Latest / Surviving-ISH Podcast / The Night the Lights Went Out: Overcoming Decades of Family Denial / Andrea Leeb

Transcript

The Night the Lights Went Out: Overcoming Decades of Family Denial / Andrea Leeb · Surviving-ISH Podcast

• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Surviving Ish Podcast, y'all.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I um identify myself, I guess, as a seasonal reader.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I love to read, but I like it when it's dark outside and when it's cold and there's a fire.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't do a lot of reading during the summer.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I got an email from someone who wanted to be a guest on our show.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was so honored, am so honored.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh she sent me a book, and I can't wait to talk about this.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, Andrea, thank you for coming and being with me.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for this, which we will talk more about this in detail.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you for this gift and and for for sharing this side of you, which again we'll we'll talk more about.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: But how are you?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me, David.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, thank you for um well it is it is it is winter, so thank you for taking the time to read my book.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we I'm in Tennessee, and so the past couple of weeks, we've had snow and more than what we normally do.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Usually we'll get like one good snow a year.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I live in a valley, so when they call for snow, the the the weather's gonna change within 10 minutes.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: So everyone we go into chaos mode, right?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Which is kind of what my surviving-ish is is the chaos mode of grocery store, everybody's buying bread and milk and eggs, and then there's no snow.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next week they call for it again, and they've already cried wolf with us, and so now we're like, uh, it's gonna skip us again.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: We ran out of bread, we ran out of milk, we ran out of eggs, and we did not go to the store and we're snowed in.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: So exactly.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of been my ish is I just I don't know the right way to do things, I don't know what to wear, I don't know how to dress today.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like 55 degrees, the sun's shining, it's gorgeous.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: We had horrible rainy weather yesterday, but now it's moved off to you.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: You have it today.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and that's my ish too.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I like me, I know, but I never know.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's been last weekend it was 80 degrees.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: This now it's like 55 here.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in Southern California.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: Oh wow.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: California.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And um, as the song goes, it never rains in Southern California, except when it does.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's actually raining today and another time, but it never rains in the fall.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Greg book launch on October 14.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I had planned this big party, speaking of weather, on a rooftop.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the the space that I was using didn't have another indoor space.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought, oh, there's no problem.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: October, it doesn't rain.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I checked the weather, really checked the weather, and then three days before I checked the weather and it said October 14th, pouring.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: And it did.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so that morning I had to call and we had to pivot at the last minute.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's the only day it rained in all of October, all of September.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, until probably late November, the only time it rained, but it poured kind of like it is today.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, so we had to pivot.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: I had to go on for the event fright.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: People who weren't my friends, I had to kind of cancel for the people who were my friends.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay, we're having it at my house.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was actually pretty enough.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: The first funny I had had at my house, my this is not funny, my beautiful dog who was a Saint Bernard was very, very protective, and she had pounced away.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we never had visitors in our house for years because you know, when you have 125 or a dog who growls at everyone who comes in the house, uh-huh.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Protective.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that was the first time I learned she thinks my house is really good for entertaining, and everybody showed up in the rain, and we ended up pivoting and it all worked out, and you know, I I had to kind of breathe through it, and it was a big day.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: I had all these radio interviews in the morning, so I really couldn't worry about it.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And God bless my nice patient husband because he really pitched down and helped me that day.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I wonder though, if you know how they say that um uh uh rain on a wedding day is actually good luck.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I hadn't bought it.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I wonder, uh, and and honestly, I'm gonna choose to look at it that way, you know?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: Actually ended up surprising everyone because you know the topic is a little bit hard and we get into that, but it ended up becoming a USA Today bestseller.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe I mean there were whole issues that day.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Amazon was running in books.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: They ended up cornering more, but it was all good problems.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we had we had an unexpected, you know, a lot of people bought the book.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I it was I worked very hard before the book came out to to really publicize, but it it was good luck, and it was really, you know, it was such a good part.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: It was so fun, yeah.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was so nice to, you know, in the end it ended up being my really close friends and not like a lot of other people.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: What like 30 people, like you know, not like my 30 good friends, and so nice and fun.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: So whatever it was, it was good luck, and the whole thing's been it's been it's been an adventure since then.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and I do want to go ahead and you know, and and jump into the book because I already have a lot of questions.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: One thing I will say though is you um uh did not let the rain defer you from from the party.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: You you still had a lovely time and and and it doesn't rain often where you're at, and it's raining today as you're a guest on my show.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe that's a good sign.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe this is just gonna be a groundbreaking episode for surviving-ish podcast.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: So and I'm here for it.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so your your book is a memoir, and if you don't mind, um, and and I'm gonna post uh to to the listeners, um, um, I'm gonna post the links uh uh to the book, but this is such a pretty picture, and it is a memoir.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And on the back, uh I I want to read a lot or two.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it says, um uh your father was giving you a bath.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, it says uh Andrea is for Andrea's four and a half, I don't have my glasses, can you tell?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Andrea's four and a half um the first time her father David gave her a bath.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Although she was young, she knew there is something strange about the way he is touching her.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: When her mother Marlene walked in to check on them, she howls and crumbles to the floor.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when she opens her eyes, she is blind.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Marlene's hysterical blindness lasts for weeks, but her willful blindness lasts for decades.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you and I had talked before we hit record that this, you know, that this is a hard read.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but these are the stories, these are these are real stories, and and they need to be told, you know, and and I think it's so empowering.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, I people ask me all the time why I talk about my hate crime so much while I wanted to have a podcast that was about a time where I was raped and almost murdered simply for being gay.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a way for me to bring awareness, it's a way for me to help people, and and it makes it not so in vain.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it is a huge part of my healing.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and the people that I have come across that have been greatly involved in my healing are people that I would not have come across had it not been for this platform, had it not been for um for what had happened to me and the way that I chose to heal and and control it going forward.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I would like your thoughts on that.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, actually, that's that's that's the for me.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I started this book.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: I had always been a writer, so writing is my thing, but I had not really ever meant to write the memoir or really meant to tell this story.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I made the decision to do that actually ran around the Me Too movement because I kept reading other people's stories, and and I realized that I could not only help myself, maybe at another level of healing, but also help another survivor.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: And since that time, I've been able to, I I really look at this as tuna happens, right?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been able to, this was terrible.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: What lasted the abuse from my father lasted until I was almost 13.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was it was really traumatic, and and as a result of it, I I had other traumatic experiences.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I could you know shot it in a box, which is we'll talk about that, what I tried to do.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I or I could embrace it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: I can't make it go away.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'd rather it didn't happen, but by embracing it, I can turn this time in my life into something meaningful and purposeful.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: The amazing part of it is much like you with your podcast, is this book started my a kind of a platform, so to speak.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: It started, it allows me now, since that time, I've spoken publicly on the issue of childhood sexual abuse.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: I have become a member of the UCLA Rape Treatment Center Advisory Board.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I volunteer with children who are going through the same thing.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really I've had the opportunity to speak other places, the Rape and Incest National Network I've been connected to now.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's I've had amazing opportunities, but all of it is about embracing this trauma and helping other people in every single bookstore I go to, every single one.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: I have someone come up to me and thank me because they tell me that this is their story, and by doing this, I'm making them feel less alone.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it makes sense, right?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna just jump in with the statistics real quick because you know, this is a crime of opportunity.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually this is reported crimes, sexually assaulted before the age of 18.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And 90% of those assaults happen by or occur or are perpetrated by someone they know.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is I wrote a book about it, and that's but I'm not alone.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: This has happened to a lot of people.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Every time I go into a room, I look at it and I go, I am so not alone with this.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it it's definitely devastating.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I have, you know, some friends that uh are school teachers, and you know, and and they uh have a class that they take on how to recognize when when things could be occurring at home to the to their students, you know, and and it my my rape happened, you know, when I was 34 years old.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: My it happened 10 years ago, and I and I was an adult.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: But knowing what that did to me and how that one night from a stranger, you know, I did not know this man.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: He saw me uh at a bar, followed me home, broke in my house, you know, and and the way that that one night that I don't even remember from the from because of the trauma, um, it changed the definition of sex for me.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you think of of this happening to children, you know, such as in your case, this was the first sexual experience.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: This was became your definition of sex.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't know, I don't want to speak for you, you know, but but I could see how that could be sex can be a bad thing, right?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's shame that comes with that.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and it did.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that was the you know, I I went through years and years in my case too.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So if we go back in time and look at it, I was only four in a show, and I saw on top of that, they saw my mother fade and go blind.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I thought it was my fault.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I I really believed that not only was I didn't really know it was sexy, it took me a while to figure out that this was sex.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: I did eventually, but but I think I started looking uh and um you know, I blamed myself.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I caused my mother to go blind.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: I really thought I caused her to go blind, and I thought it was my fault.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And as I got older later, you know, my father told me it was my fault.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I started thinking that I, you know, there was something about me that was too too too sexy, too, too provocative that I caused these things to happen.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm it took me a really long time.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I like to say my intimacy, uh, my ability for intimacy was severed at a young age, and it took me a really long time and a lot of therapy to to come back the other way.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so do you um first I want to say I want to say this.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: If I ever ask a question that you uh don't want to answer, we're not live, you can tell me that we move forward.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's never any hard feelings.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've never run into that problem, but I just like to give the comfort of uh for you to know that.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Did did you and and your father or or mother, you know, have conversations of you're not to tell anyone this stays between us, or did you just know not to?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my father definitely I did, and I I absolutely did.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: And um, my mother didn't talk about it.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: My mother refused to acknowledge that it was happening, so there was there were no conversations.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: She just um she you know, she refused to acknowledge it.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: She she wouldn't, she even I mean there were definite signs she knew it was happening, sure.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: But she she didn't.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: My father told me when I right after the first time that I was not to tell anyone, you know, that that was it was to be our secret, and I should keep it as our secret, and uh and that it was my fault, and that I could kill my mother if if you know if she found out.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: That was part of it.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: As I got older, I got closer to telling.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, what my father did as I got older, he my father was a literature professor, and my family was a family books played a big role.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And what my father told me was um he left me a copy of his scarlet letter on my on my bed.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if your readers are not familiar or didn't read the scarlet letter in high school, that book basically is about a you know, it was written in the 1800s around the civil war turned by Nathaniel Fourth, but it's uh it takes place in the 1600s, and it's about a young woman named Hester Pine who has is married and has an affair with a married pastor.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: And and he basically they get caught, he gets a wing scot-free, and she is, you know, has to stand on a scaffold, and then she has to sew a scarlet A to her chest.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: The more popular movie with I think Lindsay Lohan Scarlet A kind of refers to it, but the reality is in the book, she was she was branded.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And like that, I will be branded.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: I also thought my father would lock me away.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't very sure that he was gonna lock me away if I tried to tow.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it was something I grew up, and that's like sister.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: I said, you know, I read about it, it's in my book, it's in my mind.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Do you really think that he would have done it?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: And she said, Yes.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I was gonna ask you is um did you have siblings and did they experience uh I and I don't want you to speak for anyone, you know, that you that you don't want to.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: He's often to it.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: So never more.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um I had a sister, one sister, she's two and a half years younger than I was, and she did not experience this.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but that said, my father was an alcoholic and also a very mild person, so he hit her more than he hit me.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: But he hit her more, and so she she was we were different personality types.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: I am by nature, more of a you know, people good girl.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: And my sister was a little more rebellious and defiant than I was, so but he he would hit her and horror.
• 17:56
  unknown: Wow.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: He it was a very brutal place that I grew up.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow, and you know, I um we hear often how you know this is a secret, you know, um, because you're special.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but your dad didn't take the special route.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't take the this is between uh, you know, you and I because you're special and you know it it went into the um please later he did, not special.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: My father always treated me, I was very good at school, so he liked that, you know, that was the whole thing.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: But I yes, he would it went into the you're crazy, so almost like this isn't happening.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um but he did went into a little bit, like as I got older, he would tell me I was sexy, was 10.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, let's just put it into a 10-year-old is never sexy, sexy like and your listeners might be a little younger, but Sophia Loren was very famous at the time, a very famous Italian actress, sexy like Sophia Loren.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I look nothing like Sophia.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean so, but yes, he didn't go the special route in that you know.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I realized wait, yeah, no, what we were I always knew there was something wrong with sure.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, in and in the book, I do talk about like the steps of awareness to start understanding exactly why and what we were doing and why that was like wrong.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think it took me a long time to understand that he did this to me.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was not a participant in it, right?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, um uh I I have another podcast that I work behind the scenes on.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's hosted by my friend Jenny and it's called Unholier because she got out of this religious cult.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so we interview people who have been a part of some kind of religious cult and got out of it, deconstructed.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what I find so common is when it comes to a lot of the sexual abuse cases, um, and and if religion is involved in any way at all, it's the girl, even the young girl, it is her responsibility to not lead a man, um, to not tempt a man.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is a this young child's responsibility to not be sexy, to not be pretty, to not to be these things, because that could provoke the man into doing something as if it's your responsibility and not the man's responsibility to control his thoughts and emotions.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so so the guilt and the shame, um, and then when you put the religious factor on top of it, you know, the the fear of God.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it it's just a a cycle of you know, the the victims feeling like they're not a victim that they're that they're the fault of.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that, you know, the thing for me is like we didn't have the religious part in my family, um, although we didn't have a cult.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I like we more had a heron.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: I uh it was the cult of of David for all um, you know, intense purpose.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he my father was the cult leader and we were, you know, the the the girls of the cult.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And my family was in very almost because I ran a lot about cult, it was almost intensely nuclear.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it stayed that way.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: There wasn't a lot of room for for third parties in our family.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and with your dad being you said he was a professor.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: So were were you all just groomed, brainwashed, trained?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't know what title you would like to put with it, but obviously, you know, you went to public schooling, um, you were active in communities, so there was a life behind doors that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: That was one way, but on that to the public eye, you had to be a different way.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like in Republic, we had to be a different way.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Although, interestingly enough, my family moved almost every year.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Almost every year from kin from kindergarten to um eighth grade.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think I went to eight different schools.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: So there was no getting close.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I wasn't good at it anyway back.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Eighth grade, they kind of settled, but at that point we were older, the sexual abuse had stopped, and they settled.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: But we weren't, they were never really.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my mother did end up teaching in a nearby school system, but they were not really part of the community that way, the way that some people are.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, um, we didn't believe in God and my family, my father didn't.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, academia was it.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so certainly when his friends would come over, you know, we always knew how to be perfect.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And in front of my grandmother, in front of their parts, you know, we always, you know, we were cute little girls.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: We wore little matching outfits when we were young.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and we always looked so perfectly groomed and and we looked like we my my sister started riding a horse and you know, we had belly levels.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: So we did have all of those, those and things, but you know, we I knew better.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: I knew better at a very young age, um, not to tell anybody.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: It it was to the outside world, even to relatives, we we presented a affront.
• 23:43
  unknown: Yeah.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: So were were are you the oldest or is your sister older?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um you had said this sexual abuse had stopped when you were 13, but did the physical and mental abuse continue?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Mental abuse continued, and then you know, I mean it's complicated because my mother also kind of turned on me a little when I was young.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but um the physical abuse, I think for my sister when I was 13 more than me, I it stopped then we moved to Pennsylvania, and I I pretty much separate.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, although I lived in the hole, I ended up I mean leaving high school or finishing high school.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: I kind of came back to graduate a couple of years later, but I ended up uh leaving high school at like 15 and a half and going to community college.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and then when I got my license, I got a job, I had a job.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: I worked at a nursing home and in a clothing store.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I I always had a job actually, even in and um I started, you know, separating from the family a little bit.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: I had my classes, so it it it there were moments.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, certainly I remember when I did get caught staying out all night, and my father, you know, called me up and told me I was a slut and called me a cat on the tin roof, but you know, it wasn't it wasn't like I was sort of divorced from it.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: I I had once it stopped, and it stopped because he knew I would tell.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes and no.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there were terrible fights in the family, there was screaming and yelling, and and it was definitely a brutal place, but as as I got older, it it sort of stopped.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: And he he my father was traveling more, so yeah.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Did he just was there always a lingering threat of of knowing that even though I haven't touched you in so long, um, even though time has passed, uh, you still can't tell.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is still a secret.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is nobody spoke.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And there was always a threat.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was really scared.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, when I was younger read the book Jane Eyre.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: I remember reading it, and and in Jane Eyre, there's Mr.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Rochester and Jane Eyre's the nanny, and there's the mad woman in the alley.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh, I used to think I'm sure that he he that's the ex-wife, and I'm sure that he did something.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: And there was another book many years later that sort of made that positive that.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I I thought he's gonna lie, I really believed he would put Lee Rem.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: There was always the stress, and he was always everything was always you're hysterical, you're hysterical, you're hysterical.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I I really appreciate um the vulnerability and in in sharing uh the way that you are.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um so what where do you stand with with your family now?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Is is there but so you know, and I think you know, we haven't really touched on, but in some ways the bigger wound was my mother because I really felt like she didn't protect me.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I've got two, you know, my father was my father, and you know incest is complicated, pedophilia is complicated.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I you know there's he, you know, when he he's deceased, and you know, when he died, I really felt nothing but relief.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my mother was more complicated because I really loved my mother.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: I did.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: She was my mother, and you know, I truly believe there was a point in my life where she gave me the mother's move that every child gets, which is part of the resilience that I have internally.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um but um I made a decision.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I I had a breakdown of one for me.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: I I learned about my life and I was quite lucky.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: I I did incredibly well at school, and I don't mind giving away stuff in the book because it's well written enough that people should read it anyway.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, right, no, exactly.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, I I did incredibly well in school.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I went to college or went on my merry way, and I really for a long time, much like my mother, I thought if I was smart enough, pretty enough, perfect enough, I could just pretend.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: I could put this whole thing in the box, I could pretend I came from a normal family and move on.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you know, up to that point as a teenager, I, you know, cut, stabbed at my body, and to, you know, I my body looks like a little roadmap of little cuts.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I I I thought I can I can move on.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm done.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm done with this.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, honestly, that never happens, which is my message to survivors.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: You cannot just move on.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_01: You have to tell somebody this needs, you need to get some kind of help.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: I had for me, it was therapy.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a big proponent of therapy.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: Some people have other means, but for me, it was therapy.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, so I kind of went on about my life, and when I was 33, I had a breakdown.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: So when you sent 34, uh, somebody grabbed my breast and so you know, and I when they grabbed my breasts, I I completely had a milkdown.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: I I started having flash panics, I really started having suicidal radiation, and we had panic attacks, and I finally had a panic attack and went to a therapist and ultimately tried to confront my parents, they denied it, kept having, you know, spiraling, and ultimately did 12 days in it, you know, went to an inpatient facility, which really helped me and started what I call my road to healing.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I, you know, I think I lost the question now.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: I went on my road to healing, and um, you know, I I think that that um I when I was in therapy, I got the question back.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily, my memory is not completely sure.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: So my mother, I I made the decision to keep my mother in my life.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when I was in in the initation program, and I knew I knew that that meant keeping my father in my life, whether because she was not gonna leave him.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: She he did other things.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: He cheated on show with adult women, real, real women, not with and but God knew it would be uh he was, you know, he was a very florid man, and she would not leave him, you know.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: So it it was for her.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: He was she was 18 when she met him, or 15 when she met him, and 18 when they got married.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: He was three years older, she wasn't going anywhere.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: I so would you mind if I took the sip of water?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, please, yeah, absolutely.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: And getting over that little flea that was going around.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, you're okay.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll pick up my water, my coffee.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want to be all lax, and you know, I wanted to be like two friends on the couch, you know, having a conversation.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: So do what you need to do.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so um anyway, she wasn't gonna leave him, and I knew that.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I made the decision to keep her in my life.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I didn't.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: I kept her in my life, which meant by default keeping him in my life.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I I really see the damage points, but it was a decision that I made.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: Some therapists told me it wasn't the best idea.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Some helped me navigate it.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I I I just decided that I wanted to keep her in my life.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: So uh my mother is deceased, and in a tear-jerking moment in my book and in my life, my mother did apologize to me finally two weeks before she died.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: Before.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I was almost I was 65 years old.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it was, you know, a long time later.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: But so um I, you know, when my father died, it was really that was right around the time of the Maid Tune of Middle Sunday where I started writing the book, and I honestly just felt if I was, you know, there was no good that he could have brought to the world.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: But unfortunately, I feel I feel sorry for him.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, people ask me if I'd forgiven my appearance, and I should have forgiven my mother, um, but I have not forgiven my father, right?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: I will not forgive my father.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: But what I don't have is rage toward him anymore, not angry.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: I feel sorry for him because he missed the opportunity to have these daughters.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Line my sister and I are are good people.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: We we we we are and you know he missed the opportunity to have those as real true daughters and to have daughters love and and that that that makes me sad.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes when I'm at a wedding and somebody gives a toast, a father gives a toast to a daughter, his daughter, and I I'm gonna cry because you know, I never had that, and my father never had that opportunity.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Do you feel um robbed of that?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think, yeah, I mean, I I think it's funny that you're asked that question because it's one of the things I've been contemplating on the page lately, is grief.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: And feel like I was robbed of having a childhood, you know, and of that, a bit of a childhood altogether.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: I never knew how to play.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like I didn't play as a kid.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: I never got to play, and I I kind of am a playful person, so it was bummer.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: And um I feel I feel like I lost the opportunity.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: He took it away.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, but I don't, you know, I I don't want to, you know, I uh I don't feel angry, so robbed feels like a foreign word, but I mourn it.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's more that I mourned it.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: It makes me very, very yeah.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I started using the word robbed versus angry because I'm not angry at my you know attacker any longer.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have a love-hate relationship.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've had multiple conversations and even a couple episodes about the word forgiveness, you know, and they say, well, it's you know for you and not for them.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I almost feel like sometimes that becomes like a toxic positivity kind of statement.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, it it I I didn't know this man that that did this to me, you know, that that's where like our stories really differ, right?
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was no relation, I wouldn't be able to pick him out of a lineup, you know, and right, and and so so for me to forgive someone that I I don't know or have a relationship with, and and I don't know that that's required um for me to have to heal.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm on the same page with you on that.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'd heard that blah blah and I I think it's I don't, you know, I don't think we should demand forgiveness out of victims, and we were both victims, and I'm really sorry about what you went through.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, we have to go through that, and um, you know, it's world.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or at least some there are bad people, but mostly there's I hope that there's good people.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's my hope.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: But like I don't believe that you should, you know, my personal thing is we should not have to forget.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_01: There's no there's no, you know, we get to pick, and for some some victims or survivors, as it were, and I use the term victim more than I used to because I never would use that term because I'm like, a crime was perpetrated against me and against you, and so you know, if like survivor is thin word, I like it.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm taking it.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I own that one too, but I'm not a I learned that from when I started working with UCLA Radio Treatment Center because they use victim, and I'm like, yes, this was a crueling.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: I am a victim of a crueling, yes, but I don't think there's you know, I understand that for some people it gives them that peace.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: And for my mother, I felt more forgiveness, I really did, but for my father, you know, this is unforgivable.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's like for me, and I did know him, and still and his blood daughter.
• 37:18
  unknown: Yeah.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so like I think we're the same person because I I have the same uh conversations with the words survivor and victim.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: I I try to use the terminology when I when I'm having a podcast episode with someone or conversation with someone, you know, if they use the word survivor, you know, then I will use that word, you know, for them.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: What I don't I I don't like toxic positivity.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so when when people want to, like when I say, you know, I was a victim of a hate crime and they want to stop me and say, no, no, no, you're a survivor.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I will let you know.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: And and and yes, I survived it.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and yes, I'm throbbing, but in that moment, when that person broke inside my home, when that person inserted himself into my body without permission, when that person was laying his hands on me, dragging, doing all the things that he did, I was a victim.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was a victim of something horrific, something brutal, just like you were.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I'm not going, and I feel like the people that are telling me to use the word survivor are the ones that I almost had to convince that what happened to me was back, you know.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: Wait, I get that.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I do use survivor a lot.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: The lexicon and everybody uses it.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: And even in my book I wrote, you know, I didn't even like it back then.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: Even that was too much because I didn't want to pretend that I I wanted to pretend that I didn't have anything to survive.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: It took me a this is just recent for me, but really I'm like, yeah, yeah, is what it was.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's not sugarcoat this.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, if if you can and you want to and it's gonna help you, then forgive.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't have to, and you know, I had somebody uh on a podcast say, Well, you know, it's a very important part of healing is forgiveness.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: How did you forgive your father?
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I said they didn't, and then she just went, you know, she said shocked her.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, why I was like, I can't pretend that I did, and I can't pretend I don't want to, and that's my choice as a victim of of the crime he perpetrated against me now.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I think Rob just good.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, he robbed me of my childhood, and he robbed himself of an opportunity to know me in a healthy way, is he's a sad, sad person.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I feel bad for him.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's a he's a person, you know, who and you know uh neither of his daughters have any good memory of him.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, when I wrote this book, it was very, you know, the I knew that I was gonna be kind of talking about my parents in a negative way, obviously.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's negative.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: My mother, you know, instead of loving me more, she kind of turned away from me after she got her sleep back.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_01: And um my father committed his crime, you know.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I I you know I the I lost my train again, parents.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, I I have uh I I sit there and I I go, I really lost my train this time, David.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's okay.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: That I mean that's what happens with these conversations.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to fit a whole lifetime into an hour.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're telling what I'm doing, but I uh so yep.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but um in any event, um, you know, my I I feel I feel sorry for them.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I do.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_01: I feel sorry for both of them.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: It was easier to forgive her.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: I I overgrowth that she was groomed.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: I felt that my mother was was groomed by my father.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that that was gonna be my next question for you because I you know I've done a lot of research in you know generational abuse.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And when we think of you know the generations, especially when you get to, you know, maybe uh a a mother's generation, um even if there was abuse, you sit down, you shut up, you know, and and you take it because you have you know the man that's that makes the money, your job is to do this, and you're not gonna be able to survive without the man.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you sit down, you shut up, you take it, you turn a blind eye, uh you know, and and then and then on on the man's side of it, I know that even in 10 years ago when when my attack happened, when when the when the guy turned himself in for murder on the discoveries, the cop says, Well, it sounds like two guys were fighting out in the front yard and one of them lost.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what happened.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: But as men, we're told to you can't be traumatized.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: You you know, you go out, you fight out in the backyard, you shake hands, you drink a beer, and you forget about it, and you move on, you go back to the coal mine or whatever.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not the way trauma works.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so have you found any history with both parents, like with your mom in abuse or your dad being abused?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my mother, no, I haven't.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: My mother, um I believe in my heart that she was, but I don't know who I know it who it was.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I also believe in my sorry, it wasn't my grandfather, and I have talked to my mother's siblings about it.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: They my uncle read the book, my aunt decided not to, and my uncle's wife read the book, and we really agree that it wasn't my mature grandfather, did not abuse her, but whether someone did, I I can't, it just feels so intergenerational, right?
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, who knows?
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it was someone back, you know, maybe it's from way back when, generations ago in Europe or but I I so I never found it with my mother, but we we go back in time when we're looking at like where my mother was, and again, this isn't to make excuses for her, sure.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, she was 18 when she married and he didn't have a college education.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: She, you know, by the time that the abuse started, she was what, 24?
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: And she had two little girls all and and Karen had this crazy husband that she picked.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my father was also in the you know, and it was shurnable with things that were already starting to shine.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so she, you know, this was in I this all started.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was born in 1958.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: This all started in 1962.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean yeah, 62.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: And um my mother couldn't women could not even get a credit card.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_01: I believe it was 1974.
• 44:16
  unknown: Yeah.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's how, you know, how she ultimately went back to school.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, where was she gonna go?
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think she wanted to go back.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: My mother came from a, you know, from a in the they both grew up in the Bronx, but she grew up in a building where all these family members lived, everybody knew each other.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was almost an extension of the Polish ghetto, so to speak.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they were Jewish, she didn't she didn't want to go back to the neighborhood, she didn't want to go back to that.
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't want to go back in failure.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: Is this a good reason?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, but in a reason, is it, you know, a reason for her to look the other way, I I guess.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: My father allegedly, and everything with my father is alleged, because there was a lot of lies in my father's life, right?
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he also forged his PhD at one point.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: So wow, yeah, yeah.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: So in that caught, and um, my you know, my father allegedly was abused by his mother, not sexually, but physically, you know, as a little boy, of the story is she tied him to a tree and used to chain him out there, whether that's true or not.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: She was really mean to him.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I knew she was mean to him even as an adult.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_01: My aunt aunt said the way she used to speak to him was horrendous.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean I even as an adult, you know, in his 20s.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I know that there was some parental abuse from on his side.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I don't, I don't remember.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I can't tell.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I had suspicions on my mother's side, but I don't feel comfortable saying.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and I like the way that you said, you know, when when when we talk about these things, it's not to uh try to find excuses or to justify, but until we get to the core of the problem, right?
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like I the person that attacked me, he had been kicked out of military for marijuana, you know, like um nothing crazy.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: There wasn't anything on his background of rape, attempted murder, of hating gay people, what you know.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think he was just sitting on his couch eating a bowl of fruity pebbles one morning and thought, you know, I'm gonna go.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go kill somebody.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't think it happened like that.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think that um in my case, I think that I walked into the bar where he saw me and um I was triggering to him because I was everything that maybe he wanted to be.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not, I don't mean that as a gay man, and he was wanting to be gay, maybe, but I was confident, I was secure, I wasn't hiding behind things, you know, and and I think that, you know, until we have to recognize these things in order to get to the core of the problem.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: And until we do that, you know, uh things are gonna keep happening.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't think that we're looking to make excuses or to justify anything, but we have to find those common links to to what causes people to do these horrific things um to know how to maybe stop it.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't, you know, it's really hard to tell with, especially with with with incest, but I do want intergenerational, and you usually find that people who abuse have been abused.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: So it would not surprise me if both haven't definitionally abused, it certainly wouldn't.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know the answer to it.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um what I do know is that, you know, I think my father did groom my mother a bit.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: We do documentary screening sometimes, and uh this panel that I was the moderator on, it was for a movie called out Great Photo Lovely Life.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_01: And in the in the movie, it's about the grandfather who was the pedophile who created who abused the mother, and I thought to myself, I literally shuddered because I thought, oh my god, this man is my father.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like, are all these men the same?
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was watching him groom, and then as I watched the movie and his relationship with the director's grandmother, I went, oh my, you know, this is the same.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_01: This is a grooming process.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that what I've read and what I've learned is that they, you know, my these men room not only the victim, but they also room the people and the victim's life.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_01: And to some extent, your mother was groomed.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: She also, you know, it was a life he was he he he was good to her on many levels, but um, but it it was interesting for me to see.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_01: Again, these are excuses.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a mother should protect her children.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_01: And when I see mothers bringing their children in, well, I volunteered this place called Stewart House, which is part of UCLA Treatment Center.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a program that they have for the children who have been abused, and they come in and instead of going to 10 different places, they can they see the police and everybody else in like a single delay, it's a single day.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: We have great forensic psychologists, and I I volunteer is the play with I play with the kids in between the point.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great job.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: I bet one of them never knew how to play.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but anyway, what what I when I see the mothers come in when it it is the stepfather or the or the father who's the biological father, and the chill the mother is bringing the child in, those women are my heroes because I know I know how far it is.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_01: My mother just wasn't strong enough.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: I it's there's no it's really sad, but she really wasn't strong enough to protect me, probably like yeah, yeah, and I think um, and and I'm gonna speak generally now.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you know different or better, please please correct me.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I think that if someone had been abused in their past, they're easier groomed, you know, because there's already that history, maybe.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I I don't know for sure.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really good question.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_01: Why will ask the therapist?
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, asking and get back with things.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: I really don't know the answer to that, but it doesn't it to me, it makes sense.
• 50:51
  unknown: Yeah.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, especially if you haven't gotten help.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in what that's the other thing, we have to get help.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I know my mother, strangely enough, she had an eating disorder, she's a kid, and um, she was there, and my grandmother, which really shocks me because you know, my grandmother was not really a modern kind of person, but she sent my mother to a therapist.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: And when I mean, and you know, we're going back into the like breeding, into the early 50s, and my for some reason the doctor asked my mother to bring the psychiatrist, asked my mother to bring my father in.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: She did.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_01: And she told me that he the doctor told her, do not marry that boy.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: What after one meeting, whatever you do, do not marry him.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_01: He will destroy your life.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: Not a lot, he's very ill.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it was obviously evident to others, yeah.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, something triggered.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so okay, I have one more question and then um and then I have more of a light-hearted question as as we start to, you know, get to the wrapping part.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: But with with you coming public and you sharing your memoir, and you know, it sounds like you've spoken to your family and and said, This is what I'm doing, was there what were they all supportive of it?
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have backlash on it?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, my family, my parents were deceased, so that was kind of an easy, uh, easy, easy thing.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: My sister was very supportive.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: My other family would be my parent, my my I I don't know my father's son in the family at all.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_01: He he had cut ties, which is you know, not you know makes sense of the law in different ways, given sure everything I've told you.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: And my mother's family, I told them, and they were supportive because I was worried, and I was worried when they read the book, because I said I'm writing this book, this is what it's about, you know, and I don't want you to hate me for it, and or even hate my mother, and and you know, my mother's brother and his wife said, No, we couldn't do either of those things.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_01: So they were, and my aunt never read the book, but she was supportive.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: But she said she wished she had she feels bad that she didn't protect, that she didn't know.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, you know, and I think my cousins on the side have said, you know, you were just so you really were like hid it so well.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: No one knew.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yes, that was that was you know, that was the thing.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: I hid it.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was very simple to hide it.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't, I really wanted to, I didn't want to deal with it.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: I did not want to live as a, you know, I didn't want to live as a survivor or a victim.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted it didn't exist, so they were supported.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was nervous.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_01: I like I said, the bigger part of it has been the feeling of betrayal for my mother.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it's funny because I I had this uh US Daily Mail, not US Daily Mail, it was the Daily Mail, the British paper.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I had an interview with the person with one of the the interviewers.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um she was an excellent interviewer, but it was the Daily Mail, so they they do clickbait a little bit.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I they had a picture of me as a baby and my mother, and and you know, the clickbait was something like, oh, you know, I made my mother go blind when I was four machine, and then you got into the whole story, but I started reading the comments, it got a lot of views, like two marine views.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the thing went relatively viral, and um as I was reading the stories, I the comments people were saying such terrible things, and and even as I've written the book about my mother, and that's taken me a little bit to get used to.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I have to admit, like I and my sister is pretty good, she she she does she do protects, you know.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_01: She and my therapist is really good too.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: I went back into therapy when I was rushing this book.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm sure.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: And she's been really good, you know.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: I've been reminded she failed to protect you, you you don't go her, but that's been the harder part.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I was lucky.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I know families can go all over the map, but I don't know if I you know I wrote most of this book while my mother was still living, and uh it was hard.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_01: My mother's always been a big cheerleader for my writing, and every time I have an event or another, you know, publish something, she's always been really excited.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, she told me at one point, I know you're working on something, a book, and I hadn't know it's about your father, and whatever it is, you shouldn't be doing it, and it's not true.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, Okay, I was laughing at that, and we never so it was, you know, she she knew, but she wasn't gonna, she didn't.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I've my one of my writing mentors told me, you know, you're not gonna publish this till she dies anyway, which is true.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_01: So I didn't finish it till she died.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, did you feel that with um the was it an apology or just acknowledgement that she gave you a couple of weeks before she passed?
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: Was the book mentioned in that at all?
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I know that you are writing this book.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's in the book, the scene is in the book, but no, she told me she was sorry, that she was a terrible mother, and you know, I let her talk.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_01: I usually would stop her, and to be fair to her, I would stop her, especially as she got old and sick because she's so very, very frail, and I would stop her, and I'm you know, I didn't want her to be upset at that, especially.
• 57:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I I you know I didn't, I I let her talk, I let her talk for me as I was at that moment, and for all the other iterations of me, you know, the four and a half-year-old in the bathroom, the little six-year-old I tried to take up my mouth and my nose and kill myself at six to make, you know, uh the 14-year-old whose body was a rain, you know, a map of razor blame and all the iterations of me who had survived the pain or the incest.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I let her talk and let her apologize.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, I I forgave her, but not then.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: It took me I forgave her literally as she took her last breath.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I I really did.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was at that moment that I gave her, I I told her I forgave her.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was my last gift to her.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's powerful.
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think um do you think that if there was any kind of an apology or conversation with your father before he passed, do you think it would have changed anything for you?
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: I can't tell.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a really interesting question.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: There never would have been, honestly.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_01: He he wasn't capable of it.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I never really went down.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know the answer to that.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I was of course like to think yes, but I also would think that it was part like my mother's apology was authentic.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: I knew it, it felt real.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't know if my father's dying death of confession would have been real.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well I I and I don't think he would have given it.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_01: I I you know was around him in his last couple of weeks.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't think he would have given up.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, by that point he was, you know, my father, as he got older, on in addition to alcohol, became a really pretty serious drug addict.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um so you know, the painkillers that he took he had to go for.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_01: He was at that point going pharmacy to pharmacy to find people who would prescribe.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: So wow, yeah.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I I'm glad that you got to a place where you stopped blaming yourself and thinking that you were responsible for these actions.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that, you know, I I think that is a it's very important for people and a very powerful place for people to get to, regardless of what it happens, you know.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I had kind of been there before, to be honest.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I had her, I've had a really good life.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, after I got inpatient treatment, I got outpatient treatment, and and I'd had a really good life, and I've been lucky.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'd know I had a really great husband.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I've been married a long time.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_01: I had um, you know, I do lots of yoga and stuff to to keep my body and mind clear.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and I I have a good, you know, I'm involved in a lot of community and right.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: I have the ability to give to give back and do a lot of service.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I I'd really fortunate it, but um, but that last bit, it was that, you know, and it's funny how that last bit is there, but you may not know it.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_01: But as I tell people, you know, I think for all heal, you know, I went through a long, long period of abuse.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: And healing's possible for me and possible for everyone.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: But as you know, from the horror that you experienced, you know, from the crime that was perpetrated against you, healing is not it doesn't end.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: It it's not like one day, you know, that was some of funny realizations.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: You don't work out one day and intention treatment or there being the wow, I'm healed, everything's perfect.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's an ish.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_01: There can't be an ish.
• 1:01:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I love how you're saying that because you know, that's a conversation I've had with people is just because I may not have a victim mentality, you know, with it, um, because I am on a different side, like on a healing side of it, it's it's not it's not done, it's not healed.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and his fingerprints are gonna be on my body until the day that I die, period.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: He violated me, you know.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um now what I choose to do with this going forward, I I am in the driver's seat of that.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that does not erase his fingerprints.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's it's the same for me.
• 1:02:11
  SPEAKER_01: I have 100%, you know, exactly that same place.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I and I've gotten older and I I've had lots of lots of barracing, like I said, and and I have lots of support, but you know, it it it's it will it's not what it would have been.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it would have been because I was so young, if not in New York, you know, these these events alter our lives.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: And but you know, the the the gift is our ability to take something, yeah, erase it and move forward.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, but the actual event, not a gift.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I always tell people that we're not in the business to ever compare traumas like whatever happened to me was the hardest thing that happened to me, what happened to this person is the hardest thing that happened to that person.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I really love and respect about this community that I have is we don't say, well, this we don't have to one up each other, you know.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: But if but there there are times I catch myself thinking in my head, um, you know, if if what I went through was with a stranger, this was with the person, what you went through is with a person that was supposed to be your protector, was supposed to be your safe place.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: I do think, and I I see a lot of children, and this is why it's become such an important thing.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I never expected to have a mission.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_01: I call it my third act.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I do think that for children it it's it can be that it's worse.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh 100%, yeah.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, your parents are supposed to protect you.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_01: When the people who are supposed to protect you turn on you like that, how do we go forward?
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's it's a process, and that's why I I really, really am like please to people be vigilant with your children, be thoughtful, and you know, and if if if they do for this get them shelf early, because you know it with one kind, it would be different.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everything could be different, and get them helped, you know, you can change the trajectory of their life.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I don't walk in Europe.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_01: I know that I I you know there were there was a recent LA Times article, I New York Times article about the sex trafficking on Chigarola Street.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, in there by the grace of God go I.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, seriously, one one wrong choice, and I would have easily fallen prey to something like that.
• 1:04:46
  unknown: Oh yeah.
• 1:04:47
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, as we see, I'm I'm reading Virginia Roberts Coffrey's book uh right now, and I may have mispronounced her last names.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry about that, to her crayons, but um I, you know, their you know, the you know, they're for the grace of God, though on that I was a sexual thing.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_01: So if I had my my my gift that I really had as a young girl was my love of books and my academic abilities, kind of was one thing that Captain says, Yeah.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I did look preferably more.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_01: She even though my father was a literature professor, my mother gave me the gift of of loving my books.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I've I've loved this conversation that, you know, and I know they're hard to have, but but we need to have them.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: And when people hear us talk and they see that, you know, we we still live, we're still alive, we're we're still flourishing, we're still we're still doing the things.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh, you know, I I know that so many people have reached out to me and they said, I didn't know it was okay for me to laugh until.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: Heard you laughing.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I'd like to well, you know, but still able to smile.
• 1:06:06
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:06:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we're able to smile.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: That well, you know, by embracing it and getting help for it and moving forward, you have the ability to live in sunlight, regardless of whether somebody tried to put a big cloud over your son.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_01: We can laugh, you know.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, none of this is funny.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_01: But we can smile and laugh about our lives.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_01: We can laugh about the fact that it rains on our publication day, or that you know, the weather interferes with internets.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, whatever the moment is, weather seems to be our topic today, you know, and but I'm still I'm I'm holding on to rain is good luck.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm holding on to it.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, but we can laugh and joke and smile and live a life where you know, you know, with our friends, not just start a podcast.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, so I want to ask you a fun question.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I say that I draw questions from the ish full.
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh um, but uh I'm not gonna draw a question.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want to ask you this question, but it's gonna be on the lot lighter hearted side, and and I'm real um excited to hear your answer with it.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_00: So a little preface is I always thought the inner child was just some bullshit therapy thing, you know, um, until I fell in love with therapy.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then when I started getting to know myself again and and really found that inner child in me.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: And after I did, I fell in love.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I and so when you talked about, you know, your job and how you uh, you know, you get to play with these kids now, you know, and and um what how where do you stand on inner child?
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like what do you do to nourish her?
• 1:07:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you like what are your thoughts on?
• 1:08:00
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't well, you know, I told you I do lots of yellow, which helps me abundant for nourishing that inner child.
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, I love to dance, and I'll dance even alone.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_01: I believe in dancing, I believe in the power of movement, dance at a wedding, I wrote and dance and the last I'm that old lady, I'm a crazy ant that's wasting on the those are always my favorite ones to dance with.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty good, actually, but I I had a holy fuck to dance, and it's not like our arena dance, but just dance.
• 1:08:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:08:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one way.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think the other way, again, it's losements, it um, I don't know, I love dogs, I love you know, and now I get to do it with the kids.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, one thing I literally get on the floor and play with them.
• 1:08:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, really, you know, I didn't have kids because I really waited until I really need I I just by the time I felt healed enough to have kids, the opportunity to do so was pretty much over for me.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um I I think so playing with the kids allows me that.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I just try you know, try to have moments of enjoying.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I'll look into a tape or a podcast that makes me laugh and I'll try.
• 1:09:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, it it's still sometimes, but dancing always does it.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_01: So and I never say no to a wedding in line because now, you know, I I had read that there's a um, and I have to really look into this, that there are like clubs now that are open at like seven o'clock or six thirty and they go to like 1030.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to really look into it because I I would absolutely go.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of younger friends.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's in in my yoga world.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of friends in their 30s, so it's like really good because I get to I get that little bit of length and and uh sometimes I'll go on a yoga retreat and there's a dance night and we're just seeing yes, yeah.
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_00: We need to bring back matinees.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I need things I need uh I need I need a 3:30 show because I want to be at home in my pajamas at six o'clock and probably winding down by you know nine, ten o'clock.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I want.
• 1:10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I would go to a club at 3:30.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_01: But we're not even gonna go out until the morning at 6 30, truthfully, because I could dress up, put our stuff, wear the dress, um, you know, cull out the stuff, the night, and get dressed up and be as long as I can leave by around 10 o'clock, I have to be whole because I couldn't do a pumpkin Cinderella little lens for slipper.
• 1:10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, exactly.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, you know, we have uh we have some really cool places here that do great drag shows.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they don't start until midnight.
• 1:11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I'm asleep.
• 1:11:08
  SPEAKER_01: I know, right?
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's my thing too.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_01: I love music and and but I can't, you know, at this point in my life, and I'm really not gonna go to 12 with a one 20-year-olds who are proclaming each other like a little inappropriate, but um, you know, so I right now it's about weddings and and events, but yes, yes, yes.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I read this online, and I'm gonna I've been kind of promoting it to my friends.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, it's like even my friends in their 30s, because a lot of them are kind of very, you know, they go to bed early too, they've got jobs, and you know you have to find a place to go to to dance.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, let's normalize it.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, it's my living room and it's me.
• 1:11:53
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I never get too mad at that either.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the things that I do for my inner child is there's uh songs I love to sing.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a horrible, horrible singer.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I work safe.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh huh.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm horrible at it.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I have the house myself, like right before a podcast and right after a podcast, how because the conversations we have they're hard sometimes.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I already have a song that I'm gonna hit play for all the speakers.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Luckily, I don't have neighbors right up against my wall, so I can be as loud as I want, and I just belt it and I sing and kind of flit around the house, and uh that's my self-care after a hard conversation.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_01: But when I welcome a terrible singer and I love to sing, I alright.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_01: I do.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really bad over driving, in fact.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_01: I start belting it out, and my husband just looks at me.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, is it that bad?
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Yeah.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or when you're when you're so caught up in it, you don't realize the car massage is just looking at you because they can actually hear you, and it's like, oh, sorry.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_01: I had a beautiful voice.
• 1:13:02
  SPEAKER_01: I have over I wanted to be one of those people who like could like be at a party and everybody's got a guitar, and and then this terrorist sound, um, and they just belt out uh can belt things out.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean it's like I know, and I don't know if I did something in a different life or what, and my punishment is to come back into this life and not be able to carry a tune because my favorite thing to do is to sing.
• 1:13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone around me sings like angels from heaven, and I'm the only one that sounds like I'm like, I did something wrong somewhere.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Saying it right.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I know the feeling, right?
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have absolutely enjoyed this conversation.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so glad that you're able to jump back on because so burnt down it's like oh my god, speaking of a day where you're having kind of a like a morning.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, part casts are different in flavor, as you know, and sometimes I alone, but then they they take a while out of me, and I'm like, can I end?
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, no, I'm really loving this.
• 1:14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, good, that makes me so happy.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I wanted to do talking to you is so far ended now.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, knew this the subject is dark, but you know, it's it's really it I appreciate you having me and warning, you know, and as we both walk through this healing journey together, I appreciate the opportunity.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate that I got to meet you.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, me too.
• 1:14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and again, thank you, thank you, thank you for this.
• 1:14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm reading it.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_00: I uh thank you so much, and I can't wait to share it.
• 1:14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna share all the links, and then um um I told your people that I will keep you all posted on any links, release dates, and all that.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_00: They they seem they seem you've got a great team, like they're just amazing.
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_01: I love them.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_01: I work with them.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_01: While we were talking, and I'm gonna, I'm sort of like, oh my god, I'm gonna miss them.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_01: I still don't read social versus both.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, they're great.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Last week could do a shout out to my butt media.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, yeah, they're great.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even when because I just wanted to make sure that if we didn't, um, if you were not able to log back on, I wanted to make sure that you at least knew that I knew that it was probably weather, you know.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and so uh, but while we were talking right after you logged back in, they immediately emailed me back and they're like, Oh, please keep us posted.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_00: We'll reach out to her.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to email them and let them know that there was a delay in responding to the email because you were able to get back on and we were good.
• 1:15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I will keep you all posted with all the links and everything.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I love this conversation.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is such the these conversations get me high, you know, like these are our highlights of my life, and I know that like I'm ready to go and be productive now, and that's when I know that I've had a great conversation.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_00: So my clean house is gonna be because of you.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was really a really nice conversation.
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you taking the time and bearing weather, weather being our theme for the day.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, like I said, really good luck.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you so so much.
• 1:16:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and we'll definitely be in touch, okay.