Latest / Dear Chelsea / I Am Not Your Enemy with Whistleblower Reality Winner

Transcript

I Am Not Your Enemy with Whistleblower Reality Winner · Dear Chelsea

0:00
Speaker 1: Okay, hi, Hi, did you see that our friend boom
0:05
Speaker 1: Boom Hiller won an Emmy.
0:06
Speaker 2: I did see that boom Boom Hiller won any that
0:08
Speaker 2: was very exciting. Yes, I was very happy for him.
0:11
Speaker 2: He gave one a great, great speech. I didn't understand
0:13
Speaker 2: what was going on with the Emmy's with the money.
0:15
Speaker 2: What was the money thing? I tuned in like halfway through.
0:17
Speaker 3: I also tuned in like halfway through.
0:19
Speaker 4: I think they should just let people who want talk,
0:21
Speaker 4: don't you. I mean, you posted these awards shows, like
0:24
Speaker 4: what's your opinion on that?
0:25
Speaker 2: I just feel like that's the moment people get to talk.
0:27
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously within reason, don't go crazy. I thought
0:31
Speaker 2: they were deducting people. They were deducting money from a
0:34
Speaker 2: charity for people who were going over their time.
0:36
Speaker 3: They were taking money back from the charity.
0:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what they were doing. I think I'm pretty
0:40
Speaker 2: sure that they were. Basically, they had a set number
0:42
Speaker 2: and anyone who talked over it became a giving them less.
0:46
Speaker 3: Yes, so I was like, that's pretty fucked up. But
0:49
Speaker 3: who knows.
0:50
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't really even track a conversation, so
0:52
Speaker 2: who knows What I was thinking. I was kind of
0:54
Speaker 2: half watching. I had just I went to New York
0:56
Speaker 2: again this weekend.
0:57
Speaker 3: So I had there. I show, Actually I had a show. Oh.
1:01
Speaker 2: I just announced a new tour, you guys, that's what
1:04
Speaker 2: I want to talk about. I announced the Highend Mighty Tour,
1:07
Speaker 2: which I'm going to start next year. I started Washington,
1:10
Speaker 2: d C. Next January or February, I don't know. It's
1:13
Speaker 2: called the High and Mighty Tour. Tickets are on sale
1:16
Speaker 2: and I'm going to lots of different cities and you
1:18
Speaker 2: can check my website Chelseahandler dot com for tickets or
1:22
Speaker 2: you could go to the link in my Instagram to
1:24
Speaker 2: buy tickets.
1:24
Speaker 3: That's great.
1:25
Speaker 2: So that's what's happening there. And we have a very
1:28
Speaker 2: exciting guest. I okay, so I saw a movie. I
1:32
Speaker 2: actually moderated a conversation for a director named Susannah Focal,
1:34
Speaker 2: who directed a movie about Reality Winner.
1:37
Speaker 3: This is a girl's real name. This is our guest's
1:39
Speaker 3: real name. Today. When your name first.
1:41
Speaker 4: Texted me and said I want to talk to Reality Winner,
1:42
Speaker 4: I was like, winner of what reality show?
1:44
Speaker 1: Like?
1:44
Speaker 3: I did not get her.
1:45
Speaker 2: Her name is Reality Winner and if you don't remember
1:48
Speaker 2: who she is, she was a whistleblower during Trump's first term.
1:51
Speaker 2: She was working at the NSA and she leaked some
1:55
Speaker 2: document to AYE to the Intercept and then the FBI
2:01
Speaker 2: basically arrested her. They came, they interrogated her, they went
2:05
Speaker 2: showed up at her house on a Saturday afternoon. And anyway,
2:09
Speaker 2: she's a former linguist, she's an intelligence analyst. She was
2:12
Speaker 2: arrested in twenty seventeen for leaking classified documents about the
2:15
Speaker 2: Russian interference in the twenty sixteen election. And there is
2:18
Speaker 2: some backstory that our listeners should know about before we
2:21
Speaker 2: get into this conversation.
2:23
Speaker 3: Reality was in the Air Force as a linguist.
2:25
Speaker 2: She translated conversations for government targets, and then when she left,
2:28
Speaker 2: she started a contract with the NSSA. And she outlines
2:32
Speaker 2: that there are certain news sources that people who work
2:34
Speaker 2: for the NSA are allowed to read that are not
2:37
Speaker 2: available to the general public, but people with security clearance
2:41
Speaker 2: are not allowed to read mass news the way civilians are.
2:44
Speaker 4: Right, so, she explains in pretty great detail in the
2:46
Speaker 4: book how as a person who has a high security
2:50
Speaker 4: clearance working for the NSA, she had access to a
2:53
Speaker 4: specific news outlet that was only for people with a
2:55
Speaker 4: high security clearance. But there was also sort of this
2:58
Speaker 4: rule that she couldn't go look at New York Times,
3:01
Speaker 4: she couldn't go look at Washington Post. And if they
3:04
Speaker 4: had found something like that, like links to that on
3:06
Speaker 4: her phone, anything like that, then she would have been
3:08
Speaker 4: in trouble. So there is this sort of weird dichotomy
3:10
Speaker 4: that people with high levels of top secret clearance do
3:13
Speaker 4: have access to more information, but they also don't necessarily
3:16
Speaker 4: have what all of the rest of us have access to.
3:19
Speaker 4: So the document, and it was just one document that
3:21
Speaker 4: she leaked, was from this news source that she had
3:25
Speaker 4: access to as a person with high security clearance.
3:28
Speaker 2: So she felt that she needed to release this document
3:30
Speaker 2: about Russian interference in the election so the American people
3:34
Speaker 2: would know it happened. And then the FBI found out
3:37
Speaker 2: confronted her in her home in a three hour interview
3:39
Speaker 2: during which she was not read her Miranda rights. She
3:41
Speaker 2: also had a dog and cat at her home that
3:43
Speaker 2: were unpredictable. She describes feeling terrified that they'd hurt her
3:46
Speaker 2: animals or use their behavior.
3:48
Speaker 3: As an excuse to hurt her.
3:50
Speaker 2: She was taken to jail, where she stayed for about
3:52
Speaker 2: a year before going to prison for four more years,
3:55
Speaker 2: and then her mom lived in her house nearby while
3:58
Speaker 2: she was incarcerated, which she said has saved her life.
4:01
Speaker 2: And then once she was out, she had a period
4:03
Speaker 2: of readjustment. She says even the colors outside were overwhelming
4:07
Speaker 2: for her after five years of staring at gray walls.
4:10
Speaker 2: She briefly got married and then quickly divorced to an
4:13
Speaker 2: old boyfriend who had a child. This was part of
4:15
Speaker 2: her rebellion during her readjustment period, and now she has
4:19
Speaker 2: written a book about her experience, has moved on romantically
4:23
Speaker 2: and is in veterinary tech school. So there are a
4:27
Speaker 2: few movies out about her.
4:29
Speaker 3: There was a Broadway show, There.
4:30
Speaker 2: Was a Broadway Yes, a Broadway show, and now she
4:33
Speaker 2: has a book called I Am Not Your Enemy. That's
4:36
Speaker 2: a little background information for you, so please welcome Reality Winner.
4:40
Speaker 3: Hi Reality Hlsea. Hi, how are you? I'm good? Thanks
4:45
Speaker 3: for having me. How are you? Oh? I'm great.
4:48
Speaker 2: I always want to say we'll commence, but I feel
4:50
Speaker 2: like commenced as we're starting. Does it commence mean we're
4:52
Speaker 2: starting something or we're finishing something. I'm getting confused with
4:55
Speaker 2: my Spanish.
4:56
Speaker 3: She commenced. The starting commencement's speech though at a graduation.
4:59
Speaker 4: Is yeah, well you're commencing into life.
5:02
Speaker 3: Is that right?
5:03
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, okay, we have Reality Winner here. Reality You
5:07
Speaker 2: and I go way back, but you don't know it.
5:09
Speaker 2: I'm sure a lot of people feel that way about you.
5:11
Speaker 2: First of all, I'm just happy to see you out
5:12
Speaker 2: of prison. I actually moderated a conversation between Susanna Fogel.
5:18
Speaker 2: Do you know Susannah I love her? Yes, yes, okay, great.
5:21
Speaker 2: She directed a move in one of the movies. So
5:23
Speaker 2: there's three movies out about your story. Reality Winner was
5:27
Speaker 2: a whistleblower in the year twenty sixteen with relation to
5:31
Speaker 2: the Russian interference in the twenty sixteen election, and subsequently
5:35
Speaker 2: went to jail and then prison because of that. So
5:39
Speaker 2: there was a documentary about you, which I also watched.
5:42
Speaker 2: And then there was a movie with Sidney Sweeney. I
5:44
Speaker 2: skipped that one, And then the one was Susannah Fogel
5:47
Speaker 2: who starred. Who was the star of that Reality Amelia Jones?
5:51
Speaker 2: Amelia Jones, who's fucking phenomenal? Did you love that movie?
5:55
Speaker 1: I don't watch anything about me because I have a
5:57
Speaker 1: very like physical trauma response.
6:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I understand that. I understand that. How are you
6:02
Speaker 3: doing today? I'm being so good today.
6:05
Speaker 1: My biggest issue was having to get to this studio.
6:08
Speaker 1: I hate driving on overpasses.
6:10
Speaker 3: They're my nemesis. Really, Why they're so high? Why? What
6:17
Speaker 3: about bridges? No, I won't drive over a bridge? No?
6:23
Speaker 3: Do you know that.
6:24
Speaker 2: When I was a little girl, our family used to
6:26
Speaker 2: drive up to Martha's Vineyard every summer.
6:28
Speaker 3: So you drive from New Jersey. We grew up in
6:30
Speaker 3: New Jersey.
6:30
Speaker 2: We drive to Woodsholm, Massachusetts, and you'd have to drive
6:33
Speaker 2: over a bridge called the tappan Zee Bridge that's outside
6:35
Speaker 2: of New York. And it was you know how big
6:38
Speaker 2: bridges are. They have all of that iron work over them, right,
6:42
Speaker 2: but that's not the actual pavement. But my brothers and
6:45
Speaker 2: sisters convinced me that we had to drive up over
6:48
Speaker 2: the iron work every time. So I would crouch down
6:51
Speaker 2: and cover my head because I was so scared, and
6:53
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my god, how are we gonna stay on?
6:55
Speaker 3: They're like, we might not let cars fall off all
6:57
Speaker 3: the time, and so anytime, so I have I have
7:00
Speaker 3: bridge trauma too.
7:01
Speaker 2: I hate them, but it sounds like you have lower
7:03
Speaker 2: Bridge trauma.
7:05
Speaker 1: Right, there is some bridges out here, Like the only
7:08
Speaker 1: way to get to the beach is on a bridge,
7:10
Speaker 1: and it's not fun to be in the car with me.
7:13
Speaker 3: I have to drive. I have to be in charge
7:15
Speaker 3: of my own death. But it's horrible. Well, I think
7:19
Speaker 3: after everything you've been through, it's fine for.
7:21
Speaker 2: You to want to be in charge of your own
7:22
Speaker 2: death and your own life at this point, right, how
7:25
Speaker 2: long have you been out of prison officially?
7:28
Speaker 3: I have been out for four years.
7:30
Speaker 2: Okay, So you wrote this book obviously after that, and
7:35
Speaker 2: the book takes us through your journey.
7:38
Speaker 3: The book is called I Am Not Your Enemy, Reality Winner.
7:42
Speaker 2: So let's go through your history because you joined the
7:45
Speaker 2: Air Force and then you decided that you wanted to
7:48
Speaker 2: go work at the NSA. Correct, and take us through
7:54
Speaker 2: what happened when you started working at the NSA.
7:57
Speaker 1: So in the transition from the Air Force to the
8:00
Speaker 1: in to say, I already knew it was a temporary position.
8:04
Speaker 1: I had my sight set on getting a position in
8:07
Speaker 1: Afghanistan proper, but that in order to be eligible for
8:12
Speaker 1: those deployments, I would have to keep my security clearance
8:16
Speaker 1: current because that's what the recruiters were looking for. So
8:20
Speaker 1: I was coming up on a very important deadline and
8:23
Speaker 1: I just took any contract that would happen. So that
8:27
Speaker 1: was the particular position that I was working at in
8:31
Speaker 1: Georgia at the time of my arrest or at the
8:33
Speaker 1: time I committed the felony, there was nothing for me
8:36
Speaker 1: to do. I just sat there and watched YouTube all
8:40
Speaker 1: day and planned out my workouts and my yoga classes.
8:44
Speaker 1: They didn't really know I was there, and looking back,
8:48
Speaker 1: being so disconnected from any sort of purpose or mission
8:53
Speaker 1: is definitely one of those things that left me vulnerable
8:56
Speaker 1: to doing something so naive.
9:00
Speaker 2: Naive is the word that you use a lot, and
9:02
Speaker 2: I also don't really think you're naive. I think that
9:04
Speaker 2: from your books and from what I've learned about you,
9:07
Speaker 2: that you really just had a sense of right and
9:09
Speaker 2: wrong and that you wanted to share. And I think
9:12
Speaker 2: that's very admirable. And I think what you did, yeah,
9:16
Speaker 2: you're young. I think you were young and didn't realize
9:19
Speaker 2: what you revealed in the documentary, that you didn't realize
9:23
Speaker 2: what the consequences would be. In fact, you didn't even
9:26
Speaker 2: really consider the consequences of sharing the information that you
9:30
Speaker 2: were privy to I didn't.
9:32
Speaker 1: I mean, I just really thought that at the end
9:35
Speaker 1: of the day, no damage was done. It was very
9:38
Speaker 1: clear that I did what I did for the greater good,
9:42
Speaker 1: and that you know, I was definitely going to lose
9:44
Speaker 1: my job, but did not imagine the statements that the
9:49
Speaker 1: government would then make about me and my character following this.
9:53
Speaker 2: And at this time in your life, were you familiar
9:55
Speaker 2: with people like Julian Assange.
9:58
Speaker 1: So on the surface Yet, yes, I knew about Edward
10:01
Speaker 1: Snowden and Chelsea Manning, but because of a technicality, they
10:05
Speaker 1: were able to keep us from knowing any of the
10:08
Speaker 1: specifics about these individuals. Every week or so, especially when
10:12
Speaker 1: the news cycle would be very much focused on one
10:14
Speaker 1: of those individuals.
10:16
Speaker 3: That if you read this.
10:19
Speaker 1: Washington Post article and it was derived off of classified
10:22
Speaker 1: information and you read it on your personal device, you
10:26
Speaker 1: are then carrying around classified information and you could be
10:30
Speaker 1: charged with the Espionos Act.
10:32
Speaker 3: So it was a.
10:33
Speaker 1: Way to make sure that we were kept in the
10:36
Speaker 1: dark on what life is like when you're charged with
10:40
Speaker 1: these sort of crimes, and that I didn't know anything
10:43
Speaker 1: about Snowden or Chelsea at all. I didn't know what
10:48
Speaker 1: their legal defense was like I didn't really know what
10:50
Speaker 1: they had gone through. I was just kind of acting
10:53
Speaker 1: in the dark at that point.
10:54
Speaker 3: And the reason that you acted was because you felt.
10:58
Speaker 1: What I felt like, if the American people had the
11:02
Speaker 1: information on that document and they could see it in
11:05
Speaker 1: black and white, that a would answer a question that
11:10
Speaker 1: was I felt like it was burning a hole in
11:12
Speaker 1: our society in twenty seventeen, and I wanted to give
11:18
Speaker 1: the American people a way to decode media bias if
11:22
Speaker 1: they had the full story that they could see, like
11:26
Speaker 1: the people I trust on the TV aren't giving me
11:29
Speaker 1: the whole story, Like I can see everything right here,
11:32
Speaker 1: and they're leaving half of it out.
11:35
Speaker 2: And so can you take us through what happened on
11:37
Speaker 2: that Saturday morning after you had printed this, So you
11:40
Speaker 2: had printed the document with it on a Friday right
11:42
Speaker 2: in your office.
11:43
Speaker 1: I had actually printed it on like a Monday or Tuesday,
11:47
Speaker 1: and I think I mailed it out on a Tuesday night,
11:50
Speaker 1: and it wasn't for about two and a half weeks
11:54
Speaker 1: until the FBI came to my house.
11:57
Speaker 4: And I think we should also point out, you know,
11:59
Speaker 4: the the intercept, which is who you sent the document
12:02
Speaker 4: to kind of was like, yeah, they bungled the situation.
12:07
Speaker 4: They have all these high level people who know how
12:09
Speaker 4: to handle whistleblowers, and your document went to two journalists
12:13
Speaker 4: who did not know how to do that, and instead
12:16
Speaker 4: their mistake wound up eventually in your conviction.
12:20
Speaker 1: Mistake, it was not a mistake, it was on purpose.
12:23
Speaker 1: It's by design. I was the third, well, actually Terry
12:27
Speaker 1: was the third, but there were three of us in
12:29
Speaker 1: a very short succession that were sort of outed by
12:34
Speaker 1: their incompetence but then championed by them. So they would
12:38
Speaker 1: create victims and martyrs and then try to be the
12:41
Speaker 1: only media outlet fairly reporting on them.
12:46
Speaker 2: So take us through what happened to you on that
12:48
Speaker 2: Saturday when the FBI did show up at your house
12:50
Speaker 2: because you were getting ready to go on a date
12:53
Speaker 2: that night.
12:53
Speaker 3: Anyway, exactly the ultimate ghosting. That's funny.
13:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh, not only did I not show up, but
13:03
Speaker 1: he was probably interrogated as well, poor guy.
13:06
Speaker 3: Oh true.
13:08
Speaker 1: So I parked with my groceries and immediately a black
13:11
Speaker 1: vehicle comes up behind my car and parks me in,
13:14
Speaker 1: and Garret and Taylor come out. They introduced themselves, They
13:18
Speaker 1: showed the warrant and I knew what it was about, obviously,
13:23
Speaker 1: because I had done the thing. But they said they
13:27
Speaker 1: were looking for documents, and I was like, who, I
13:30
Speaker 1: only had one document and I sent it out like
13:33
Speaker 1: That's kind of one of the reasons why I was
13:37
Speaker 1: just so compliant. I was just like, okay, search my house.
13:40
Speaker 1: The only thing that started to get scary was that
13:43
Speaker 1: there were eleven men. I was pretty sure all of
13:47
Speaker 1: them were armed, and the government was very quick to
13:52
Speaker 1: correct me. Of the eleven agents, only nine of them
13:56
Speaker 1: were armed. Only nine, Only nine. So I was lying again,
14:00
Speaker 1: you know me, I just can't stop telling lies. And
14:03
Speaker 1: they kept leaving my doors open, and I had just
14:07
Speaker 1: sort of had my early twenties awakening of the injustices
14:11
Speaker 1: of this country and understood that when the police or
14:19
Speaker 1: the FBI, when someone from the government kills you, they
14:23
Speaker 1: have the only control of the narrative. And so I
14:26
Speaker 1: knew that these men were leaving my doors open and
14:30
Speaker 1: interacting with a dog that had previously been extremely aggressive
14:34
Speaker 1: to men, and that if my cat had gotten out
14:39
Speaker 1: and if I had like run down the street after her,
14:42
Speaker 1: would they shoot me in the back. If I became
14:44
Speaker 1: emotional about how they were taking care of my animals,
14:48
Speaker 1: or if I thought they were going to shoot my dog,
14:51
Speaker 1: would they shoot me and then you know, try me,
14:55
Speaker 1: I know, basically posthumously convict me in the news cycle
14:59
Speaker 1: the next day they had interrogated me.
15:03
Speaker 3: I did confess.
15:05
Speaker 1: I thought that because they looked like the guys that
15:09
Speaker 1: I worked with at NSA, if I just was straight
15:12
Speaker 1: with them, that whatever was coming next in a court
15:17
Speaker 1: or whatever, I could figure out and it would be
15:20
Speaker 1: a normal legal process. And that was when Garrick told me,
15:27
Speaker 1: we're going to have to take you in. You're going
15:29
Speaker 1: to go in this vehicle over here, so nondescript, unmarked
15:34
Speaker 1: black vehicle. He said it was going to be okay
15:37
Speaker 1: because my hands would be cuffed in the front and
15:40
Speaker 1: not the back, and that he would be sitting next
15:43
Speaker 1: to me the whole time, and that he wanted to
15:46
Speaker 1: apologize because it would be a bit of a drive.
15:49
Speaker 1: What little I did know about Chelsea Manning was that
15:51
Speaker 1: when they first took her, she was in solitary confinement
15:56
Speaker 1: in Quantico for nine months and nobody knew where she was.
16:01
Speaker 3: So when he.
16:01
Speaker 1: Said that reassuring statement, I understood that I was going
16:06
Speaker 1: to Quantico that night. And nobody would know where I was.
16:11
Speaker 1: That was not the case, and even if they had
16:15
Speaker 1: intended to drive me to the jail themselves, the last
16:20
Speaker 1: remaining part of the warrant was a search of my person,
16:25
Speaker 1: and obviously I was kind of in between dates, so
16:28
Speaker 1: I wasn't wearing much. A visual search would have been
16:31
Speaker 1: just fine, but a female, a woman, had to do it.
16:34
Speaker 1: So that was when they called a nearby deputy from
16:38
Speaker 1: the Richmond County Sheriff's office, and I don't know what
16:42
Speaker 1: it was, but she came and assessed the situation, and
16:48
Speaker 1: she took me to a private room and patted me
16:51
Speaker 1: down and executed the search warrant on my person, and
16:54
Speaker 1: she came out and had a conversation that I couldn't hear.
16:58
Speaker 1: And shortly after that, another Shaff's Department vehicle came up,
17:02
Speaker 1: and another female officer came out and she said, Hey,
17:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to be the one taking you to jail.
17:10
Speaker 1: So for the first time, women were on the scene,
17:13
Speaker 1: uniforms were on the scene, marked vehicles were on the scene,
17:18
Speaker 1: and the word jail was spoken. And I mean, honestly,
17:22
Speaker 1: that was the first time I knew that I was
17:25
Speaker 1: going to survive that.
17:26
Speaker 4: Night, because so that's okay, So okay, it's a paper
17:30
Speaker 4: trail and a record.
17:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I knew my parents could find me.
17:33
Speaker 2: Then your poor parents, My god, I mean honestly, watching
17:37
Speaker 2: your I mean, I want to make you feel bad
17:39
Speaker 2: because I'm sure you have enough guilt to deal with
17:42
Speaker 2: about with regard to your parents. But what your mother
17:45
Speaker 2: and your stepfather? Is it your stepfather? Yeah, yeah, I
17:50
Speaker 2: went through is just like I wouldn't wish that on
17:52
Speaker 2: any mother, you know, and fighting so hard on your
17:56
Speaker 2: behalf and having to hear and also you know coming Really,
18:01
Speaker 2: there is just nothing better than a good mother. There
18:03
Speaker 2: really is no nothing better in life than having a
18:07
Speaker 2: good mother. It's more important than a good father. A
18:09
Speaker 2: good mother is everything. Because she wasn't going to let
18:13
Speaker 2: you compromise your values or your goals either. She wasn't
18:16
Speaker 2: going to let you take a deal, which you were
18:18
Speaker 2: given the opportunity to do.
18:20
Speaker 1: I was initially upfront and then later again, like in
18:23
Speaker 1: November of twenty seventeen, offered five years, and we had
18:28
Speaker 1: tried some legal strategies to get that down to four years,
18:32
Speaker 1: and it did not work.
18:34
Speaker 2: And so when you were given that sentence for basically
18:38
Speaker 2: telling the truth. How did you wrap your mind around
18:41
Speaker 2: that psychologically? I know you talk about in the documentary
18:46
Speaker 2: and in the book you did as well about contemplating
18:49
Speaker 2: suicide and the one thing you didn't want to do
18:51
Speaker 2: was hurt yourself, kill yourself while your mother was alone
18:55
Speaker 2: in your house, which I thought was just like, oh
18:57
Speaker 2: my god.
18:58
Speaker 4: They didn't want your mother to like get get that
19:00
Speaker 4: information while she was Yeah.
19:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that at that moment in time, the
19:05
Speaker 1: only thing I knew I was going to do it,
19:07
Speaker 1: and the only thing I was in control of was
19:12
Speaker 1: the timing where my mother would be when she got
19:15
Speaker 1: the news. We had just gotten word that I would
19:19
Speaker 1: be denied bail again and that I would probably never
19:22
Speaker 1: leave that jail except to go to prison or to trial.
19:27
Speaker 1: And I said, I can't do this anymore. And so
19:29
Speaker 1: I started planning and doing dry runs of my suicide.
19:35
Speaker 1: And the last piece of the puzzle was, Hey, I'm
19:38
Speaker 1: not getting out on bail.
19:40
Speaker 3: You need to go back to Texas.
19:42
Speaker 1: You need to go home and get the house in order,
19:44
Speaker 1: and you know, we'll figure this out later.
19:46
Speaker 3: You know, my attorneys will do some stuff.
19:48
Speaker 1: And she put it off by a week, and then
19:51
Speaker 1: she put it off by another week, and then she
19:53
Speaker 1: put off by another week, and then she started like
19:56
Speaker 1: working at a dog shelter and thinking about adopting a
19:59
Speaker 1: dog in Georgia. And it was like those three weeks
20:04
Speaker 1: where I was actively trying to get her to start
20:07
Speaker 1: driving and doing that. Other stuff was going on in
20:11
Speaker 1: those three weeks, and I had kind of hit a
20:13
Speaker 1: rock bottom, which involved me screaming and punching a door
20:18
Speaker 1: after an officer, and I came out and told one
20:24
Speaker 1: of my attorneys, this is what's going on when you
20:28
Speaker 1: guys call me to the courthouse for this. I can't
20:30
Speaker 1: go outside to yard call. And I know you guys
20:33
Speaker 1: are sick and tired of me saying that I want
20:36
Speaker 1: to go outside. I'm beliemic. I can't do this anymore.
20:40
Speaker 1: I'm belieming. I'm not functioning, I'm not surviving. And you know,
20:47
Speaker 1: luckily people on my legal team were very close to
20:53
Speaker 1: that particular illness, and you know, you think about like,
20:57
Speaker 1: you know, men don't take eating disorder seriously. They have
21:01
Speaker 1: very intimate knowledge of how deadly bolimia is, and they said,
21:06
Speaker 1: this is not okay, Like you were very sick and
21:09
Speaker 1: this has to be taken care of. And when they
21:13
Speaker 1: started initiating that type of care and that type of consideration,
21:17
Speaker 1: I can't say things got better, but I feel like
21:21
Speaker 1: the moment I came out, it felt like all the
21:25
Speaker 1: drive in me to kill myself had just kind of
21:28
Speaker 1: gone away.
21:29
Speaker 2: And then how did that impact your eating disorder when
21:32
Speaker 2: you were in jail or prison at this point? Once
21:35
Speaker 2: you told everybody, then what happened with your eating disorder?
21:40
Speaker 1: You know, it's so difficult, like even in normal daily life,
21:43
Speaker 1: like you come out about something like that, like obviously
21:46
Speaker 1: you can't just like not eat, you know what I mean.
21:48
Speaker 1: It's not like it's not like being like, oh, I'm
21:50
Speaker 1: addicted to myth, you know what I mean. People are
21:52
Speaker 1: going to watch you to see if you're doing myth.
21:54
Speaker 1: If you're like, oh I have bolimia, people want to
21:56
Speaker 1: see if you're eating right. It's never really like a relief.
22:00
Speaker 1: It just cuts some tension. And I was medicated, and
22:08
Speaker 1: my legal team altered their interactions with me in a
22:13
Speaker 1: way that would not disrupt the daily schedule of the prison.
22:19
Speaker 1: Then they understood that when they came to have legal
22:23
Speaker 1: meetings with me or when they were calling me to
22:26
Speaker 1: the courthouse and I would miss yard call or being
22:29
Speaker 1: able to go outside. They stopped doing that. They said,
22:32
Speaker 1: we are going to meet her on her own terms,
22:35
Speaker 1: and we're only going to try to meet with her
22:37
Speaker 1: after she's gone outside to go run or exercise, and
22:42
Speaker 1: just things like that. It made enough of a difference
22:45
Speaker 1: to get me through the winter of twenty seventeen.
22:48
Speaker 2: And you talk a lot about the exercise and that
22:51
Speaker 2: kind of replacing your addiction in a sense, I mean,
22:55
Speaker 2: were you able to actually stop throwing up at that
22:58
Speaker 2: point or did you continue on for a while.
23:02
Speaker 1: I was able to not throw up and to continue
23:06
Speaker 1: to exercise it an intensity that allowed me to eat.
23:11
Speaker 1: And that was another pressing issue of with my disordered eating,
23:16
Speaker 1: having very severe OCD. As to what I would even
23:20
Speaker 1: put into my body, I don't even think clinically I
23:23
Speaker 1: could get my hands on enough food that I was
23:26
Speaker 1: willing to eat to do a proper binge. So it
23:29
Speaker 1: was pretty much just trying not to throw up the
23:31
Speaker 1: one meal I would eat that day.
23:34
Speaker 4: Right, because you talk about how it was difficult to
23:36
Speaker 4: get not only like kosher meals, but like meals that
23:39
Speaker 4: didn't have meat or didn't it that had things that
23:41
Speaker 4: you could eat that you were okay eating.
23:44
Speaker 1: I mean, it's crazy, but as a federal inmate, that
23:47
Speaker 1: County jail was required to give me a substitute protein
23:52
Speaker 1: and not just more rice or more corn. When I
23:55
Speaker 1: got to federal prison where it is regulated, there's chicken
24:00
Speaker 1: or there's baked beans, right, they have to have that
24:03
Speaker 1: on the line. It didn't make it easier because you
24:07
Speaker 1: would be discriminated against if you dared hold up the
24:12
Speaker 1: line to ask for the alternative, because they're just throwing
24:16
Speaker 1: chicken on trays and trying to push everybody through. You
24:20
Speaker 1: just got to have a thick skin. And there were
24:23
Speaker 1: several really tense standoffs with officers because, like I said,
24:28
Speaker 1: I dared to ask for the beans.
24:31
Speaker 4: This week, we're looking for questions from writers. Whether you're
24:34
Speaker 4: an up and coming writer or you do it for
24:35
Speaker 4: a living, Please write into Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail
24:38
Speaker 4: dot com.
24:43
Speaker 3: Did you make any friends in prison? Lots?
24:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, people you still keep in touch with absolutely.
24:49
Speaker 1: I went and ran a half marathon with one of
24:51
Speaker 1: my friends, Stephanie, and my family got to meet her
24:54
Speaker 1: and they added her on Facebook.
24:56
Speaker 3: She's great, she's doing so I'm so proud of her.
24:59
Speaker 3: Oh wow, yeah.
25:01
Speaker 2: So talk to us about what it was like to
25:03
Speaker 2: come out of PRISM after spending that much time there.
25:06
Speaker 2: When you did come out four years ago, talk to
25:09
Speaker 2: us a little bit about leading up to that moment
25:11
Speaker 2: and then the actuality. I know, you have ideas, people
25:15
Speaker 2: talk about these kinds of huge changes that you have
25:17
Speaker 2: ideas of what it's going to be like, and then
25:19
Speaker 2: the reality of what it is like can be kind
25:22
Speaker 2: of counterintuitive to a degree absolutely.
25:26
Speaker 1: I mean, when you're inside those four walls of the prison,
25:30
Speaker 1: it's like, give me an ankle monitor, I don't care.
25:33
Speaker 3: I would do anything just to be home.
25:36
Speaker 1: And in the year leading up to my release, the
25:39
Speaker 1: COVID pandemic had happened. We had had several unwarranted lockdowns
25:45
Speaker 1: and being put in county jail type conditions all over again,
25:49
Speaker 1: and I had just become so disruptive and violent and
25:55
Speaker 1: using drugs, getting girlfriends, getting into fights that But by
26:01
Speaker 1: the time that version of me walked out of that prison,
26:06
Speaker 1: I was almost unrecognizable to my family. Even mild disagreements
26:11
Speaker 1: would get loud with me.
26:13
Speaker 3: I didn't know how to relate.
26:15
Speaker 1: Because the things that I thought were funny, were like,
26:18
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, they were so inappropriate all the time,
26:21
Speaker 1: which was fine, but I don't think anybody gave me
26:25
Speaker 1: or my family the vocabulary to sort of talk through
26:30
Speaker 1: the process of decompressing. A huge trauma leading up to
26:35
Speaker 1: my release is that I spent twenty three days in
26:39
Speaker 1: a single hospital room as part of a COVID quarantine procedure.
26:45
Speaker 1: It was just so desocializing to a certain extent, and
26:50
Speaker 1: I feel like, not ashamed, but just like God, the
26:55
Speaker 1: person I had to become to get through that with
26:59
Speaker 1: any type of stability or you know, we were we
27:04
Speaker 1: were literally like, oh, okay, you're gonna put us in
27:06
Speaker 1: a room like mental patients.
27:08
Speaker 3: We're gonna act like mental patients. I mean we did.
27:11
Speaker 3: And then to come out.
27:13
Speaker 1: The pressure was if your parents do anything public, if
27:18
Speaker 1: they announced that you're home, we might not be able
27:20
Speaker 1: to keep you at home. At every step of the way,
27:23
Speaker 1: that halfway house threatened my ability to be on home confinement.
27:28
Speaker 1: I did two drug tests a week. I was not
27:31
Speaker 1: ever authorized to drive myself, so my parents had to
27:34
Speaker 1: take off work to drive an hour and an hour back.
27:39
Speaker 1: Just constant drug testing when I didn't even have a
27:41
Speaker 1: drug charge it like, yes, I know I did drugs, right,
27:44
Speaker 1: Like we can all say like, oh, she did drugs
27:45
Speaker 1: while she was in It's in the memoir. At that
27:48
Speaker 1: point in time, I'm like, the federal government had zero
27:50
Speaker 1: documentation of substances being in my body, but I'm being
27:54
Speaker 1: tested constantly if the ankle monitor would buzz, if it
27:58
Speaker 1: would be on low battery. One time, I missed a
28:01
Speaker 1: phone call because I was on the phone with my boss,
28:03
Speaker 1: and I called the guy back and he was like, Okay,
28:06
Speaker 1: well I had already documented as having escaped. I was
28:11
Speaker 1: constantly under so much pressure from the top down, from
28:17
Speaker 1: the government down, that the only way that pressure could
28:21
Speaker 1: come out was sideways. And so my family were they
28:26
Speaker 1: were the sideways.
28:27
Speaker 3: They they.
28:29
Speaker 1: They were in my line of fire since I couldn't
28:32
Speaker 1: do anything to ease the government pressure off of me.
28:36
Speaker 3: So things were really toxic those first six months. Wow,
28:39
Speaker 3: how about your sister.
28:41
Speaker 1: Luckily she was protected out of the picture. She was
28:45
Speaker 1: in North Carolina. She did bring her my niece down,
28:51
Speaker 1: her daughter, she brought her down to visit. I got
28:54
Speaker 1: to meet my niece for the first time or a
28:56
Speaker 1: second time, because they surprised me getting out of prison.
28:59
Speaker 1: She and baby were there waiting outside the prison. For me,
29:04
Speaker 1: I know for her it was hard, but she also
29:07
Speaker 1: had a one year old daughter, so that probably gave
29:10
Speaker 1: her a really nice little buffer zone between the absolute
29:16
Speaker 1: dumpster fire that I was.
29:19
Speaker 2: And what do you think what was the shift that
29:21
Speaker 2: happened after about six months?
29:23
Speaker 3: Just did it start to depress your eyes?
29:26
Speaker 2: Like everything surrounding your case and you're kind of like
29:30
Speaker 2: their oversight of you.
29:32
Speaker 1: I think a really big part of it was, yes,
29:36
Speaker 1: I secretly married Carlos in my backyard and then sixty
29:42
Speaker 1: seven days later that relationship fell apart, and you know,
29:47
Speaker 1: my parents didn't talk about it, but I think that
29:51
Speaker 1: once it had completely fallen apart, you know, day sixty seven,
29:55
Speaker 1: I said, okay, like his shit is out of this house,
29:58
Speaker 1: like I made him come get it, and you know,
30:01
Speaker 1: was like, I'm going to start figuring out how to
30:03
Speaker 1: secretly get divorced from my living room. Right, it felt
30:07
Speaker 1: like one of the biggest barriers between me and my
30:10
Speaker 1: parents was lifted. And honestly, like it's really ugly to
30:16
Speaker 1: say this, but a big part of it was the
30:18
Speaker 1: fact that he had a daughter who was she was
30:21
Speaker 1: four at the time, and he would bring her over,
30:24
Speaker 1: and you know, my mother felt like I wasn't supposed
30:29
Speaker 1: to bond to this child. Well, my sister and her
30:33
Speaker 1: baby existed, Like, oh, you got out of prison, you
30:38
Speaker 1: got to meet your baby niece. Oh, but now you're
30:40
Speaker 1: playing stepbom to a four year old, Like I thought
30:43
Speaker 1: you wanted to be an aunt for your sister's baby.
30:47
Speaker 2: Or were you in any condition to be in that
30:49
Speaker 2: role in the first place.
30:51
Speaker 1: Well, I was fucking better than he was at it,
30:52
Speaker 1: that's for fucking sure. But when I found out he
30:55
Speaker 1: was getting high again and stuff like that, I mean,
30:59
Speaker 1: you know it, and part of getting married, I knew
31:03
Speaker 1: he was terrible. But I thought again, like, this girl
31:08
Speaker 1: was brilliant four years old, taught herself how to read.
31:12
Speaker 1: Her mom really didn't want to be a mom, which
31:15
Speaker 1: is why she was. She spent ninety percent of her
31:18
Speaker 1: time with her alcoholic high you know, piece of shit father,
31:24
Speaker 1: And I just thought, well, god damn, like, even with
31:25
Speaker 1: this inkle monitor, I'm better than both of them combined.
31:29
Speaker 2: And isn't it amazing though, when you think back and
31:33
Speaker 2: look at that kind of decision making, like marrying Carlos
31:36
Speaker 2: in the first place, Like when you look at your
31:39
Speaker 2: the state that you were in, how newly out of
31:42
Speaker 2: prison you were, what your parents must have thought about that.
31:47
Speaker 2: I mean, you know you discussed that too, and it's obvious,
31:51
Speaker 2: But when you look back at that decision making, don't
31:54
Speaker 2: you just know that you were in no position to
31:57
Speaker 2: make any of those decisions, Like you were dealing with
31:59
Speaker 2: so much much trauma that you hadn't even begun to unearth.
32:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that when someone's drowning in trauma,
32:07
Speaker 1: the worst thing you can do is point out that
32:08
Speaker 1: they're traumatized, right, and that I was. I hate it
32:13
Speaker 1: when people say this, but they do say it innate
32:18
Speaker 1: thinking patterns. The way you think and operate as an
32:21
Speaker 1: inmate is you find what you want and you find
32:27
Speaker 1: a way to secure it in a way that an
32:29
Speaker 1: officer or a position of authority cannot take it away
32:33
Speaker 1: from you. So I knew that I wanted to be
32:36
Speaker 1: with Carlos and I wanted to be a family to
32:39
Speaker 1: that little girl. And I was just thinking like, hey,
32:44
Speaker 1: my parents can't say anything if we're married, but b
32:46
Speaker 1: if I do wind up backing custody, the government can
32:50
Speaker 1: never deny me access to the two of them if.
32:53
Speaker 3: We're legally married. Okay.
32:55
Speaker 1: So it was the absolutely like you just grab something
32:59
Speaker 1: and you're just like, no, you can't take this away
33:02
Speaker 1: from me because I have this legal document and you're
33:05
Speaker 1: constantly trying to be two steps ahead of the police.
33:08
Speaker 1: And that's where that decision making was from. And again,
33:14
Speaker 1: as a family unit, nobody had that sort of nobody
33:19
Speaker 1: had the vocabulary to sit me down and say, nobody's
33:21
Speaker 1: going to take him away from you. We don't like him,
33:24
Speaker 1: we don't agree with him, we're not going to let
33:27
Speaker 1: you go back into custody, but nobody's going to make
33:30
Speaker 1: it illegal for you guys to interact. And because I
33:35
Speaker 1: didn't get that assurance, I married him secretly, and once
33:40
Speaker 1: that disintegrated, I felt like everything got better with my
33:45
Speaker 1: parents obviously, like the way relationships go. We did see
33:50
Speaker 1: each other one more time, and that was when I
33:56
Speaker 1: saw first hand the way he was going to use
34:00
Speaker 1: access to his daughter to get behavior that he wanted
34:05
Speaker 1: from me. And that was when I walked away permanently
34:09
Speaker 1: and I never saw either of them again.
34:12
Speaker 2: Wow, it's like trauma on top of trauma on top
34:15
Speaker 2: of trauma.
34:16
Speaker 3: I just keep asking for it. I make shit decisions.
34:19
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, You're going to get better at
34:21
Speaker 2: making life decisions you already have. You're going to get better.
34:24
Speaker 2: That's just a period in time that's not permanent. Nothing's permanent.
34:28
Speaker 2: You know, Look you're out. This is different. I mean,
34:31
Speaker 2: I have a lot of faith in your future, do you?
34:35
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess I think you just lead. You're
34:39
Speaker 3: just such a heart leader.
34:41
Speaker 2: You know, you lead with your heart so much that
34:44
Speaker 2: that's been your issue. I think you know with when
34:47
Speaker 2: you say you're terrible at making decisions, lead you're making
34:50
Speaker 2: decisions with your heart rather than using your head. But
34:53
Speaker 2: with all of this experience that you now have, you're
34:56
Speaker 2: going to make better decisions.
34:58
Speaker 3: It's like a math equation.
34:59
Speaker 2: You're smart. You're too smart to keep repeating those decisions.
35:03
Speaker 2: And I don't think the first decision was necessarily framed
35:05
Speaker 2: as a bad decision.
35:07
Speaker 3: It was like you based on the courage of your convictions.
35:10
Speaker 2: That was what I believed it. I wouldn't frame that
35:12
Speaker 2: as bad. You just didn't realize the consequences. So it
35:15
Speaker 2: was it was naive, as you say, it was young,
35:18
Speaker 2: but it wasn't like you did something wrong.
35:21
Speaker 3: You didn't do something wrong.
35:22
Speaker 2: You know, I would like to think that I would
35:25
Speaker 2: have those same convictions in your situation. So now where
35:29
Speaker 2: are you? Where are you with all of your trauma?
35:31
Speaker 2: How do you feel about everything? And how do you
35:34
Speaker 2: feel about your life moving forward? And how do you
35:37
Speaker 2: frame the past?
35:38
Speaker 1: So one of the best parts about being back in
35:41
Speaker 1: my hometown is I get to be anonymous. People when
35:44
Speaker 1: they realized that I'm reality winner, it's usually like, oh,
35:48
Speaker 1: your Billy's daughter, and so everybody wants to know how
35:51
Speaker 1: my mom and my sister are doing. People don't really
35:55
Speaker 1: make the connection to what I did. The people down
35:58
Speaker 1: here are very concerned, but they also don't follow national
36:02
Speaker 1: news there, which has kind of been my hiding place.
36:05
Speaker 1: I'm just coach ree and I've been coaching CrossFit now
36:09
Speaker 1: for four years. It's it's a cult, but it's also
36:12
Speaker 1: what keeps me from being bulliemic. It's like the only
36:17
Speaker 1: cure that I've ever found so far. And you know,
36:22
Speaker 1: I rescue dogs and I recently started a veterinary technology
36:26
Speaker 1: program at the local university, which is the hardest thing
36:31
Speaker 1: I've ever done. And the travel restrictions are even more
36:35
Speaker 1: like I'm not traveling, I'm not going anywhere, Like, I
36:39
Speaker 1: basically signed up for three more years of federal probation.
36:42
Speaker 3: What do you mean basically signed up?
36:44
Speaker 1: Literally, if you miss more than two days, you're out
36:46
Speaker 1: of the program, the vet tech program. Yes, I felt
36:50
Speaker 1: more nervous asking for one day of missed class to
36:53
Speaker 1: go on book tour the week of publication than I
36:56
Speaker 1: ever did asking my probation officer to try.
37:00
Speaker 2: You said you were surprised that they used the dog
37:03
Speaker 2: in the movie, that that they had the dog in
37:05
Speaker 2: the movie.
37:05
Speaker 3: Why did that surprise you?
37:07
Speaker 4: Or that they had to stealing a dog in the movie, Yeah,
37:09
Speaker 4: which you had never done at that time.
37:11
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I hadn't actually never stolen a dog. My
37:16
Speaker 1: friends stole a dog for me back in May, and
37:19
Speaker 1: I just thought that was like a funny continuation of
37:22
Speaker 1: like how that movie played out. That was the only
37:25
Speaker 1: scene I've ever seen from that movie. I just thought
37:28
Speaker 1: it was so delightful, and.
37:31
Speaker 3: It is delightful. It is. It's so funny.
37:34
Speaker 1: I wasn't even really into animal rescue at the time
37:36
Speaker 1: of my arrest. You know, it's just kind of been
37:38
Speaker 1: a self fulfilling prophecy. Like the more people talk about it,
37:42
Speaker 1: the more I started doing it in my own life.
37:45
Speaker 2: And what do you think or like some of like
37:47
Speaker 2: what do you think is your biggest takeaway from spending
37:49
Speaker 2: all that time locked up and being treated as a criminal,
37:53
Speaker 2: Like what do you think that did to your spirit?
37:57
Speaker 3: Like do you feel stronger now?
38:00
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily feel stronger. I do feel a little
38:04
Speaker 1: bit more brittle, kind of like I know, if you
38:09
Speaker 1: hit this glass against the table the right way, it's
38:11
Speaker 1: going to shatter. You know, I know what can take
38:14
Speaker 1: me down really quickly. You know, I've often said, like
38:18
Speaker 1: what doesn't kill you just doesn't kill you. But I
38:22
Speaker 1: do think that getting to interact with people from a
38:26
Speaker 1: background that I never would have before and sort of
38:31
Speaker 1: breaking down, Like I mean, when I was growing up,
38:34
Speaker 1: I was constantly just around other brilliant children, even in
38:38
Speaker 1: high school. You know, all my friends right now are
38:41
Speaker 1: like they're all doctors. They're just insanely successful people. And
38:47
Speaker 1: even in the military, being around other people like me
38:50
Speaker 1: that could learn languages. I've never been around normal people
38:56
Speaker 1: until I was in that county jail. And that's kind
39:00
Speaker 1: of what burst my bubble and helped me understand my
39:04
Speaker 1: own country. I thought I was interested in social justice,
39:09
Speaker 1: in the United States, and then I got locked up,
39:11
Speaker 1: and I got really interested in it very fast, because
39:15
Speaker 1: you do realize that what is happening to millions of
39:19
Speaker 1: other Americans can happen to you at any time, and
39:22
Speaker 1: that all of us are one interaction with law enforcement
39:26
Speaker 1: away from being in solitary confinement without legal justification.
39:32
Speaker 3: And what we're seeing now with.
39:35
Speaker 1: You know, these ice rates going on, and you know
39:38
Speaker 1: citizens getting detained under immigration law, which is ridiculous. Like,
39:44
Speaker 1: it's so scary right now, to the point to where
39:46
Speaker 1: I never thought that this is where we were going
39:50
Speaker 1: as a country. My basic understanding was, yeah, if they
39:55
Speaker 1: charge you with the crime, they can do anything to
39:57
Speaker 1: you after that. And now they don't even have to
40:00
Speaker 1: charge you.
40:01
Speaker 2: Oh it is Yeah, that's very scary to think about,
40:06
Speaker 2: especially when you put it like that.
40:08
Speaker 3: What do you want out of life now that you
40:11
Speaker 3: have one? Honestly, I just want to know that.
40:19
Speaker 1: My community is a better place because I'm in it,
40:23
Speaker 1: And like most people, I want to be comfortable in
40:27
Speaker 1: my life. I want enough to get by. I want
40:30
Speaker 1: to fence in my ten acres and open a dog sanctuary,
40:34
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, my view of the world has
40:37
Speaker 1: gotten a lot smaller with this criminal conviction, not being
40:41
Speaker 1: able to have the high positions that I wanted to do.
40:46
Speaker 1: I can't even coach troubled kids. You know, I can't
40:51
Speaker 1: be a mentor yet you have to have ten years
40:53
Speaker 1: clearance from your last day of your sentence. My sentence
40:57
Speaker 1: didn't end until last November, so in twenty thirty four
41:03
Speaker 1: I might be eligible to be a mentor for children
41:06
Speaker 1: caught up in the criminal justice system.
41:08
Speaker 3: I'm surprised they allowed you to write a book. I
41:11
Speaker 3: am allowed.
41:11
Speaker 1: I can't make any money from it, and the NSA
41:14
Speaker 1: took two years to clear that manuscript.
41:17
Speaker 3: Really, you'll make it, So where does the money go?
41:21
Speaker 1: So I gave everything to my agent because I love him,
41:25
Speaker 1: not in a weird, like rep creepy way, but he
41:28
Speaker 1: found me and he didn't even know I couldn't make
41:30
Speaker 1: money from it. This was all conversations we had later
41:34
Speaker 1: on once we found a publisher. As of right now,
41:38
Speaker 1: I don't have any documentation to say otherwise, but proceeds
41:42
Speaker 1: from this book will go to charity. We just we
41:48
Speaker 1: waited two years for the NSA to clear the manuscript.
41:51
Speaker 1: When the time comes, we will make a statement on
41:54
Speaker 1: which charities are and you know what percent of proceeds
41:58
Speaker 1: and how that works out legally. But I do plan
42:01
Speaker 1: on being as transparent as possible.
42:03
Speaker 3: And do you want to have a family.
42:06
Speaker 1: I have eight dogs, three cats, and somebody named Eddie.
42:11
Speaker 3: So is that a man in your life or is
42:14
Speaker 3: that another animal? He's a man? Unfortunately, No, no, no, no,
42:20
Speaker 3: that's not unfortunate. I'm glad that you have someone that
42:22
Speaker 3: you care about. I want that for you, and I
42:25
Speaker 3: also just want you to like you're an inspiration. You know.
42:29
Speaker 2: I hope you do feel that way.
42:33
Speaker 3: I don't.
42:34
Speaker 1: I just am like looking back, like I could have
42:36
Speaker 1: done things so much better, and I could have been
42:40
Speaker 1: somebody that the government couldn't say these terrible things about
42:44
Speaker 1: even though ninety nine percent of them weren't true. You know,
42:48
Speaker 1: it's really hard to continually absorb the things that were
42:52
Speaker 1: said about you in the courtroom that are like there's
42:56
Speaker 1: just enough truth in that statement, like to where you
43:01
Speaker 1: actually just believe everything they said about you. And I'm
43:04
Speaker 1: still reckoning with that today. Like I said, I don't
43:07
Speaker 1: use my name in a lot of social situations, and
43:11
Speaker 1: just admitting that I went to prison, you know, the
43:14
Speaker 1: biggest compliment that I get is if I bring it up,
43:18
Speaker 1: people just think I went for like meth, and I'm like,
43:21
Speaker 1: I'm willing to go along with that, Like yeah.
43:23
Speaker 2: Sure, no, no, it's so much more than that, because
43:27
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think you're taking into account that
43:29
Speaker 2: you survived all of this.
43:31
Speaker 3: You know, of course it's not ideal.
43:33
Speaker 2: Of course, you don't want anyone to be saying, you know,
43:36
Speaker 2: to be propagating lies or perpetuating lies about you.
43:40
Speaker 3: No, but you survived all of this.
43:43
Speaker 2: You have a job, and you care about your like
43:45
Speaker 2: place in the community. Look at all these animals that
43:47
Speaker 2: you're helping, like your parent, you're with your family, you know, like,
43:50
Speaker 2: there's so many good things. Even though this is not
43:53
Speaker 2: an ideal situation, and you would if you had to
43:55
Speaker 2: repeat it, you would not have repeated it. You are
43:58
Speaker 2: here with us today and there are lessons for you
44:01
Speaker 2: to still continue to learn, and your story, like sharing
44:05
Speaker 2: this book with the world is going to be tremendously
44:07
Speaker 2: helpful I think, and cathartic for your healing process. I mean,
44:12
Speaker 2: I'm assuming you're already in therapy. I mean, you'd have
44:14
Speaker 2: to be right. You have been in therapy for a while.
44:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, therapy and me don't get along well because for
44:22
Speaker 1: three years of probation, I was court ordered to do it.
44:26
Speaker 1: I had to be in a program without being provided
44:29
Speaker 1: the health care for it, so I was like a
44:31
Speaker 1: lot of paying out of pocket. So like for me,
44:33
Speaker 1: it just let such a bad taste in my mouth.
44:35
Speaker 1: But I have been able to kind of get my
44:38
Speaker 1: veterans benefits back up and running.
44:40
Speaker 3: Oh that's great. Yeah, so I was properly.
44:43
Speaker 1: Diagnosed last fall and have been doing a lot better
44:47
Speaker 1: with my mental health and a sort of regimen for that.
44:51
Speaker 2: And you need to reclaim that too, you know, you
44:54
Speaker 2: need to reclaim therapy because that's yours for the taking,
44:57
Speaker 2: not theirs to leave a bad taste in your mouth.
45:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'll just do a bunch of podcasts
45:02
Speaker 1: till I feel better about myself.
45:04
Speaker 2: Absolutely, just keep talking and talking and spreading the good word.
45:07
Speaker 4: Well, and Chelsea, I think you're so right. Like this book,
45:10
Speaker 4: I feel like is such a turning point where ten
45:13
Speaker 4: twenty years down the road, you may have a better
45:15
Speaker 4: understanding of why you went through what you went through,
45:18
Speaker 4: but this is just the beginning of that. Like, this
45:20
Speaker 4: feels like a starting point, A commencement, like we talked about.
45:24
Speaker 2: So we have to figure out what commencement means because
45:26
Speaker 2: I'm still I keep looking up that word.
45:28
Speaker 3: I'm like, is it a beginning or then? But no reality.
45:34
Speaker 3: I think that it's so funny that your name is
45:36
Speaker 3: Reality Winner.
45:37
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, try to be anonymous with a name
45:39
Speaker 2: like reality Winner, right, But I really do think like
45:42
Speaker 2: you haven't seen I know you've been out for four years,
45:45
Speaker 2: but you haven't seen the lessons that are going to
45:48
Speaker 2: come from this just yet. And to be open to
45:51
Speaker 2: whatever comes your way, and the fact that you're so
45:54
Speaker 2: open and so willing to share your story and that
45:57
Speaker 2: you don't Yes, of course there's bitterness, but you don't
46:00
Speaker 2: come across as someone who is bitter and enveloped in.
46:04
Speaker 3: Your bitterness, do you know what I mean?
46:06
Speaker 2: You're loving and you're sweet and like and to remain
46:10
Speaker 2: to have those things remaining within you is quite a
46:13
Speaker 2: feat and it speaks volumes about your true character and
46:16
Speaker 2: who you really are as opposed to all of the
46:18
Speaker 2: things that have been said about you that are not true.
46:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think twenty twenty five for me has been
46:24
Speaker 1: difficult because we're right back in the same position we
46:29
Speaker 1: were in twenty seventeen.
46:31
Speaker 3: And of course it's very triggering for you, so triggering.
46:35
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the jokes we have is like,
46:36
Speaker 1: you know, the last time around, I only made it
46:38
Speaker 1: four months before I broke.
46:40
Speaker 3: The law, and I think, right now, lady doubled your time?
46:45
Speaker 3: Are eight months?
46:47
Speaker 1: Well? I know I have little tick marks, you know
46:49
Speaker 1: what I mean. But it's like the guilt of that
46:53
Speaker 1: then was like last time I was willing to act,
46:57
Speaker 1: and now, like so many millions of Americans, I don't
47:00
Speaker 1: want to lose everything all over again.
47:02
Speaker 3: I don't, right, you know, am I supposed to be
47:05
Speaker 3: out there? I mean?
47:07
Speaker 1: And of course where I live in the middle of nowhere.
47:10
Speaker 1: You know, we're not in a big city. We're not
47:12
Speaker 1: in LA We're not Chicago. Right now, what am I
47:15
Speaker 1: supposed to do? Am I supposed to drive to Chicago
47:17
Speaker 1: and put my body between victims and masked agents, masked kidnappers?
47:25
Speaker 1: You know?
47:25
Speaker 3: No, I mean, here's what am I supposed to do?
47:28
Speaker 2: You've done what you're supposed to do. You're not supposed
47:30
Speaker 2: to be involved in anything else. You need to keep
47:32
Speaker 2: yourself safe and sane. That's your main objective, and take
47:36
Speaker 2: care of all of your animals and have a good
47:38
Speaker 2: time with your boyfriend. That's what I want you to do.
47:41
Speaker 2: That is your doctor's orders. I'm a medical professional. I'm
47:44
Speaker 2: actually not so I can't say that, but I think
47:46
Speaker 2: I am so. But that's You've done your You've done
47:49
Speaker 2: your time, literally, and you've done your contribution to society.
47:53
Speaker 2: Leave that up to everybody else and just focus on
47:56
Speaker 2: getting yourself healthy and as happy as possible, because I
47:59
Speaker 2: want you to have.
47:59
Speaker 3: A really full life. And you know you're still young.
48:02
Speaker 2: You have a whole life ahead of you, and this
48:05
Speaker 2: guy's not going to be president for the rest of
48:07
Speaker 2: our lives. This is only a four year stint, even
48:09
Speaker 2: though you know other things have so just don't even
48:13
Speaker 2: you know that's not your problem anymore.
48:15
Speaker 3: But I do want to thank you.
48:16
Speaker 2: I want all of our listeners to pick up a
48:18
Speaker 2: copy of I Am Not Your Enemy by Reality Winner.
48:21
Speaker 2: This book is really important and it's important to just
48:25
Speaker 2: if you care about your country, it's important to read.
48:27
Speaker 2: And if you care about being a strong woman who
48:29
Speaker 2: has stands up for something and has convictions, it's important
48:33
Speaker 2: for you to read.
48:34
Speaker 3: And it's a story about surviving.
48:36
Speaker 2: It really is You're a survivor and you went through
48:39
Speaker 2: you went through hell and you're still here to talk
48:41
Speaker 2: about it, and that in and of itself just shows
48:45
Speaker 2: that you have a purpose. And so thank you for
48:48
Speaker 2: coming on the podcast. And I really wish you all
48:52
Speaker 2: the best.
48:53
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. I mean, like,
48:55
Speaker 1: I'm such a huge fan and I just really appreciate
48:57
Speaker 1: you taking the time.
48:59
Speaker 3: Absolutely pleasure.
49:00
Speaker 2: And I was just when I met Susannah and she's like, oh,
49:03
Speaker 2: will you moderate this film? I just I was like,
49:06
Speaker 2: oh my god, Yes, I know that story. So I
49:08
Speaker 2: was just yeah, thrilled to be a part of that
49:10
Speaker 2: as well. And I'm going to text her right now
49:13
Speaker 2: as soon as we get off and let her know
49:14
Speaker 2: that I got to meet you.
49:16
Speaker 1: Hey, can't wait to see her next week.
49:17
Speaker 2: Oh good, you're gonna see her? Okay, tell her, I
49:19
Speaker 2: say hi, will you I will? Okay, Okay, bye, Reality,
49:23
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, sending you huge love.
49:26
Speaker 3: Bye, Thank you bye.
49:28
Speaker 2: I put up new Vegas dates by the way for
49:30
Speaker 2: next year. This year, I will be there November first
49:34
Speaker 2: and November twenty ninth. Those are my last two dates
49:36
Speaker 2: this year. Then I start up again January thirty, first,
49:38
Speaker 2: March seventh, April eighteenth, and May thirtieth, and tickets are
49:43
Speaker 2: now on sale for all.
49:44
Speaker 3: Of those dates. Do you want advice from Chelsea?
49:47
Speaker 4: Right into Dear Chelsea Podcast at gmail dot com. Find
49:51
Speaker 4: full video episodes of Dear Chelsea on YouTube by searching
49:54
Speaker 4: at Dear Chelsea Pod. Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered
49:58
Speaker 4: by Brad Dickert executive pretty Katherine law And be sure
50:01
Speaker 4: to check out our merch at Chelseahandler dot com