Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. It happened all
Speaker 1: at once. My brother and I are sitting naked in
Speaker 1: the bath, playing with our toy boats, listening to the
Speaker 1: music and the sound of muffled voices from the next room.
Speaker 1: We are swallowed in red and green wool blankets and
Speaker 1: ready for sleep. Storytime pajamas, the rubbing of tired eyes.
Speaker 1: Good night canyon, good night mountain, good night building, good
Speaker 1: night stars. Crans are put away, cubbies, clean teeth, brush.
Speaker 1: I drift to sleep, and I'm rattled awake, surprised to
Speaker 1: see my mother's face with her shaved head, her hazel
Speaker 1: green eyes, her round Dutch cheeks, and crooked yellow, coffee
Speaker 1: stained teeth.
Speaker 2: I go wake up. We have to leave. It's not
Speaker 2: safe here.
Speaker 3: That's mikel Joli, musician, frontman of the indie rock band
Speaker 3: Airborne Toxic Event and author of the recent memoir Hollywood Park.
Speaker 3: Michel's is a story about trauma and real resilience, the
Speaker 3: scars that remain and the ones healed by time, hard work,
Speaker 3: and an extraordinary human spirit determined to survive, thrive, and
Speaker 3: grow strong against all odds. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this
Speaker 3: is family secrets, the secrets that are kept from us,
Speaker 3: the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we
Speaker 3: keep from ourselves.
Speaker 1: I was born in a place called Synanon, which was
Speaker 1: what I understood as a child. I was told it
Speaker 1: was a commune. We now understand it was cult. I
Speaker 1: was born inside the orphanage that existed in that cult.
Speaker 1: It's funny because I'm like, we talked about family secrets here, right,
Speaker 1: and like one of the secrets of my family was
Speaker 1: that this was abusive and not something that was ever
Speaker 1: explained to us because we were told we were put
Speaker 1: into this school. And what happened was the leader of
Speaker 1: the cult decided that rather than be the children of
Speaker 1: your parents, everyone would be the children.
Speaker 2: Of the society.
Speaker 1: So there was like a six month period you were
Speaker 1: kind of like you were born, and then you could
Speaker 1: be with your mom and breastfeed and all that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff in a place called the hatchery. There's these
Speaker 1: wonderful nineteen seventies, sixties or welling in terms.
Speaker 2: So you went from the hatchery to the school.
Speaker 1: And then in the school you were raised apart from
Speaker 1: your parents and not like day to day like I
Speaker 1: mean you see your parents for a couple hours, maybe
Speaker 1: every few weeks, once a month.
Speaker 2: Some kids went years.
Speaker 1: And it was a tough place to grow up because
Speaker 1: essentially what they created, and I don't think they chose
Speaker 1: to create this on purpose, but they created, you know,
Speaker 1: an orphanage. We were raised by people we didn't know.
Speaker 1: We were handed off from different people months years of
Speaker 1: our lives where we don't really know who raised us.
Speaker 1: And Sinadam was a place we went to get clean
Speaker 1: off of heroin or alcoholism, I guess to some extent,
Speaker 1: but mostly heroin. And so people were like two three
Speaker 1: weeks off kicking heroin and suddenly thrust into the school
Speaker 1: in some role or another.
Speaker 3: How many kids more or less were in the school
Speaker 3: during the time that you were there, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think all told, there was maybe four hundred kids
Speaker 1: that came through, and at any given moment, I think
Speaker 1: at its height, maybe one hundred, one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: were with the most.
Speaker 2: Ever, at one time.
Speaker 1: We were raised just to believe that the society was
Speaker 1: our parent, and I think that the thinking was in
Speaker 1: this kind of like backwards culting nineteen seventies kind of
Speaker 1: way of thinking, was that like, well, this way the
Speaker 1: parents won't pass off, you know, their cycles of violence
Speaker 1: and trauma and addiction to their kids.
Speaker 2: But of course it just meant we were orphans.
Speaker 1: Just meant that we didn't have basic people who loved
Speaker 1: us and took care of us. I mean there was
Speaker 1: no birthday celebrations, there was no Christmas or hunting or
Speaker 1: anything like that.
Speaker 2: Certainly no extended family.
Speaker 3: And you're brother, Tony was also, Yeah, he's three years older.
Speaker 2: I was in the lower school, he was in the
Speaker 2: upper school.
Speaker 1: I think the upper school was a lot rougher than
Speaker 1: the lower school. I think that's where they were particularly
Speaker 1: lax about who interacts with the kids and what the
Speaker 1: interaction and supervision of the children were. And I mean
Speaker 1: every kid was abused, every kid was beaten, every kid
Speaker 1: was humiliated.
Speaker 2: Just about every kid was molested. I mean, you name it.
Speaker 1: So we escaped when I was very young, and we
Speaker 1: did have to escape, and this woman showed up. So
Speaker 1: we're in this like world of everyone shaved heads and
Speaker 1: overalls and boots, and you know, one day, this woman
Speaker 1: shows up who we understand is our mom. But the
Speaker 1: term doesn't have much particular meaning to us because we
Speaker 1: don't really know what a mom.
Speaker 3: Is, right, Do you understand each other to be brothers?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think we did, but we didn't really know what
Speaker 2: it meant.
Speaker 1: You know, we just knew we were brothers, and I
Speaker 1: think it was just kind of this vague term, just
Speaker 1: like mom was or dad was. We didn't really know
Speaker 1: what any terms meant because there was no sort of
Speaker 1: traditional family structure. So one as she shows up and
Speaker 1: she says, all right, it's not safe here and we
Speaker 1: have to leave because the place had started to practice violence,
Speaker 1: which you know, it started as a non violent place.
Speaker 2: And we left. We kind of escaped in.
Speaker 1: The early morning into a car where my grandfather was waiting.
Speaker 1: From there, you know, it was just so so odd.
Speaker 1: We'd never seen a skyscraper before, we'd never been in
Speaker 1: a restaurant before.
Speaker 2: We didn't know what, you know.
Speaker 1: We went from there, we were in Marine County, went
Speaker 1: from there to Oakland, well San Jose, and then at
Speaker 1: Berkeley and Oakland, and just like we had never seen
Speaker 1: any of these things before, and it was it was
Speaker 1: just such a bizarre world to the world just seems
Speaker 1: so big. We've been on this dirt road leading to
Speaker 1: the compound and we'd gone into town before. I guess
Speaker 1: there's a town in Tamas Bay nearby the compound where
Speaker 1: we were, and.
Speaker 2: That was about that was the big city for us.
Speaker 1: It was like a main street with one stop with
Speaker 1: one stop light, and then all the kids, all of
Speaker 1: us were just you know, with shaved heads and overalls
Speaker 1: and all the towny kids stay or not is because
Speaker 1: I think we probably looked like weird CULTI kids, which
Speaker 1: I suppose we were.
Speaker 2: But you know, it wasn't our choice, it was our parents' choice.
Speaker 1: So I think it was always just kind of confusing
Speaker 1: for us.
Speaker 3: Mckel ends up living with his grandmother and grandfather, people
Speaker 3: he had never met before.
Speaker 2: They were very well off.
Speaker 1: My mom had been raised in the Hague in Holland
Speaker 1: and you know, raised by nannies, and my grandfather owned
Speaker 1: a shipping company and they were well to do family.
Speaker 2: And she was like, you know, the.
Speaker 1: Hippie that sort of defied all expectations and rebelled against
Speaker 1: the society that they'd raised her among.
Speaker 2: I think she was kind of angry and a bit
Speaker 2: of a utopian.
Speaker 1: I'm probably just kind of a damaged kid because also
Speaker 1: my grandmother was just a raging drunk just I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'd ever seen or sober in my whole life.
Speaker 1: She was always drunk by like eleven Am, and of
Speaker 1: course resented that her daughter had become, you know, this hip.
Speaker 1: She had been a free speech activist at Berkeley and
Speaker 1: that eventually ended up in this utopian cult. So there
Speaker 1: was a lot of tension over that. And you know,
Speaker 1: at the time also we were living on the run.
Speaker 1: We were told that the men, the bad men from
Speaker 1: Synonam were coming to get us. The society thought that
Speaker 1: she had kidnapped us because we weren't her kids. We
Speaker 1: were Synanon's kids, and so we were always on the
Speaker 1: lookout and we were never allowed to play outside because
Speaker 1: who knew if these bad men were going to come and.
Speaker 2: Take us away.
Speaker 3: Michel's family is not alone in their escape from Synanon.
Speaker 3: His mom's friend, Phil Ritter, a free speech activist and
Speaker 3: anti nuclear activist, has also escaped, and after a short
Speaker 3: while staying with his grandparents, Mickel, his mom, and brother
Speaker 3: relocate to live with Phil in his apartment in East Oakland.
Speaker 3: One day, the apartment is broken into. They're not sure
Speaker 3: if it was the bad men of Synanon who did it,
Speaker 3: but they are scared, and they decide to move together
Speaker 3: to a house in Berkeley.
Speaker 1: Phil he had a daughter that lived with us as well,
Speaker 1: and we all moved into this house. Again, we weren't
Speaker 1: allowed to go outside, and he built a little playroom
Speaker 1: for us in the garage. And I wouldn't say it
Speaker 1: was quite a father figure, but he was. He was
Speaker 1: a good guy, you know. He was kind to the
Speaker 1: kids and a nice human being and just like the
Speaker 1: gentlest soul you'd ever meet. We'd spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time playing indoors and listening for the kids on the
Speaker 1: street as they played, which is kind of heartbreaking.
Speaker 2: We knew who the kids.
Speaker 1: Were by like the sound of their bikes or what
Speaker 1: game they were playing. And meanwhile, we're like locked in
Speaker 1: this garage. So one day I guess my brother rebellious,
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna go outside no matter what, and he was.
Speaker 1: He was playing with the kids across the street. It's
Speaker 1: like one of the rare days. He actually got out
Speaker 1: and I was on the porch and Phil had gone
Speaker 1: to get some groceries in his van. He had a
Speaker 1: VW bus like any good hippie, and he came back
Speaker 1: and I was on the porch and he closed the
Speaker 1: door to his van and there was these two kind
Speaker 1: of shadowy figures that came up behind him, and they
Speaker 1: were these two men and they had these like flesh
Speaker 1: colored masks on, you know, like nylon, like the way
Speaker 1: bank robbers have over their faces. And it all happened
Speaker 1: so quickly. I was just like, who are those guys?
Speaker 1: And it was almost like is it Halloween? Are they playing?
Speaker 1: Address up? I think it might have been my first
Speaker 1: lovege thing. And one of them hit him over the
Speaker 1: back and he fell on the ground, and then they
Speaker 1: just started beating them. They had these two they had
Speaker 1: clubs in their hands. They weren't like baseball bats. They
Speaker 1: were like police clubs, batons kind of things, maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit bigger. And we started screaming and bleeding, and
Speaker 1: I hid behind the column on the porch and they
Speaker 1: just wailed on them in the driveway and they straightened
Speaker 1: up and said, you know, wor's McKell and Tony. And
Speaker 1: then Tony was with all the kids because all the neighborhood
Speaker 1: kids had sort of come to watch, and he was
Speaker 1: across the street. But none of the kids knew our
Speaker 1: name because we were just always hiding in the garage,
Speaker 1: so nobody said anything, and eventually, you know, a neighbor
Speaker 1: lady came out and told her told him to leave,
Speaker 1: that she'd called the police, and they left, and then
Speaker 1: the ambulance came and they took Phil away and he
Speaker 1: was in a coma.
Speaker 2: For about a month. And it was weird. I remember
Speaker 2: just like catching like eyes with him.
Speaker 1: He had this real sort of kind face and before
Speaker 1: he passed out, like I was kind of peering out
Speaker 1: from behind this column and I could see his eyes
Speaker 1: and they were looking at me. And I remember the
Speaker 1: expression on his face because there was there was like
Speaker 1: a stillness to it after he sort of stopped screaming
Speaker 1: and just kind of resigned to it, I guess. And
Speaker 1: he told me later that all he was thinking about
Speaker 1: at the time was that this is too much for
Speaker 1: a kid Michael's age to witness.
Speaker 2: Like what a good guy, right, I mean, the.
Speaker 1: Thing that he was concerned about was was because he's
Speaker 1: being beaten nearly to death, was he didn't want me
Speaker 1: to have to see all this violence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that really strikes
Speaker 3: me about your story is that this group of adults
Speaker 3: in your life that includes both your parents and the
Speaker 3: various people who came in and out of your life.
Speaker 3: I mean, there were some doozies, but it also had
Speaker 3: some very kind people who probably are a large part
Speaker 3: of why we're even having this conversation. And you know
Speaker 3: why you ended up in one piece.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if I saw a tweet the other day somebody
Speaker 1: said I'd never join a cult, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: write in back, like, no shit, nobody thinks they're joining.
Speaker 2: Nobody.
Speaker 1: People in cults don't know they're in cults. And my
Speaker 1: parents thought they were in a nonviolent drug rehabilitation society,
Speaker 1: which is kind of how it started. It was just
Speaker 1: trying to get addicts clean and it did a pretty
Speaker 1: good job of doing that, saved a lot of people's
Speaker 1: lives first, and then you know, but then you isolate
Speaker 1: people and you start getting groups think going, and then
Speaker 1: there's kind of like this quirk of human psychology that
Speaker 1: they tend to line up behind very often a narcissistic
Speaker 1: and abusive man or whatever. And that's what happened in
Speaker 1: our case. And it's not as if these people are
Speaker 1: all trying.
Speaker 2: To do mean things.
Speaker 1: And definitely, you know, a difficult relationship with my mom
Speaker 1: she you know, some ways in which I think she
Speaker 1: maybe wasn't prepared to be a mother. But I don't
Speaker 1: think she meant any harm to us, and she in
Speaker 1: her heart wanted was best for us, and certainly my
Speaker 1: dad did you know they meant well for us. They
Speaker 1: just didn't know, you know, And looking back with hindsight,
Speaker 1: it's very easy to pinpoint mistakes. I don't think they
Speaker 1: were trying to do anything bad, particularly to the kids.
Speaker 3: After the incident of Phil's beating, Michel's mom decides to
Speaker 3: move her kids from this environment too. Once again they're
Speaker 3: on the run. She gets a job at the state
Speaker 3: mental hospital in Salem, Oregon, so that's where they'll sleep
Speaker 3: and hide next.
Speaker 1: I remember when we left and we packed up the
Speaker 1: old white Vega that she'd gotten from my grandfather, and
Speaker 1: we packed and head to Oregon.
Speaker 2: I remember it was a rainy day and it was
Speaker 2: just this.
Speaker 1: Feeling in the air, like Man, we lost, Like I
Speaker 1: knew it, even at that age.
Speaker 2: I knew like Man.
Speaker 1: Reagan was president, who was like the old nemesis for
Speaker 1: my mom's free speech days at University of California, And
Speaker 1: like Man, the.
Speaker 2: Hippies just lost.
Speaker 1: The cult hat devolved into violence, and then we would
Speaker 1: fill again beaten, and everything has just kind of fallen apart.
Speaker 1: It's like we went to Salem, Oregon to hide.
Speaker 2: That was the feeling. I knew it. Then. We were
Speaker 2: going to hide.
Speaker 1: We're going to get on the other side of the mountains,
Speaker 1: to this other part of the world, and we're going
Speaker 1: to be safe from all this madness.
Speaker 3: It's a pretty hard scrabble existence for the family in Salem.
Speaker 3: Mckel and Tony are left on their own a lot
Speaker 3: and there's never enough to eat. On the morning of
Speaker 3: Michel's sixth birthday, when he wakes up, his dad is
Speaker 3: sitting on the edge of his bed.
Speaker 1: So I'd always been told about my dad that, you know,
Speaker 1: he was he left us for a tramp.
Speaker 2: That was the line I'd always heard my mom.
Speaker 1: Dad left us for a tramp, because I guess he'd
Speaker 1: remarried fairly quickly after he and my mom got divorced.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'd always been told what a selfish
Speaker 1: person he was, or how he wasn't there for us,
Speaker 1: or how he'd left us, which is never how I
Speaker 1: felt about him. You know, we would see him when
Speaker 1: we were in Cinna, and he was just the warmest
Speaker 1: guy and the kindest guy, and just this one of
Speaker 1: these guys that when you're around him, you just feel good.
Speaker 1: And you know, we were last key kids with a
Speaker 1: single mom in Salem, Oregon, and it's tough to be
Speaker 1: a single mom anyway.
Speaker 2: But we were broke.
Speaker 1: I mean, we were living on powdered eggs and government
Speaker 1: cheese and we would wait in the food line at
Speaker 1: the church, at the food bank. We were on food
Speaker 1: stamps and just just had no no money or anything.
Speaker 1: And then you know, when you're the child of a
Speaker 1: single mom, particularly you're a boy, you live in this
Speaker 1: like hall of mirrors where there's like everyone says, well,
Speaker 1: you're the man of the house, as if it's this
Speaker 1: good thing, and you're like six, you know.
Speaker 2: You're like, oh cool, I'm not ready for that at all.
Speaker 2: Thanks thanks for letting me know.
Speaker 1: And I think there's this like maternal fantasy of like
Speaker 1: who you're going to become?
Speaker 2: Like are you going to become one of these bad
Speaker 2: men who leave? Or are you going to become like
Speaker 2: one of these good men who are going to stick around?
Speaker 1: And I always remember getting that up so much. It
Speaker 1: was kind of heavy for my mom, it's.
Speaker 2: Probably more than you know. It was really appropriate.
Speaker 1: But you know, we were always around women, so we
Speaker 1: knew the world of women really well. We could hear
Speaker 1: my mom talking to her friends about like she's just
Speaker 1: trying to date someone, just trying to find a good man,
Speaker 1: just trying to have a man around. Just hope this
Speaker 1: one works out, hope this guy is good. And then
Speaker 1: of course my father, who left, was the love.
Speaker 2: Of her life. And we knew the world.
Speaker 1: Of tears and vulnerability and trying to make ends meet.
Speaker 1: And every son, daughter or two of a single mother
Speaker 1: knows this world, right, and that's where we were.
Speaker 2: And then here comes our dad.
Speaker 1: And our dad is like the most masculine, funny guy,
Speaker 1: and he'd flown up from Los Angeles for one day
Speaker 1: for my sixth birthday, and it.
Speaker 2: Was just like magic.
Speaker 1: It was like, oh my god, here's this tall guy.
Speaker 1: I could walk down the street next to him and
Speaker 1: he just felt like having your own private God.
Speaker 2: Like it was just like.
Speaker 1: I've got a Zeus and it's a it's a dad.
Speaker 1: And there was a lot of single mothers and a
Speaker 1: lot of last key kids on our street, and it
Speaker 1: was just like the kids that would like bully us
Speaker 1: and make fun of us.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 1: Was sort of like like slink down a little bit,
Speaker 1: like hello, sir, because we had a dad and he
Speaker 1: could like throw a baseball across the entire you know,
Speaker 1: baseball field, or he could eat a whole pizza or whatever, and.
Speaker 2: He could swear, and he was so good at swearing
Speaker 2: and didn't care about swearing in front of us.
Speaker 1: And this was just like mind blowing to us because
Speaker 1: we just never we'd never been around men. We just
Speaker 1: knew the world of women, and you know, you as
Speaker 1: a boy, like, am I going to become one of
Speaker 1: those things?
Speaker 2: Is that what I'm going to be? And which kind
Speaker 2: of am I going to become?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was very touching the way that you write
Speaker 3: about studying him, trying to memorize him, trying to memorize
Speaker 3: his mustache and memorize his you know, like the width
Speaker 3: of his shoulders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had a walk, he had like a dip
Speaker 2: to his wak.
Speaker 1: You know, he was kind of a beat nick. He
Speaker 1: wasn't quite a hippie, a littler than that, you know,
Speaker 1: but he'd been in jail and out of jail. I'm
Speaker 1: being a professional criminal for a while. But he could dance,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. You know, he had a
Speaker 1: swagger to him, and I had never seen anything like
Speaker 1: this before. And he'd sit down and he'd say these words,
Speaker 1: and he'd be like that asshole Reagan, like he I
Speaker 1: never heard of Reagan refer to anything other than that asshole.
Speaker 1: Like I thought Reagan's first name was that asshole. So
Speaker 1: I was like twelve years old, like it was just
Speaker 1: always that asshole Reagan, that son of a bitch Nixon,
Speaker 1: that fucking carburetor. Like I remember him talking about his
Speaker 1: old truck and I didn't even know what a carburetor was.
Speaker 1: I just would nod my head, be like, that's right, Dad,
Speaker 1: it's the fucking carburetor.
Speaker 3: That's you, and that's the word. And then suddenly that's
Speaker 3: the word for carburetor, right right.
Speaker 1: And I would make it up because you know, you're
Speaker 1: just trying to make up the man you think you're
Speaker 1: going to become at that age. So i'd you'd be like, yeah, listen, mom,
Speaker 1: something's wrong on my skateboard. I think it's the fucking carburetor.
Speaker 1: But you know, you're just inventing. It's trying to imagine
Speaker 1: the men we're going to become as we kind of
Speaker 1: invent them from pieces of the men we have around us.
Speaker 3: And that first, the first visit from your dad was
Speaker 3: it was twenty four hours and then he was gone.
Speaker 3: You woke up the next morning and he was gone,
Speaker 3: and you knew he was going to be gone, so
Speaker 3: you were you were trying to almost sort of imprint,
Speaker 3: you know, like a duckling imprints, you know, sort of
Speaker 3: as much of him on you as you possibly could well.
Speaker 1: Also the other piece of it, he was a warm,
Speaker 1: sunny guy. It's fun to be around, you know. His
Speaker 1: whole life is warm guy, quick with a joke, quick
Speaker 1: with a smile, very empathetic, listens, understands. And my mom
Speaker 1: not a bad person or anything, but just like crippling depression.
Speaker 1: And so she was always in her room. She was
Speaker 1: always reading, she was always sad, she was always crying.
Speaker 2: It was always like we.
Speaker 1: Had to take care and with my dad we could
Speaker 1: just be kids.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back. Later that year, Michel's father calls
Speaker 3: him with a surprise. A woman gets on the phone
Speaker 3: and says, hi, son. Michael recognizes the voice. He recognizes
Speaker 3: being called son. This was someone he knew. This was Bonnie,
Speaker 3: a woman who had been his primary caretaker back at
Speaker 3: the Synanon orphanage in that otherwise dickenziean situation. Bonnie had
Speaker 3: shown Michel love. She would call him son, and he
Speaker 3: had thought of her as his mother more than his
Speaker 3: actual mother. So when his dad calls and Bonnie is
Speaker 3: there with him, Michel happy to hear her voice, but
Speaker 3: he's also very confused as to why she and his
Speaker 3: dad are together.
Speaker 2: It was wild.
Speaker 1: I mean I first of all, the way she says,
Speaker 1: she said hellos thun and that happened to a fair
Speaker 1: mountain Cinna. Onwards, some you know, one or another of
Speaker 1: the kids would become really close with one of the
Speaker 1: or another of the caretakers because he's just, you know,
Speaker 1: a bunch of little orphans performing for their dinner.
Speaker 2: You know, orphans are cute.
Speaker 1: They don't have anybody, and so they try to win
Speaker 1: people over to being their person. That's kind of a
Speaker 1: natural childish instinct. And you know, we could get into
Speaker 1: the psychology of it and how damaging it all this
Speaker 1: there's a reason we always end up as performers. And
Speaker 1: I was close with her, and yeah, so when my
Speaker 1: dad was like, someone here wants to talk to you.
Speaker 1: I just I knew her as well as I knew
Speaker 1: you know, my own voice, and it was Bonnie, and
Speaker 1: I was like, what the hell. So it turned out
Speaker 1: they had started dating and he had moved into with
Speaker 1: her in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: After this phone call, Michael's father becomes more of a
Speaker 3: fixture in his and Tony's life. The boys begin to
Speaker 3: take trips to visit their dad and Bonnie in LA,
Speaker 3: where their life drastically differs from their life back home
Speaker 3: in Salem, Oregon.
Speaker 1: I mean, it couldn't have been more different. Part of
Speaker 1: the issue in Oregons you just didn't have any food.
Speaker 1: My mom wasn't great at sort of material things, and
Speaker 1: the house was often kind of messy and dirty, and
Speaker 1: we didn't have heat some nights in the winter and
Speaker 1: we would have to chop the wood, and if we
Speaker 1: ran out of wood, there would just be no fire,
Speaker 1: no heat, and we'd be under blankets and you could
Speaker 1: see your breath inside the house.
Speaker 2: And the house wasn't even.
Speaker 1: Insulated when we move in, as I recall, and then
Speaker 1: we you know, my mom's boyfriend, Sky Paul, who was
Speaker 1: a great guy but just an absolute drunk, started raising
Speaker 1: rabbits for food, and that's what we ate.
Speaker 2: We ate rabbit meat. Paul. It's like a woodsman.
Speaker 1: But so he yeah, he just he sat us down.
Speaker 1: He's like, all right, we're going to teach you how
Speaker 1: to slaughter. And he taught us how to the step
Speaker 1: by step process of slaughtering rabbits. You know, would breed
Speaker 1: the rabbits and then a big bunch of litters would
Speaker 1: be born, and then you try to time them so
Speaker 1: they're all born around the same time, and then you
Speaker 1: let them grow to a certain age, and then it's
Speaker 1: slaughtering day, and then you slaughter all the rabbits. Then
Speaker 1: you keep them in the fridge, and then you live
Speaker 1: off those rabbits for however many months until the next round.
Speaker 1: And the rough parts were when he would disappear. He
Speaker 1: would go on one of these drinking binges and it
Speaker 1: would be like there's no food, eat, and there was
Speaker 1: nothing to do but slaughter rabbits. And I would be
Speaker 1: like seven years old with a hunting knife, you know,
Speaker 1: cutting the heads off rabbits and pulling the skins off
Speaker 1: and doing all the things you do to feel dress
Speaker 1: to animal.
Speaker 2: And I have all these cuts to this day. I
Speaker 2: have all these scars on.
Speaker 1: My hand on my left hand from where I cut
Speaker 1: into it with the hunting knife because I wasn't that
Speaker 1: adept at it. My mom, who's just God bless her,
Speaker 1: not a very good cook, would try to make The
Speaker 1: worst was like rabbit stew, and she just had no
Speaker 1: idea how to do it. And then the worst part
Speaker 1: was like night two of rabbit stew. It'd be like
Speaker 1: this gamey smell, this gamey smoky smell nows and it
Speaker 1: would have this like thing layer on top. They have
Speaker 1: to skim off, and then night three and then night
Speaker 1: four and we would just have to eat the stew
Speaker 1: until it was gone because we were poor. We didn't
Speaker 1: have any other food. Sometimes I tell these stories and
Speaker 1: like my wife will be like, were you born in
Speaker 1: the twenties, Like what the hell was going on? Like
Speaker 1: I was just something that happened like in the eighties.
Speaker 1: And then when we get to la, I mean, it
Speaker 1: was just like modern day childhood. Like there were you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, microwave burritos, you know, and celery with
Speaker 1: peanut butter, and I don't know, salami ice cream after
Speaker 1: dinner every night, and then they would take us places.
Speaker 1: On weekends, we'd go to Disneyland or go to some
Speaker 1: theme park, or we'd always go on the weekends and
Speaker 1: play baseball with my dad, and then we were all
Speaker 1: together at night. You know, my dad would like to
Speaker 1: watch Dodger games or Laker games, and he'd sit there
Speaker 1: and drink and smoke and just bitch about the Dodgers.
Speaker 1: And we'd sit there and bitch too, and we didn't
Speaker 1: know what we were talking about. Again, we're just kind
Speaker 1: of making it up. But it was just like there
Speaker 1: were there's dis abundance, there's this sense of sort of
Speaker 1: joy and wonder and this feeling like we were safe.
Speaker 1: We weren't just in the middle of somebody else's crisis,
Speaker 1: but we were just kind of taken care.
Speaker 2: Of and it was fine.
Speaker 3: But things continue to be not fine. Back in Oregon,
Speaker 3: McKell and his brother continue to be hungry, their mom
Speaker 3: continues to be depressed. Paul continues to disappear. The boys
Speaker 3: are going to school, to a real regular school for
Speaker 3: the first time, but they feel generally disconnected from their classmates,
Speaker 3: who have no idea what they're going through at home.
Speaker 1: We'd go from these incredibly emotionally tense situations, and then
Speaker 1: to go to school and just be expected to do
Speaker 1: math was weird. And then also just being hungry, which
Speaker 1: I think a lot of kids, unfortunately in the MONOWORLK
Speaker 1: can relate to trying to go to school while hungry.
Speaker 1: We definitely were hungry at school. Hearing about how my
Speaker 1: peers went through their lives. I guess it was different
Speaker 1: because my days were just different from theirs. But at
Speaker 1: the time, I don't know. I think we just thought.
Speaker 1: I just knew there was this sad woman. It was
Speaker 1: my job to take care of her, and because she
Speaker 1: always told me that was my job, of boys.
Speaker 2: Job to take care of her mother. And my brother
Speaker 2: was just angry.
Speaker 1: He was one of these like kind of lost kids
Speaker 1: that hated all adults, and probably for a good reason
Speaker 1: because he had been hurt by a lot of adults.
Speaker 1: And I was a very capable kid, I guess, and
Speaker 1: took on the role of a super child. You know,
Speaker 1: different families under stress take on these predictable roles, and
Speaker 1: there's like the scapegoat child and the super child and
Speaker 1: the mascot child or whatever. And I was just the
Speaker 1: one that was trying to I would chop the wood
Speaker 1: in the back and slaughter the rabbits and try to
Speaker 1: get my mom, you know, feeling okay about her life,
Speaker 1: and then fill in for whatever my stepdad wasn't doing,
Speaker 1: and then try to calm my brother down so it
Speaker 1: wasn't too pissed to go to school and just try
Speaker 1: to take it all on and make sure everyone was okay, which,
Speaker 1: in retrospect, probably my brother's way of handling it might
Speaker 1: have been more healthy.
Speaker 2: He was just understandably pissed.
Speaker 1: In addition to all this stuff, there was this kind
Speaker 1: of sense that my mom knew our lives better than
Speaker 1: we and would tell us and I would say something like, Mom,
Speaker 1: I'm sad, and she'd say, no, you're not, You're happier
Speaker 1: with your mother. And this happened with when the men
Speaker 1: from Senning On came and beat Phil up and I
Speaker 1: had nightmares. I wet the bed after that, as kids
Speaker 1: often do after traumatic experiences, and had a bunch of nightmares,
Speaker 1: and that every sign in modern world, you'd be like,
Speaker 1: this kid is PTSD, like I know it now. At
Speaker 1: the time, we never saw a counselor. I didn't No
Speaker 1: one ever thought like how what our experience was like?
Speaker 1: We were just kind of these ancillary things to our parents' stories. Really,
Speaker 1: that's how it felt. And you know when when Phil
Speaker 1: got beat up and I would tell her I was
Speaker 1: scared because the bad men were going to come, and
Speaker 1: she would say, well, you weren't even there, and I'd say, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was there. I watched from the porch. She screamed,
Speaker 1: we caught eyes. It was I was in She say, no,
Speaker 1: you weren't, and it was almost like she couldn't, she
Speaker 1: couldn't piece it together. And I didn't know what to
Speaker 1: do with this. As a kid, there was like mom's reality,
Speaker 1: and there was reality, and then there was synonyms reality,
Speaker 1: then there was the reality of the world.
Speaker 2: And I was like this precocious kid just.
Speaker 1: Being told by her constantly what reality was and it
Speaker 1: didn't match my experience. But I knew enough to tell
Speaker 1: her she was.
Speaker 3: Right, because you needed to do that to survive.
Speaker 2: I had to have a caretaker, right, Yeah, I was
Speaker 2: a kid. Kids are trying to get their needs met.
Speaker 1: You know, we have the emotional makeup of orphans, and
Speaker 1: we certainly lived that way for our first five years.
Speaker 1: And so it's like you just learned to perform. You're
Speaker 1: just you're not enough. Nothing you do is enough. You're
Speaker 1: not loved because you're loved. You're loved because you're special
Speaker 1: in some way, and you have to prove constantly that
Speaker 1: you're special to everyone, because that's what you're taught at
Speaker 1: a young age is the only way you're ever going
Speaker 1: to get any of your needs met.
Speaker 2: And that's how I responded to her.
Speaker 3: As Michel's sense of reality is constantly being questioned by
Speaker 3: his mom, there's also the ongoing drama of his mom's
Speaker 3: relationship with Paul. Paul goes out on benders, then they
Speaker 3: break up, then they get back together, over and over again.
Speaker 3: They get married, and this rhythm continues and somehow lending
Speaker 3: a fragile sense of support to all This is the
Speaker 3: language of twelve step recovery. The Serenity prayer is on
Speaker 3: the wall. Phrases like let go and let God are
Speaker 3: in regular rotation. Mickel absorbs some of this and even
Speaker 3: tries comforting his mother by saying things like it's the
Speaker 3: disease talking or one day at a time. Then Paul disappears,
Speaker 3: and this time he doesn't return. Michel's mother informs him
Speaker 3: in a very matter of fact, almost casual way that
Speaker 3: Paul has died, but then she back pedals and says
Speaker 3: she thinks Paul is dead. This is extremely sad and
Speaker 3: perplexing to Michel, not only the news of the loss,
Speaker 3: but the mixed messages and the manner in which the
Speaker 3: news is delivered.
Speaker 1: She just kind of mentioned in passing, like he's dead,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what, wait, can we Paul? And
Speaker 1: then it was like past the potatoes, Like it was
Speaker 1: just like the next line, you know, there was no
Speaker 1: there was no acknowledgment.
Speaker 2: There was though, like are we gonna grieve him somehow?
Speaker 1: We're gonna have this be a sit down. It's just
Speaker 1: gonna at least be a big talk. It wasn't even that.
Speaker 2: It was just this passing thing. And then when I
Speaker 2: was like, well, should we go look for him?
Speaker 1: Should we find it because she had said he disappeared
Speaker 1: while drinking and everyone thinks he's probably dead or maybe
Speaker 1: he isn't you know, she backtracked a little and made
Speaker 1: it kind of age and I was just like, let's
Speaker 1: go figure this out. This is my guy, you know,
Speaker 1: we gotta find him. And she said why you guys
Speaker 1: were never close, and it was like she just invented wholesale,
Speaker 1: this new reality on the spot on the spot, and
Speaker 1: it was so confusing because I knew in my heart
Speaker 1: like I was crushed by this news, and I was
Speaker 1: so sad. Paul was just he'd watch cartoons with us,
Speaker 1: and he'd take us fishing, and he'd make jokes with us,
Speaker 1: and he would talk to me about problems. You know,
Speaker 1: if I got in a fight with a friend, he'd say, well,
Speaker 1: there's your buddy, and you got to resolve it in
Speaker 1: this way, and you got any He listened to us,
Speaker 1: you know. And my mom, despite all of her very
Speaker 1: very intelligent woman and thousands of books about psychology whatnot.
Speaker 1: I mean, we never got to bedtime story once ever
Speaker 1: in our lives. We never had any sense that our
Speaker 1: sort of day and any kind of schedule to it.
Speaker 1: There was no rhythm, there was no boundaries, there was
Speaker 1: no you know, all the things that in the modern
Speaker 1: world we say like this is what constitutes good parenting, right, and.
Speaker 2: He actually had some of that stuff down.
Speaker 1: He was empathetic and he listened, he was warm, and
Speaker 1: he was this broken guy, but he just loved us
Speaker 1: and he was good with us in that way, just
Speaker 1: kind of like I almost saw him as like a
Speaker 1: really nice older brother, uncle or something. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I ever saw him particularly as a father, but
Speaker 1: I definitely loved him. I would find myself one to
Speaker 1: go down to the banks over the West Saland Bridge
Speaker 1: over the Willamette River, because that's where he would take
Speaker 1: us fishing, and I'd go looking for him because I
Speaker 1: knew he'd go drinking down there. Sometimes I never found him,
Speaker 1: you know, he was just gone. I never I never
Speaker 1: saw him again. And He's a guy wh'd live with us,
Speaker 1: and I'd seen him, you know, every day since I
Speaker 1: was six years old, when I was in Oregon, and
Speaker 1: then one day he's just gone, and that was that.
Speaker 3: By the time Mickel is eleven, he's living alone with
Speaker 3: his mom. Of course, Paul is gone, and now his
Speaker 3: brother Tony, he has gone too. Tony's anger has spiraled
Speaker 3: out of control and he's become unruly, so the family
Speaker 3: decides his father might be able to straighten him out
Speaker 3: in la This leaves Michel to do what he's always done,
Speaker 3: but on hyperdrive. He is, for better or worse, the
Speaker 3: proverbial man of the house. After all, he's been told
Speaker 3: again and again that a boy's job is to take
Speaker 3: care of his mother, you know.
Speaker 1: And I did three hours of chores before school, two
Speaker 1: hours of chores after school every day, taking care of
Speaker 1: rabbits and chopping wood and taking care of the house
Speaker 1: in all these different ways.
Speaker 2: In some ways it.
Speaker 1: Probably taught me a work ethic that has served me
Speaker 1: really well. In other ways, it was probably a little much.
Speaker 3: Then your mother starts dating again and this man named
Speaker 3: Doug enters the picture.
Speaker 2: Doug was no Paul like Paul was funny.
Speaker 1: He watched cartoons in his underwear and it was just
Speaker 1: this like weird dude that we could get down with them.
Speaker 1: My dad hilarious, you know, had done time in prison,
Speaker 1: you know, ex heroinautic, charismatic is all shit.
Speaker 2: And he was. He was clean, sober, you.
Speaker 1: Know, for the most part at that point, and a
Speaker 1: really good guy and of good dad.
Speaker 2: But he had soul, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: He liked music, and he liked and he could like
Speaker 1: people from all walks of life, and in walks this
Speaker 1: guy Doug, who's just like, Wow, your mother and I
Speaker 1: are having a very important talk with you now, and
Speaker 1: we want to have this talk with you that to
Speaker 1: make sure that you understand the rules in this house.
Speaker 2: And I was like, who the fuck is this dude?
Speaker 1: Who's this guy that suddenly shows up in my house
Speaker 1: and is telling me how to live and what to do?
Speaker 2: And he was weird.
Speaker 1: He was like a really odd cadence to his speech.
Speaker 1: He always wanted you to kind of like agree with him.
Speaker 1: You take these pauses, these really long pauses as he
Speaker 1: answered questions for you, like and then he'd say trust
Speaker 1: and he'd go off and some other tangent and you know,
Speaker 1: he'd he'd go to a restaurant order like oatmeal with raisins.
Speaker 2: It was just weird, like and then he was also
Speaker 2: just abusive. He was just he would he would like disappear.
Speaker 2: My mom would come home and he just he'd be gone.
Speaker 1: He like moved out all of his stuff, Like he'd
Speaker 1: move in and then.
Speaker 2: He'd move out, and he moved in. He moved in
Speaker 2: and moved out.
Speaker 1: Like four different times in the span of I want
Speaker 1: to say, like a year and a half. And it
Speaker 1: was just all very confusing and strange. There had been
Speaker 1: a while where he, you know, he always wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure I knew he was bigger than me, and
Speaker 1: he would you know, hit my dog. I remember him,
Speaker 1: like my dog pooped on the stairs or something. We
Speaker 1: had this dog, this great labrador that we need more,
Speaker 1: and we never.
Speaker 2: Hit the dog. We just kind of told them to
Speaker 2: stop pooping places or whatever.
Speaker 1: He'd tower over me when I would talk back to
Speaker 1: my mom, sort of like trying to physically intimidate me.
Speaker 1: And also they just didn't care about my life. Like
Speaker 1: I was going to school and doing all these chores
Speaker 1: and working and stuff. And then I was on the
Speaker 1: relay team of the track team for my elementary school.
Speaker 1: I had a little relay thing, and they never came
Speaker 1: to anything. They just kind of had their own lives
Speaker 1: and it was like they were just kind of checked out.
Speaker 1: And then one day my mom says something about sports
Speaker 1: and I was like, sports are cool, mom, and she's like, no,
Speaker 1: they're not.
Speaker 2: It's just you know alpha.
Speaker 1: I was trying to prove alpha they are and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, that's stupid. It's how hard you work,
Speaker 1: and it's the camaraderie and it's I like sports mom.
Speaker 1: And then she said something and was I think I
Speaker 1: called her a bitch. I was like, don't be a
Speaker 1: bitch or something, and then he got got up. He
Speaker 1: was really mad, like don't you call your mother a bitch?
Speaker 1: And he pinned me down and just like knocked me
Speaker 1: one across the mouth. Had never had anything like that
Speaker 1: happened to me. And he put his finger in my face,
Speaker 1: and I can remember, like literally the spit in his
Speaker 1: mouth is.
Speaker 2: He's like, don't you ever touch your mother that way?
Speaker 2: Not in my house or something like that.
Speaker 1: It was all this kind of like control stuff, like
Speaker 1: he was the man I was supposed to listen to him,
Speaker 1: and I was like, ashole, you moved out four times,
Speaker 1: like what arem I.
Speaker 2: Supposed to listen to you? Of course my reaction. I
Speaker 2: think he thought I would sort of cower away and
Speaker 2: be intimidated by him or something. Instead, I just like
Speaker 2: stood up and I was like.
Speaker 1: My Dad's gonna beat the shit out of you. I
Speaker 1: was so mad and just so certain that like this
Speaker 1: guy wasn't worth, wasn't worth anything, and just trifling.
Speaker 2: So I got on my bike and I ran away.
Speaker 1: It was like nighttime, and I just went and stood
Speaker 1: on the on the bridge over in the Willamotte River,
Speaker 1: and I just felt such a sense of aloneness. And
Speaker 1: I went down to the banks and I was looking
Speaker 1: for my step dad who had been dead, and I
Speaker 1: wish I could call or talk to or be around
Speaker 1: my dad and Bonnie, and you know, it just felt
Speaker 1: like I just had no people, you know, that feeling
Speaker 1: like there's just no one in the world that gives
Speaker 1: a shit about me at all. And the synanon, you know,
Speaker 1: was bad in its own way, and then in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways, this was worse. My story has like
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, there's prison and drug addicts
Speaker 1: and people dying and all these cults, and there's all
Speaker 1: this stuff that's really you know, kind of like sounds
Speaker 1: really sexy and big, but like what's hard about being
Speaker 1: a kid is being alone. And that's that's true for
Speaker 1: a lot of kids, to just feel like you don't
Speaker 1: have people that are that are on your side. You know.
Speaker 1: He eventually apologized, but I at that point I was
Speaker 1: just o it, you know, it just didn't want to
Speaker 1: be wrong. So then I went to Los Angeles for
Speaker 1: the summer, and at the end of the summer got
Speaker 1: to talking with them about staying and going to school.
Speaker 1: We had sort of made the decision, my dad and
Speaker 1: Bonnie and I that I was going to stay there.
Speaker 2: And that we had to go and call my mom.
Speaker 2: It was like I knew I was breaking a rule.
Speaker 1: I knew that telling her that I'm going to go
Speaker 1: live in this other place was an absolute apostacy that
Speaker 1: went against everything I was ever ever been told about
Speaker 1: what I was supposed to do with my life, which
Speaker 1: was to take care of her. And it's almost like
Speaker 1: I surprised her. And again, these things were never said
Speaker 1: out loud. It was just kind of something I.
Speaker 3: Knew, and she basically said to you, one year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was one year.
Speaker 1: I think the rationale was I needed I was becoming
Speaker 1: a teenager and I needed to get to know my dad,
Speaker 1: and so we were going to spend one year in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, you know, getting to know my dad.
Speaker 3: Will be back in a moment with more family seeks.
Speaker 3: Michel starts a new life in a new school. He's
Speaker 3: a talented runner and he gets on the track team.
Speaker 3: He's at a true inflection point, one of those moments
Speaker 3: in life where things can go in any number of
Speaker 3: different directions. His time with his dad is vitally important
Speaker 3: to him. He's a jolay Man, part of a lineage
Speaker 3: of Joe Laymen, and he's trying to figure out for
Speaker 3: himself what this means.
Speaker 1: My dad was big on betting the ponies, and he
Speaker 1: would like to take us to Hollywood Park. I learned
Speaker 1: fractions at Hollywood Park by learning betting on at a
Speaker 1: young agent, and so we would go there sometimes and
Speaker 1: have these big talks.
Speaker 2: And I'd fallen in with these kids.
Speaker 1: And we were sneaking out at night and doing drugs
Speaker 1: and drinking and ditching school. And I was getting really
Speaker 1: bad grades. And my brother was doing at this point
Speaker 1: already cocaine, p CP acid. He was drinking every single night,
Speaker 1: and a bunch of stuff had gone down with him
Speaker 1: where he'd been arrested and cops were after him and
Speaker 1: he left the house. And then we found out he'd
Speaker 1: missed school for six months straight and eventually he got
Speaker 1: shipped off to rehab. And it all kind of scared me,
Speaker 1: and I didn't want to go down that path. And
Speaker 1: I saw that my brother was going down this path,
Speaker 1: and I was I was going down that path. That
Speaker 1: was part of this little, you know, skate gang. You know,
Speaker 1: we'd hit up on walls and egg buses and just
Speaker 1: be little shitty skaters that weren't really going anywhere, just
Speaker 1: kind of burnout. So we thought we were cool, but
Speaker 1: we knew we weren't really going anywhere, and that.
Speaker 2: Was kind of the point.
Speaker 1: And I saw this thing happening and my brother, and
Speaker 1: I was just like, I want out of this, and
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do. So my dad took
Speaker 1: me to Hollywood Park and were sitting up in the
Speaker 1: stands and I told him all about it, and I
Speaker 1: was like, Dad, I just want to get out of this.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do. He turned to me
Speaker 1: and he was just like, you know, you're a smart kid.
Speaker 1: You don't you don't have to do any of this
Speaker 1: stuff that I did. He would tell these charming stories
Speaker 1: about prison. You know, they were kind of fun. He
Speaker 1: was never shy by it, but he kind of leveled
Speaker 1: with me and he was like, listen, I tell you
Speaker 1: all these stories are kind of funny, but it's terrible.
Speaker 1: Being an addict is terrible. Going to jail is terrible. Like,
Speaker 1: I wish I could have done what you have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to do. I wish I had your chance. And
Speaker 1: he said, don't do what I did. Go do something better,
Speaker 1: Go make something of your life. You're a smart kid.
Speaker 1: And you can go do anything you want. And I
Speaker 1: wish somebody had told me that at your age. But
Speaker 1: you know, he never knew his dad. He's like, there
Speaker 1: wasn't anyone to tell me. I mean, I guess he
Speaker 1: knew him, but I didn't know him well. So I
Speaker 1: took it to heart. And you know, Bonnie was involved
Speaker 1: in this as well, and I.
Speaker 2: Just started trying in school.
Speaker 1: It was weird, like I'd never tried before, and I
Speaker 1: just started trying and lo and behold what was good
Speaker 1: at it? And I liked it. Like I literally didn't
Speaker 1: know what it meant to study. No one told me
Speaker 1: what how to study. No one pulled me aside and like,
Speaker 1: read your book and take notes on it. What does
Speaker 1: that even mean?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Someone taught me how to do it. One day I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, so just this and memorize these facts,
Speaker 1: like yeah, So I started doing that and found out
Speaker 1: I really took to it. It was something I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed and I was good at it, and I was surprised.
Speaker 1: It was like the biggest shock of my life to
Speaker 1: realize that I liked school.
Speaker 3: Mckel is so good in school that he's accepted to
Speaker 3: Stanford University, one of the best institutions of higher learning
Speaker 3: in the country. It's a beautiful campus, a place of
Speaker 3: privilege and opportunity, But mckel doesn't feel exactly at home there.
Speaker 3: He's on scholarship, and while he's no longer the child
Speaker 3: skinning rabbits in the backyard, he knows he was that child,
Speaker 3: and knows that his classmates were not those familiar feelings
Speaker 3: of a loneeness and attachment creep back in.
Speaker 1: I think I didn't feel it as much in high school,
Speaker 1: this sense of alienation I felt in college because I
Speaker 1: went to this LA public school and a lot of
Speaker 1: the kids that I was really good friends with, they
Speaker 1: were trying to do what I was trying to do.
Speaker 1: They were trying to get out, you know, And there
Speaker 1: was you know, we certainly had different experiences because of race,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, I have white privilege, that had
Speaker 1: white privilege still have it that they didn't have, and
Speaker 1: all that. But in so far as like a dad
Speaker 1: who had been in prison, no one ever made it
Speaker 1: past eighth grade.
Speaker 2: Let's study hard and get the fuck out of this place.
Speaker 1: That was That was a shared feeling among a lot
Speaker 1: of my peers, most of them were black, and there
Speaker 1: was a lot of white kids too, but they kind
Speaker 1: of had a more suburban experience at the school, I
Speaker 1: would say. And so getting to college it was wild
Speaker 1: because I think I was just I'd never been around
Speaker 1: like rich people. I remember there was like orientation week,
Speaker 1: and there was like the Black Student Union lunch, and
Speaker 1: the Native American lunch, and the Meta lunch and the
Speaker 1: Asian Pacific Islander lunch, and then there.
Speaker 2: Was just lunch.
Speaker 1: Like I just went to lunch and like lunch mayor,
Speaker 1: but I was been called like white lunch, So I
Speaker 1: went to white lunch, and because that's how all that
Speaker 1: was left. And I'd sit like across from a kid
Speaker 1: from like New Hampshire Prep school and like a game
Speaker 1: hat and just had like nothing in common with these kids.
Speaker 1: What was bizarre to me was I think in their eyes,
Speaker 1: I came up lacking that, like I didn't know the language,
Speaker 1: and some of it was I later learned was kind
Speaker 1: of like the language of wealth. I's like, why aren't
Speaker 1: my jokes landing? And I think they kind of looked
Speaker 1: down at me a little bit.
Speaker 3: You also learned to leave really significant parts of your
Speaker 3: history and your story and your family out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for many years at that point, stopped telling
Speaker 1: any of the stories about sennin On and any stories
Speaker 1: about my early childhood and cause you just you get
Speaker 1: sick of like people looking at you funny. You know,
Speaker 1: I still don't like it. I still don't love being introduced,
Speaker 1: even like if I'm doing a piece of media or
Speaker 1: something and someone's like, well, Michael Julai was born in
Speaker 1: a cule called cinema, and I want to feel like
Speaker 1: that was my parents' decision.
Speaker 2: I feel immediately kind.
Speaker 1: Of defensive, like I don't want to be branded as
Speaker 1: some like someone who's had some like experience that nobody
Speaker 1: can relate to, and therefore I'm going to be strange
Speaker 1: and broken in some way, which ultimately I probably am
Speaker 1: strange and broken in some ways, but just maybe not
Speaker 1: in the ways people expect, you know, and spent a
Speaker 1: lot of years trying to not be strange and broken
Speaker 1: and trying to have more empathy. I mean some ways,
Speaker 1: I think these really hard things that happened to you
Speaker 1: they sort of like create a crack where you're able
Speaker 1: to have more empathy than others and maybe see things
Speaker 1: others can't because you've just been through some really really
Speaker 1: awful shit, and especially as an artist, it creates an
Speaker 1: empathy and an eye and an ability to connect that
Speaker 1: maybe other people don't have. But you know, at nineteen
Speaker 1: years old at Stanford University, I didn't understand any of that.
Speaker 1: I just felt alienated and I knew I was not
Speaker 1: bringing up, you know, the cult I was born. And
Speaker 1: I knew I wasn't bringing up my dad had been
Speaker 1: in prison. I knew I wasn't bringing up like my
Speaker 1: mentally ill mom, or my stepfather had died, or people
Speaker 1: have been beaten in front of me, or my drug
Speaker 1: addic brother, any of that stuff. I just knew, you know,
Speaker 1: stick to like, you know, what your college essay was about,
Speaker 1: and what are you majoring in? And what bands do
Speaker 1: you like? And you know, with sports do you like whatever,
Speaker 1: just and eventually learn to just create a very highly
Speaker 1: curated mask for the world. We've all learned to do
Speaker 1: that to some extent. And I think for me at
Speaker 1: that point that I was too scared to show any
Speaker 1: other part of who I was to the world.
Speaker 3: As Michel navigates his way through college, he takes psychology
Speaker 3: courses which end up educating and even enlightening him. About
Speaker 3: his own life. In one of his textbooks, he comes
Speaker 3: across Synanon. Up until this point, he hadn't understood that
Speaker 3: this cult was famous. He recognizes his mother in some
Speaker 3: of the psychology books too. He'd always known she struggled
Speaker 3: with her mental health, but it isn't until now that
Speaker 3: he realizes the scope of it all. She's not just
Speaker 3: a troubled woman with a tenuous grasp on reality. No,
Speaker 3: she has what's called NPD and BPD, narcissistic personality disorder
Speaker 3: and borderline personality disorder, very real afflictions that are difficult
Speaker 3: to treat and have led her to behave in the
Speaker 3: ways she has. She has, of course left her mark
Speaker 3: upon Mckel. A ripple effect of their shared history. Michel
Speaker 3: suffers from an inability to connect with others, to really
Speaker 3: let them in. That's when he discovers that he has
Speaker 3: a disorder of his own, attachment disorder. Unlocking this language
Speaker 3: and knowledge is pivotal in Michel's journey toward understanding his
Speaker 3: relationship with his mother and with himself.
Speaker 1: I think part of the problem, I think is that
Speaker 1: we don't really as society have a language for narcissistic personality. Disorder,
Speaker 1: like we have language for depression and schizophrenia and addiction
Speaker 1: and anxiety and ADHD, and we're just now starting, like
Speaker 1: in the last few years, to have a language around
Speaker 1: MPD and borderline personality disorder, which are closely related and
Speaker 1: they're fairly common, and they create relationships without love, without empathy,
Speaker 1: but we don't really talk about it, and so.
Speaker 2: I didn't really understand what it was.
Speaker 1: All I knew was my mother constantly cross boundaries, knew
Speaker 1: get a difficult grasp on reality, and I was uncomfortable
Speaker 1: in her presence, which was enough for me to kind
Speaker 1: of cut off contact with her. Around like nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: years old. I stopped talking to her because I was
Speaker 1: just suddenly so mad at her, and I couldn't even explain.
Speaker 2: I couldn't even tell you why.
Speaker 1: At the time that happened, I went to visit her
Speaker 1: at this treatment center where she had checked herself into,
Speaker 1: and someone had mentioned emotional abuse and the emotional abuse
Speaker 1: of children, and I realized that they were talking about
Speaker 1: her and how she cheated us, and it just kind
Speaker 1: of hit me so hard that this was true, and
Speaker 1: I was so incredibly angry about it, you know, And
Speaker 1: then over time, you sustain these wounds yourself. You realize
Speaker 1: eventually that you whatever damage was done to you as
Speaker 1: a kid, it's if you want to live your own life,
Speaker 1: you have to try to fix it yourself, right, even
Speaker 1: if it's not your fault, it's your responsibility, I guess.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I noticed as I got older,
Speaker 1: I was having a real hard time with relationships that
Speaker 1: I just I just couldn't I you know, things would
Speaker 1: fizzle out or I would always have like one foot
Speaker 1: out the door.
Speaker 2: And I was noticing friends, you know, as I got older, like.
Speaker 1: Getting married and moving on, and a lot of stories,
Speaker 1: you know, people who write about their lives end with
Speaker 1: like and then it all worked out, And I really
Speaker 1: wanted to get into like, here's the wreckage. I really
Speaker 1: wanted to speak honestly about the wreckage in my life.
Speaker 1: And the recage was I knew I had an attachment disorder.
Speaker 1: I knew it was because I'd been an orphan, and
Speaker 1: I knew it took a really long time to get
Speaker 1: out of that. And I knew my mother was mentally
Speaker 1: ill and have all the things that to talk about publicly,
Speaker 1: that's probably the hardest one being born and cult. All right,
Speaker 1: you feel a little weird, but it's still kind of like, WHOA,
Speaker 1: what happened there? The alcoholism or the drug addiction that
Speaker 1: runs in my family. Being able to really not be
Speaker 1: part of that, that's almost a credit to me. There's
Speaker 1: this other feeling talking about, wow, I couldn't really be
Speaker 1: in a relationship that feels more like shame and harassmith
Speaker 1: maybe like fear that something's fundamentally wrong with me that
Speaker 1: it took me a long time to really come to
Speaker 1: terms with, to feel like, you know, not so defensive
Speaker 1: about because you feel like you have to guard it
Speaker 1: the way like a boxer will guard a broken rib
Speaker 1: and a fight or something like this is your vulnerability point.
Speaker 1: But like what I know now, You know, having gone
Speaker 1: through work with like a really good therapist five years
Speaker 1: on the couch twice a week, we got through all
Speaker 1: this stuff and spend a lot of time kind of
Speaker 1: leaning into the discomfort that you just kind of have
Speaker 1: to go into that discomfort and you have to learn
Speaker 1: to be okay with it, and then it starts to
Speaker 1: not have so much control over you, and you very
Speaker 1: slowly start to learn how to make new choices and
Speaker 1: to see situations in different ways and eventually get to
Speaker 1: the other side of it and feel like you're a
Speaker 1: person who can love and be loved and have a real.
Speaker 2: Relationship in your life.
Speaker 1: And it's ironic because it's like the thing you don't
Speaker 1: want to do is acknowledge that you're sort of fundamentally
Speaker 1: flawed some way, and you feel defensive about it and
Speaker 1: defensive and like you don't want to talk about it
Speaker 1: or think about it. But it's that very thing that
Speaker 1: you don't want to talk about that is the key
Speaker 1: to having it and not control your life.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad you said that. I mean, that's so
Speaker 3: exactly right. One of the most moving and triumphant parts
Speaker 3: of Michel's story is that he has become a person
Speaker 3: who can have real and loving relationships. He's happily married,
Speaker 3: he's a dad to two kids. He has a robust
Speaker 3: career as a musician and writer, which allows so many
Speaker 3: to love and celebrate him too.
Speaker 1: I have been with my wife ten years next year,
Speaker 1: and we have two beautiful children who I love more
Speaker 1: than life itself. And I'm really happy to say we
Speaker 1: have a happy little house, a.
Speaker 2: Happy little home.
Speaker 1: I'm my first job in the world is to be
Speaker 1: a husband and father, and I take that job very seriously.
Speaker 1: It's also my favorite job and kind of everything starts
Speaker 1: from there these days for me. That that's that's always
Speaker 1: my first priority in the primary in my mind is
Speaker 1: making sure that we're our relationships are.
Speaker 2: Strong, and our kids are taken care of.
Speaker 1: And when my son was born, I remember at six
Speaker 1: months old thinking like, wow, this is the age we
Speaker 1: were given to strangers. And it's like it didn't quite
Speaker 1: cross my mind as a kid how monstrous that was.
Speaker 1: I didn't know, But as a parent, I just was
Speaker 1: appalled by, like this horrific thing that. So I'm going
Speaker 1: to take this child that all I think about is
Speaker 1: how he's not going to I don't want him to
Speaker 1: bump his head, you know.
Speaker 2: I don't want him to.
Speaker 1: Grab a knife. I don't want him to fall over,
Speaker 1: you know. I just want to protect him and love him,
Speaker 1: make sure he's safe. And we're going to give him
Speaker 1: to a stranger now, and I'm not going to see
Speaker 1: him for years. I'm not going to know who he's
Speaker 1: with and what he's doing. Like I can't imagine doing
Speaker 1: that for an afternoon, let alone for weeks, months, years,
Speaker 1: at a time, and so it occurred to me like
Speaker 1: the real violence of Synanon. There was some violent acts,
Speaker 1: but you know, as cults goo, it wasn't like Waco
Speaker 1: or something. It wasn't you know, Branch Davidians, wasn't People's Temple.
Speaker 1: There's some very violent cults out there where people fully died.
Speaker 1: That didn't really happen in center On's case. It was
Speaker 1: like an emotional violence. And I would say the victims,
Speaker 1: the prime victims of that emotional violence were the children.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of like the big ugly secret of
Speaker 1: center On is that the children were all turned into
Speaker 1: these people with these attachment disorders and murky relationships and
Speaker 1: a lifetime of trying to figure out why they feel.
Speaker 2: So alienated from the world.
Speaker 1: And then in my career, yeah, so a writer, I
Speaker 1: was on NPR for a while, I was editor of
Speaker 1: a music magazine called Filters, editor at large Ment health magazine.
Speaker 1: I met a drummer and I decided to start a
Speaker 1: rock band.
Speaker 2: You know, music was a big part.
Speaker 1: Of my life growing up and making me feel like
Speaker 1: the weirdness and alienation I felt wasn't something that only
Speaker 1: I felt. And I'd spent a lot of time listening
Speaker 1: to things like The Cure and the Smiths and feeling
Speaker 1: like there were other people out there who had gone
Speaker 1: through similar journey and that meant everything to me at
Speaker 1: that age. And I grew up with that feeling, relating
Speaker 1: to music so hard, and then eventually he was writing
Speaker 1: songs in my spare time, and then eventually decided I
Speaker 1: wanted to make it my purpose in life to be
Speaker 1: a songwriter and document my journey through the world and
Speaker 1: a spiritual, emotional, psychological journey through the world through songs.
Speaker 1: So I've been doing that with the band for about
Speaker 1: fifteen years, and it's.
Speaker 2: Been wicked fun.
Speaker 1: It's been great touring the world and playing big concerts
Speaker 1: and having these big, overwhelming celebrations, which is what a
Speaker 1: concert is all the time.
Speaker 3: Here's Michel reading one last passage from his powerful memoir
Speaker 3: Hollywood Park.
Speaker 1: Eventually the landscape begins to make sense, and I learned
Speaker 1: where the pitfalls are. Here's a mountain of fear over
Speaker 1: there as a river of regret down there is a
Speaker 1: swamp of shame next to it, metow of hope.
Speaker 2: Travel with care.
Speaker 1: It takes time, but I learned to laugh at myself,
Speaker 1: to tolerate discomfort, to accept these things that were once
Speaker 1: so hard to accept. It's not easy. I get depressed,
Speaker 1: I get anxious about it. I learned to just sit
Speaker 1: with it. That the thing Dad always told me about
Speaker 1: acceptance and heartache was true. Sometimes you just have to
Speaker 1: sit on your hands and hurt. What can I say?
Speaker 1: It was uncomfortable, and it took years, and it was
Speaker 1: the only way to change.
Speaker 3: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly's Acre is
Speaker 3: the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.
Speaker 3: If you have a family secret you'd like to share,
Speaker 3: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear
Speaker 3: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight
Speaker 3: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also
Speaker 3: find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder and if you'd
Speaker 3: like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast,
Speaker 3: check out my memoir Inheritance. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 3: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 3: to your favorite shows.