Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast. Mama Mea acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
Speaker 1: is recorded on. Hello Omeya Friedman and the team at
Speaker 1: Mumma Mea are bringing you over one hundred hours of
Speaker 1: the best of the best from across our award winning
Speaker 1: podcasts to give you the hot pod Summer of your dreams.
Speaker 1: Here at No Filter, we have selected the very best
Speaker 1: stories of human resilience, of escaping from colts and tsunamis,
Speaker 1: of surviving in prison, surviving a landslide, surviving a broken heart,
Speaker 1: and so much more. Today, I'm bringing you the story
Speaker 1: of Abby Morgan, which originally aired in twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: and is probably still one of my favorite interviews of
Speaker 1: all time. At the heart of Abby's story is a
Speaker 1: love story that goes very unexpectedly in a direction that
Speaker 1: nobody ever thinks when they say they're vows and can
Speaker 1: to spending their life with somebody. One day, Abby's husband
Speaker 1: woke up and did not know who she was. And
Speaker 1: I'm just going to let her tell the rest of
Speaker 1: the story. The extraordinary part of this, well, it's all extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Abby's a screenwriter. She is the writer and creator of
Speaker 1: one of my favorite TV shows of all time, The Split.
Speaker 1: Watch that if you're looking for something to watch. It's
Speaker 1: absolutely brilliant about these women who are this family of
Speaker 1: women who are all divorce lawyers. And since then she
Speaker 1: has also written a Netflix series called Eric, which stars
Speaker 1: Benedict Cumberbatch. But this story isn't about her TV shows.
Speaker 1: It's about her own life, which is truly stranger and
Speaker 1: more riveting than any fiction she could have written. The
Speaker 1: last few years of Abby Morgan's life would make an
Speaker 1: incredible TV show, although you might not really believe it
Speaker 1: because of the plot twists, the many many plot twists,
Speaker 1: and it all began on an ordinary day in her
Speaker 1: ordinary house in London, where Abby lived with her very
Speaker 1: lovely partner, Jacob and their two teenage kids and their dog.
Speaker 1: Back then in twenty eighteen, Jacob was an actor and
Speaker 1: Abby was a superstar screenwriter. She still is a superstar screenwriter.
Speaker 1: She had already won Emmys and Bafter Awards for her
Speaker 1: work writing movies like Iron Lady, which starred Meryl Streep
Speaker 1: and my all time favorite TV show, The Split. Abby
Speaker 1: and Jacob had been together for twenty years. They weren't
Speaker 1: married for a bunch of reasons, but they were really solid,
Speaker 1: which made what happened over the next few years so unimaginable. Seriously,
Speaker 1: you could not make this up because nobody would believe you.
Speaker 1: This is no filter. I'm Heya Friedman, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to tell you too much about what you're about
Speaker 1: to hear, because Abby's whole life is about storytelling and
Speaker 1: we don't want spoilers. But here's one thing I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: Abbie's husband woke up one day after coming out of
Speaker 1: a coma and he didn't know who she was. He
Speaker 1: knew everyone else, just not her.
Speaker 2: The way he looked at me, I just thought there's
Speaker 2: something not right here. And at first I thought it
Speaker 2: was a general thing, but then I started to notice
Speaker 2: the delight in which he greeted his parents, you know,
Speaker 2: with a smile or hey dad.
Speaker 1: Hey.
Speaker 2: He wouldn't use my name, he'd go Hi like that
Speaker 2: to me. He was just off with me.
Speaker 1: Abby has written a memoir about this astonishing time in
Speaker 1: her life. It's a story that's still unfolding, and her
Speaker 1: book is called This Is Not a Pity Memoir. She
Speaker 1: joined me from London to talk about it, and I
Speaker 1: have to tell you this is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: conversations that I've ever had on this podcast with one
Speaker 1: of the women I admire the most. Abby, tell me
Speaker 1: about your life before Jacob collapsed. I want to know,
Speaker 1: you know, what was normal, like? What did normal look like?
Speaker 2: I think normal looked like. Lived in North London. You know,
Speaker 2: had two teenagers almost cooked fourteen and sixteen. Had been
Speaker 2: with Jake, my partner, for god like nearly eighteen years,
Speaker 2: and you know we'd had a very real, honest, brutal,
Speaker 2: brilliant marriage relationship, actually partnership, and I had. I mean,
Speaker 2: you never have a perception of yourself, really, I mean
Speaker 2: you do if you have a glass of wine and
Speaker 2: you start to pig yourself what we think? You know,
Speaker 2: I've done a few films, but I never perceived myself.
Speaker 2: I'm always looking at everyone else, going, God, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: I love there. Well, I never put myself in that
Speaker 2: same group. So from my point of view, I was
Speaker 2: a jobing writer. I felt privileged, I felt lucky.
Speaker 1: But when you say you were a jobbing writer and
Speaker 1: you've you're very modest. I've had a few films, you've
Speaker 1: had some extraordinary films like you wrote The Iron Lady
Speaker 1: with Meryl Street, you had written the first season of
Speaker 1: The Split, which had many huge success, You've done many
Speaker 1: many other films. Did you feel like you'd derived in
Speaker 1: your career.
Speaker 2: Actually, the bottom line is I come from theater folk.
Speaker 2: You know, my mum was an actress, my dad was
Speaker 2: a TV director. So for me, it's like I'm in
Speaker 2: the family business. And you know, I've always described as like,
Speaker 2: you know, if you're an electrician, you know how to
Speaker 2: rewear a plug, if you're a plumber, you know how
Speaker 2: to unblock a sink. And so for me, the kind
Speaker 2: of world of the business has always been I've been
Speaker 2: realistic about it. I've known about the feast and farm,
Speaker 2: and I grew up with that. I think one of
Speaker 2: the things that's been most amazing for me is to
Speaker 2: be able to go to a cashboard machine and not
Speaker 2: get my card swallowed, because that was my growing up.
Speaker 2: That was like praying that the cashpoint would like give
Speaker 2: you money, you know, And so I think financial stability
Speaker 2: for me has been far more important. And I'm not
Speaker 2: even talking about massive wealth. You know, I probably could
Speaker 2: have done a lot more, but I think there was
Speaker 2: about a stability and a genuine where I think I
Speaker 2: have arrived as I work again and again with a
Speaker 2: very small group of people, and I've been doing that
Speaker 2: for the last ten fifteen years, maybe longer. So I
Speaker 2: feel like my method is very arrived, is very present,
Speaker 2: is very centered at the heart of what I do.
Speaker 2: So I feel very lucky that I don't write on
Speaker 2: other people's shows. I tend to think, I want to
Speaker 2: write this. I can pitch an idea, I can sell
Speaker 2: an idea. I realized the privilege of that. I don't
Speaker 2: think I appreciated that fully, but I mentor a lot
Speaker 2: of young writers, and I see the journey they have
Speaker 2: to go on now. So I think, from my point
Speaker 2: of view is I did the thing I loved. I
Speaker 2: do the thing I love. That doesn't mean as like
Speaker 2: all of us, we don't wake up and want to
Speaker 2: just Internet shop all day and you know, lie and
Speaker 2: watch some Netflix crap. But I definitely felt this sense
Speaker 2: of I was just like when I talk about my
Speaker 2: kids were cooked, they were starting to have their own lives.
Speaker 2: I could find some space in my day. I think
Speaker 2: Jake and I had gone through masses of ups and downs.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, there are all those big issues
Speaker 2: about if you're successful and you live with someone who
Speaker 2: takes on the chart out, I don't have the same career,
Speaker 2: and then their career starts to happen and suddenly you're like, oh, wow, okay,
Speaker 2: how do I use the washing machine again?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: You know, we had a very nineteen fifties housewife relationship.
Speaker 2: You know, I was very much like coming home and
Speaker 2: having a dry martini and dinner was good. And so
Speaker 2: there was a lot about our setup, which worked really
Speaker 2: well for me actually, but as a result of kind
Speaker 2: of what then happened, it really made me rethink about
Speaker 2: where I put my value. And I think my sense
Speaker 2: of myself, my identity was so close to my work
Speaker 2: because it's what I know best. Words is what I
Speaker 2: know best. You know, I talk too much. I'm not
Speaker 2: good on silent, you know. I always feel like I
Speaker 2: have to oversell myself. So yeah, but I think on
Speaker 2: a basic level, I was in a pretty good place.
Speaker 2: Jacob had multiple stroosis, so obviously that we lived with
Speaker 2: the EBB and flow of that, but even that he
Speaker 2: was pretty high functioning on that he was working, So yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I was lucky.
Speaker 1: Really, he was an actor. Yeah, you know, you talk
Speaker 1: about the nineteen fifties housewife dynamic, but in reverse. Was
Speaker 1: he always come to all with that? Was that a
Speaker 1: decision that you made early on in your relationship.
Speaker 2: It very naturally felt like that in the beginning, because
Speaker 2: when I hit the ground with Jake, when we first
Speaker 2: met and we had our first our son, really really
Speaker 2: quickly with a year of being together. You know, we
Speaker 2: had Jesse, my boy and our boy, and I was
Speaker 2: right in the middle of shootings. I was just on
Speaker 2: the role of like my early mid thirties, and you know,
Speaker 2: I was starting to get the bafters and the you know,
Speaker 2: the nods, the Golden Globe but nods and all of
Speaker 2: that stuff. So it was very giddy. So we had
Speaker 2: quite a giddy time. And you know, we definitely had
Speaker 2: childcare and help at the beginning, but Jake was just
Speaker 2: Jake loved it. Jake has always been absolutely at the
Speaker 2: heart of the home. He's the master of fun, and
Speaker 2: he just naturally fell into that. There were definitely days,
Speaker 2: there were definitely months where it was difficult. I think
Speaker 2: I defy anybody a to have you know, I think
Speaker 2: a baby's a grenade in any relationship. But also I
Speaker 2: think if you work in this profession, you know, and
Speaker 2: you're suddenly you're coming home with casting tapes and you're going,
Speaker 2: you'll look at some casting tapes and you realize that
Speaker 2: half your friends you're looking you know, you're you're looking
Speaker 2: at audition tapes of our friends and you're thinking, God,
Speaker 2: you know, I can't put you forward for anything. So
Speaker 2: there were those kind of tensions. But what no one
Speaker 2: really tells you about a long relationship is the ebb
Speaker 2: and flow, the highs and lows, and actually the lows
Speaker 2: can be pretty low, but you get through those. And
Speaker 2: so I think one of the things that we were
Speaker 2: very brutal with each other, very direct, and we also
Speaker 2: do a lot of marriage therapy, so when things got
Speaker 2: we'd always we'd dive in for bits, and so we
Speaker 2: were quite well versed. Not on a kind of deeply
Speaker 2: organic we'd sit and stir into each other's eyes and
Speaker 2: you know, kind of you know, hold ourselves in a
Speaker 2: circle of gratitude. It was much more like, oh God,
Speaker 2: we've got to go tonight. Okay, let's go.
Speaker 1: And it was actually often it wasn't a sex week,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a sexual It was.
Speaker 2: Like you know, it was more like the enjoyment afterwards
Speaker 2: where we'd go, oh my god, wasn't it funny when
Speaker 2: we said that, and the drink in the pub afterwards,
Speaker 2: you know, it was it was those moments. But we've
Speaker 2: gone through a lot together. We've gone through a lot
Speaker 2: together before we had we've got to this place, you know.
Speaker 2: So I think I was in a place where I
Speaker 2: was very much like, Okay, I'm in it for the
Speaker 2: long rule with Jacob, you know, for both of us.
Speaker 2: I think we were both there.
Speaker 1: June twenty eighteen. Can you tell me about that day,
Speaker 1: how it started and how it ended.
Speaker 2: It was a very hot London kind of FuG My
Speaker 2: son was just finishing his final GCSS, which I don't
Speaker 2: know what the equipments in Australia, but it's you do
Speaker 2: them at sixteen. It's fine. A year of school, funny
Speaker 2: year of school. Jake wasn't feeling great, and this would
Speaker 2: often happen, you know, Jake just didn't feel great. It
Speaker 2: was it was the kind of ebb and flow, the
Speaker 2: tidal nature of MS. But at the time I just thought,
Speaker 2: oh god, it's man, flee, Okay, I'll do what I do.
Speaker 2: But it had been going on a few days. He'd
Speaker 2: been working. He'd done about two days before he asked
Speaker 2: me to run some lines with him, and we were
Speaker 2: laughing so much because he couldn't get he couldn't get
Speaker 2: his lines out, and I knew he knew them, but
Speaker 2: it was more it was just very lots of spoonerisms
Speaker 2: and just how funny he couldn't just quite hold together
Speaker 2: the sentence. But we dismissed it as just tired and
Speaker 2: actually he'd overwork the lines. He knew the lines too well,
Speaker 2: that's what it was. He'd developed a slight rash again.
Speaker 2: It was like, well, it's hot. So I went out
Speaker 2: to get steroids for him, which is what we did
Speaker 2: on those moments where he could feel he was on
Speaker 2: the edge of a potential MS relapse, which is where
Speaker 2: you really go down for a few weeks and you
Speaker 2: can just pull it back some steroids. So I went
Speaker 2: to Queen's Square, which is the hospital where Jacob would
Speaker 2: every month go for his MSS injection, which was a
Speaker 2: sort of a sort of new wand to drug he
Speaker 2: was on. And when I came back, I found him
Speaker 2: clapsed on the bathroom floor and he was clapsed in
Speaker 2: a way that it was like I thought he'd just
Speaker 2: laying down in there because it was cool, you know,
Speaker 2: the tars were cool. But he was not making sense.
Speaker 2: He was just repetitive speech, and I knew immediately something
Speaker 2: was very wrong. Cut to you know, blue lit to
Speaker 2: a hospital, all the kind of craziness of that, and
Speaker 2: I guess you know, there are those moments. I always
Speaker 2: remember a girlfriend saying to me, when's my future going
Speaker 2: to happen to me? And I always say, your future
Speaker 2: just happens. It's like it doesn't necessarily evolve, it just
Speaker 2: you don't notice it, and then suddenly it's bam. And
Speaker 2: it was like, in that moment, I knew I was
Speaker 2: in it, but also I was immediately my screenwriting head
Speaker 2: was on, so I was almost I mean, I describe it,
Speaker 2: but I was feeling like, oh my god, this is
Speaker 2: this is a drama. You know, the kind of five
Speaker 2: year old only you loved, loved the drama, who loved
Speaker 2: the hit of the the hit of the punchline, the
Speaker 2: hit of the plot twist. It was there. It was
Speaker 2: definitely adrenalized, and I think it's a little bit it
Speaker 2: reminded me a little bit like when you get pregnant,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's like for me, I just had
Speaker 2: nine months of a hangover, but it's like you are
Speaker 2: suddenly in an altered state, and as much as you
Speaker 2: want to get back, you just can't. You going to
Speaker 2: have to go forward and through it. It was not
Speaker 2: unlike that feeling of like whoa, Okay, I'm on a
Speaker 2: ride and whoa, I feel chemically weird, very adrenalized, but
Speaker 2: also I think you're hyper vigilant and you're just fighting
Speaker 2: for somebody. Because yeah, it was it was apparent in
Speaker 2: that moment Jade was very unwell. But then four or
Speaker 2: five hours later he'd had all the scans, he'd come
Speaker 2: through the other side, and he went from being repetitive
Speaker 2: words speech like, oh my god, what happened? And we
Speaker 2: put it down to it was a seizure of some
Speaker 2: kind and they were just trying to work out what
Speaker 2: it was. But in that moment he was like he'd
Speaker 2: been swearing profusely at the at the paramedics that had arrived,
Speaker 2: an amazing posse of paramedics who came to help him,
Speaker 2: and he was just mortified. So that was the immediate reaction.
Speaker 2: But then over the next two weeks, Jacob physically, cognitively,
Speaker 2: psychiatrically just unraveled. And that was when it became apparent
Speaker 2: that this was way beyond just potentially an infection from
Speaker 2: a tick or you know it was it was viral menagitis.
Speaker 2: It wasn't meningitis. It was another kind of infection. You
Speaker 2: might have gone, could it be could it be a
Speaker 2: you know, was it a relapse? But it became apparent
Speaker 2: sort of two weeks in that actually it was life threatening.
Speaker 2: And I think that was when the world started to
Speaker 2: slow and I realized it was not just that I
Speaker 2: was in a drama, but the world had tipped upside
Speaker 2: down and it was like you were walking on the
Speaker 2: scening looking down on your life, going, this is surreal,
Speaker 2: totally surreal, and I think nobody prepares you for how
Speaker 2: physical trauma is.
Speaker 1: You know, you talk about at one point hoping, you know,
Speaker 1: when they're trying to work out what it is, because
Speaker 1: it's not following that pattern that almost they expect, where
Speaker 1: it sort of keeps deteriorating. It's unclear what's going on,
Speaker 1: and you find yourself at one point they're looking for
Speaker 1: a tumor, and you find yourself hoping that it's a chair,
Speaker 1: And you have to say to yourself, where am I
Speaker 1: in the world where I'm hoping that my husband has cancer,
Speaker 1: because that's going to be good news.
Speaker 2: You want things that you can control. You want something
Speaker 2: that has a kind of level of certainty. Obviously cancel.
Speaker 2: You know it's nobody wants that diagnosis, but you do
Speaker 2: want something to make sense. And you know, Jacob went
Speaker 2: from talking non stop, talking in Shakespearean language, you know,
Speaker 2: what is my duty? What is my cause? Why am
Speaker 2: I here to mute, catatonic staring into space to turning
Speaker 2: into a kind of border Empire gangster and like punching everybody.
Speaker 2: You know, they had to go to guard on his door.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think as a family, both mine and Jacob,
Speaker 2: particularly Jacob's family, who you know, were all very close,
Speaker 2: watching their son, their brother, their uncle and Rabel was overwhelming.
Speaker 2: For my children, it was what the Hell's going on?
Speaker 2: It just didn't make sense. And actually I think what
Speaker 2: was happening was there was just a key mont where
Speaker 2: it looked like Jake may not survive and physically his
Speaker 2: body just couldn't take this kind of what we now
Speaker 2: realize was something called brain on fire, which is a
Speaker 2: kind of encephalitis which they discovered in his bloodstream just
Speaker 2: as he was being put into a coma. They suspected
Speaker 2: it and they got confirmation. But at two weeks in,
Speaker 2: the decision was taken to put him in a medically
Speaker 2: induced coma.
Speaker 1: And I think is that to let his brain recover.
Speaker 1: To let his.
Speaker 2: Brain recover, he was to try and stop the seizuring.
Speaker 2: He was just continually seizuring. And also just your pneumonic
Speaker 2: function and you're swallowing, you're breathing, your heart rate, all
Speaker 2: of those things are under pressure. So it's a way
Speaker 2: to ventilate somebody, to just get them into a state
Speaker 2: where you can start, if needs be, taking over the
Speaker 2: basic kind of organ control. So it's a combination of
Speaker 2: giving Jake physically some rest, his body some rest, I think,
Speaker 2: giving them some time to kind of try and control
Speaker 2: what was happening to him. And in that time you're
Speaker 2: sort of thrust in this very exclusive world. So we
Speaker 2: were in the medically intensive unit, and you know, in
Speaker 2: that unit you're seeing the gamut of injury. You know,
Speaker 2: you're seeing clearly very old people who have suddenly got
Speaker 2: had a stroke or you know, a very young person
Speaker 2: who's clearly had a really horrific car accident and you
Speaker 2: know will never be the same. And so you're literally
Speaker 2: sort of caught between these places, going are you going
Speaker 2: to be there? Are you going to be there? You
Speaker 2: know what's going on. It's a very surreal, surreal, surreal experience,
Speaker 2: you know, And I've watched those things on drama. I've
Speaker 2: just you know, today I've had to write a scene
Speaker 2: of a hospital scene, and you know, I'm doing exactly
Speaker 2: the thing we will do. Someone's rushing through doors, are opening,
Speaker 2: a nurse very quickly gives the diagnosis, and there's a
Speaker 2: kind of reactive moment. Well, it's the relentlessness of it
Speaker 2: must I mean, I remember that I kept on calling
Speaker 2: a girlfriend, going, I really think he's not going to
Speaker 2: make it today. I really think it's not going to happen.
Speaker 2: And then I was thinking, God, I was doing this
Speaker 2: two days ago. This is on repeat. You know I
Speaker 2: would have edited this bit. So it's surreal experience. It's
Speaker 2: a really really surreal experience, you know, totally surreal.
Speaker 1: And you talk about in your book about how in
Speaker 1: the movies, maybe not ones that you've written, but in
Speaker 1: the movies being in a coma, there's like this quiet
Speaker 1: room and there's a beautiful sheet up, and maybe there's
Speaker 1: some quiet music playing and a lot of families with
Speaker 1: tears rolling down their face, holding hands. And you say
Speaker 1: it's very different to that.
Speaker 2: Well, I do think there is a kind of profound,
Speaker 2: intense concentration going on in those spaces. But what's extraordinary
Speaker 2: is people are in comas. So nurses are talking about
Speaker 2: their day. You know, you've got orders being taken for delivery.
Speaker 2: You know, you've got someone saying there's a uber here,
Speaker 2: So you've got all of that the life. Then you've
Speaker 2: got the kind of mechanics of looking after someone. You know,
Speaker 2: there is so much equipment some on. So with Jacob,
Speaker 2: it was a ventilator that constantly had to be cleaned.
Speaker 2: You know, there are those things that make the suctions,
Speaker 2: the peaks, the wizzes, the part monitors that the cold blankets,
Speaker 2: the ice, the suddenly the temperature's got so much, Let's
Speaker 2: just surround him with an ice blanket. Let's cool him down,
Speaker 2: let's heat him up. Let's you know, his blood pressure
Speaker 2: has gone too high. Let's try and bring down. We
Speaker 2: need to get some more medication. We need to stop
Speaker 2: the medication. We need consultants, doctor's therapists. Let's move his limbs.
Speaker 2: We've got to keep his limbs moving. We've got to
Speaker 2: move his body. We've got to pull something through his
Speaker 2: stomach because he can't go to the toilet.
Speaker 1: This.
Speaker 2: You know, there's so much going on, and there is
Speaker 2: this sort of surreal little waiting room. There was a
Speaker 2: little rating room that there was an electric door, and
Speaker 2: it was just for families, of which very very small group,
Speaker 2: you know, probably only two or three of you, because
Speaker 2: there were only five beds in the whole ward. And
Speaker 2: you spend most of it watching really terrible daytime TV.
Speaker 2: And everybody's waiting for a consultant to try and stop them.
Speaker 2: And if you can, you can jump in and get
Speaker 2: in the room. I mean, one of the things that
Speaker 2: I feel incredibly grateful for was this was pre COVID,
Speaker 2: so we could be with Jacob. We could be with him,
Speaker 2: we were able to be not you know, Max was
Speaker 2: two people at a time, but we could be in
Speaker 2: the room with him. So but it's totally surreal. There
Speaker 2: was the very beautiful little thing which was somebody was
Speaker 2: leaving really beautifully drawn post it notes with beautifully drawn
Speaker 2: with little phrases little hey, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2: And that none of the nurses knew who it was,
Speaker 2: but they were being stuck everywhere, and so that became
Speaker 2: a sort of detective hunt on the on the wall,
Speaker 2: people were like, can you see what's going on? But
Speaker 2: also no one tells you about the turnover of staff.
Speaker 2: So you know, in a drama you have one doctor,
Speaker 2: you have one nurse. They're becoming your best friends. You
Speaker 2: have a rotation all the time. And in fact, I
Speaker 2: don't know whether it's the same in Australia, but in
Speaker 2: the UK doctor consultants not your chief but the kind
Speaker 2: of managerial consultant that you meant to see. They don't
Speaker 2: stay longer than three months. You know, Jacob was in
Speaker 2: a coma for seven months, so we had a turnover
Speaker 2: of three four consultants during that time, constantly going where's
Speaker 2: oh is doctor? Oh he's gone, No, No, he's gone
Speaker 2: to another world. And it's actually m built. It's designed
Speaker 2: like that so you don't get too close, right, So
Speaker 2: even that the kind of methodology of the kind of
Speaker 2: amazingly bonded relationship you're going to have through the consultant.
Speaker 2: You're not. They're constantly being moved on.
Speaker 1: And that sense of loss and having to start again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, and learn the language and share the language
Speaker 2: of who this person is and who they are and
Speaker 2: who you are in relation to them.
Speaker 1: And you say this went on for seven months and
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound at all peaceful, and you know, you
Speaker 1: write about these are dramatic times. But more than this,
Speaker 1: they are lonely, and more they are boring. No one
Speaker 1: told me how boring loss is. No.
Speaker 2: And it's quite funny because when I look at that period,
Speaker 2: I suddenly think, do you have Love Island?
Speaker 1: Yes? Oh, yes?
Speaker 2: I had a Love Island party. Jake was in a
Speaker 2: coma and I had a Love Island party where I
Speaker 2: invited all my friends around and we got the jazzled
Speaker 2: and I got all my daughter's friends did nails, and
Speaker 2: we had cocktails and we watched the final and then
Speaker 2: I had a fiftieth Birdy party for fifty people in
Speaker 2: my kitchen. I'm like, what planet was I on? And
Speaker 2: at the same time, I mean, it's sort of weird,
Speaker 2: you know, the kind of idea that I should be
Speaker 2: wearing black and sort of just sitting by Jacob's bird.
Speaker 2: We just can't do that. But also, you've got teenagers,
Speaker 2: you know, I had my mother in law, I had
Speaker 2: my siblings. You have a community of people who need
Speaker 2: you need support, but they need support. So I sort
Speaker 2: of took over where Jacob did, which is I became
Speaker 2: the kind of master of fun. So I look back
Speaker 2: down and think, but I think a lot of it
Speaker 2: was I was trying to counteract the boredom, and the
Speaker 2: boredom was kind of the worst thing because there was
Speaker 2: an inactivity to it. The truth is, I think when
Speaker 2: someone is in a coma, there is a level of
Speaker 2: inactivity or impotency you have as a family member, because
Speaker 2: that's the essential part of it. I mean, one of
Speaker 2: the things I found very interesting was towards the end
Speaker 2: of Jake's coma, when he was still very much submerged
Speaker 2: in it, a notice went up above his bed and said,
Speaker 2: do not overstimulate the patient no more than fifteen minutes conversation.
Speaker 2: And I suddenly realized again, you know, I'd sort of
Speaker 2: given up on the idea that Jake could hear us,
Speaker 2: and I was reminded that Jake, as Jake was starting
Speaker 2: to come up a lot of what was going on
Speaker 2: around him was becoming incredibly stimulating. And so that was
Speaker 2: when I realized that, Okay, we've got to go back
Speaker 2: in again and connect, but for the vast period of it.
Speaker 2: And when you talk to Jacob now, he'll go, I
Speaker 2: don't remember any of it. I have no memory of
Speaker 2: any of it, whereas you know, of course, you know
Speaker 2: I was speaking eulogies to it. You know, we were
Speaker 2: playing every we were sourcing his favorite bits of music.
Speaker 2: I think in many ways, you're doing that for yourself
Speaker 2: as much as anything else, because you're doing something to
Speaker 2: give form to the chaos of it and to have
Speaker 2: something to do every day, because most of the time
Speaker 2: that you have nothing to do in that context. So
Speaker 2: what you then have to do is really work hard
Speaker 2: to make the rest of your life work because you
Speaker 2: need that energy and you need that. You need to
Speaker 2: find the joy. I suppose you need to find the
Speaker 2: joy because one month, two months, three months, four month,
Speaker 2: and you really need to start to find the joy.
Speaker 2: Running parallel with it.
Speaker 1: You also need to find the money. Like the logistics
Speaker 1: of you know, work will understand and everyone around you
Speaker 1: will understand if you need to take a week off
Speaker 1: two weeks off, maybe three weeks off, but you were
Speaker 1: writing season two of a hit show. Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: know for the Baby say, you had a cast, you
Speaker 1: had everybody's schedules, Like, well, how did you handle that?
Speaker 1: How did you manage it? It's not like there's a
Speaker 1: team of writers. It's you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I mean that show is you.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I did have another writer on that second series who
Speaker 2: is really helpful. I also had a creative team that
Speaker 2: I know incredibly well, you know, and there's something weird,
Speaker 2: you know. I really my creative team. I work specifically
Speaker 2: with a producer, Jane Featherstone, who wants sister pictures and
Speaker 2: we've worked together forever. She's a really good friends as well,
Speaker 2: you know. So I need to be that open and
Speaker 2: I've always needed to do that, you know. I've got
Speaker 2: add I can't stop talking. It's part of what I
Speaker 2: have to sort of monitor myself, and so people know
Speaker 2: that about me. So I didn't keep silent of that
Speaker 2: this experience. And what funny enough, one of the things
Speaker 2: that's come back a lot from people is, oh my god,
Speaker 2: you had so many people supporting you. And I realized
Speaker 2: it is because I went in go oh my God,
Speaker 2: you won't believe what happened today. And of course people's
Speaker 2: natural instinct when you tell them is to go what
Speaker 2: we kid we do. So my case, I was incredibly
Speaker 2: lucky because the editorial meeting rooms and my production company
Speaker 2: was literally ten minutes walk from the hospital. I mean,
Speaker 2: how lucky could that be? You know, there were families
Speaker 2: on the wood that were having to travel into as
Speaker 2: a day just to get to that hospital. So loads
Speaker 2: of luck, loads of luck. Also incredible people who would
Speaker 2: kind of go, Okay, let's focus, let's get you down
Speaker 2: on this script, let's talk through the script. And then
Speaker 2: they would see me go and go, okay, bring down
Speaker 2: the blinds. We're leaving you for an hour. We'll come
Speaker 2: back and now here's a bowl of harribos. Eat those
Speaker 2: when you get wake up. And so I would just
Speaker 2: like I was just held. I mean I have to
Speaker 2: say I don't. And actually writing for me was something
Speaker 2: that was essential. I kept going through my entire through
Speaker 2: this entire experience, I didn't stop writing. So I write
Speaker 2: in the room, I wrote, I wrote it, Yeah, so interesting.
Speaker 2: I needed it. I needed that. I needed to process that.
Speaker 2: And I think, what's strange? I don't think it's until
Speaker 2: series three actually that the real experience of what I've
Speaker 2: gone through went into that final series, But certainly series
Speaker 2: two it was you know, and it's a big machine.
Speaker 2: You know, it's focused on the full crumb of you.
Speaker 2: But you also have producers, you have brilliant directors, you
Speaker 2: have your editorial team. You then have the actors who
Speaker 2: you know incredibly well, who are the keepers of character,
Speaker 2: who can come to you and say it's gone a
Speaker 2: bit hoky, that bit you know, you know they you
Speaker 2: have so many people doing that, checks and balances and
Speaker 2: ticks and boxes and all of that that you know,
Speaker 2: it's a big machine around you that really holds you.
Speaker 2: And I've never been frightened of being at the center
Speaker 2: of that. I've never been frightened. I've never had that.
Speaker 2: I've never had that. I always sort of known I
Speaker 2: can do it. It's weird, but I've always kind of thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: what do you need from me? I can always come
Speaker 2: up with the story.
Speaker 1: After the break, Abby explains what happened when Jake woke
Speaker 1: up from his coma and didn't recognize her. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the day that he woke up or is it
Speaker 1: not that clear?
Speaker 2: I remember this little bit. So I remember the eye
Speaker 2: opening and closing. I remember I had a great friend
Speaker 2: who's who knew a barber. And the other thing is
Speaker 2: the growing of the hair. You know, all those things
Speaker 2: that we keep secret from our partners, who knew how
Speaker 2: much hair grew in the oddest places. So Jake had
Speaker 2: to be trimmed and shaved, and you know, all of
Speaker 2: that was going And so I started to notice when
Speaker 2: the barber came in and he'd blow the hair, Jake
Speaker 2: would start to ruckle his nose and I realized that
Speaker 2: he was coming up. And they kept on trying to
Speaker 2: bring him. It was a medically induced kerna, so they
Speaker 2: kept him trying to take off the medication. It's an
Speaker 2: anesthetic state, and every time they took it off, he
Speaker 2: would seizure again. So that was the issue. They weren't
Speaker 2: sure how they were going to bring him up. But
Speaker 2: finally they gave him the kind of wonder drug, which
Speaker 2: was a chemotherapy joke actually, and it was an experimental
Speaker 2: way of trying. They were trying it out and it worked,
Speaker 2: and so the seiz ring just started to calm. So
Speaker 2: when Jake first started to wake, it was very much
Speaker 2: ebb and flow as they played around with the medication.
Speaker 2: But what I really remember was he woke to a
Speaker 2: point where his eyes were open, and the thing that
Speaker 2: was incredibly exciting was he started to track people, which
Speaker 2: was such a good sign that there was brain activity
Speaker 2: there because you know, he went in for brain scans
Speaker 2: there was a lot of vivid they called it vivid
Speaker 2: areas of his brain. So we at that point we
Speaker 2: knew that there was going to be some kind of
Speaker 2: brain damage, but we didn't know to what degree. But
Speaker 2: the tracking was a really good sign. So it started
Speaker 2: with the tracking, and then the smile and then the
Speaker 2: thumbs up, all of those very sort of methodical things.
Speaker 2: But I think for me, the biggest moment was I
Speaker 2: came in and suddenly there was a speech and language
Speaker 2: woman there and he was now by this point sitting
Speaker 2: up and he had to track eotomy so he couldn't
Speaker 2: speak at that point. You had to do various things
Speaker 2: so he could sort of do a growl. But they
Speaker 2: were starting to work on him eating and that was when,
Speaker 2: and that seemed to happen incredibly quickly. All this sort
Speaker 2: of very bad he was. You know, I remember this
Speaker 2: firs thing watching me to strawberry yogurt, and she said,
Speaker 2: would you like to speak now, Jake, And he was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'd like to speak. And that was just like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, because not only was he didn't sound like him,
Speaker 2: he sounded like a sort of North London like wide boy,
Speaker 2: like his boys had gone very light, that very London.
Speaker 2: So he that was odd, you know. So there were
Speaker 2: all of these sort of little oddities. But as a family,
Speaker 2: I think we were sort of going, hey, Jake, it's us.
Speaker 2: And of course he was very sweet. He was a
Speaker 2: little bit like a bear waking up, so he was
Speaker 2: He would smile at the children and I've got videos
Speaker 2: of in a Mabel singing to him at that point
Speaker 2: he would just smile. There was lots of nonverbal but
Speaker 2: as he started to speak a little bit, we started
Speaker 2: to get a few words, and you know, I'd say
Speaker 2: that went on for about sort of two three weeks
Speaker 2: of just sort of coming to and we were able
Speaker 2: to start to take him out in a wheelchair and
Speaker 2: then they removed his trek. Heot to me, he came
Speaker 2: off the ventilator, and it was amazing. I think we
Speaker 2: were all like, oh my gosh, he's here. We could
Speaker 2: see he was there, but I also could see there
Speaker 2: was something profoundly different in him. The way he looked
Speaker 2: at me. I just thought, there's something not right here.
Speaker 2: So there was a sort of struck at you, a
Speaker 2: combination of at times completely blank, very quizzical, and often irritated.
Speaker 2: And at first I thought it was a general thing,
Speaker 2: but then I started to notice the delight in which
Speaker 2: he greeted his parents, you know, with a smile, or
Speaker 2: I hate dad. Hey. He wouldn't use my name, he'd
Speaker 2: go Hi like that to me. He was just off
Speaker 2: with me. He wasn't warm, And I remember one day
Speaker 2: I went to kiss him on the lips and he
Speaker 2: was like that. And then there was a key moment
Speaker 2: where a friend came in. Jacob plays the ukulelean. He
Speaker 2: plays the ukule. He brought his ukulelean. I went Jamie's
Speaker 2: coming to see you, and he went, great, did you
Speaker 2: wait outside? Keys? Could you wait out? And I felt
Speaker 2: something was very off. So there were just these little
Speaker 2: things where it's like something's not right here.
Speaker 1: And when did you realize that not only was something
Speaker 1: not right, but it was really really wrong.
Speaker 2: When it came to you, I'd filmed him one day
Speaker 2: we were all outside. We'd taken him we bought our dog.
Speaker 2: The joy of him seeing our dog. We have a
Speaker 2: really lovely dog called Styler. It was kind of a
Speaker 2: key character in the book. And he was so overjoyed
Speaker 2: to see the dog, and everyone was like, isn't this amazing?
Speaker 2: And I there's one of two things I'm filming him.
Speaker 2: And the first thing is that I'm talking to him
Speaker 2: like he's a child. It mortifies me now. But the
Speaker 2: second thing is whenever I say, hey, Jake, isn't it great,
Speaker 2: he turns and looks at me and he looks straight
Speaker 2: at the camera and it's like and I'm like, something's
Speaker 2: not right. And then it really distilled on Valentine's Day.
Speaker 2: I went in on Valentine's Day and I bought him
Speaker 2: a really cheesy red cell phone heart and I tied
Speaker 2: it to the end of his bed. And I talk
Speaker 2: about this, but actually the nurses had very sweetly bought
Speaker 2: everybody these really sort of cheap red roses, you know,
Speaker 2: the kind of thing you get on ahole day. And
Speaker 2: she was like, j J, give your wife, give your
Speaker 2: wife a rose. And he said, she's not my wife.
Speaker 2: And in that moment, I went, well, actually's kind of right,
Speaker 2: because you know I'm his girlfriend, I mean, his partner,
Speaker 2: not a wor you know, it's the constant game I'm playing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you weren't married.
Speaker 2: I weren't married. But very quickly I went, what do
Speaker 2: you mean? And I started to ask questions and you went.
Speaker 2: I said, do you know how? He says, I don't
Speaker 2: know who you are. I don't know how you're fooling everyone.
Speaker 2: That became the first and I was like, where is Abby?
Speaker 2: He says, you're not Abbi Morgan? And I said, well,
Speaker 2: where is Abbi Morgan? Then he went, and she's gone.
Speaker 2: She's got a new life with someone else. So he
Speaker 2: did this thing called fabulation, which is where if you're
Speaker 2: not sure of your you know, it often comes out
Speaker 2: of you know, if you've gone through any kind of
Speaker 2: brain injury, car accident, you've got gaps in your memory,
Speaker 2: so you fabulate. Your brain tries to make sense, so
Speaker 2: it tells itself stories. So the story he told himself
Speaker 2: was that I had I had left him, and that
Speaker 2: he was now living in an apartment overlooking Hampstead Heath.
Speaker 2: And it's quite funny because Jake and I both have
Speaker 2: a dream of having an apartment overlooking Hampstead Heath. So
Speaker 2: in this memory, he'd already gone there, he'd moved and
Speaker 2: he was loving it, and I had run off with
Speaker 2: someone else, and I was I had a new life
Speaker 2: for someone else, and so that, you know, at first,
Speaker 2: it was just incredulous. I mean, I think I remember
Speaker 2: I started to shake and I talk. It felt like
Speaker 2: the subway was underneath me. I remember driving in the
Speaker 2: same to my sister. My sister called dog because I'm
Speaker 2: the same dogs. He doesn't know who I am. And
Speaker 2: you know that can't be true, and that's not true.
Speaker 2: It's really not true. And of course that's everyone's natural
Speaker 2: reaction because they feel huge pain for you. It's so bizarre.
Speaker 2: It's such a cliche, which is what I talk about.
Speaker 2: You know, it's such a bloody cliche. It's such a
Speaker 2: It felt like a bad, bad plot twist, but it's
Speaker 2: out of body again and that adrenaline picks in again,
Speaker 2: and you're like, it's surreal. It's surreal.
Speaker 1: But it's not even a cliche, because a cliche is
Speaker 1: like something that you've heard so many times.
Speaker 2: I suppose it's a movie trope. It's a movie trope.
Speaker 1: Well, the movie trope is that he wakes up and
Speaker 1: they don't remember anyone, no anything or who they are, right,
Speaker 1: So like amnesia. I am understand, but I've never heard
Speaker 1: of someone selectively forgetting Yeah, one person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's a very That's the next book because
Speaker 2: I think there's something really interesting. I mean, what became
Speaker 2: apparent was that, and it was really my son. My
Speaker 2: son was the kind of key to this, because you know,
Speaker 2: I was known as doctor Google and it's a gift
Speaker 2: I had passed on to my son because he said, Mom,
Speaker 2: if you had this thing called capgra delusion And I
Speaker 2: was like no, and he went, it's it's where there's
Speaker 2: a severance between the visual and the emotional identity. So
Speaker 2: what happens is when we look at somebody, we not
Speaker 2: only go oh, yes, it's it's Mia Hi.
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 2: We go oh yeah, I love that, I love her.
Speaker 2: I've got that I have a feeling towards you. With
Speaker 2: Capra that that becomes severed, and it's often focused on
Speaker 2: a particular relationship. It's often focused on someone you're close to.
Speaker 2: It can be on a house, it can be on
Speaker 2: a dog, and in this case it's it's called the
Speaker 2: syndrome of the impostors or the delusion of doubles, and
Speaker 2: it's the belief that the person it's not that I
Speaker 2: did exist, it's not that they don't believe that I exist,
Speaker 2: it's that that person has been replaced by an impostor.
Speaker 2: So to Jacob, I was an impostor. Yeah, it's surreal,
Speaker 2: it's it was, I mean, so that was It was
Speaker 2: really Jesse and it was incredible to kind of get that.
Speaker 2: And I spoke to the psychiatrists. He said, well, look,
Speaker 2: it's really unusual to get this out of en caphalitis.
Speaker 2: It's often found in dementia cases, you know, different kinds
Speaker 2: of dementia, but it's very unusual with someone of Jake's
Speaker 2: age to get it, and it often comes out of
Speaker 2: if you've had a brain injury as a result of
Speaker 2: a car crash. It would be very unusual in the
Speaker 2: result of en caphealitis. Subsequently, I have heard of it happening,
Speaker 2: but it is very rare. So when I actually sort
Speaker 2: of approached the psychiatrist, said what the hell do we
Speaker 2: do about this? Because they said one of two things.
Speaker 2: They said, well, we work on a think called theory
Speaker 2: A theory B. So theory A is you're absolute right, Jake,
Speaker 2: one hundred percent. This is not Abby Morgan, your partner,
Speaker 2: not your wife, your partner. But theory B is we
Speaker 2: can never be one hundred percent sure of anything. So
Speaker 2: let's say ninety nine percent she's not Abby Morgan. But
Speaker 2: let's just say this one percent. Can you take this
Speaker 2: a one percent possibility? And the idea is every day
Speaker 2: you slowly build, so you two percent five percent temper
Speaker 2: So the ideas you start to tip the balance of rationale.
Speaker 2: And the second thing is if it doesn't go within
Speaker 2: three and a half months, it's unlikely to go. It's here.
Speaker 2: So there was a sort of pressure so we all went,
Speaker 2: you know, in the initial it was like, okay, yep,
Speaker 2: we will we'll do this thing. We'll do the theory
Speaker 2: O theory B. And it wasn't just me that was
Speaker 2: finding it very Difficultviously, my children found it incredibly upsetting.
Speaker 2: Jake's family found it. My family found it really difficult.
Speaker 2: You know. So there was a day where I'd photocopied
Speaker 2: we had to do a book. Hi, my name's Jacob.
Speaker 2: We made a book for him. They said, make a book.
Speaker 2: So you can start to read about his like, my
Speaker 2: name's Jacob, I love football, I have a son called Jesse,
Speaker 2: a daughter called Mabel. My partner's name is Abby. And
Speaker 2: every time he saw that photo of me, he'd just
Speaker 2: sweep over. And then I bought him lots of photos
Speaker 2: of all the family to put around so you could
Speaker 2: look at all the family members. And I came in
Speaker 2: and I was like, where's my photo and they said, look,
Speaker 2: really sorry, we have to it right behind the Birdie
Speaker 2: doesn't want to look at it. So we had all
Speaker 2: of that going on, and also I just started to
Speaker 2: get pissed off on board with it. So I just
Speaker 2: start of went, I mean, it's laughable some of the
Speaker 2: videos I've got. So I'm coming in and I'm going, hi, Jake,
Speaker 2: it's Abbey. Went no, it's not Abby, and I went,
Speaker 2: yes it is. No it's not.
Speaker 3: Yes it is no, it's not. Okay, let's agree to differ.
Speaker 3: So we did all of that version. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: I mean, it went on with the bat and forth.
Speaker 3: But the other thing we would do would be I
Speaker 3: would go, my Abbe Morgan today.
Speaker 2: And he went, you're definitely not Abbi Morgan, and so
Speaker 2: I loved that, even though he would be At first
Speaker 2: he was very resistant to me. He then started to go.
Speaker 2: I came one day and he said, you're working for
Speaker 2: the state, aren't you? And I went yeah. He said,
Speaker 2: why else would you be so interested in my You know,
Speaker 2: we had various conversations which I talk around the children,
Speaker 2: but he said I think you must be working for
Speaker 2: the state and I went, yeah, I've come to work
Speaker 2: for the state and he said, I said, is that okay?
Speaker 2: He said yeah. I said I'm here for the state
Speaker 2: and said, so that's where you held help me and
Speaker 2: the kids, And I went, yeah, yeah, that's where I am.
Speaker 2: So that became why we settled.
Speaker 1: Which did that feel like a betrayal though of yourself?
Speaker 1: Like did you want to just argue with him all
Speaker 1: the time, like to say, yeah, I work for the state?
Speaker 1: I mean, did you well?
Speaker 2: One of two things I kept on thinking, this is
Speaker 2: such great material, this is so funny. The other thing
Speaker 2: was like this is I was generally found it funny.
Speaker 2: I was also there was two things that was funny
Speaker 2: and hysteria or running one. And the hysteria was to
Speaker 2: do with being really effing frightened because it's very it's deeply,
Speaker 2: deeply creepy when the person you love looks at you blankly,
Speaker 2: it's deeply creepy. So also humiliating, very humiliating, And the
Speaker 2: biggest thing that nobody told me about this whole experience then,
Speaker 2: even though intellectually I'm like, why the hell would you
Speaker 2: feel like that? But emotionally, across the gamut of the
Speaker 2: illnesses that we experienced, but particularly this humiliation was a
Speaker 2: big part of it. And pride. And there's a great
Speaker 2: quote by Nora Efron which is her both her parents
Speaker 2: were writers, and her mother was the one that really
Speaker 2: coined the phrase, you know everything's copy. But what Nora
Speaker 2: efernce ofd what I came to I was about my
Speaker 2: mother is that she says, when you slip on a
Speaker 2: banana skin, people laugh, But when you write about it
Speaker 2: and say I know I've slipped on a banana skin,
Speaker 2: you're the one that laughs. And I think there's a
Speaker 2: truth to that. Is that I had to go, I
Speaker 2: know what's happening here, guys, because I think there's nothing
Speaker 2: more humiliating than being told to leave the room. Because
Speaker 2: you know, some very sweet ladies arrived to read the
Speaker 2: book that You've given him for Christmas to him, and
Speaker 2: he doesn't want you there because you're a stranger, but
Speaker 2: she's someone he's really got to know. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: where you start to feelucky, you said, lover, That's where
Speaker 2: you start to feel this weird jealousy. And it definitely,
Speaker 2: you know, I defy anyone not to have to manage
Speaker 2: huge tensions. I mean, Jade's family were pretty bloody amazing
Speaker 2: because I was raging and I was very territorial over him.
Speaker 2: But the biggest thing I felt was I had to
Speaker 2: a way to stay in the room with him, because
Speaker 2: my worry was I was losing not only you know,
Speaker 2: Heedless his sense of identity for me, but I was
Speaker 2: losing the sense of my identity. And that was really frightening.
Speaker 2: And somehow, if I didn't keep staying in the room
Speaker 2: and chipping away and almost the act of resistance in
Speaker 2: a way, do I was to go, yeah, you're right,
Speaker 2: I work for the state. You believe whatever you want.
Speaker 2: I know who I am. If that's going to shut
Speaker 2: you up, you believe in the state, I will come
Speaker 2: in and still be the lady from the state. And
Speaker 2: whilst I was there, I was able to go, well,
Speaker 2: there's someone from the state. Let's go out and have
Speaker 2: tea as for someone from the state. Let me tell
Speaker 2: you all the things I know about you, Jay, So
Speaker 2: I would like one day, I said, quiz me. Ask
Speaker 2: me anything you want about yourself and I'll know the answer.
Speaker 2: And I got every single question right. So it was like,
Speaker 2: what was the name of my first dog? Where did
Speaker 2: I have an accident? What's my favorite Tottenham Hotspur player? Ever?
Speaker 2: You know? And I knew every single answer, And instead
Speaker 2: of looking at me like, oh my gosh, I can't
Speaker 2: believe it it's you, he'd be like, how you doing that.
Speaker 2: It was always like, there's a trick. There's a trick here.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you're doing that. So yeah, it
Speaker 2: was peculiar. It was really really peculiar and very eroding
Speaker 2: and at times absolutely heartbreaking, really really, but there was
Speaker 2: also something that very key happened in that, which was
Speaker 2: it stopped being about me getting Jade back for me
Speaker 2: and I just this is where I get emotional. He's
Speaker 2: such a great person. He's such a not just a
Speaker 2: great father, not just a great husband or a friend.
Speaker 2: He's such a great guy. And I needed him to
Speaker 2: get back in the world to get and that became
Speaker 2: bigger than me. That became bigger than whether he knew
Speaker 2: me or not. I just needed to make sure he
Speaker 2: got back out in the world again because I just
Speaker 2: and I call it the hum of love. He drives
Speaker 2: it at the wall. You know, we have loads of things,
Speaker 2: you know, antisocial, social. I want to party, he doesn't.
Speaker 2: I don't want to party, he does. You know, I've
Speaker 2: got loads of that shit. We've got all the tensions.
Speaker 2: But irrespective of whether Jake's my part, I want to
Speaker 2: look across the room and go good. I was glad.
Speaker 2: I spent eighteen years with that guy. I used to
Speaker 2: know him, I loved him, I helped getting better. I
Speaker 2: helped getting better as one element, and he's out in
Speaker 2: the world again. And so that became my motivator, and
Speaker 2: it was incredibly liberating when I let go of trying
Speaker 2: to get Jake back for myself. You know, the day
Speaker 2: Jake collapsed is the day that my relationship that I
Speaker 2: had with Jake ended, and the day Jake started to
Speaker 2: properly recover is when my new relationship started with him.
Speaker 2: But it's not the same relationship, and it comes right
Speaker 2: back to and I've not said this to actually anyone,
Speaker 2: but I don't really care, because i'd say to Jake
Speaker 2: as well. But I can forgive what's happened, but I
Speaker 2: can never forget that it was me that he didn't remember.
Speaker 2: And I still circle where that is. And I you know,
Speaker 2: when you lean into side, it's like a trust exercise.
Speaker 2: If you fall back into the arms of someone, you
Speaker 2: have to know they can still hold you. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if I will ever truly be able to
Speaker 2: trust again that on a really profound level, does Jake
Speaker 2: really really truly know who I am now? And why
Speaker 2: was it me? And it's that's something I'll circle forever,
Speaker 2: you know. So there was an ending somewhere in the
Speaker 2: middle of that, and there was a moment where I
Speaker 2: had to go, I have to let go of trying
Speaker 2: to get him back for me, and I have to
Speaker 2: start to try and get him back because he's worth
Speaker 2: restoring and helping getting back to the best he can be.
Speaker 2: So that that really became my focus, and I became
Speaker 2: a I hope, a much nicer person. Then I stopped
Speaker 2: growling at everybody. I mean, I was pretty bloody awful
Speaker 2: at times. I was Growley and I was relentless. I
Speaker 2: was relent you know, you know when widows throw themselves
Speaker 2: on coffins. I understood that. I understood that I would
Speaker 2: sort of throw myself across Jake because the sort of
Speaker 2: you know when you have a baby and you almost
Speaker 2: want to eat him up, You always want to eat
Speaker 2: you know, the baby. I felt like that about Jacob.
Speaker 2: I wanted to consume him. That was how much I needed.
Speaker 2: That was how much my connection was. And when I
Speaker 2: nice step back and went, you've got to let go
Speaker 2: of that connection. You've got to start to be part
Speaker 2: of the collective that's going to help get him better,
Speaker 2: then that became it became much more manageable as an experience.
Speaker 2: I think I haven't ready spoken about that before, but
Speaker 2: that's that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I told you this story was incredible and that
Speaker 1: there were plot twists and there are more for Mum
Speaker 1: and Maya subscribers to listen to right now.
Speaker 2: It was such a bad plot twist, But you know,
Speaker 2: I think when when when crisis and disaster happens, it
Speaker 2: does kind of come in threes, you know, it does
Speaker 2: you know things do you sort of I don't know
Speaker 2: whether it's an energy thing I still think. Listen, I
Speaker 2: think I would always have got breast cancer. Unfortunately, I
Speaker 2: don't think it was Jake's fault, but I think a
Speaker 2: couple of things. I think I ignored it for that
Speaker 2: sort of nine months.
Speaker 1: On this subscriber episode, we talk about another twist that
Speaker 1: nobody saw coming, and even Abby agreed was a little melodramatic,
Speaker 1: but you know, some might say overblown, except that it
Speaker 1: actually happened. And we also talk about where things are
Speaker 1: at now with Jacob and with their relationship. Just follow
Speaker 1: the links in our show notes to listen. Subscribing to
Speaker 1: Mumma Mea only costs less than six dollars a month
Speaker 1: and you'll be supporting women's media. You can also find
Speaker 1: Abby's book, Not a Pity Memoir by the link in
Speaker 1: our show notes. Highly recommend that you do. It's absolutely
Speaker 1: brilliant and heartbreaking and funny and amazing and beautifully written
Speaker 1: because Abby is such a talented writer. And also watch
Speaker 1: The Split now season three. I think is available on iView,
Speaker 1: but wherever you watch it, it is truly brilliant. The
Speaker 1: assistant producer of No Filter is Emmeline Peterson. The executive
Speaker 1: producer is one Eliza Ratliffe and I'm Maya Friedman. Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me in your ears. If you're looking for
Speaker 1: something else to listen to, like and follow all of
Speaker 1: our Muma Mea podcasts, which are currently bringing you hot
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