Who Am I?

In Episode 3 of No Version Left, John asks the question at the heart of everything: Who am I? Not who people thought he was. Not who pain made him become. Not who grief, addiction, survival, or silence left behind. This episode is a raw and emotional search for identity after losing pieces of yourself you can never fully get back.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

The three most important questions in life are why, why, and why. Because by the third why, you usually get the hard truth. My name is John Terrio, and this is my story. But this time, I'm not cleaning it up for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

This is no version left.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

There are people who think they know me. They know the version that shows up, the version that works, that smiled when it had to. The one that takes risks and called it adventure. The version that learned how to sound okay when nothing about me was. But that's not all of me. And it's not even close. And I need you to know that before this continues. Because if I'm gonna sit here and talk about grief, relate relationships, survival, choices, mistakes, rebuilding, and the things people don't usually say out loud, then I'm not starting with the polished version of me. So let's call this episode Who Am I? But not the version you think. These episodes are unscriptedly scripted. I have points, I have notes, but everything I say comes from me, from my heart, from my story. And most of these I'll try and keep shorter on the shorter end, like I said before, but this one's gonna be a little bit longer, but I think it's pertinent to understanding me and uh the guy behind this podcast. So I don't know if I ever had one simple answer to the question, who am I? I've been lots of things, and some of them by choice. Some because I had no choice, others because I wanted to be loved or I needed to survive. And some because if I didn't become that version, I don't know if I'd be here today. So let's start with a basic version for now. I'm John Terrier. I grew up in eastern Canada. I had a mother and father, I have an older sister. From the outside, it looked like you know, a normal kid in a normal family having a normal childhood. And for a long time, actually until recently, really, that's how I talked about it. Normal, fine, nothing too dramatic, nothing worth making a big deal about. That's a version I gave people because that was easier than trying to explain the parts that I didn't fully understand myself. So I'm turning 40 at the end of this year, and that number still feels strange to say out loud. Because I feel there are parts of me that that are much older than that. And there's parts of me that feel like they stopped growing at different times. I've lived in St. John, New Brunswick, and I've moved to Los Angeles, California, and I lived there for almost six years. That move became one of the versions that people attached to me. The risk taker, the one who left, the one who chased something different, the one who made it look brave. And maybe parts of it were brave. Why the hell do you move from Eastern Canada to LA? But part of it was also running. Trying to become someone somewhere else. Trying to see if a different city could make me feel like a different person, a different, find a different version of myself, one that made more sense than the one that I was carrying. I've been married and divorced twice. Once in my 20s in Canada, once in my 30s in the United States. So, hey, 40s? Who knows what's gonna happen? But that's a sentence people hear and they immediately create a story around. Twice married, twice divorced. They may assume I was reckless, impulsive, bad at love, I was too much, or maybe I was not enough. Maybe there's parts of those stories that I have to own. But there's also parts that people don't know. They don't know the loneliness behind some of the choices I made, the wanting to belong and the wanting to be chosen. The wanting something so badly to work so badly that I ignored the signs that it was breaking me. I'm gay. I came out when I was 18. And when I came out, I was kicked out of my house. December 14th, 2004. And it's one of those things I used to say almost too quickly. As though if I said, you know, it fast enough, it wouldn't sound so heavy. Or really, maybe if I made it sound like another fact, I wouldn't have to admit what it actually meant and what it actually did to me. Because being kicked out at 18, that does something to you. It teaches you things. It teaches you that honesty can cost you safety, that love can have conditions, that being yourself might come with consequences. And it makes you start asking a question that can follow you and followed me for years. Who do I have to be to be allowed to stay? And that question shaped more of my life than really I ever wanted to admit. Who do I have to be to be accepted, to be loved? Who do I have to be so people don't leave, so people don't hurt me? Who do I have to be so that I'm not too much, or maybe so that I'm enough? And I wish I could say that I figured that out quickly. I didn't. And it wasn't until recently that I truly started asking the why behind it. I carried that into relationships, into friendships, into work, into the way I showed up for people, the way I let people treat me. I've been cheated on more times than I can count. With one X, I stopped counting at 120 times, and I can prove those without question, without debate. But even saying that out loud, it makes me feel embarrassed. And it's not because I caused it, but because there's this shame that comes with admitting what you tolerated. With looking back and realizing how many times I stayed when I should have left, how many times I forgave what was still happening, or how many times I tried to be better for someone who wasn't even trying to be honest. And people hear the betrayal and they think about, you know, the act, the cheating, the lying, the person who did it. What they don't always understand is what betrayal does to your own identity. You begin to question your worth. You wonder, you know, what you missed. What's wrong with me? Why was I not enough? Or why did I stay? Why did I keep trying to prove I was worth choosing? And and those questions they became a part of me because I wasn't careful about it. I've been manipulated, I've been lied about. I've had people take parts of my story and rewrite them so that they looked better and I looked worse. I've had people turn my pain into their excuse. I've had people make me the problem because it was easier than them taking responsibility for what they did. And more times than you can count on one hand, I've had people tell me I should kill myself. And that's a sentence I don't want to soften. Because there is no soft version of that. There's no polite way to say what that does to you. When someone says that to you, especially, you know, when you've been carrying or are carrying so much, it doesn't just pass through you. It lands somewhere, it stays somewhere. And it doesn't matter if I know that they were cruel or they were wrong for saying it. A sentence like that still echoes. And this is what I mean when I say people know versions of me. They may know the version that kept working, the version who made jokes, the version who looked confident, the one who you know moved to Los Angeles, or the one who was married and divorced twice. The version who handled things, the version who seemed like he could take another hit and keep going, but they don't always know what those versions were built from. They don't know how many times you know I made something sound smaller because I didn't want to make someone uncomfortable. Or how many times I called something normal because I didn't have the energy to call it painful. And that's part of why I'm doing this podcast. Because I'm tired of making my story easier to digest. And maybe in me being brutally open and honest, someone else feels less alone. Or they feel seen. I'm tired of introducing myself, like a list of facts, when the truth is every fact has a cost behind it. So when I ask who am I, I'm asking it because I think I've spent years being versions of myself that you know other people could handle. I'm John, I'm almost 40. I'm from Eastern Canada, I'm gay, I've been married twice, divorced twice, I've lived in Canada and I've lived in the United States. I've worked in business in HR, I've built teams, led people, solved problems, made decisions under pressure. I've been the person people called when something needed to be figured out. And I became good at that. Very good at that. But being good in a crisis can become dangerous. Because people start thinking you're fine just because you're useful. You they start thinking you're okay because you can explain, you know, a plan, or you're strong because you can function. Somewhere along the way, you start believing that too. That's what I did. You start believing that your value is in what you can carry or what you can fix, what you can survive, in what you can make easier for everyone else. And then last year, that version of me, it took over in a way I still don't fully know how to explain. As I've shared, my mother died last September at the age of 67. My father had already died almost 20 years earlier at the age of 50. Both of my parents, both gone, both from rare aggressive cancers. And I still don't know how to say that without feeling like it sounds unreal. The two people who gave me life are gone. The two people from that family, the one that I used to describe, they're gone. And losing both parents changes something in you suddenly. The people connected to the beginning of your life are not here anymore. There's no one left who remembers you before you became all these versions. No one left who saw the child before the survival. And then you're standing here like I am, almost 40, trying to figure out who you are without them. I came home at the start of last year when my mother's battle had really just begun. At first, when I did, I thought, you know, I was coming home for short visits to help out, to support, to be there. I never thought I was coming home to become the version I did. I ended up leading her care, and I want to be clear about what I mean by that. Because some people close to me, or were close to me, have dismissed it, minimized what that meant or what it cost. And this is not because I want recognition. I wish to hell I didn't need to do any of this. But because it shows what she was up against. I was reading reports, reviewing doctor's notes after after every appointment, scan, after test, or whatever it may be, looking at imaging, researching, trying to understand medical language, I had no business needing to understand. I was trying to find options, turn her fear into strategy, trying to get her more time. And that became the job. Get her more time. Because every time she'd say to me, I'm afraid to die, I said, Don't worry, mom, I've got this. I treated failure like it was not an option. Because how do you accept failure when the person you were trying to save is your mother? How do you look at someone who gave you life and accept that you might not be able to protect theirs? In another episode, I'll talk about this more because that story deserves its own space. But I need to share some of it here because it's part of who I am. I became my mother's advocate, her researcher, her voice in rooms where I felt like I had to understand everything immediately. Her decision maker. I was her son, yes, but also something more complicated than that. Something that was heavier, something that didn't end when she died. Because right before she died, while still fully coherent, just after I told her there was no hope left, as I had promised her I would do, the last words I said to her were, I'm sorry I failed. That has become part of me, not in a motivational way, not in a clean healing way, but in a real way. In a way where I no longer sleep. It is something I carry, something I can still hear, something I will always have to live with. And it's interesting. In sharing that, I often hear from people, but you didn't fail, don't think that. But nobody's asked me why I feel I failed. But there's another part of this story that makes it even more complicated. Because when my mother called prior to me coming home and told me she had cancer, that was the first time I had spoken to her in almost a year and a half. Another story I'll share in a different episode. Almost a year and a half of silence, and then the call came, the diagnosis, and I came back home. So that's not simple grief. It's grief mixed with guilt, love mixed with distance, responsibility mixed with unresolved pain. And that's why I can't explain who I am without explaining some of what happened. Because who I am is not separate from those moments. I am the son who came home, but I'm also the son who had not spoken to his mother in almost a year and a half. I'm the person who fought for her, but I'm also the person who still feels like he failed. The person who stepped in but lost myself in doing it. I'm the advocate and I'm the one who failed. And all of that is true at the same time. I can know I did everything I could and still feel like it wasn't enough. I can love someone and still have unresolved pain with them. I can be strong and still be damaged by what that strength required. And frankly, that's why this episode matters. Because before I talk about anything else on this podcast, I need to be honest about the person telling the stories. I'm not telling them from a distance or, you know, someone who has it figured out, or because I've healed perfectly or have the answers. I'm telling it from inside the mess of it. From the place where things still hurt, where things still don't make sense. From the place where I can look back and see patterns I couldn't see while I was living them. And that's the point of no version left. It's not a timeline, it's going to be moments. The ones that changed me, confused me, the ones I survived are the ones I'm still trying to understand. You know, because something from my marriages can still show up in how I trust people. Something from losing my father connects to you know how how I reacted when I lost my mother. Something from being kicked out can show up in how badly I want to feel safe. Or from being cheated on can still show up in how I question my worth. The order doesn't matter as much as the why. I'm also the person still trying to figure out what parts of me existed before all of this happened. And that's kind of the hard part. Because when you spend years surviving, you don't always get to know yourself. You know your reactions, defenses, you know how to read a rumor, how to adjust, how to become easier, how to keep going, how to survive. But knowing how to survive is not the same as knowing who you are. And I think that is what I'm frankly learning now. Maybe I don't know exactly who I am yet. Maybe this podcast is part of me figuring it out. Maybe every story I tell here and share is me pulling out a version out of the dark and asking, was this really me? Or was it someone I had to become? Was it my choice, or was it survival? Was it strength or fear? And those aren't necessarily easy questions, but they're honest ones. And I would rather start there than pretend I have some clean answer. People saw a version of me, and for a long time, I let that be enough. Enough for them to recognize me, judge me, enough for them to decide who they thought I was. But not enough to understand me. Because they didn't see what I carried into the room, what I had just survived before I smiled, or how many times I made the truth smaller before I handed it to them. And maybe that's what I'm done doing. Because the truth is, I'm not starting this podcast because I finally know who I am. I'm starting it because I don't fully know. Not after becoming so many versions of myself just to get through the next thing. And that's, you know, harder to admit than a lot of facts that I've said. People expect the answer to who I am to sound certain. A name, place, a story, something clean enough to hold, but mine doesn't sound like that. It sounds like a question that I've avoided. Where did I end and where did survival begin? Because I know what I became when I had to be strong, or when I wanted to be loved, or when my mother was dying. I know what I became when everything hurt and I still had to keep functioning. But I don't know how much of that was actually me. And that's the part that I don't know how to make sound pretty. Because what if the version people know best was never fully me at all? What if it was what I built so I could keep standing? What if it was the part of me that learned how to survive so well that I started calling it my personality? There are moments I look back and I do not see what happened. I see the places I left myself, the times I abandoned myself and called it love, the times I swallowed pain and called it strength. The times I kept going because, you know, frankly, stopping would have meant that I had to admit how broken I really was. And maybe that is why this has to start here. Not because I have the clean answer, not because I'm necessarily ready, but because I cannot keep building a life on top of a version of me, I do not fully recognize. So, no, this was never meant to cleanly answer who I am. I don't think I can do that, not yet, and maybe not ever. But it gives me the place I have to start from. Because if I truly feel like this is my last version, if there really is no version left after this one, then I cannot spend it hiding inside someone else's version of the truth. I've already lost too much of myself that way. I've let people misunderstand me because correcting them would have meant explaining pain that I didn't have the strength to say out loud. I've let silence protect everybody but me, and I've carried shame for things that were never going to heal in the dark. So this version, it has to be different. It has to be mine. Not perfect, not clean, not easy to listen to, but true. And somehow I hope that that truth reaches the person who has been carrying something alone and makes them feel a little less invisible. I hope it makes someone hesitate before judging a version of a person whose pain they never had to survive. Because people see the version, they don't always see the cost. And if I'm going to carry my parents forward now, I think this is the only way I know how to. They held on to words during their battles that meant something to them. Impossible is nothing. Celebrate life, live loud and ride hard. I used to hear those as sayings, but now I feel like they're pieces of them that stayed behind. And maybe that's why this next part. Why it hurts so much to say. Because one of the lives I'm trying to celebrate is the one I almost gave up on. The one I almost ended. The one that is still mine, even after everything I did, to disappear from it. And somehow inside all of that pain, I became something I never thought I would say out loud. I'm an addict. And I so badly want to explain that sentence away. I want to soften it. I want to say it in a way that makes it easier to hear. Easier to understand, easier to forgive. But that would be me doing the same thing all over again. Making the truth sound smaller before I hand it to you. So I'm just gonna say it. I'm an addict. I was hurting so badly that I reached for a way to make the pain quiet. And I almost didn't make it here. But I did. I am here. That doesn't make it beautiful. It doesn't make everything I did okay. It doesn't erase the shame, but it means the shame didn't get the final word. And I think for the first time I can say that the version of me I tried the hardest to bury might be the reason I'm still alive. He was not the failure of the story. He was the proof that even in the ugliest part of it, some piece of me was still trying to survive. So if this really is my last version, then I want it built from that truth. The kind that shakes when you say it, the kind that costs something, the kind that can carry grief, guilt, love, addiction, and survival without pretending any of it was simple. And if my parents left me anything I can still hold, maybe it is this. Celebrate the life that is still here. Live loud enough to stop disappearing, and ride hard enough to make it through what tried to end you. So that's what I'm going to do. For them, for me, for the person I almost lost, for the addict who is still alive, and for every version of me I had to bury to make it this far. And I promise you, I'm going to live loud enough that all of them hear me say, We made it out. This is no version left.