WEBVTT - Somebody’s Daughter 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.000 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. This 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:08.760 episode contains descriptions of sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.600 The easiest way for a child to lose their seat 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:20.560 at the adult table is to speak. If no one 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:23.759 hears your voice for long enough, they forget you're there. 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:28.560 They let things slip, They say things they wouldn't normally 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:31.840 say in front of a child. Even the adults who 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:35.480 noticed and remember your presence will simply point a finger 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:39.840 in your direction and make direct eye contact. You better 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:46.400 not repeat any of this you hear. That's Ashley Seaford, 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:51.520 author of the memoir Somebody's Daughter. Ashley's is a story 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:54.800 of generational trauma and the ways our lives can be 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.120 shaped by what we do not yet know. It's also 0:00:58.280 --> 0:01:01.760 a story of tremendous rise lands and the capacity to 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:17.640 turn what is most difficult into art. I'm Danny Shapiro, 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.840 and this is family Secrets. The secrets that are kept 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.600 from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:34.360 secrets we keep from ourselves. The landscape of my childhood 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:43.600 is sort of as deceptively flat as Indiana. Indiana is 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.280 thought of as a very flat state, and I get 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.960 at I mean, whenever I take a road trip anywhere, 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:53.960 I can tell I'm somewhere else when it starts to 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:59.400 be visibly hilly or mountainous. But it's also a deception 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:02.960 because as there's a lot going on on the ground 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:07.280 in Indiana, and so no place is actually very flat, 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.680 things are growing in the places that other people would 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:17.720 call flat. And I think that my childhood was similarly 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.680 that way. I think it looked like I was having 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:28.320 a very normal experience and I was having within myself 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:33.480 something a lot more mountainous. Mm hmm. I love the 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:36.360 way you put that, So let's talk a little bit 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:41.280 about that inner mountainous terrain. Describe your mother for me. 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:46.400 The mother of your childhood, the mother of my childhood 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:52.840 is beautiful. She's my whole world in a lot of respects, 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:59.880 as most people's mothers are. She is both loving and volatile. 0:03:00.680 --> 0:03:05.679 She is as charming in the world as she can 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:10.760 be full of rage in the home. She is young, 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:15.400 younger than I think it's possible to realize as a 0:03:15.520 --> 0:03:19.200 child when she had you. How old was she one? 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:28.120 I cannot imagine. I cannot imagine being a parent at 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:33.639 a married parent at one, and then very quickly becoming, 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:40.720 you know, a single mom of two at Ashley's mom 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.640 became a single parent at Ashley and her younger brother 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:49.120 r C. Because her father was imprisoned. A few years later, 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.360 when Ashley is four, her mother is in a new 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.080 relationship and Ashley is starting to experience and be on 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.840 the receiving end of her mom's rage. Soon, Ashley is 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:03.920 sent to Missouri to live with their grandmother. What was 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:08.360 the landscape of that, like, you know, your grandmother's place. Oh, 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.360 it was it was a different life. I really took 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:19.120 to the country really quickly. It was you know, the 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:26.720 gravel driveways and the long grass that just grew everywhere, 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.760 the forest, you were surrounded by trees. There was just 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:35.680 something about being outside and sort of being expected to 0:04:35.839 --> 0:04:39.480 be outside a lot that felt right to me and 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:44.440 felt good and natural to my body. And we lived 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.919 my grandmother and I. We lived in her stepfather. We 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:53.400 didn't live in the upstairs of the house with him. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.320 We lived in the basement area, and we had a 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:02.000 staircase that went directly from the basement out into the backyard. 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:06.200 And there were always lizards and things like that in 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:10.480 that little stairway on our way out of the basement, 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.040 and I just there was something about living in that 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.839 place and being in that place where I was the 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:21.320 most comfortable my body has really ever felt. You wrote, 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:26.280 I was not always so afraid of the world or 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:28.800 nervous about the other people in it or what they 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:32.800 might do to me. So it seems that in your 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:36.680 early childhood the danger, if you felt danger, had to 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:41.400 do with your mother's rage and her sort of unpredictability. Yeah, 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:46.800 I was a very intense kid. I saw something on 0:05:46.839 --> 0:05:50.200 TV that said cigarettes kill, and I was like, what, 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.040 my mom must not know this because she smoked cigarettes. 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:58.080 Like that was my whole thought process, and so I 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:00.800 took the cigarettes out of her bag and I just 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.440 threw them in the trash. I didn't even think about obviously, 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.559 Like I'm very young at this point, around four years old. 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:12.280 I'm not thinking about the consequences of my actions because 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.039 I my child, because my brain is not formed in 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:19.960 that way yet. And my mother's reaction to that, to 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.160 finding out that I had thrown away her cigarettes, was 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:27.400 to wook me, for it to hit me over and 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:34.400 over and over, and I remember that it hurt, and 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:42.200 I remember that I blamed myself. I didn't feel like 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.560 something had happened to me that I didn't deserve. I 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:50.120 felt like, yeah, I deserved to hurt. I deserved to 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.680 get hit for what I did, even though I didn't 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.280 know what I was doing, and I knew that I 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.279 didn't do it with mal intent. I wasn't trying to 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:03.640 hurt me. I wasn't trying to upset anybody, but I 0:07:03.720 --> 0:07:09.120 was treated like it was intentional. When you go live 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:13.320 with your grandma, it's in the wake of this that 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.600 you were more comfortable and more in your body, more 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:23.280 at home in yourself. Yeah. Soon though, Ashley is sent 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:25.800 back to Indiana to be with her mom, it's a 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:28.080 surprise to her that she has a new baby sister 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.160 waiting at home too. I didn't know it was coming, 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.440 but there' she was um, and you know, thank God, 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:42.680 because she's the best. But I definitely wasn't expecting to 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:48.320 come back to a different kind of family formation. Tell 0:07:48.320 --> 0:07:51.120 me about what you knew of or what you remembered 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.680 of your father as when you were a child. At first, 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:58.880 almost nothing. He was more of an idea. I guess, 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:02.120 like I knew I had a dad out there in 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:04.880 some respect, but I knew nothing about him. I didn't 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:09.440 know what he looked like. Um, I didn't know who 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:13.080 he was in any respect. And it wasn't until I 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:16.560 found a picture of him in my grandmother's closet and 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:20.400 she explained to me who he was that I suddenly 0:08:20.640 --> 0:08:25.480 felt that it was important to try to remember who 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.560 he was, and that that was information I should have 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:33.120 and I should hold on to. And then, you know, 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:37.520 I don't remember visiting my dad until I was around 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:42.360 seven years old that I saw him in person. I mean, 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:46.679 after hugging him and forming that memory of him as 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:50.280 a person, as a full human being, it was different. 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:54.840 He occupied a much bigger space in my mind. Yeah, 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:56.560 that makes so much sense. And there's a lot that 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.720 you write about about making memories, which I found really 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:04.319 interesting because, of course, you know, in many ways we're 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:07.040 not in control of our memories, and our memories change 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.400 in the retelling um again and again. You know, this 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:13.920 kind of sense of in a way spiraling back but 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:16.760 always coming to a new understanding or a new thought, 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:19.960 a new memory. But the idea of making memory is 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.360 like I want to freeze this in time in some way, 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.959 or I want to hold onto this and I can 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:27.640 imagine what it must have felt like to be a 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:35.160 seven year old really meeting your father for the first time. Yeah, 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.360 but some years before Ashley meets her father, there is 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:41.480 another male presence in her life, her baby sister's father. 0:09:42.080 --> 0:09:48.600 His name is Alan. Alan was probably six ft tall. 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:54.880 He was just, like, you know, a regular dude. I guess. 0:09:54.880 --> 0:09:59.520 He was usually wearing his blue uniform. He was a 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:03.520 Santa Haitian worker, and he just wore that uniform all 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:07.199 the time. And he had a brown hat that he 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:09.240 wore all the time. He was kind of like the 0:10:09.320 --> 0:10:12.560 cartoon character Doug from Nickelodeon who always had on the 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:16.480 same clothes, staying clothes over and over and over. Unless 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:20.040 it was a holiday or a special day, he might 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.319 have on regular clothes. But I really owned, like I 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:27.640 would say, at the time I saw him in his uniform, 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:31.040 when my sister was around a year. Somewhere between a 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.360 year and two years old is when he started to 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:39.640 consistently be Around the time that I remember them getting together, 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:45.640 I'm about oh, six or seven years old, and they 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:49.160 did not break up until my freshman year of college. 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.280 And in all of that time, as much as he 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.000 was around, he never spent the night in our home. 0:10:55.600 --> 0:11:01.000 M I can't say that I know why, but I 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:05.560 know that the entire time it was a point of 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:10.320 contention and and hurtful to my mother, and that it 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:14.560 was something that he would bring up, you know, as 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:17.440 like when he was upset with her, as like you know, 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.480 almost like the punishment, like and this is why I 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.000 don't spend the night, And how did he treat you 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:29.640 like a nuisance? And unless he could use me to 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:34.760 get under my mom's skin, um, which probably happened twice 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.959 before I realized that that's what was happening and just 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:42.000 refused to be part of that anymore. But yeah, he 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:48.720 was very dismissive. He was sarcastic. He was highly critical 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.920 of not just my mother, you know, as we got older, 0:11:53.400 --> 0:11:57.040 he would make fun of us. He would say things 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:01.360 about our bodies, and it was pretty gross and it 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.960 was disturbing, and it was like if a forty year 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:11.120 old man was hanging around and he had retained the 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:15.080 sense of humor of a twelve year old boy. That 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:20.120 says at all. By this time, Allen and Ashley's mother 0:12:20.240 --> 0:12:24.520 have had another child, Jorian. The familiar atmosphere is fraught 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:27.840 Ashley and her siblings grow up with a sense that 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:32.240 danger is everywhere, at school, at church, and even at home. 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.840 She writes, protecting my body became my number one goal. 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:44.160 They're the familial expectations that you will do whatever you 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:50.440 can to mitigate any unwanted attention from men or boys. 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:55.560 And then there's the spiritual side of it, where you 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:57.680 know when you grow up in a town where there's 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.959 a church on every corner, and you know you don't 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:03.600 necessarily just ask people what school they go to, you 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:06.360 also ask what church they go to, because everybody goes 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:10.360 to church. You get the message over and over and 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:13.800 over as a young girl from the church that it 0:13:13.960 --> 0:13:18.680 is your responsibility and your responsibility at all alone to 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:24.480 protect what is essentially your value and what your value 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:31.560 will be to any man or partner or man who 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:36.160 you would want to be with, because anybody would who 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:43.040 would have you after you had been damaged or violated 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:47.520 in some way was a lesser man in the eyes 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:51.240 of God. So you know it's coming at you from 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.120 all sides. It's coming at you at school. You go 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:58.320 to school and there are rules about your body, and 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:02.520 you see who rules pertained to and who the rules 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:08.040 don't pertain to, and you think it's you. You think 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.679 that it must be you because everybody else has decided 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.360 that it's already. Tell me a little bit more about 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:18.600 who the rules pertained to and who the rules don't 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.840 pertain to. Well, I was a person um, a girl 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:29.480 whose body matured before adults were comfortable talking about a 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:33.720 girl's body maturing. I had breast when I was in 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:38.440 the third grade, I got my first minstreul cycle. Between 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:44.800 fourth and fifth grade, I developed, and the reaction of 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:52.520 the adults around me to my developing body was close considered. 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.520 Like if I wore the same shirt as my best 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.560 friend at the time, who had not hit puberty yet 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.080 and who still very much looked the way people would 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.640 expect girls our age to look, we would have on 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:10.000 almost the exact same outfit, and I would get sent 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.880 to the principle's office every time it gets to a 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:18.200 point where it feels like harassment. This was a consistent 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:23.160 thing for me in school, having the fact of my 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:29.120 body constantly policed by the adults who were in charge 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:33.160 of me, constantly being told that the way I looked, 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.280 the way I was shaped, just the shape of my 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:43.480 body was inappropriate, and I'm still dealing with the shame 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:49.520 that came with believing that and having to adhered policies 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:57.080 that forced me to believe it. One New Year's Eve, 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:00.000 when Ashley is a young girl, she's faced with an 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:04.320 other terribly inappropriate response to her body. A family friend, 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:10.320 an older man, kisses her at midnight. I knew it was. 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:17.120 It immediately felt wrong, and I also realized almost immediately 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:22.600 that I had to wagh whether or not that moment 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:33.440 was worth possibly destroying a person, possibly destroying a gathering, 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:39.120 a family, essentially really a family. I thought, if I 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:44.640 say something, it could destroy my family, and uh, yeah, 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:50.720 that was really really sad and unfortunate. So that becomes 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:55.000 a secret, something that you know, you bury somewhere within 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.600 your body, within your psyche. And the sense that you 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.480 had and that you write about that scene was danger 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:05.639 was everywhere. So in a way it's corroborated. You know, 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.200 your mother tells you she wants you to see danger everywhere, 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.520 and then lo and behold, there's danger right in the 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:31.960 same room as her. We'll be right back in all 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.520 these years growing up with danger ever present, her father 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:40.159 is ever absent. This absence is a defining quality in 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:43.720 her life, and when finally she gets to know him, 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:49.480 she gets to know herself too. When my dad was arrested, 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:53.080 I was about eight months old. The first time that 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:57.280 you really remember going to visit him and you know, 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.640 you want to make a memory and you start feeling 0:18:01.440 --> 0:18:04.760 the significance of the fact that he's your father in 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:09.800 your life is when you're seven. Yes, I think anybody 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:12.960 who knows what it's like to see and talk to 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:18.480 another person and feel like a piece of the puzzle 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:23.960 has just locked into place. You know, whether that's like 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:29.160 lost sibling, a lover, who you need, who you can 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:32.479 tell is going to be important in your story and 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:37.560 you feel that thing lock into place. That's kind of 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:41.560 what it was like to have that moment and to 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:45.840 see my dad and to really be cognizant of him 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:51.480 and and cognizant of wanting to remember this moment with him. 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.160 You know, nobody had ever looked at me like that before, 0:18:56.200 --> 0:19:02.720 Nobody had ever looked at me and their whole face 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.439 lit up like I was the best thing in the 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:11.600 world that it never happened to me before. And not 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:16.679 only was that happening in that moment, but the person 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.760 who had that look on their face was my dad. 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.440 And it's not like I didn't know people who were 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.640 dads or people who had dads. I never saw their 0:19:26.720 --> 0:19:29.920 dad's look at them like that. But look at how 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:35.600 my dad looked at me. And I think that I 0:19:35.680 --> 0:19:39.199 had had all this reason before then to suspect that 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:43.080 I was kind of bad, But in that moment, just 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:45.879 because of the way my dad looked at me, I 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.520 started to suspect that maybe I could be like especially 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:54.440 good in some way. Maybe the badness wasn't a special 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:59.919 thing about me. You know, it's amazing how in our 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:07.399 childhood's if there's one person, maybe it's a parent, maybe 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.960 it's a teacher, maybe it's a grandparent, and maybe it's 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:14.320 not often maybe it's a moment or an experience like 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:19.680 that where we have that feeling of being seen and 0:20:20.040 --> 0:20:24.000 loved and held that can really go such a long 0:20:24.080 --> 0:20:29.960 way to saving us. Absolutely, you know. Tony Morrison wrote 0:20:29.960 --> 0:20:34.720 about this, talking about how when her children walked into 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:38.439 the room, she made sure that her face lit up 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:42.719 whenever they walked into a room. Whatever she was doing, 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:46.360 she always tried to make sure that the first thing 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.040 she did when they walk into a room was light up, 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:54.040 and I remember reading that and thinking that, oh, my god, 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:58.360 like that might be it, like that might be the secret, 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:04.240 because I knew how that moment had, you know, altered 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:09.080 my perception of myself as a child. It isn't until 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:12.840 actually is twelve that she asks an uncle why exactly 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:17.000 her father is in jail? Why do you think you 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:23.679 hadn't asked before? I think I specifically hadn't asked my 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:34.200 uncle Clarence before, because I genuinely worried that he didn't know. 0:21:35.440 --> 0:21:37.879 At that point, I didn't realize that, oh, it's just 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:42.359 me and my brother who don't know. I thought maybe 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:46.719 it was that a lot of our family doesn't know, 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:50.439 and I asked him, you know, do you know? Like 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:53.280 that was my first question to him, was do you 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:56.640 know why my dad is in present? I wasn't sure 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:59.639 that he knew, and my mind wasn't sophisticated enough I 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:03.199 guess to assume that he would, but you know, he 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:08.600 reacted by saying that he didn't think it was his 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:13.560 place to tell us, right, And it's it's so interesting 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:15.679 because it sounds like you were actually being kind of 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.600 protective of him when you're twelve and you ask him that, 0:22:19.640 --> 0:22:21.600 And so this is really the first time that you 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:25.040 understand that there are people in your family who know 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:32.000 things that you don't know about this. Yes, the world 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:36.199 around Ashley confirms once again that danger is everywhere. In 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:39.879 high school, she has a boyfriend, Bradley, who violently assaults her. 0:22:40.600 --> 0:22:44.560 Both during and in the aftermath of that assault, Ashley dissociates. 0:22:45.080 --> 0:22:48.240 She essentially floats away from her body, and she doesn't 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:54.439 tell anyone. Most notably, she doesn't tell her mother. What 0:22:54.560 --> 0:22:58.040 I've realized as an adult is that a good part 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:02.119 of the reason why I didn't tell anybody was because 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.520 I genuinely did not believe that anybody would be on 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:14.080 my side. I did not believe that I would be 0:23:14.160 --> 0:23:19.159 treated like something had happened to me. I thought that 0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:24.040 I would be treated like I had allowed something to 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:28.280 happen to me. And so not only was I ashamed 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:33.600 of it, I was afraid of what it meant about 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:38.560 me and who I was and what I wanted versus 0:23:38.600 --> 0:23:42.679 I guess what my words and my body told people 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:46.920 I wanted. Was there at difference? Yeah? It was not good. 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:52.760 It was terrible. And so you hold this secret again, 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:56.639 you know it lodges somewhere inside of you, which is 0:23:56.680 --> 0:23:59.639 what secret to do. They never go away, so you 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:03.320 don't how anyone in your family. I guess one of 0:24:03.359 --> 0:24:05.880 the things I was wondering about was who is your 0:24:05.920 --> 0:24:10.440 father to you? During those years when you think of him, 0:24:10.480 --> 0:24:15.280 you know, we're making memories of him and his adoration 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:18.280 of you, and his pride in you and his belief 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:22.560 in your goodness? Did that in any way help to 0:24:22.680 --> 0:24:25.720 kind of sustain you during that time? Did you ever 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:29.200 think about talking to him about it? It's actually when 0:24:29.240 --> 0:24:35.600 things sort of shifted, um, and my idea of my 0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:42.280 father lived more in a fantasy place than in reality, 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:47.520 because the reality, in reality, this thing had happened to me. 0:24:48.280 --> 0:24:52.439 And I didn't want my idea of my father to 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:57.199 be anywhere near this thing that had happened to me. 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:00.920 I wanted them to be separate, you know. And this 0:25:00.960 --> 0:25:03.119 is sort of the start of like issues. I started 0:25:03.160 --> 0:25:05.879 to have the dissociation, though I wouldn't have known to 0:25:06.000 --> 0:25:11.280 call it that then, but yeah, because in that dissociated place, 0:25:11.800 --> 0:25:16.720 I was still twelve, and I was still the girl 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:21.200 that my dad saw the last time I saw him, 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:25.760 and I was still worthy of all of the letters 0:25:25.800 --> 0:25:29.000 I had from him, and all of the kind things 0:25:29.080 --> 0:25:31.440 he had said to me, and all of the belief 0:25:31.480 --> 0:25:35.640 I had in myself and in my goodness through those moments, 0:25:35.680 --> 0:25:38.560 you know, in my mind, in that fantasy place, I 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:41.199 was still worth those things. And whenever I had to 0:25:41.200 --> 0:25:45.560 be back in my body and reality, I was, in 0:25:45.760 --> 0:25:48.639 one way or another forced to face the fact that 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:52.560 I wasn't that growing, that what had happened to me 0:25:52.640 --> 0:25:57.360 had changed me, that my body was changing, that my 0:25:57.680 --> 0:26:03.960 perspectives were changing, and the person who I was becoming 0:26:04.080 --> 0:26:08.840 felt so much third year than the person my dad loved. 0:26:11.440 --> 0:26:15.000 My father wrote to me, I would say three or 0:26:15.080 --> 0:26:19.119 four times a year, which doesn't sound like a whole 0:26:19.160 --> 0:26:22.879 lot until kind of have the factor in that, like 0:26:23.080 --> 0:26:25.359 inmates have to be or at least at that time, 0:26:25.720 --> 0:26:29.680 they had to be able to afford envelopes and paper 0:26:30.320 --> 0:26:33.840 and stamps like they have to buy them. And the 0:26:33.880 --> 0:26:36.720 only way to get those things and also money to 0:26:36.760 --> 0:26:39.160 make phone calls and all that stuff is by having 0:26:39.200 --> 0:26:43.320 an institutional job. And you know, even now, like in 0:26:45.240 --> 0:26:48.399 if you have an institutional job, you could get paid, 0:26:48.480 --> 0:26:51.520 like around in Indiana, it's about fourteen cents an hour 0:26:52.200 --> 0:26:55.800 and then all the prices on everything are hyked up 0:26:56.200 --> 0:27:00.680 in there. So you gotta think about how long somebody 0:27:00.760 --> 0:27:06.120 has to work in order to be able to afford soap, 0:27:06.960 --> 0:27:13.240 any toiletries. They might need, phone calls, plus any media, 0:27:13.640 --> 0:27:18.120 any form of entertainment whatsoever. It's like three or four 0:27:18.119 --> 0:27:20.919 times a year. There's a lot of money to write 0:27:20.960 --> 0:27:24.840 both of your children individual letters that I mean, it 0:27:24.960 --> 0:27:27.200 was just you know, you're my favorite girl. I hope 0:27:27.200 --> 0:27:30.640 you smile today. I hope you think about me, you smile. 0:27:31.520 --> 0:27:36.240 I can't wait to hug you someday. I can't wait 0:27:36.320 --> 0:27:39.160 for the day where we can see each other every day. 0:27:39.400 --> 0:27:41.320 You know, we can see each other all the time, 0:27:41.520 --> 0:27:43.800 and you know, and I would think, man, I can't 0:27:43.800 --> 0:27:49.040 wait for that day either. My dad's letters were really 0:27:49.119 --> 0:27:54.159 full of dreams for the kind of life maybe we 0:27:54.240 --> 0:27:59.240 would have if he were here, if he hadn't done 0:27:59.240 --> 0:28:02.440 what he'd done, and if you hadn't gone to prison, 0:28:02.800 --> 0:28:06.080 you know, And I really liked to dream with her. 0:28:09.960 --> 0:28:13.400 When Ashley is fourteen, she finally learns why her father 0:28:13.480 --> 0:28:19.399 is in prison. Her grandmother tells her, my grandmother, God rest, 0:28:19.440 --> 0:28:26.040 her soul, tact and appropriateness was never really her her forte. 0:28:27.200 --> 0:28:31.000 So she was just kind of upset with me because 0:28:31.960 --> 0:28:34.640 my mother and I had gotten into an argument before 0:28:35.000 --> 0:28:37.840 my grandma and I caught the bus to go to 0:28:37.880 --> 0:28:40.960 the mall, and my mom told me not to talk 0:28:40.960 --> 0:28:45.160 to my grandma about our argument because they had this 0:28:45.240 --> 0:28:49.880 whole thing between them where, you know, even though they 0:28:49.880 --> 0:28:52.800 were super close and always in each other's business, they 0:28:52.800 --> 0:28:54.840 were always trying to keep the other one out of 0:28:54.880 --> 0:29:00.720 their business and it was a ship show, um. And 0:29:00.920 --> 0:29:03.080 my grandma wanted me to talk about why I was 0:29:03.200 --> 0:29:06.080 upset or why I was upset when she had gotten 0:29:06.080 --> 0:29:08.200 there from the argument with my mom, and I didn't 0:29:08.200 --> 0:29:10.400 want to talk about it because I didn't want it 0:29:10.440 --> 0:29:15.720 to become a thing. And she started telling me when 0:29:15.760 --> 0:29:18.160 we were walking around the mall that I needed to 0:29:18.200 --> 0:29:21.880 be nicer to my mom because I didn't know what 0:29:21.920 --> 0:29:24.560 my mom had been through, and that I didn't even 0:29:24.560 --> 0:29:28.680 know why my father was in prison, and I just, 0:29:28.840 --> 0:29:33.160 for some reason, I got kind of bold about, you know, 0:29:34.160 --> 0:29:36.160