21-year-old Lauren Kukla spent her life holding her family together - a Michigan household defined by chaos, addiction, and mental illness. Unlike her troubled siblings, Lauren had managed to stay grounded, becoming the caretaker and peacekeeper. While she was preoccupied with managing each crisis on the surface, the deeper issues went unnoticed. By the time Lauren realized what was happening, it was too late.
Chapter 1: What family crisis did Lauren Kukla face?
I mean, it was surprising, but it was more interesting because when my mom would do, I mean, she wouldn't do stuff exactly like that. She never told me. She would just tell me about it happening.
Right.
I mean, because my mom used to say, I remember her telling me, Jenny telling me one time, that my mom pulled over the car right over on Romeo Plank near Speedway, and she said, I'm going to drown us in my piss, you know, and she pulled her pants down. And she was going to drown herself in the pit. There was multiple suicide attempts, you know what I'm saying?
Not in front of me, but Jenny said, you guys are lucky you never had it as bad as we did. I guess she chased Lizzie around the backyard with a butcher knife one time and all this stuff. I don't know. I don't remember. Too young, I guess. All right, shut it out. I have no idea.
But she would tell me stuff about Keith Richards and when we lost our house, how Keith Richards was going to buy it and she was going to get married to him. She told me about this guy who was like a healer and like, you know, like just where he- He lost the house. I'm sorry. My grandma was sick of paying for it.
When did your dad go to prison?
I was seven, 13 years old.
He's still in prison for that?
No, you know, three years.
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Chapter 2: How did Lauren handle her sister's chaotic life?
It didn't alarm you because you'd been exposed to it for so long.
Right. It didn't at all. And I mean, I've been working through that, but at the same time, I mean, my foster was like, how would you know that she was going to hurt anybody? And she's like... She said that anything that Jenny could have said, I mean, we rolled right off my back at the state that I am in right now. So it did, you know what I'm saying?
And then she started saying, you know, it's hard for me to get past my past with my mom. Hard for me to even say that I can't believe what she was telling me about, you know, Keith Richards and the Beatles and whatever, because that was my mom and I was conditioned my entire life to believe that she was telling me the truth and that's my mom, you know? So when Jenny tells me this stuff,
I think, what if mom, I don't want to say that I'm, I don't want to feel like you or you guys think that I'm crazy, but what if, you know, maybe this is, you know, my mom, not my mom telling her this stuff, but like maybe something my mom said was true. Maybe, you know, we are, she was special or Jenny is special.
That's why she tried to protect her before, you know, and that's why my mom had to be put on meds was because she knew something. And then she knew Jenny would know the same thing or be able to do the same thing or whatever. I don't know. You know what I'm saying? Right. I thought it was some kind of religious belief that they both shared or something. I don't know.
Their mother's unchecked mental illness had set the stage. Jennifer's life was a perfect storm, and she knew it.
What else do you need to know?
Anything else you can think of about this whole incident?
I never should have had kids. So I looked at my mom and said, well, she's psycho. Make sure I don't do it to nobody else. Don't have kids.
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