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SMNTY Fiction: Deep Dream · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I've never told your protection of iHeart Radio and it
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: is time for another edition of Smindy Fiction and it
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: as is perfect from Holidays. This is one comes with
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: a trigger warning. So everybody, Holidays, here's a dark fiction
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: for you. It's hard to describe, but it does. It
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: does include, uh, sexual assault and violence mentioned, but it
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't really go into it. But it also deals with
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: the trauma of those things and how that can just
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: ripple out and impact all of your life. So this
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: was something I wrote in high school and we'll discuss
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: some of the reasoning behind it after we do the reading.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: As always, this is something we're trying. It's new, but
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: don't worry, like our regular content isn't going to change.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm holding your hand on this journey,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: like it's all right. We're doing like sex in the City, Watch,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: We're doing a bunch of new things. Math. I feel
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: like we have to, you know, just let that has
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: been weird. I feel like we need to end it
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: with a bang and then kind of go ahead and
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: preface by the way. Changes are coming, not huge changes,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: just a few new things. Because we're about to lose
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: our minds. So we're bringing you a Sex in the
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: City watch through and some fiction. But it's not nothing
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: else is changing. We're just trying some new things and
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: we have to you enjoy it. And as always, if
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: you have any suggestions for new segments we should try,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: we would love to hear about it. We are we're
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: interested in trying new things. And thanks. It's always to
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Christine for her amazing work on this one. These fiction
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: ones are a bit of a heavier push for her,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: So thank Christina. Everyone genius the goat. Yes, yes, And
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: then I feel like I have to put this disclaimer
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: in here. I did write this in high school. I
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: slightly edited it for I submitted it for Thirteen Days
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: of Halloween two years ago. I was like, it's really dark,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: and they're like dark is good, and then they were
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: like it's too dark. I'm like, yeah, what do you
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: think with my sweet disposition? And they're like no, Andy, no, yes,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: they know you love horror right like, and you love
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: like all the darkness I do. I think they were
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: just surprised, because I think they were. I guess when
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: you say dark that can mean a lot of different things.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: And they weren't anticipating kind of a real world tragedy.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: And on Dark I'm building it up into way more
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: than it actually as I promised. But it was part
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: of a larger story that I did right. And I'm
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: really eager to talk about it because I think it's
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: really interesting. But before we do that, we don't want
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: to spoil it. So let's get into the fiction reading
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: of Deep Dream. You already know how this story ends.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: There was always only one outcome. I wish you were different,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: but wishing does not make it so. My name is
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Tara Martkin. I'm twenty two years old. I have lived
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: an incredibly sheltered life. I've never had sex, I've never
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: broken a bone. I've never experienced trauma of any kind.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: I have also been beaten. I have also broken numerous bones.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I have also been sexually assaulted. Every time I attempt
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: to count the number of traumatic instances in my life,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: I decided it's not worth knowing. There is no cognitive
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: business here, no eu finistic language, no mental gymnastics, no
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: selective memory. Both are true. At once. You doubt the
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: veracity of this. I did too, when I would remember
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: the violence and faded yet selectively vivid detail. I would
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: tell myself I was remembering a dream, A brutal dream
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: lodged in my brain like a splinter, unsettling, disturbing, but false,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: an explosion of anxious nerves and an unsettled mind. For
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: a time, I could ignore these dreams that felt more
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: like memories, but they bled into my life life. When
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I slept in the room, she I had been attacked,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: and it took my breath away, as though she I
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: was right there. When I ignored the knocking, she had
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: answered that resulted in years of violence for her. I
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: could see it, the path not traveled. Anxiety, depression. That's
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: what I thought, That's what everyone thought. But these memories
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: visions became harder and harder to ignore. I had all
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: the symptoms of someone who had undergone a trauma without
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: ever having endured one. I felt like a fake, but
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the trauma was real all the same. I avoided people,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I avoided my reflection, I avoided everything. I slept all
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the time. When I wasn't sleeping, I was crying tears
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: that had no end. Then came a new theory, repressed
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: memories fighting to the surface. The idea made my skin crawl.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: It made me doubt my memories and question my reality.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I remembered not being attacked, and I remembered being attacked.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I remembered the dates that happened to one version of
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: me and didn't to the other. To me, I remembered
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the knocking on the door and not answering it, falling
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: back into an uneasy sleep. And I remember the knocking
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: on the door, answering it and the attack that followed.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Both existed in my brain m Neither was repressed. Otherwise,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: our lives were the same. It was only in these
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: key traumatic moments we diverged. She was me, I was her.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I went to therapy. It was difficult to explain, even
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: to myself. Some days I was sure memories of this
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: other me were dreams or or repressed memories. Some days
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I just thought I had lost my might. Others I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: thought there was another me existing alongside me in an
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: alternate timeline, and I was catching glimpses into her life.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I wondered if she was catching glimpses into mine. She
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: was angry to have suffered where I did not. She
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: was aware of me at all. Sometimes I blamed her.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: I wasn't foolish enough to answer the knocking at the door.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't have to suffer the consequences for a decision
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: I did not make. But I dismissed these thoughts, ashamed
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: to have thought them in the first place. As unhinged
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: as this might sound to you, in a weird way,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: it soon became the explanation that most accurately described my experience.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I'm a logical person. I did not arrive at this
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: conclusion easily process of elimination. Years of it. I had
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: no precedent to believe it, and very little desire to.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: As time passed, as the memories pounded more loudly and
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: incessantly for entering into my brain, I had no choice
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: but to believe it. Not that I would tell anyone,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I would barely admit it to myself. Do you know
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: what trauma does to the brain? I do. There's a
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: bringing in your years. Learn of colors, something stick out,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: bright stripes, and the clothes you're wearing. How poorly those
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: clothes fit, while others blur the edges soft the memory
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: both overly clear and utterly glossed over, a consuming mess
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: of colors and sensations and feelings that don't feel like
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: they're yours. Time becomes meaningless, and also everything, because after
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: a traumatic event, everything will be defined as before and after.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: These sound like contradictions because they are, but that doesn't
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: change the truth of them. How would I know this?
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: No it in my bones, in my soul if these
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: traumatic events never happened to me? There was no reason
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: for me too, perhaps a remnant of my alternate someone.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: I began to resent more and more, how was this
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: my responsibility? In quiet moments when sleep adot to me,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: questions with her eyes, how had this happened? Was the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: other me all right? Did she exists in a parallel universe?
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Or was she here? Had there been some mistake of
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: splitting time? Had she died a ghost in my life?
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Had I been cursed to bear witness to her pain?
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Some ability that opened a window into her world and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: let me observe it? Could I help her? Because she
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: needed help? I began to suspect she was reaching out
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: to me. It started small at first, aborted Internet searches
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: about alternate realities, Embarrassment and curiosity warring inside me. These memories, too,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: took on fuzzy edges, as though they aren't mine. But
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: they were right. Things I knew started feeling faint, as
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: though I was reciting facts from someone else's memories and
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: not my own. I started to feel immaterial, a spectator
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: in my own life. Some days I was certain, so
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: certain I could see something else, someone else, that my
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: life was fabricated. Whispers of promises of revelation haunted my
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: waking hours. Every now and then, my reflection in the
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: mirror moved just slightly off. Scars started appearing on my body.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I scratched at them. I had some. I was desperate
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: for them not to exist. They weren't mine, I told myself.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: And yet any embarrassment around internet searches on alternate realities
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: paled in the face of my growing terror. Any empathy
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: I had for the alternate at me faded lost and
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: resentful anger. I was convinced she was trying to take
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: over my life. She had discovered the secret to alternate
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: realities and was coming to race me and take my place.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: She's the one that answered that damn door. She's the
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: one that led evil into her life. She should suffer
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: for it, not me. I was going to slam the
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: door to my reality in her face. I found a ritual.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: It called for a set of stairs, a candle, and
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: sacred offerings for each step, and the blood of something new.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: For it to work, I had to ascend the stairs backwards,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: and above all else not look back. Doing so not
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: only would cause the ritual to fail, but would leave
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: me unsure if I was in the correct reality. This
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: did not terrify me as much as it should have.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: It very nearly described how I already felt. I was fortunate.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: There was a set of stairs in my small apartment,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: a winding set of four. I killed a rat for
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: the blood. Clumsily, messily, unbearably, terrifyingly numb, the tears streamed
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: out my face. At one time I would not have
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: believed myself capable of this. There wasn't much blood. I
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: hoped it was enough. I waited till midnight to start.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: My hands shook as I let the first candle, I
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: refuse you. I slammed the door shut and lock it.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I whispered into the flickering dark. I set down my
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: first offering, a family picture from my ninth birthday party,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: worn at the edges. I used it as a bookmark,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: and it was almost never without it. I poured a
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: few drops of blood on the image. Very careful not
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: to look over my shoulder, I took a step back
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: onto the second stair. I placed the second candle down
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: and lit it. The hiss of the match loud in
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the dark. I refuse you. I slammed the door and
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: lock it here. I placed the small stuff to being
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: my father had given to me, the words someone loves
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: You stitched along it. Blood dripped on the fabric. Staring
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: at Crimson, the candles flickered. The hair on the back
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: of my next stood up ter. I jumped violently at
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: the whispering in my ear, almost dropping the items in
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: my arm, almost turning around terrified I'd see my doppelganger
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: staring at me with her cold, devouring eyes, so full
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: of pain. She'd do anything not to feel it, including
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: killing me and taking my place. But I didn't turn.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Unbearably tense, I breathed heavily into the silence, waiting for
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: a hand to fall on my shoulder, to be shoved
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: down the stairs. Moments passed and nothing happened. My body
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: trembled as I fumbled with the next step behind me,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: almost tottering over. It took several tries for me to
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: light the candle, fingers shaking wildly. Once lit, I gulped out,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I refuse you. I slammed the door and lock it. Here.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: I placed a necklace my friend had made from me,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: goofy and ugly but precious to me. Blood splashed all
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: over it, and I jerked back, afraid of using it
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: all Before the ritual was finished, I hesitated, listening for
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: stepping back onto the final stair, the air heavy around me. Carefully,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I placed the last candle lit. It stared into the flame.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I refuge. I slammed the door and lock it would
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: tremble in hands. I sat down, my last offering a
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: paper rose. My mom had given me white and pink
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: tissue paper. She surprised me with it. She sat down
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and made it for me, surprised me with it. A
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: tear dripped onto the paper, alongside the blood. I was crying.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I straightened my body, painfully, tense, undeserving terry. I heard
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: in the dark, I'm gonna tear you apart. You already did,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I thought, and then wasn't sure why I thought it.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Now I had to wait, stand still, not look back,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: and wait until the candles went out. Whispers slithered in
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: my ear, warm breath against my neck, and my name,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: over and over, Tara, Terence, Darry, Dary, Terry, Terry. I
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: stood vigil. I prayed. I didn't believe in God, any god,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: but I prayed, please, please, Please. Sometimes I whispered it
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: aloud in the invocation. I didn't do anything wrong. I
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: don't deserve to be her. I don't deserve to live
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: in her world. I was never her. As the night
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: went on, I started swaying on my feet, but I stood,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: determined to reclaim my reality, even as the whispers assailed me.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Curled around me in demanding on her, limping, pleading, pleading
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: with me to let her in, pleading with me to
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: let her in. I refused. The first candle went out,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: the second, the third, in justice exhaustion almost had me
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: collapsing or turning around, ruining the ritual. The fourth candle
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: flickered out, leaving me in darkness. I waited, waiting to
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: feel an easy in my soul that I so desperately
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: longed for, to feel some semblance of closure, of something,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: anything other than the screaming nothingness that refused to be ignored.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: My world shattered and nothing changed I turned around to
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: screen building inside me, and there she was. I did
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: screams in In the end, there was no alternate reality.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I was the one that didn't exist, she summoned to me.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: She was the one to research alternate reality, growing more
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: and more desperate, lighting candles and spilling blood and chanting,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: so desperate for relief from the pain, desperate enough to
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: abandon ship on her reality and try her luck in another.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: I exist now because she willed me into existence. I'm
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: molded from her pain, borne from her horror and desperation.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: But I'm just a fragment. My memories are false. Your
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: make belief, which is for how things should be. How
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: much violence has been allowed in the belief of ships.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Entire empires have been built on shoots. There are no
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: alternate realities, only this one. There's only this reality, and
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: in this one there's unfathomable violence and pain and grief
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: and death. We live in a world where so many
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: of us are hurt and ignored, an accepted fact, just
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: how it is another statistic the victim's fault. The evil
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: people are capable of the monstrous acts we have the
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: capacity to commit, going punished that are allowed perpetuated the
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: cycle continues. That's the scariest part of the story. You me,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: all of us, We are the monster. At the end
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: of the book, we hear what keeps ourselves up at night.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: The most terrifying thing in this world is us, and
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: that brings us to the end of this fiction reading.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed it. It's always so weird to
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: say when it's something that's like a little upsetting. I
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: did name it Deep Dream because, like I said, I
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: love those like technology names, And this is a thing
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Google does where you can feed it images so it
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: can learn what things look like the Google AI and
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: then it makes the most trippy like three D paintings
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: you've ever seen. But I gave this story this name
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: because I in high school had gone through all this trauma,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: was going through all this trauma, and it sort of
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: ended kind of abruptly, and I was able to convince
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: myself that the whole thing had been a dream, that
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the whole thing this was a different version of me
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: that had gone through this. It was a dream version
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: of me, and it was really upsetting. But it wasn't real.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: It hadn't actually happened. That wasn't me to the point
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: that like, I had a breaking moment um several years
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: later when I was in college and my mom bought
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: it up and I like stopped in my in my
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: tracks and thought, wait, that was that happened? Because I
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: had just so effectively made it into this kind of
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: like dream sequence that I never gave too much thought
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: because it was scary. I didn't want to think about it.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: But it's like I would have these images and they
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: were so strong and so powerful, and these memories, and
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I could just kept thinking, this is a dream, it's
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: not a real memory. And I got I would get
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: really angry at this other version of myself, and I
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: would blame her for opening the door essentially and letting
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: this in and letting it happen. And I'm saying letting
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: you know, and these very guilt driven words that I felt.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: And it was a way from me to separate myself
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: from myself other me who I blamed for letting that happen,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and and I was angry at her because I didn't
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: want to have to deal with it like that. I
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: didn't do this. This is why am I feeling all
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: of your sad emotions in vain? When I didn't do
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: what you did, but I had. But I I actually
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: wrote out a whole like book level version of this
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: story and I'd still have it. And it's interesting to
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: read because to me now it's so clear that I
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: was dealing with trauma and I was compartmentalizing things, and
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I was like trying to essentially create a separate reality
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: so that I could function. So you were disassociating, yes, yes,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: but it was it. It did come unraveled because they
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: kept like knocking at the back of my psyche um
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: and it wouldn't let me go. And I mean, eventually,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: when I got into college, I was able to really
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: put it away and forget about it. But as listeners
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: know this podcast, as you know, Samantha eventually just wore
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: me down and I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: pretend or keep up that at charade anymore. But I
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: did do it for years, years and years and years,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and just reading back on it now, it's so fascinating
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: because I'm so clearly like trying to deal with this
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: thing and this traumatic all these traumatic experiences, and there's
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: so many unhealthy things in there that I'm like, wow, yeah,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: you were you were really struggling, and I'm still struggling
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: with some of that stuff. But it's just it's interesting
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: to read. Thinking, like I really did believe at one
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: point I convinced myself that this had not happened to me,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: and it was different. It's a dream, dream version, but
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: I still struggling to deal with it, and I was
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: writing it out and I like created a whole alternate
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: timeline for her and I called her Terra. She's had
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: a different name than me. But yeah, so that's what
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: we just did is sort of a piece of all
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, happy holidays. I do, I do really
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: think like it's it's interesting and heavy. This is heavy
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: handed at the end. Um, I did preserve a lot
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: of it as I wrote it. So if you're like, wow,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: this is really over the top, yes it is, Yes
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: it is. It was a teenage Annie. It was really
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: leaning into the youngst. But I think that's something that
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: we have talked about, um, through our our look at
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: trauma and coping and writing is one of my biggest
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: coping mechanisms, and clearly I was doing it even yeah,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: I mean most of my life, but during that time
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I was as well, Yeah, I think it's my It
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: makes it easier. Like I said before, I think that's
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: one of the reasons I connect so hard to like
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: fictional things, and I'll cry at fictional things more easily
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: cry at nonfictional things, because there's that distance, there's that space,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: and I don't feel like I have to put up
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: so many protections with a fictional thing. Even though this
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: wasn't fictional, I convinced myself that it was right. Yeah,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: So I hope that you enjoyed. We really do like
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: doing these. Um so we're probably gonna do about once
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a month and again. If you have any suggestions or
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: thoughts or like other things we could do in this format,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: we would love to hear them. You can email us
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: at stuff Medium, mom Stuff at iHeart media dot com.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at moms toff podcast,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: or on Instagram and stuff One Never Told You. Thanks,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: It's always too our super producer, Christina bug Oat, Yes,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening Stuff One Never Told You.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Protection of I Heart Radio from more podcast on my
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M