was smoking
Speaker 1: a joint and I was like, Okay, I'm done. I
Speaker 1: don't want this life anymore. I want to do something different.
Speaker 1: So I came back to North Carolin. I spent nine
Speaker 1: months at a facility in the mountains, just detoxing my body,
Speaker 1: detoxing my mind, getting back in touch with God and
Speaker 1: just finding and accepting peace and really looking at myself,
Speaker 1: not my situation, but looking at myself and deciding what
Speaker 1: I wanted and how I was going to get it.
Speaker 1: And that was the changing point. It took a while
Speaker 1: for me to grieve the loss of my child. And
Speaker 1: it took a while for me to get just the
Speaker 1: effects of what I had done to my body, to
Speaker 1: get past that and to want and to find peace,
Speaker 1: and then I.
Speaker 2: Was ready to move forward. So what did you decide?
Speaker 2: What did you want? And how were you going to
Speaker 2: do it?
Speaker 1: I decided in this order that I wanted a peaceful life,
Speaker 1: that I was not going to ever depend on another person,
Speaker 1: that I was going to make my own way, and
Speaker 1: that I was going to be responsible for it. So
Speaker 1: I was going to get an apartment, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to get married, and I wanted to have a child.
Speaker 2: That is what I decided.
Speaker 1: So got a job, got a temporary job at a
Speaker 1: brokerage firm, And while I was at that job, one
Speaker 1: of the brokers her husband was an accountant and they
Speaker 1: were looking for a receptionist at his accounting job, and
Speaker 1: she liked me so much she referred me for the job.
Speaker 1: I ended up becoming the receptionist at the accounting firm
Speaker 1: and ended up staying there for ten years, slowly working
Speaker 1: my way up into the office manager. Wow, congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 1: And how did you start like that very first day?
Speaker 1: Like what was the first step?
Speaker 2: Like I think It's important to kind of talk through
Speaker 2: this because people see these big changes and they think,
Speaker 2: oh my god, like that's so instamountable. I can't even
Speaker 2: do this medium change in front of me, Like, do
Speaker 2: you remember, like when you left the facility, did you
Speaker 2: apply for a job with no address on it? Did
Speaker 2: you find an apartment first?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: How did you take that first step?
Speaker 1: So when I left the facility and I came back
Speaker 1: to Charlotte, I was sleeping on the cow coach of
Speaker 1: my best friend and she would allow me to drop
Speaker 1: her off at her job and I would take her
Speaker 1: car and I would go fill out applications. And so
Speaker 1: I went to a temp agency and they ended up
Speaker 1: placing me at the brokerage firm. What did you come
Speaker 1: in with You didn't have a high school degree at
Speaker 1: that point, right, No, So when I got pregnant, I
Speaker 1: was in high school. But there was not one single
Speaker 1: avenue that I did not try to get that degree.
Speaker 1: So they had an alternative school for pregnant girls. I
Speaker 1: went there. That didn't work out. They offered night classes
Speaker 1: at some of the schools within the area. Did that
Speaker 1: for a little bit. That didn't work out because I
Speaker 1: didn't have a car and being on the bus and
Speaker 1: the bus routes they weren't conducive to the school schedule.
Speaker 1: So I did that for maybe one semester or two.
Speaker 1: Then the community college had classes you could take where
Speaker 1: you could actually walk with your graduating class. To me,
Speaker 1: that was going to take too long, so I actually
Speaker 1: ended up getting my ged. Do you remember when you
Speaker 1: first went to the temp agency and you were figuring
Speaker 1: out like how to put a resume together, how to
Speaker 1: put an application together? What were the hurdles there for
Speaker 1: you and what were you leading with as your biggest attributes?
Speaker 1: They taught me there, So they had all these computer classes,
Speaker 1: So I learned Microsoft Work, I learned Excel, I learned
Speaker 1: I didn't really I had a little bit of experience
Speaker 1: at the apartment complexes that my mom would live in.
Speaker 1: One of them actually had me as their leasing agent,
Speaker 1: so I was actually a leasing agent for a few
Speaker 1: apartment complexes, so I had a little bit of experience,
Speaker 1: but not any in corporate America. It wasn't until I
Speaker 1: started applying with the temp agencies that they started putting
Speaker 1: me in front of people in corporate America. Yeah, very intimidating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my very first corporate jobs in Uptown Charlotte at a
Speaker 1: brokerage firm, and I worked high up on the level
Speaker 1: of the skyscraper, which that was intimidating as well. And
Speaker 1: I worked with all of these brokers, and I worked
Speaker 1: in the cage. And the cage is where they kept
Speaker 1: the money and where they posted their trades directly to
Speaker 1: the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. So I
Speaker 1: learned how to do all of that while I was
Speaker 1: there on a tem job. You've referenced how you didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of life skills.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you have to learn them in that first
Speaker 2: corporate job. Like as you guys went in there, what
Speaker 2: felt like, Oh my god, I'm way out of my depth. So,
Speaker 2: because we were so poor and I was the youngest
Speaker 2: of three girls, I always had the hand me downs
Speaker 2: of my sisters, so two children would do the clothes
Speaker 2: before they ever got to me. So I never had
Speaker 2: like nice clothes at all. And I remember well walking
Speaker 2: into that first corporate job and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: these people, And that day you were suited and booted,
Speaker 2: like the women had to wear pantyhose, you wore a skirt,
Speaker 2: like you were expected to look a certain way, And
Speaker 2: you know what ended up doing after my first day.
Speaker 2: I ended up going to thrifts, doors to Goodwill, to
Speaker 2: Salvation Army and getting these dresses that were appropriate for work.
Speaker 2: And I bought all of my clothes second hand, just
Speaker 2: so that I could show up looking the part. And
Speaker 2: that's the great thing about being able to I'm not
Speaker 2: going to say mimic, but I would watch and observe
Speaker 2: the people that I was around, and if I didn't
Speaker 2: know how to do it, I would watch them and
Speaker 2: just mimic what they did.
Speaker 1: I think it's probably a survival skill, absolutely, and it
Speaker 1: served me well. Her savvy skills got her far, but
Speaker 1: Tasmin didn't have the resources or the people around her
Speaker 1: to get her to see her potential, and as a result,
Speaker 1: she never thought of her life or of a career
Speaker 1: beyond receptionist. I never had anyone to tell me that
Speaker 1: I could do more. I always thought that I'm just
Speaker 1: going to rock the role that I'm in. And oddly enough,
Speaker 1: it was a friend of mine. I went out to
Speaker 1: eat with her and her boyfriend. I had been at
Speaker 1: the accounting firm for maybe at this point five or
Speaker 1: six years now, and he goes you're still just the receptionist,
Speaker 1: Like haven't you been there forever? And I was like yeah.
Speaker 1: He was like, what all do you do? And I
Speaker 1: told him everything I did. He was like, you're an
Speaker 1: office manager. He was like, you're not a receptionist. I
Speaker 1: was like really and he was like yeah, and he goes,
Speaker 1: this is what you need to say to your boss
Speaker 1: when you go back to work today. And I went
Speaker 1: back to work and I had that conversation with my
Speaker 1: boss and I was like, I do this, this and this,
Speaker 1: and my title should reflect what I do and I
Speaker 1: should also get a pay increase for this as well.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what I got. But had he not
Speaker 1: told me, I never would have known. You just don't
Speaker 1: know what you don't know.
Speaker 2: As she learned to navigate the corporate world, she still
Speaker 2: lacked quote life skills. As she says when we come back,
Speaker 2: Tasman talks about the impact that had on her after
Speaker 2: marrying the wrong man.
Speaker 1: So the very first, very large mistake that I made
Speaker 1: was marrying the gentleman that I'm married. I was so
Speaker 1: wanting just remember I told you, I decided I want
Speaker 1: my own home, I want to be married, and I
Speaker 1: want to have a baby.
Speaker 2: So I was.
Speaker 1: So I had such blinders on that that's what I
Speaker 1: was going to do. That the first guy who came along,
Speaker 1: who was willing to do it and who was willing
Speaker 1: to want to be with me, I was like, I'm in,
Speaker 1: let's go.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Little did I know that he was an addict. Six
Speaker 1: maybe six weeks after we were married, I started finding
Speaker 1: empty beer and vodka bottles hidden throughout the house. So
Speaker 1: that's one of the very large mistakes that I made.
Speaker 1: Married him after just knowing him seven months. So just
Speaker 1: not knowing, you know, hey, take your time. You want
Speaker 1: to see a man in every single season of his
Speaker 1: life and believe, but verify right, So and none of
Speaker 1: those things I did. Yeah, I just believed everything he said,
Speaker 1: hook line and sinker, and I was right there.
Speaker 2: But you did get the child that you want? Oh
Speaker 2: I did?
Speaker 1: Oh I did. And I wanted to be a mom
Speaker 1: so bad. I wanted to be able to be who
Speaker 1: I never had and give him what I never received,
Speaker 1: and that was very special. We ended up having the
Speaker 1: same birthday, so I had him on my birthday and
Speaker 1: his due date was actually my parents' birthday, both of them.
Speaker 1: Their birthday is April twenty first, so his due date
Speaker 1: was actually them, but had him on my birthday and
Speaker 1: just the absolute light of my life.
Speaker 2: But so you didn't say you didn't stay with his mother.
Speaker 2: I couldn't.
Speaker 1: He was an addict and he started to become abusive,
Speaker 1: although he never abused me.
Speaker 2: He was a mean drunk.
Speaker 1: Some people get joyous and other people get weepy. He
Speaker 1: got mean. So whenever he drank, he was just the
Speaker 1: meanest person you could possibly imagine. And there was one
Speaker 1: particular time we got into an argument and I was
Speaker 1: doing laundry and my son was at my feet, and
Speaker 1: I am very mouthy. I can make a grown man
Speaker 1: cry with these words of mine. And we got into
Speaker 1: an argument and I was not holding any punches, and
Speaker 1: I saw the look in his eyes completely change, and
Speaker 1: he started walking towards me, and I knew if he
Speaker 1: got to me, he was going to put his hands
Speaker 1: on me, so I averted the situation and walked around
Speaker 1: to another part of the house. He approached me at
Speaker 1: the door, picked me up by my neck, and walked
Speaker 1: me back into the kitchen and started going for the
Speaker 1: drawer that had the knives in them. So I was
Speaker 1: able to talk him down, and at that day, I
Speaker 1: realized that this marriage was not going to make it,
Speaker 1: and so I started making plans to leave. And you
Speaker 1: can't just up and leave when you have a small child.
Speaker 1: So I started planning that day to leave. So me
Speaker 1: and my son ended up sleeping in a twin bed
Speaker 1: in the spare bedroom of a girlfriend's apartment. And I
Speaker 1: ended up losing everything that I had that I owned.
Speaker 1: All of the vehicles were in my name. I couldn't
Speaker 1: afford to continue to pay for all of that and
Speaker 1: the daycare and all of that, so credit ended up
Speaker 1: getting ruined. He intentionally kept the car and hid the
Speaker 1: car and would not pay for the car. Note told
Speaker 1: me he would not even give me a divorce unless
Speaker 1: I paid him money to do so. So it was
Speaker 1: just the worst situation you could imagine. So I ended
Speaker 1: up having to start anew and started from scratch, so
Speaker 1: I needed to make more money. I couldn't continue to
Speaker 1: stay where I was at, so that is when I
Speaker 1: ended up going to the company that I'm at now,
Speaker 1: And that is when I started to go to school
Speaker 1: at night for my undergraduate degree. It took me twelve
Speaker 1: years to get my undergraduate degree. So only two percent
Speaker 1: of children that come out of foster care go on
Speaker 1: to get any extended education, and I am I just
Speaker 1: feel like I'm always a statistic, buttistic that was able
Speaker 1: to overcome. Finally, on her feet, Tasmin was hitting her stride,
Speaker 1: building a beautiful life despite all the bumps in the road.
Speaker 1: After the break, Tasmin talks about how she felt compelled
Speaker 1: to connect with her father's family after he died of cancer.
Speaker 1: So I had promised myself that I would never reach
Speaker 1: out to them, and here's the reason why. I feel like.
Speaker 2: People do what they do for a reason, and if
Speaker 2: they're not here to give what that reason is, it
Speaker 2: is not my place to do that for them. I
Speaker 2: felt like it was such a big secret and that
Speaker 2: he did what he did for a reason, but he's
Speaker 2: not here to explain himself. So I was fine not
Speaker 2: reaching out to them. So how I came about reaching
Speaker 2: out to my brother and sister is maybe about six
Speaker 2: years ago. I had this this thing that would not
Speaker 2: leave me alone, that I needed to reach out to them.
Speaker 2: I had gone from not wanting to reach out to
Speaker 2: them to now I had this thing like, no, you
Speaker 2: need to reach out to them, and So it's a
Speaker 2: year and this thing is messing with me. But I've
Speaker 2: already told myself, you're not going to blow up your dad.
Speaker 2: He's not here to defend himself. Just leave these people be.
Speaker 1: And I knew, let's be clear, once I reached out
Speaker 1: to these people, it was going to rock their world
Speaker 1: and I wasn't trying to do that. So after the
Speaker 1: year of constant prodding, I know now that was just
Speaker 1: God like I need you to I need you to
Speaker 1: reach out to these people.
Speaker 2: So this is what I did. True story.
Speaker 1: It took me maybe about six months to come up
Speaker 1: with how I was going to approach them. So it
Speaker 1: has to be like the perfect way, right, because they
Speaker 1: can think I'm a cuckoo puff, that I'm wanting something
Speaker 1: from them, or that I'm lying Like this could go
Speaker 1: in number of ways. So I reached out to my therapist,
Speaker 1: who helped me to craft a letter that would be
Speaker 1: taken by them without sounding any particular way. And God
Speaker 1: is so good. After I had developed this plan and
Speaker 1: ran it past all my friends and ran it past
Speaker 1: the therapist, I'm sitting next to a girl at my
Speaker 1: job who is adopted, and when she overhears a conversation
Speaker 1: that I have with someone about the letter, and she goes,
Speaker 1: if you only got one shot at these people when
Speaker 1: you contact them, here's what you need to cover in
Speaker 1: the letter. And she tells me you need to cover this,
Speaker 1: you need to cover this, and you need to cover this.
Speaker 1: If this is your only shot, and if they never
Speaker 1: reach out to you, here's what they're going to want
Speaker 1: to know this this, and this was the facts. How
Speaker 1: do I know that I'm their family? How did my
Speaker 1: parents meet? Give them concrete proof that you are not
Speaker 1: some random person reaching out to them trying to pull
Speaker 1: a con And so she just gave me the things
Speaker 1: to put in there, and that's what I did. So
Speaker 1: I said, okay, I said I'm doing it this year.
Speaker 1: I said, here's what I'm going to do. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give them one holiday. I'm gonna give them Thanksgiving. But
Speaker 1: the day after Thanksgiving, I'm sending the letter and I'm
Speaker 1: blowing up the spot they're getting.
Speaker 2: My letter, the family will have changed, Okay, correct.
Speaker 1: So they had their Thanksgiving dinner and then Thanksgiving evening
Speaker 1: very late, round about midnight, maybe even the day after.
Speaker 1: I send the letter simultaneously to the brother and the
Speaker 1: sister on social media.
Speaker 2: Okay, so here's what I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know that my sister runs a large philanthropic
Speaker 1: arm of a brewery, so she's very popular in the
Speaker 1: state of Minnesota, so people reach out to her on
Speaker 1: social media that are cuckoo puffs. So I don't know that.
Speaker 1: My brother, however, he is much more of a straight lace,
Speaker 1: you know. And so he actually reads the letter and
Speaker 1: immediately texts my sister and goes, did you get a
Speaker 1: letter from someone on social media? And ask her to
Speaker 1: take a look at the letter. And so my sister
Speaker 1: takes a look at the letter, and her and her
Speaker 1: husband then read it and they call me that night,
Speaker 1: and so we have a conversation. They asked me very
Speaker 1: probing questions because they do think I'm crazy. They think
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get over And so there were certain
Speaker 1: things that my dad was known for, and I was
Speaker 1: able to give them that information, take pictures of letters
Speaker 1: that he had written me and send it to them,
Speaker 1: and they were like, oh, like, she's for real.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So we did the DNA test. Of course, the DNA
Speaker 1: test comes back and we're related. But the best thing
Speaker 1: about all of this is we were only nine months,
Speaker 1: so you think I'm empathetic. My sister takes the cake.
Speaker 1: She immediately welcomed me into her family. When I went
Speaker 1: up to meet them in person, she literally comes flying
Speaker 1: out the car.
Speaker 2: It's like sissy, She goes, I always wanted a.
Speaker 1: Sister like they have welcomed me with open arms. It
Speaker 1: could not have gone any better than how it went.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely amazing. That's incredible. But now I know
Speaker 1: why I had the impression to meet them. So nine
Speaker 1: months into our relationship, my brother goes for his baseline
Speaker 1: colonoscopy and they find pollops and so they remove the
Speaker 1: pollops and the polyps go get tested and turns out
Speaker 1: the polyps are pre cancerous, but the type of cancer
Speaker 1: it is is genetically passed. So they say to him,
Speaker 1: if you have any siblings, tell them they need to
Speaker 1: go get tested immediately. So my sister goes and gets tested.
Speaker 1: She has the same pollops, so they remove her pollups
Speaker 1: and she goes, are you going to go get tested?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, we're just half brother and sister. I'm
Speaker 1: way younger than you, guys, I'm good. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm straight. So months ago and months ago and one
Speaker 1: of my very close friends her mom passed from colon cancer,
Speaker 1: and she goes, you can either go on your own
Speaker 1: or I'm gonna make the appointment for you and take you.
Speaker 1: So I was like, all right, I'll go, so go
Speaker 1: and have the colonoscopy and I'll wake up from it.
Speaker 1: And they go, oh, we found some things, but we
Speaker 1: feel confident it's not cancerous.
Speaker 2: We've removed it.
Speaker 1: We'll call you in a couple of days and we'll
Speaker 1: let you know what the LID reports is. Turns out
Speaker 1: they were wrong. Turns out it was stage three hole
Speaker 1: and cancer. They told me. Had I waited to the
Speaker 1: age of fifty to get my baseline, the conversation would
Speaker 1: have been how can we keep you comfortable? Instead of
Speaker 1: how can we save your life? So had I not
Speaker 1: reached out to my brother and sister when I felt
Speaker 1: compelled to, I would not be sitting here today. Finally,
Speaker 1: through another hurdle, Tasmin was only just able to catch
Speaker 1: her breath before she fell into another situation that rocked
Speaker 1: her world and her livelihood. I never knew in a
Speaker 1: million years. I never thought that I would ever be
Speaker 1: starting over from scratch again. So after I fought cancer,
Speaker 1: and one cancer leaves its mark on you. You don't
Speaker 1: get out of that fight without being scathed. And the chemo.
Speaker 1: So I've had several major surgeries, eight months of chemo
Speaker 1: and out of work for four years. That's how long
Speaker 1: the battle for cancer was. It wasn't it wasn't pretty.
Speaker 1: It was very difficult and my cognition. It had really
Speaker 1: impacted my memory. My memory was so bad I would
Speaker 1: have to write down where I was driving to because
Speaker 1: I would forget where I was driving and just drive
Speaker 1: around aimlessly until I could figure out what I was
Speaker 1: doing my executive functioning skills. Executive functioning skills in your
Speaker 1: brain are what allow you to function at a very
Speaker 1: high level, which is what I do in my corporate
Speaker 1: America job. Like I not only keep me in check,
Speaker 1: but I keep my team in check, I keep my
Speaker 1: boss in check, and I make sure everyone is good.
Speaker 1: So unless I'm able to to have my eyes on
Speaker 1: ten things at once until you at any given moment
Speaker 1: exactly what their status is, I'm not doing my job.
Speaker 1: And that is what chemo took for me. I could
Speaker 1: barely hold a conversation with someone in my brain if
Speaker 1: I could describe it to you. It would be like
Speaker 1: a funnel, like I would have all of these thoughts
Speaker 1: right here, but that funnel got about this big when
Speaker 1: it came time to talk, for me to be able
Speaker 1: to express myself and what it was I needed, and
Speaker 1: I literally would completely clam up and would not be
Speaker 1: able to tell a waitress my order. I remember going
Speaker 1: to the eye doctor and just needing contacts, and I
Speaker 1: broke down in tears because I could not convey to
Speaker 1: the nurse that I was there to pick up contexts.
Speaker 1: You get so frustrated with yourself and with your body
Speaker 1: because of what the cancer does to you. So because
Speaker 1: of that decline, while I'm fighting cancer, my son is
Speaker 1: now in crisis. And I meet a gentleman who takes
Speaker 1: advantage of that cost native decline that I'm experiencing, and
Speaker 1: he fabricates a story that leads me to believe that
Speaker 1: I am no longer safe in my home. He convinces
Speaker 1: me to sell my home of eighteen years. And this
Speaker 1: is huge because I've never had stability, so I'm able
Speaker 1: to so after I rebuild from my marriage, I'm finally stable.
Speaker 1: I'm finally in my home, and it truly was a
Speaker 1: home he leads me to believe that I'm not safe there,
Speaker 1: and neither is my son. So I sell my home
Speaker 1: and truly a fire sale, leave got rid of everything
Speaker 1: in it. And he proposes. And I am so exhausted
Speaker 1: now from the fight from cancer, from my son being
Speaker 1: in crisis. I am mentally and physically exhausted, and I
Speaker 1: don't feel like I can take another step. So dumb me,
Speaker 1: I say to him, why don't you take care of
Speaker 1: the bills? Now that you know we're going to be
Speaker 1: in one household, why don't you take care of the bills.
Speaker 1: He goes, great idea, why don't you go get a
Speaker 1: certified check from the proceeds of your sale, and let's
Speaker 1: go ahead and e merge bank accounts and I'll take
Speaker 1: care of everything. Guess who did that? I did, not
Speaker 1: knowing any better. No one had ever told me once again,
Speaker 1: one of these gaps that you have because you don't
Speaker 1: have a solid foundation and footing. No one never told
Speaker 1: me you don't do that. You don't give everything to
Speaker 1: someone who is not legally bound and responsible for you.
Speaker 1: Three or four weeks later, he breaks off the engagement,
Speaker 1: keeps the money, takes the ring back and goes. So
Speaker 1: now I'm fifty years old, well, we'll be fifty this year,
Speaker 1: have no home. I have none of the most treasured
Speaker 1: memories that you keep from your babies, you know, the
Speaker 1: little hand ornaments that they make, all the little clay
Speaker 1: things like the things you can't replace. All of those
Speaker 1: things are gone, and those are the things that are true.
Speaker 1: We missed the most. How did you start over? Once again,
Speaker 1: found myself in.
Speaker 2: The spare bedroom of a girlfriend.
Speaker 1: This time with my two dogs because my son has
Speaker 1: grown now, so I've got two fur babies. And I
Speaker 1: was in her spare bedroom on the floor, on the floor,
Speaker 1: not even in a bed, on the floor with the dogs,
Speaker 1: and I had this i'll caohol it come to Jesus moment,
Speaker 1: just a very clear moment, and I realized that how
Speaker 1: I felt in that moment was exactly how I felt
Speaker 1: as a child in foster care, being incredibly afraid of
Speaker 1: the future, not knowing what I was going to do,
Speaker 1: not knowing what my next step was. And it was
Speaker 1: at that moment I said, you know what, if I
Speaker 1: got to rebuild my life. Not only am I going
Speaker 1: to rebuild my life, but I'm going to go back
Speaker 1: to these kids that are aging out of foster care,
Speaker 1: and I am going to help them shore up their foundation.
Speaker 2: Motivated by her own experience, she started her organization Forward
Speaker 2: Hope as a way to help vulnerable children aging out
Speaker 2: of foster care by providing essential things like homes, transportation, education,
Speaker 2: and mentorship that they desperately need.
Speaker 1: But most importantly, I can give them meaningful resources. They
Speaker 1: don't have to couch surf, they don't have to wonder
Speaker 1: where they're going to sleep at at night. They won't
Speaker 1: have to carry around their items in a laundry basket
Speaker 1: everything that they own. They're going to have a family,
Speaker 1: They're going to have a home that will always be
Speaker 1: there that they can always come back to, and they're
Speaker 1: going to have hope for a future. What is one
Speaker 1: moment where at the time you thought this is such
Speaker 1: a low point, I just don't know that I can
Speaker 1: get myself out of this, and now you actually see
Speaker 1: it as something that catapulted you to the success you
Speaker 1: are today. Oh, easily, I know exactly what that is.
Speaker 2: Cancer.
Speaker 1: I hated God for giving me that, and there was
Speaker 1: no other way I looked at it. I was like,
Speaker 1: out of every thing I've gone through out of the
Speaker 1: foster care, out of the divorce, out of you name it,
Speaker 1: out out of all of the mountains I've had to climb.
Speaker 1: You're gonna give me cancer? Now?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: Really? And can't once again cancer For anyone who's already
Speaker 1: faced it is no easy fight and have to face
Speaker 1: your own mortality. People would come to me and they
Speaker 1: would be like, oh, remember God is with you in this,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, if God is sitting over there in
Speaker 1: that chair watching me go through this and him and
Speaker 1: I got a problem like I didn't have. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to have anything to do with spirituality. I was
Speaker 1: so upset with him for another mountain to climb, and
Speaker 1: I was already tired. It was me getting to that
Speaker 1: place where I was that raw and that honest with
Speaker 1: him that it changed something in me. It brought me
Speaker 1: to the end of myself. I realized, oh, I can't
Speaker 1: do everything by myself. Oh it hasn't been me doing
Speaker 1: it all along. In my mind, I was doing this,
Speaker 1: this and this. No, it's not actually you doing all
Speaker 1: of this. It's God in you, helping you achieve each
Speaker 1: of these milestones. And like you overcame all of those
Speaker 1: other things in the past. You're going to overcome this too.
Speaker 1: And not only are you going to overcome it, you're
Speaker 1: going to be more than an overcomer. You're going to
Speaker 1: be more than a conqueror. That was the one thing
Speaker 1: that changed the rest of my life. I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: This is how raw I got with God. This is
Speaker 1: exactly what I said. I was talking to him. I
Speaker 1: talked to him the way you and I are talking
Speaker 1: right now. And I said, you know what I said,
Speaker 1: I don't want a new chapter. I said, I want
Speaker 1: a whole new volume. I said, this raggedy ass volume
Speaker 1: one that I just finished up right here. I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want that. I said, I want a brand new,
Speaker 1: leather bound, gold foiled volume two. That's what I want
Speaker 1: my life to look like going into this next half,
Speaker 1: and that's what it's going to be.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you so much for this. I'm so
Speaker 2: appreciative of being here today.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: Since her interview, Tasman has been busy. She just closed
Speaker 2: on a house specifically to take in children that have
Speaker 2: aged out of the foster care system through her organization
Speaker 2: Forward Hope. Tasmin is a true inspiration and I'm so
Speaker 2: grateful to have had the opportunity to share her story
Speaker 2: with the world. Be sure to follow Tasman on Instagram
Speaker 2: at Tazzy Underscore Carter and learn more about her organization
Speaker 2: at forward hopec dot org. Thanks for listening. Thanks for
Speaker 2: listening to this episode of she Pivots. If you made
Speaker 2: it this far, you're a true pivoter, so thanks for
Speaker 2: being part of this community. I hope you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 2: and if you did leave us a rating, please be
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Speaker 2: special thanks to the she Pivots team, Executive producer Emily
Speaker 2: eda Velosik, Associate producer and social media connoisseur Hannah Cousins,
Speaker 2: Research director Christine Dickinson, Events and logistics coordinator Madeline Sonovak,
Speaker 2: and audio editor and mixer Nina Pollock.
Speaker 1: I endorse she Pivots