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Jay Cooper 0:00
Hi, I'm Jake Cooper here with Paula Proctor. Just tell me about your life and growing up and where you're from and everything

Paula Proctor 0:07
I'm from Spring Hope. I was born and raised, 1951 was my birth year. My mother and daddy, my mother was from Lewisburg, and my daddy was from [Inaudible]. And they acquired a lot in town. And he started building the house before they were married. And so that's where I was born and raised was in that same house. And I own that house today.

Jay Cooper 0:33
So I'm just going to ask you the main question, as you think back on your life and the life challenges that you or a family or had to face, who were the family members, and friends may have helped them navigate the challenges such as friends, family, and neighbors, church or healthcare professionals.

Paula Proctor 0:51
Let me think a second, I really didn't have any challenges until later in life. I had a good childhood, mother, daddy provided everything. If there were any problems in the family, they kept those away from the children like today, children know a lot of bad things that go on in their lives. But children back then parents didn't share that. So we're happy go lucky kids, my sister now. The only huge challenge that I hired was, I was healthy my whole life. And then in my late 50s, I ended up with some health issues. And few years later, I ended up with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. And then a year after that, I ended up with Lyme disease. And so that I've worked like a Trojan horse my whole life. And so that was probably the biggest challenge. And I just had to get on the phone and stay on line to find facilities that would help take care of my health so I could live as far as we actually, when we married in 71. We moved Rocky Mount lived over there for seven years. So we ended up buying a piece of property back in town from my dad whose farm and we built a house there. And we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't make a lot of money. So we had we struggled to make ends meet. He had two or three jobs I had two or three jobs. We did whatever it took.

Jay Cooper 2:21
So it's going back to kind of your childhood and everything. So you said you didn't face many challenges. Were there any maybe friends that they went through something traumatic like house burned down? Anything.

Paula Proctor 2:33
I had a friend Her name is Kathy. And as I said, we were members of the church. We were members of all kinds of civic groups. She stepped through a glass door and ripped her leg up. And I remember picking up I was only maybe 15 years old. And I went and bought her flowers and had them sent to the hospital. I think they put her in Duke for a while to help maintain that leg. As again with with my challenges. I just didn't have any. Now my mother took care of her mother in law and her mother in their latter years so we had to kind of squeeze in the house plenty big that we had to squeeze in and kind of make things happen for those two because we just added to the size of the family to the immediate family.

Jay Cooper 3:28
Okay, so you said you remember the church was a big influence in your life, you know, helping y'all get through and everything?

Paula Proctor 3:35
Pretty much, We had a lot of activities. We had Bible study regularly. We had a lot of choirs. We started as tiny yeas, the director. I think she maintained maybe three levels of choir. And so we were in that and until we were 16 or 17 years old. The preachers were a little they they're not the preachers of today, the purchase of today get involved in a lot of the teenagers lifes when back then they did not. They all they did was take care of the seniors in the church. We did have a lot of activities, as I said, but as far as dealing with issues that we deal with today, they didn't participate in that but it was just a nice, comfortable place to go on Wednesday night and our Sunday and our Sunday night.

Jay Cooper 4:35
So would you say that it's better now and the preachers are more involved with the children?

Paula Proctor 4:40
I think so, they they get involved in lots of children's activities, and then they do a lot of field trips. I'm trying to think, because I never had children. So it's hard for me to understand what they do today. But I do know that a lot of pastors have Um, they do their classes in coaching and teaching children of today's challenges more so than when when I was a kid.

Jay Cooper 5:12
Um, so, as far as preachers, you think that's a pretty, pretty good thing for children now?

Paula Proctor 5:18
I think it is that that gives a child somewhere to go when they can't be close to their parents when they have an issue. And I don't I don't know what today's issues are for children. But it gives them a place to go if they're not particularly tight with their moms and dads. There's a lot of tutoring of life lifes, benefits and challenges that pastors do that they didn't do back then.

Jay Cooper 5:47
So nowadays, I feel like a lot you hear a lot with children more emphasis on mental health. Was that something that y'all face, you know, when you were growing up,

Paula Proctor 5:56
I did not face that until I until I was in my 30s. And I did have some health issues as far as that goes, I'm dealing with. And I know this will be published dealing with health issues with mental health issues did apply to me. I understand that does run in the family. And we did have a little bit of a family issue way back before I was born, in my family, so I'm sure that the gene pool passed that along to me. So I was under the tutelage in the care of four mental health specialists and doctors, starting in my late 30s, and ending up in my late 50s. Since I don't work in the public anymore, that has lessened the stress tremendously. So I don't have those issues that I had them. But for 20 years, there was a huge struggle.

Jay Cooper 6:57
So would you say those health care professionals are really beneficial for you?

Paula Proctor 7:01
They were awesome. And I was sick. In the early years of mental health. They have a lot more medications on the market and a lot more doctors that specialize in that field that didn't they did when, when I when I was in my late 30s. But then I had a tremendously talented man in Raleigh. That helped me tremendously. He trusted what I told him, and we had a pretty good rapport.

Jay Cooper 7:29
So what would you say to people nowadays is seems like it's almost kind of a stereotype of people. And they say that go into a mental health professional that

Paula Proctor 7:37
That was tough. It's more accepted now than it was then. And you shy away. Because a lot of people call you crazy, which is not something you want to hear you want them to understand like others do. Now, my mother was not totally accepting. That was a little hard for her. I had the greatest husband in the world, he was behind me 100% A lot of husbands will take off, a lot of spouses will take off he didn't. That was hard. Those Those few years in the beginning, the medications in the early stages are trial and error. There's not a temperature you can take or a blood test you can take it's all trial and error. So you stand with this one a while it doesn't work, you get off of it, you rest upon you start on another one. So I think that was probably the toughest thing, because there's side effects to always stuff and and then you're trying to work and art of living. But my physician was outstanding.

Jay Cooper 8:42
Well, thank you for your interview. there's anything you'd like to conclude on everything you want to say.

Paula Proctor 8:47
I had this in just a few more days and my husband and I will be celebrating. Anniversary number 52. Yeah,

Jay Cooper 8:54
congratulations

Thank you. Thanks for your time.

Paula Proctor 8:57
Thanks, darlin.