Ep. 6: Daddy got Me Pregnant with Ira Warren (TW)
(TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Child Molestation)
On this episode of Self Inventory, host Brandon Chastang sits down with Ira Warren. She is a pastor, the author of BodyGuards and the founder of Molestation Epidemic. Her organization and book provides necessary education and support for kids about grooming, molestation and sexual assault. Today she sits down with Brandon Chastang to talk about her painful personal experiences with intrafamilial domestic abuse and sexual assault. She highlights how self examination is a crucial part of her healing process.
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Transcript:
Brandon Chastang: [00:00:00] A Self Inventory report is the type of psychological test in which a person fills out a survey about personal interests, values, symptoms, behaviors, and traits.
Self Inventories are different from tests and that there is no objective, correct answer. Self Inventory is a podcast where we investigate the issues of society that don't seem to have any correct answer.
Brandon Chastang blends together history lessons, current events, and talk with people of all backgrounds to provide us as a society with a self-inventory. In order to move forward we need to look at where we've been and where we are now. It's time for Self Inventory.
You're now listening to Self Inventory. I'm your host, Brandon Chastang AKA B McFly, and yes, B McFly stands for Being Motivated Comes From Loving Yourself. You got to love yourself, man. Like through all the hard pain and suffering and whatever it is that you went through, if you can overcome this and love yourself, then you're motivated to conquer the world.
I have a special guest with me today. Um, I met this, uh, guest like what, two years ago?
Ira Warren: [00:01:30] Yeah it's been two years.
Brandon Chastang: [00:01:31] Two years ago. And ever since then, you know, we've been supporting one another. I just want to get into man. Ira Warren man, everybody give a warm welcome for Ira Warren.
How are you?
Ira Warren: [00:01:44] I'm doing great.
Brandon Chastang: [00:01:45] You know, when I first met you, right. I'm like, okay, I'm thinking you from Philly, right. Then when you start speaking, I'm like, no, I had a little Tang man. So where are you from?
Ira Warren: [00:01:58] Well, I was born in Gary, Indiana and I lived there until I was 12. And then my parents, well, the GMC, my dad was working for GMC and it had shut down and he said, listen, we getting ready to, it was either California or Texas.
And so we packed our bags and pretty much gave everything away. It was a Saturday morning. I'll never forget it. And this was 1980. And we draw from, you know, uh, Gary, Indiana to Texas. I lived in Texas 33 years prior to moving to Philadelphia. It's going on six years now.
Brandon Chastang: [00:02:33] Wow. So from Gary Indiana, Gary Indiana. Right. And then you went from Gary Indiana to Texas,
right ? And then from Texas to Philadelphia.
Ira Warren: [00:02:45] To Philadelphia.
Brandon Chastang: [00:02:46] Is it safe to say you traveled the States?
Ira Warren: [00:02:49] Yeah. It's safe to say that I've, I've pretty much traveled all 50 States pretty much.
Brandon Chastang: [00:02:55] Oh my goodness. Wow. When you say you traveled, right? You do you have siblings?
Ira Warren: [00:03:02] Um, yes, I do have siblings, everyone. Well, all my siblings, they live in Texas and then I had a brother, um, that was under me. He, you know, he would have been 49 cause I'm 50, so he'd be 49. And he passed away of cancer 30 years ago. So yeah, he was 18.
Brandon Chastang: [00:03:19] Yeah. Although October is breast cancer awareness month though, but we still fighting. Right for cancer period.
Yes. I'm sorry to hear that.
Ira Warren: [00:03:28] Yeah. And I'm a survivor 21 years. No, cervical cervical cancer/ been in remission. Oh, you'll listen.
Brandon Chastang: [00:03:35] Let's give a warm shout out. Let's give a huge shout out to surviving cancer. Wow. So you said you had brothers and sisters, right?
Ira Warren: [00:03:43] Right.
Brandon Chastang: [00:03:44] With your mother and your dad, your mother and your father.
Ira Warren: [00:03:47] Yes.
Brandon Chastang: [00:03:48] And you guys all just packed and left and you know, started and you said everybody's still down South?
Ira Warren: [00:03:54] Yeah. Everybody's still down south.
Brandon Chastang: [00:03:56] Wow. Okay. What type of environment did you, did you grow up in, like, what was the, what was the environment like? Because having a bunch of brothers and sisters in the house and depending on where you live at. Us being black. That's a rough style.
Ira Warren: [00:04:12] Yeah, it is. I would say my, you know, my dad, my dad was a go getter. It wasn't nothing that he didn't set his mind to, you know? So I come from a home where it was always entrepreneur, you know? So when I was, when I was a child, my mom, she owned two bookstores in Gary, Indiana.
So when I was a little girl, I was running a bookstore at seven, eight, nine years old. And then when we migrated to Texas, my dad opened up like three body shops. So he painted cars for a living and you know, my mom, she did all the paperwork and we were trained to sand down cars and paint cars. So I am really into cars, you know, so people wouldn't wouldn't have never guessed that I wanted to be a mechanic.
That was my thing. I wanted to be a mechanic. So just, I want to say this a couple of weeks ago. Well, not a couple of a couple of years ago, I had a flat tire, actually two flat. It was two, the two front tires just went on a flat and it was this guy and he, he stopped and he was watching me. He was like, yo, he was like, you dress nice where you go I swear I'm headed to the school, you know, I'm a TSS worker or whatever he said you getting ready to change these tires?
I said, yes, sir. He said, man, This is a lost art. He I've never seen a woman get on her knees, put this jack under here and jack this car. I mean, I just love, I love cars, you know? So that was just my thing. I wanted to be a mechanic, but my dad was like nah.
Brandon Chastang: [00:05:36] Wow, hold up. You know, it's amazing, right? Because what fathers are involved right with, with women, women tend to, you know, have this aura about them. Like not saying you don't need a man, but you get the job done. When the Father is around the women and they were raised by their fathers. A lot of our women get the job done on, on different levels.
You were around entrepreneurship. You know, you watch your father owned a few businesses. So the entrepreneurship came from your father. What came from your mother? What role did she play in your life?
Ira Warren: [00:06:21] My mom, she went, that's kind of hard because I was pretty much raised by my, my deal. When I lived in, in Gary, Indiana. My mom, she was under strict rule by my dad. My dad, he ruled with it. When I say what an iron fist like this guy will put on a white glove to check to see if the house was clean, you know.
So he was never in the military anything like that. You know, my dad is the oldest of 21 children, you know, so he, when I say the dirty South, you know, he was born down the street, literally from Tina Turner. Hmm in Tennessee. And then they, they moved to Osceola, Arkansas, you know, so, and they house was made out of tin, you know, so they was picking cotton and different things like that.
You know? So my dad, like I said, my dad ruled with an iron fist, but it wasn't because of his dad. It was because of his mom. His mom was just, when I say she was rowdy, she was one of those, you know, she spent some time in like mental illness spots, you know, cause she had shot and killed somebody. You know when she was younger. You know, she started having kids at 13 and my grandmother, her name was Bennie Mae. So if you want to, you know, grab from that, that was that's the old school name
and she walked around with cowboy hats and guns and you know, so it wasn't, it wasn't nothing for her you know, to be about that life and kill someone. So she spent a lot of time and, you know, spots, you know, not necessarily jail, but she was incarcerated, but she was a mental spot, you know? So my dad pretty much, you know, took a lot of his behavior from his mom.
So my mom, you know, she got a lot of the. You know, when I say rule with the iron fist, my dad was say whatever he wanted to with his words. And he will literally, my mom only stood four eleven. So if it wasn't something she didn't do right or say, right. You know, you know, his fist was going into her face. My dad's six, three, you know, so.
It, it was one of those things, Oh, I got to do everything to the, you know, dot the I's and cross the T you know, that, that's how it was, you know, so my mom really, didn't just, she really didn't have a backbone, you know, so I watched her as a little girl, you know, just being ruled by this man that. You know, could tell her, you know, how high to jump and she would jump. You know, so I really, I really didn't get that love and affection from my mom growing up as a little girl, you know, she never told me she loved me.
The only time my mom said that is when I was leaving Texas five and a half years ago. She kissed me on my lips. And she said, I'm proud of you. I love you. You know, she said, you always been a go-getter, you ha you, you just like your daddy, you got traits like your dad, but my mom, she was a homemaker. You know, she stayed at home.
She catered to my dad, you know, like I said, you know, if she went to the grocery store to church or whatever the case may have been, if she was too out two minutes, late, three minutes late, you know, That's that's when the horror was started.
Brandon Chastang: [00:09:32] So from what I'm listening to, right, your father. See back in the day, I want people to understand this right back in the day, men were around the family and a lot of women, they honored the man of being the man of the house. But the man wasn't just a man of the house because he was a man. He was the man of the house because he was a protector and provider. Which your father was
Ira Warren: [00:10:04] he was, he was that.
Brandon Chastang: [00:10:06] But a lot of people don't go back that far with mental health issues. Mental health issues were probably a norm back in the day. Like, no, what I mean by a norm, I'm talking about like, Oh, like you said, if your mother wasn't doing something right, your father would have got angry, hit her or something like that. That probably was a norm back in the day. You said your grandmother was struggling with mental health issues based on her environment and the things that she's been through and she ain't have no problem hurting you if you got out of line. Conflict resolution and just saying what what's up, I'm going to hurt you. And you stated that. Your father picked up traits, genetic traits from your grandmother. Were you close to your grandmother?
Ira Warren: [00:11:00] I was very close to my grandmother. I was very close to her, but I noticed some things, you know, when I was a little girl that was, was, was kind of unusual.
You know, you, you, you will hear this cliche kissing cousins. Right. And you will be like, okay, Well, let's see. And then that's a little too much right there. You know? I mean, they would kiss each other in the mouth or touch each other a certain way and you know, and my grandmother would just say, Oh, we just love each other.
You know, that that's just who we are. And so like, when I was a little girl, I would see my grandmother and her kids and everybody would just be in the bed together. But it wouldn't, it wouldn't, it was just as a, as a young girl, I would be looking, I said, this. This don't fit. This don't look right. You know?
And so they would be doing certain things sexually and, you know, grandma having cousins suck on her breasts and touch her behind. I mean, I seen so much as a little girl, you know, I, I even seen my dad have sex with well with my aunt, you know, and I think I was probably seven years old when I, I saw that happened.
Brandon Chastang: [00:12:07] I want to get into that. Now, I know, I used to hear things like, you know, down South people did certain things that were like different from up North. Now I'm not as old as you, but we kind of share the same generation. I've never seen. I've heard about kissing your aunt on the lips. This is this, but it never went no further than that.
Like if I seen my cousin. My girl, cousin, we would kiss each other on the lips, but it, it never felt, or my grandmother, I kissed my grandmother on the lips today, you know, like, but it never went no further than that, but it seemed like, and this is no disrespect to the South, but I dealt with a woman. And she stated her family is from down South.
And they'd been through things like that, where it's more than just love and affection. Right. It's like sexual content. And for you to state that you've seen your father have sex with your aunt, which was his sibling. Or was it like your
Ira Warren: [00:13:25] grandmother was? Yeah, it was like my grandmother, sister. Yes. Yes, it was. So she would, she would be like my great aunt or something, something like that.
Brandon Chastang: [00:13:34] And you've seen this stuff often,
Ira Warren: [00:13:36] often.
Brandon Chastang: [00:13:38] Did you ever go through or go through stuff like this personally?
Ira Warren: [00:13:42] Yeah, I did. Yeah. Well, my own biological father
Brandon Chastang: [00:13:47] with your own biological father,
Ira Warren: [00:13:50] it was the grooming with him started, um, at five. At five years old, I was introduced to pornography at five. By the time I was seven years old, I was introduced to fellatio, you know, just, just real sickening things. Like it was just levels and layers of sickness. You know what my dad
Brandon Chastang: [00:14:14] not to cut you off. That's it. See, now that's the part where, and I'm gonna let you finish, but I just want to let the viewers understand that from the outside, looking in, you seem like you had a great life because your father owned companies and businesses, and he had a wife. How many, how many siblings you had all together?
Ira Warren: [00:14:37] Four.
Brandon Chastang: [00:14:38] Four. So you the fifth child? Not the fifth child, not the fifth child in order, but it was five of you guys. Right? So from the outside, looking in, it seemed like everything was a family. Perfect.
Ira Warren: [00:14:51] Yeah.
Brandon Chastang: [00:14:52] So you said at five years old, Your father, he literally, did he fondle with you or did he literally have sex with you?
Ira Warren: [00:15:04] The fondling and fellatio, like oral sex stuff was from like five until seven, but then when the penetration started, it was at nine. It started at nine and went from nine to 16.
Brandon Chastang: [00:15:18] How did you feel. Did you feel like it was normal? Did you feel like this was something like, how did you feel when these things were happening at five years old?
Ira Warren: [00:15:28] I felt sick. Even talk of, even I've been sharing this story for 30 years, I still feel sick. Absolutely. Because like I said, the grooming process started with, you know, you my girl, it was never, you was my daughter.
So he was grooming me to be his woman pretty much. You know, so even until this day, my mom still looks at me as the other woman. Yeah. She looks at me as the other woman, you know, she, cause I remember telling her at nine years old, that's when I first told mom, I said, listen, you know, I said, mama, I have something to tell you.
And then, you know, it was never, what is it Ira? It was always whore. I was never called my, my birth name. I was always called something other than my birth name.
Brandon Chastang: [00:16:17] She was psychologically and mentally gone. Because one, she did whatever he told her to do. He took care of her. And two, it was like, He was loving you. It seemed like he was loving you more than he was loving her.
Ira Warren: [00:16:39] Right. And he will say exactly what you just said. He will say he will literally say that. You know, he's, he would say things like when we moved to Texas, I remember they were my mom and dad was downstairs in the kitchen and I was upstairs, but I was in the game room and he said, you going to have to get a job working at night.
You know, this was my mom. He said, you're going to have to get a job working at night. I don't want you, I don't want you here at night. And I was like, what, what is that about? And so then I understood when she did my mom, she was working at this, uh, grocery store called Randall's, you know, she was like a deli clerk or whatever. And so when she would go to work at night, He had full reign to do whatever he wanted to do to me.
Brandon Chastang: [00:17:26] They do anything to your other siblings.
Ira Warren: [00:17:28] Um, he would be, this was in Gary, Indiana. He will force us to have sex with our siblings and he will record us on one of those old school recorder things. And I was a fighter.
I was one of those, nah, I'm not doing that, you know? And so it would always, you know, revert to beatings. So if you didn't do what he told you to do, you had to strip down to nothing and get beat with stitching courts.
Brandon Chastang: [00:17:54] So, and I remember getting whooped with stitching courts, and that was, and that was a norm back in the day, just to bring that submittal health up.
Right. Did he touch on the, the boys and the girls?
Ira Warren: [00:18:06] yes
Brandon Chastang: [00:18:06] He touched on both. And he made you guys touch on each other. And did you guys talk about this when there was like, when you got your personal time?
Nope, it
Ira Warren: [00:18:17] was, it was one of those. He had us, he had us so mentally, like my brother, he would just look at us. And we, it was just one of those things where we would just read each other through each other's eyes, because we wasn't allowed to talk about it.
You know? So if my mom had something going on at the church or whatever, it would always happen on a Saturday when she was away. And so it would be in the den you know of our home. So once every, you know, mom has gone, you know, he puts the timer on, he know exactly what time she's going to walk back through that door because he's controlling.
Cause he controlling everything, you know? Cause he was already controlling my mom with his fist anyway. So she already knew to be back at that appointed time. So whatever he wanted to do for the three hours she was away. That's what that's, that's what he would make us do.
Brandon Chastang: [00:19:13] So. You said from five to seven, there really wasn't no penetration.
Ira Warren: [00:19:20] No.
Brandon Chastang: [00:19:21] At around nine years old, that's when the penetration started. That moment, what would you fill in? What were you going through that moment?
Ira Warren: [00:19:35] At that moment, I was screaming and asking them to stop and he wouldn't, I just remember covering my, um, he had called me in, because I remember my good friend. She, she was knocking on the door that Saturday morning.
And she was like, come on girl. You know, we got to go to the park, you know, we gotta tournament. We had like this double desk tournament or whatever. So we want to go to, yeah. And so my dad went to the door and he was like, you know, she can't come out right now. You know, she's still got some cleaning to do.
And I was saying to myself, We up at 7:00 AM every Saturday cleaning. So cleaning was done. So he shooed my friend away. And so he closed the door. My other siblings were outside playing and I remember him taking me by his, this is what he said. He said, you didn't give daddy a kiss today. And, you know, so I'm not thinking anything, you know of it.
So I kissed him on the cheek and he was like, no, I'm going to show you a new kiss. So it was like this French kiss. And I was like, Oh, you know, I was like, I don't want to do that. And then it escalated to him grabbing me by my hand and walking me to he and my mom's bedroom. And I sat on the bed. And so when I was sitting on the bed, my knees were shaking.
It was just like, I could feel that something crazy was just, you know, getting ready to happen. And he turns, and he, he opens up the door, um, to his closet and he reaches up at the top and he grabs is this magazine down. So he hands me the magazine and he said, turn the page, whatever. And so I turned to this page and I'm like, Oh my God, you know, it's this, you know, this Playboy book.
And I, and I remember just throwing the book across the room and I'm covering my face. And then while I'm covering my eyes, he's moving my hands down and. And when I, when he moved my head, hit my hands down, he standing in front of me naked, like no clothes on. And he said, this is what I want you to do to daddy.
And I was like, I don't want to do that. And then the next thing you know, it was a, it was like a hard smack. Like this was something that he would do to my mom in front of us. And he smacked me. He was just like, shut the hell up. He ain't say it like that, but he's, you know, and, um, and I'm holding my face and he was just like, take off your clothes.
And then that's when it happened. You know, it, it was because I was just. Like Dad please don't do this. It wasn't penetration, you know, from the vagina area I was sodomized, you know, so it w yeah, I was sodomized.
Brandon Chastang: [00:22:14] For you to suffer with that abuse in that type of trauma and filth, how long did this happen to something was transpired?
Ira Warren: [00:22:29] It happened. I think the only relief that I got was when we left Gary, Indiana. And then my dad left us, um, with his mom for like eight months. And then my mom and dad went up, went on ahead to Texas, you know, just to get everything situated and find jobs in a home and stuff like that. So that eight months was like such a relief.
It was like, you know, even, you know, at my age, um, I can still feel that little girl in the inside. Like it was just so much I was a kid. I could be a kid without being, doing adult things. You know, when that eight months my grandmother's, you know, she was saying, I got shingles. I can't take care of y'all.
You know, the place is small. And, and so she called my dad to come and pick me and my siblings up. So they picked us up and, you know, we, we are driving back to Texas and I'm crying because I wanted to stay. We wasn't even in our new home, my parents had bought this beautiful home six bedroom, pool in the back. Beautiful house.
And so we walked in and everybody had their own rooms and, you know, we was all excited and everything. And the next day, That's when that's, when it started, you know, started up again. You know, started with more grooming. It was like, Oh, you know, my dad would come into my room and say, Oh, you didn't, you done, you done developed in eight months say, Oh my God, you know, you look so beautiful.
You're so this and you're so that, and then I remember telling him, I said, dad, I don't, I don't. Why, why does this have to happen? And he would say, cause your mine. And, and, and, and whatever I say, this is, this is what you know we're going to do. And I remember him grabbing my shoulders really tight, you know, to, to get it through my head that we going to get back into this routine, you know, and that's how it was
Brandon Chastang: [00:24:17] sort of the process of this routine, something happened to you, right? You had a child.
Ira Warren: [00:24:23] I had a child. I got pregnant.
Brandon Chastang: [00:24:24] How old were you when you got pregnant?
Ira Warren: [00:24:26] What I thought was the flu at the time I was 16. Um, I remember it being in the, it was in, it was. It was in the, it was the beginning of, um, 87. No, it was like mid 87 and I was so sick. I couldn't run track.
I couldn't go to school or anything like that. I mean, so I didn't know what pregnancy was, you know, so my mom's friend came up and she said, Oh, give us some lemon lime, you know, popsicles and crackers and this and that, all these remedies. Give us some ginger should be all right. You know, and none of it worked.
And then I remember my oldest sister, she said, She says Sis, why don't you just go ahead and go to school and we'll go to the nurse and maybe she could figure out what's wrong with you. And I was like, all right, cool. So I get up, I get dressed. I'm still throwing up all over the place. So we finally get to the school.
And, uh, we get to the nurse's office and I never forget Ms. Scarce that, I mean, she was amazing. She said, well, you don't have a fever or anything she said, but I said, but yeah, but I've been throwing up, you know, for like a month. And she said, well, I'm gonna give you a pregnancy test. And my sister looks at me and I'm looking at my sister and she said, Ms. Scare uh my sister don't have no boyfriend. You know, it's like, wow, how was she going to get pregnant? And, but long story short, she, we did the pregnancy test and I was pregnant.
Brandon Chastang: [00:25:46] Now, when your sister said you don't have a boyfriend, did she know what was going on though?
Ira Warren: [00:25:52] yeah
Brandon Chastang: [00:25:53] I know she knew what was going on, but
Ira Warren: [00:25:56] yeah, something went off in our head because me and Ms. Scarce, we had a really close relationship because she would see like the welts and beatings, you know, you're like when I would change my clothes and get ready for track.
She asked me several times, she said, what happened to you? You know? And I was just like, Oh, you know, I didn't make it home on time, you know? And I gotta beat in or whatever. And, you know, she blew it off a couple of times.
And then she was just like you, she said, no, I w I don't want to get it. Yeah. So, you know, It was one of those things in the, in the early eighties, you know what goes on in this house, stay in this house. Don't, y'all tell, you know, so people didn't get into each other's business, you know, and, and you know, not to sound like I'm a racist or anything, because my godfather was a Caucasian man.
The school that we went to, it was only 25 blacks in the whole school. You know, so Ms. Scarce, she, she was just like, I just don't want to get into your business, you know, back in the day,
Brandon Chastang: [00:26:52] back in the day for the viewers that's listening. Right. Cause I was born in the eighties. So back in the day, if you got your butt whooped in the eighties, it was like, my grandmother used to go I dare you to go tell somebody, you know what? Nah, let me just take this ass whooping and call it a day. But your sister was. She knew that you, you were going through what she was going through.
She was protecting the house, psychological, like, look at this thing. Like you, like, even though what y'all were going through was torture, psychologically it was embedded. You better shut your mouth.
Ira Warren: [00:27:29] Yeah. It was embedded that way. And the thing is, you know, with pedophiles in the neighborhood. Everybody looked up to my dad. It was like he was a hero. He was on the fire department. He was on the EMS. I mean, when I tell you this man was a part of every single thing you could think of every single thing,
Brandon Chastang: [00:27:51] And this is why I tell people. I've been through. I haven't been through what you've been through, but I've been through physical abuse and it's hard to tell somebody what you're going through at home.
You just can't walk outside. Everybody thinks it's just that easy to just say, you know what, I'm going through this at home. I'm going through that at home. Some people say, well, why didn't you say something? I was afraid. I was nervous. I thought I was going to die if I said something.
Ira Warren: [00:28:21] Yeah,
Brandon Chastang: [00:28:23] You stated that you're pregnant. Now that you're pregnant. What happens now? Because it's either Ira's out here having sex with some kids at 16 years old, doing what she ain't supposed to do or Ira got raped. How did this transpire right now? Like what happened?
Ira Warren: [00:28:45] So the pregnancy test was taken and. And my sister, she, my sister just came out. She said, listen, we've been molested since Indiana. And. Oh, it was like, it was like a movie. Things was going so fast. Cops rushed in the school. Um, they put, they throw jackets over our head.
We was on the news. We was on news on the news. If you look up this guy called Marvin Zindler, he was like very popular, you know, uh, broadcast, you know, guy. And so it was all on the news. We were in the, we was in the newspaper. It was just, it was crazy. And so they took us out the back door and I remember.
The cops taking us to our house to collect our things, you know, so that they could put us in placement. And they had this big, old thing that you knocked the door down with and they drew the guns and they thought maybe my dad or mom was still in the house, but they was at one of their businesses that was probably like 30, 30 or 40 miles out.
And so we, we gathered our things and then they took us downtown. And we had to talk to, I remember talking to Sergeant Ryan, I'll never forget it. He was a little short, short Caucasian guy and he was looking, he just kept looking at us. He was just like, is this, is this true? Like, and we had to take a lie detector test, all of that.
And so when everything came back legit, It, you know, that that's when we knew my sister and my siblings and I, we were put in the system. You know, they want to put me in foster care. It was just a lot of stuff going on, you know, during that time. But they wanted to make sure that yeah, I'm telling the truth
so it was some things that they could do to, you know, to check to see. And so they, they actually, you know, uh, test my dad and test me and, um, it did come back, you know.
Brandon Chastang: [00:30:35] Did he get locked up?
Ira Warren: [00:30:36] He got locked up for like a couple of days, like I said, the system really failed me and my siblings. They sorta kind of swept the thing under the rug again. So my dad spent maybe 30 days in jail and
Brandon Chastang: [00:30:49] That was the longest he ever did?
Ira Warren: [00:30:51] Yeah for us.
Brandon Chastang: [00:30:53] Oh. So he did do jail time for us.
Ira Warren: [00:30:54] Yeah. For other stuff, I'll tell you about that part when we get, when you, if you, you know, and they gave us counseling, they gave him counseling for, for, for three years.
Brandon Chastang: [00:31:05] So cause how man, because we don't got that much time. Oh my goodness. Yo, cause this is, this is very important for people to understand, right? Your mental health now, right? Where is the mental health that, and when, I mean by that is this. I've came across situations where a young woman was, it was statutory rape, right. Where the young woman knew about it. She liked it.
And she, she wanted to keep going with the gentlemen. I think she was 14. The gentlemen was like 34 years old. Was there any thing in your heart and then your siblings heart that said, you know what? This is normal. You know, I want to keep going. Then, then everybody say no where we're happy. It's over with.
Ira Warren: [00:32:00] All of us um, had a lot of mental issues. I had a lot of suicidal ideation. I was doing a lot of scrubbing. And when I say that, you know, private areas where I would have to get surgery to get cut open to, you know, um, I did a lot of. I did a lot of self harm to myself. I never got to the point where I said, Oh yeah, this is, this is normal.
Cause I knew it wasn't normal. I knew that my dad was coming from a, a very sick place. It was something wrong with him. I wonder what, you know, cause even when the the psychiatrist or the therapist were asked, where did this happen to you? And I remember him with the smirk on his face. He said, nah, it didn't happen to me. You know, we just love how we love, you know?
Brandon Chastang: [00:32:46] So, so where he seen, remember what you, cause I remember you stated this was a norm to him based off of watching his family love and kissing, have sexual relations with each other. And he took that with his children, the boys in the girl, the boys and the girls. How is everybody mental state right now?
Ira Warren: [00:33:10] Um, My oldest sister, she still goes through a lot of, uh, things. Supposedly she has this close relationship with my parents. My, like I said, it's, it's so much to my story. My dad divorced my mom in 93. That was a year I married my first husband. I was very young and my dad married a high school friend of me and my oldest sister.
Brandon Chastang: [00:33:34] He molested her children. He went to prison in 1999. He gets out 2005. My mom helps him divorce the second wife while he was in prison. My mom remarried him 2005 and she's with him.
Your mother is still with your father today. He's been molesting more people, got locked up, came home. He's home today. They're still together. Your siblings still go through certain things, right? They still mental health issues. And this is the, this is why I tell people, Oh, you grow? How do you tell a person that they're grown, you should get over it? That's impossible. Right? Speeding up. You kept the child.
Ira Warren: [00:34:16] Yes, I did.
Brandon Chastang: [00:34:18] How was that process now of having a child? What made you keep the child one? What's that process like, do you look at that child as this is now these questions that I'm asking you is for our viewers. Do you sometimes you look at that child as your sibling. Do you sometimes look at that child as this is just my child? How does that work with you?
Ira Warren: [00:34:46] I look at him as my child because my parents, they wanted to keep it on the hush. They say, why don't you let us adopt him and just say you are his sister. Well tech technically I am. But I look at my son, Joshua as my child and I love him very much.
Brandon Chastang: [00:35:03] How old is he?
Ira Warren: [00:35:04] he he's just, he just turned 33.
Brandon Chastang: [00:35:06] Wow. Just on 33. How was his mental health?
Ira Warren: [00:35:09] Yeah, he was going through a lot of things. Um, uh, my ex-husband and I, we got a lot of help for him because my, when my mom and dad was going through their divorce, my mom pretended that she wanted a relationship with me.
And she said, once you moved back in with me, I can help you with the kids. Long story short, Joshua had fallen on the heater. And so I had rushed him to the St. Christus hospital in Katy, Texas. And they said, well, you know, be careful cause you know, kids do that. So my son was born deaf, but lo and behold, a doctor blessed us with hearing aids where he could hear. He was born deaf.
Yeah. Cause I have a million dollars. Let's just go there. Right. And um, so I wasn't even with my mom 24 hours before she called child protective services on me and said that I was abusing my kids. Moving forward fast, so they leave my kids in the house with my mom. They tell me I have to get out. I'm pregnant with the third son at this time.
So while I'm out of the house, I'm homeless, I'm homeless. I was gang raped by five black men. So you're going through, so I'm going through more stuff. So. Moving forward fast cause I know we will have that much time. My while my son that I had by my dad was living with my mom, cause they said that she could have custody of them until I took parenting classes and all that stuff.
My brother who was just released from prison this last week was sodomizing my son that I had by my dad. He just was released from prison and I didn't find out Joshua was being raped by my brother until he was 14.
Brandon Chastang: [00:36:46] Again, this is a domino effect of a generational curse. Wow.
Ira Warren: [00:36:54] So you have Joshua, you know, he's, he's a wonderful dad. He has four children. His wife is a Houston cop, you know, and he he's an engineer, you know, he works, um, and you know, cars and stuff like that with engines. And, you know, I mean, but you know, hindsight, you know, he's talking to him a couple of days ago. Yeah, I can tell that, you know, he's still working through some stuff, you know, he's I could tell that there's still some anger there.
But the thing that just gave me hope and more acceptance is that, you know, he's still going to therapy and getting, you know, just, just having those conversations and, and letting out those things that he had dealt with when he was little, when I wasn't around. You know, so he blamed me for that. And I said, son, I understand. I said, but you have to understand how it happened.
So, yeah. And I said, you know, my mom set me up. I said, she pretended she wanted a relationship with me and he said, mom, I get it now. He said, now I understand all the sick, you know, he was, he said, he said, mom, he said, he said, th the entire family is just, just sick
Brandon Chastang: [00:38:09] For you to have the willpower. How many children do you have now?
Ira Warren: [00:38:12] I have seven children.
Brandon Chastang: [00:38:14] Okay. Now in the process, was he the only child that was raped, yeah, it was okay. You said he was married once now you're married now up to date, right. That right. Can we see that ring, please?
That ring is doing all types of tricks. You hear me, but those who don't know that ring is doing all types of tricks. What your husband's name.
Ira Warren: [00:38:36] My husband name is Divine warren.
Brandon Chastang: [00:38:37] Divine Warren. Do you guys have children together?
Ira Warren: [00:38:40] No, we don't have any children together.
Brandon Chastang: [00:38:41] Shout out to Divine Warren, right? Because I'm quite sure, did you bring some of your mental health issues on the relationship?
Ira Warren: [00:38:50] Yes I did
Brandon Chastang: [00:38:51] Did you have flashbacks? Did you, did some of these things go on yours, your second husband?
Ira Warren: [00:38:57] Yeah, a lot of, a lot of it was just, you know, because everything we do in life is relational and it was just more or less if Divine did something a certain way, or he says something a certain way, or, you know, it he's never been disrespectful. Let's just be clear. He's never been disrespectful to me. Never hit me, never said call me any names or anything like that, but him and I have, and I have on the other hand have.
You know, yeah. It's caused conflict and lashed out and, you know, being disrespectful and stuff had almost had an emotional relationship with somebody else, you know? Cause he was going through with his grandmother, passing away, losing a job because of a bad accident he was in, you know, so I was just, you know, just like, you know, whatever, you know, and, and I had this fight and fight mentality, you know, to hell with you.
But I had, I had my, my come to the Lord moment, you know, God was like, listen, Uh, you better get yourself together. You got a man, you got a man, man. So God said, I gave this man to you. Cause I knew he would protect you. I knew he will cover you. And I don't want them to be upset with me, but he's been clean and sober for 22 years. Clean and sober for 22 years.
He's also been molested himself as a child.
Brandon Chastang: [00:40:17] So you shared, so yeah, so
Ira Warren: [00:40:19] yeah, so he, yeah, so he helped, he helped me to understand how to stay in the solution rather than an, a problem and come to acceptance and forgiveness. I don't put him on a pedestal and I don't claim him to be God, but I love the God that's in him.
Brandon Chastang: [00:40:37] Let's be clear here. A lot of men will run away. You talk about seven, you bring it up, you bring your seven kids to the table. Whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait. You know, and with his own mental health issues and your mental health issues and him being sober for 22 years. Where you addicted to drugs?
Ira Warren: [00:40:57] Now never been addicted to drugs
Brandon Chastang: [00:40:59] just other things that happened
Ira Warren: [00:41:01] Yeah I was addicted to food. I was 410 pounds,
Brandon Chastang: [00:41:06] and I understand that yo, shout out to everybody that's sober. I'll be three years clean January 21st, 2021.
Ira Warren: [00:41:15] Yeah. Yeah.
Brandon Chastang: [00:41:15] You know, so, and this in a lot of these things that we've been through, it comes from the drug addiction comes from the trauma.
Ira Warren: [00:41:25] It comes from trauma
Brandon Chastang: [00:41:26] and shout out to your husband being 22 years clean. Shout out to you for overcoming these trials and tribulations and these pain and the torture that you've been through as a woman from day one.
Ira Warren: [00:41:42] Yeah.
Brandon Chastang: [00:41:43] I need for people to understand that this is a domino effect. Listening to Ira's story. It's a domino effect. So listen to the story. Do you have some, how do you feel about R Kelly? Cause he stated that it came from him being touched on and, and as a child and his cousins from my understanding touched on him.
Ira Warren: [00:42:07] Yeah. Shout out to Carrie. Um, his brother will actually wanted to do some things with me and, um, I, I just felt, I just feel like R Kelly should have went in another direction as far as just really seeking help for himself. You know, he knew he had these issues with literacy, you know, not knowing to read and stuff like that.
I too couldn't read a book at 20. So I under I understand, but I never had an urge or desire to want to be with another child or, you know, to go into that direction. So yeah, based off of what I never wanted, that that was just never a part of my DNA, but I just feel like he should have went in a direction.
Cause I talked to his brother, Carrie. I was just like, but. Did anybody say anything about therapy? Did anybody say anything? He said, yeah, we did sis, we did go, but it was just one of those things. Once my brother became famous, it was all about the money and the sex and, uh, you know, so his mentality was different, you know? So he said, now he's in this situation and he's paying the cost for what he has done.
Brandon Chastang: [00:43:18] So with all that being said, right, we about to wrap it up, but I want to just, I want people to understand that this podcast is called Self Inventory and self inventory for me, I had to reevaluate myself. I had to, when I got clean and I started to understand my trauma and getting the help for my mental health issues, I had to sit back and say, what is it that I need to work on?
Let me do a self inventory on me. I'm asking you the same question. Like I ask all my guests, what is your self inventory today?
Ira Warren: [00:44:00] My self inventory is every morning. I literally look in a mirror and do a self-examination and, uh, and, and everything that, that I go through, I say, I know it's a heart issue. I said, cause whatever is going on in my heart, my head has to have led what's going on in my heart for me to, to do what I'm doing.
And I said, I want to be a better person. You know, cause when people say, well, how long you been saved, girl? You know, you got a light about you. I said, I only been saved three hours cause uh, I done did some shit, you know, 20 minutes ago, you know what I'm saying? So there's no time limit on, you know, how long when I came to the Lord and all of that stuff, you know, and stuff like that.
It's just, it's just, it's just a matter of me that checked within myself wanting to be better, you know? Cause a lot of people know the word and all of that stuff. And I say yes. And I said, Ira wants to be better. And my thing is to stay in the solution and not in the problem.
Brandon Chastang: [00:45:04] And that's the hard thing because we like to drown in our sorrow.
Ira Warren: [00:45:07] Yeah. That pity party
Brandon Chastang: [00:45:08] we like to do this like that. It happened to me. And you know what? You don't understand what I went through. But how can we get, how can we get next to people that have been through the same thing and how can we help each other fight through the process and better ourselves? Right.
Ira Warren: [00:45:25] That's right. Cause if I don't, if I don't get better, if I don't make myself accessible to those that I am assigned to, they going to die if I don't continue to heal,
Brandon Chastang: [00:45:35] you know, black don't crack. So I want y'all to know that this lady is 50. This woman part itself is 50 years old. Seven children,
Ira Warren: [00:45:44] Seven.
Brandon Chastang: [00:45:45] 10 grandchildren. Been through hell and back and don't even look like it. That's amazing. You have a book out, you and your husband have a book out called what is a
Ira Warren: [00:45:56] Yes a children's book. It's called BodyGuards.
Brandon Chastang: [00:45:58] Called BodyGuards that's dope. That is super duper dope. Where can they find it?
Ira Warren: [00:46:03] Um, they could find that on Amazon, just type in BodyGuards and Ira Warren, it'll pop right up. You could get it on Kindle or you could just buy the physical book. Kindle was $5. A physical book is 15.
Brandon Chastang: [00:46:16] Great, great, great. What else you got going on?
Ira Warren: [00:46:19] And my, my autobiography to be out in December, but I have had a lot of people in my inbox, you know, wanting to, you know, put a movie together. But I said, and I said, well, in due time, I said, it has to be the right people.
I said, I'm not into the hype. You know, I've had Tyler Perry. I've had people reach out to me and stuff like that, but I was just like, I sat, I don't to do a movie because it's Tyler, you know what I'm saying? I don't want to do it because it's Oprah. I say, I want to link up with some people that have the same heart that I have that's going to reach, you know, the people that need to be reached on my behalf.
Because everybody is assigned to somebody and everybody has a story. So just me, you know, doing these interviews, I've made my inbox is full daily. You know, it's a young lady, um, out of Florida, she reached out to me. She done have three children by her own father, you know, so, and she said, just hearing your story, you know, Miss Ira, I know that you can help me.
Brandon Chastang: [00:47:16] Did you finally, we got about like nine more minutes. Did you finally foot, what is the relationship with your mother, your father, what's the relationship? Did you forgive them.
Ira Warren: [00:47:31] I have pardoned them. In order so that I could be free, but there's no, there's no relationship there. There's no communication.
Brandon Chastang: [00:47:39] Explain to the people because I know what that means. Right. Okay. Right. I know what that means, but I need you to explain to the people what that, pardon means.
Ira Warren: [00:47:53] That pardon means that you know, I, listen, I release you. I release you from the thing that you, that you thought that you was going to hold me down with.
And I want you to be free in your mind to understand that I'm going to share my story. I'm going to share my truth. I'm going to tell it if there's no more under the rug and all of that stuff, you know, so it's no more secrets and it's not about. Okay. I I'm, uh, I, I'm sorry, I don't want you to feel some type of way. I'm pardoning you so that you can be free in your mind to do whatever it is that you, that you felt like you've still in denial, but go ahead.
But for me, it's just given me the freedom, you know, to, to be the person that I was created to be, because for so long, I was under the, under the submission of molestation and rapes and, and all of that. And, and, you know, domestic violence, you know, because I even had to forgive the high school boyfriend that was a carbon copy of my dad.
You know, duct tape me to a chair stabbed me nine times. Cut my face, open my, kill, my unborn daughter. I had to pardon him. I have to write him a letter and say, I pardon you, brother. Go ahead. You know, I have no animosity. I've come to some acceptance where everything that has happened in my life.
And I say, you know what? I said, this may sound sick and it may sound crazy to people, but I feel like I've been considered to go through some of these things because God knew that I would get on the other side,
Brandon Chastang: [00:49:30] you are a blessing. You are a blessing. You are inspiration. You are a woman. You're a black woman. You're a mother, a wife. You've been through it all. And you still standing here. I'm still standing,
Ira Warren: [00:49:47] still standing.
Brandon Chastang: [00:49:48] That's amazing. I hope for those who are viewing, they take this story with the little time that we had. Cause we could have been talking for hours and you're not alone.
Ira Warren: [00:50:03] No
Brandon Chastang: [00:50:03] You're not alone. Don't be afraid to come out, release yourself from this disaster. Where can they find you?
Ira Warren: [00:50:15] You could find me on Facebook and Instagram. Like I said, I'm real simple chick. Uh, IraWarren it's, uh, Ira, I R A and last name Warren,W A R R E N. Um, y'all can find me there. I'll have some more things coming out you know, soon.
I have a, I'm gonna have a, I have a counseling thing that I am putting together 501C3, you know, where people could just come and just have, you know, cause I always tell people, I walk, walk behind, you know, I walked beside you it's time for us to start grabbing each other's hands.
And you know, being beside each other through everything that we're, you know, that we're experiencing. Cause you know, I understand everybody's story is different and I understand, but you know, like you say, it's trauma. Yep. Trauma is trauma. And like you said, we all handle it differently, but you know, I'm a warrior.
Brandon Chastang: [00:51:03] You are a warrior
Ira Warren: [00:51:03] I'm here for it. I'm here for it.
Brandon Chastang: [00:51:06] Better. Believe it.
Ira Warren: [00:51:07] I'm here for it
Brandon Chastang: [00:51:08] Thanks for listening to a Self Inventory podcast. I'm B McFly, the top motivator in the world and your sober messager. Let's go.
Ira Warren: [00:51:21] Self Inventory is a podcast produced by Brandon Chastang and Studio D Podcast Production. You can listen anywhere you get your podcasts. If you'd like to support the show, please subscribe, leave a review and tell everyone you know about Self Inventory.