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Speaker 1: before we begin. Today's episode contains a discussion of addiction
Speaker 1: and suicidal ideations, so please take care in listening. Last thing, um,
Speaker 1: just briefly, it's four so um the drug that she
Speaker 1: was taking. You mentioned it. This is one of the
Speaker 1: first conversations I had with my producer, Austin. I'm about
Speaker 1: to tell him about one of the most pivotal moments
Speaker 1: in my life with my mom. I was nineteen and
Speaker 1: she was in a really bad way, the most down
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole of drinking. I thought it was just
Speaker 1: drinking at that point. It was very, very very dark.
Speaker 1: My whole upbringing. My mom would have these gnarly outbursts.
Speaker 1: But I had always thought she just couldn't handle alcohol.
Speaker 1: She would have one glass of wine and fly off
Speaker 1: the handle. So one day my mom, for the first
Speaker 1: time in many years, left town and I was there
Speaker 1: with this friend of mine. Uh. We decided to clean
Speaker 1: and we were cleaning, and I lifted up her mattress
Speaker 1: of all cliche things, and there was a pillbottle under
Speaker 1: her mattress. I remember time kind of slowing down and
Speaker 1: being like aware, just kind of kinetically aware that I
Speaker 1: had stumbled upon something that was going to change the
Speaker 1: course of my life. And it said it was a
Speaker 1: prescription for a drug called the oxen. And I went
Speaker 1: and I searched what is the oxen? And it basically
Speaker 1: said that it was a emphetamine, and it said, uh,
Speaker 1: should never be mixed with alcohol because it produces psychotic behavior.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, cool, Okay, you know she's
Speaker 1: on speed. That's what this has been. And it's really
Speaker 1: hard to explain the sensation. It's it's like the butterfly
Speaker 1: emerging from the cocoon. These moments in your life when
Speaker 1: you're forced out of childhood into adulthood, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I had grown up thinking that my mom was crazy,
Speaker 1: and there's a loneliness that's inherent to that, and isolation
Speaker 1: and terror and pain. And in that moment, I realized,
Speaker 1: it's not because she's fucking crazy, it's because she's been
Speaker 1: on this drug, and it shifted everything. My dad told
Speaker 1: me that the Saxon had been billy a drug. So
Speaker 1: I then started digging into Billy, trying to understand the
Speaker 1: house of grief that I was born into. Today on
Speaker 1: the show My Life with my Mom, how it fell
Speaker 1: apart and came back together again from Crimetown, I'm io
Speaker 1: till it right, And this is the ballad of Billy ball.
Speaker 1: If somebody who you thought was your life partner, your protector,
Speaker 1: you're like soulmate, is viciously murdered, your grief is of
Speaker 1: a different nature. It's ray jing grief. It's like slaughter.
Speaker 1: Everybody grief. I grew up entirely at the mercy of
Speaker 1: somebody else's moods, who was simultaneously my greatest protector and
Speaker 1: my greatest antagonist. I'm a little worried that we're going
Speaker 1: into family. Should I not worry about this because it's
Speaker 1: your show? But I mean, this is very difficult, very
Speaker 1: complex stuff. Chapter ten, something bigger than me. Why don't
Speaker 1: we just start? Tell me who you are. So my
Speaker 1: name is Cora, and we grew up together. I mean
Speaker 1: we really grew up together. Core's five years older than
Speaker 1: I am, and her dad and my dad were best friends,
Speaker 1: So we spent a lot of time together as kids.
Speaker 1: You were so um, spunky and scrappy and fiercely intelligent.
Speaker 1: But you were also like physically small and and and
Speaker 1: wispy and beautiful and delicate. You know, you were immediately
Speaker 1: my sibling. Yeah, I was really special. I mean we
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time together, listening to music and
Speaker 1: bullshitting all day long, and eating snacks because we were
Speaker 1: always hungry, and walking around in the summer and getting
Speaker 1: ices and just being around the city. You know, it
Speaker 1: was not a place for children. I mean it was
Speaker 1: an adult world. There were parties all the time. There
Speaker 1: were shooting galleries where people would go cop drugs, shoot up.
Speaker 1: I have a memory of being six years old and
Speaker 1: walking to your father's house with my dad and on
Speaker 1: the way stopping in a building because you know, he
Speaker 1: just had to make a quick stop. You know, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of poverty, and there was a lot
Speaker 1: of drugs. So I kind of inherently had these feelings
Speaker 1: of and wanting to just protect you a lot because
Speaker 1: I sensed that there was danger. And I remember, you know,
Speaker 1: sleeping over at your house for example. And you know, Rebecca,
Speaker 1: your mom had a boyfriend, Bernardo, for a long time,
Speaker 1: you know, and it was a small apartment and I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember them having sex in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night. It's not that, you know, sex is
Speaker 1: so indecent or whatever, but there was something like really
Speaker 1: primal going on and there was no privacy, and it
Speaker 1: just was not okay. It kind of just like held you.
Speaker 1: We were like lying in the bed and I just
Speaker 1: pretended I was sleeping, and you kind of woke up
Speaker 1: for a second and looked at me, and I just
Speaker 1: was like, it's okay, and I just kind of held you.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like you were in a safe environment.
Speaker 1: And I never questioned that you were loved. Your parents
Speaker 1: love you extremely, but I felt that your mom was
Speaker 1: really going through some ship on a soul level. That's
Speaker 1: something had happened that had shifted her consciousness. Did you
Speaker 1: ever hear anything about Billy. I don't remember hearing about
Speaker 1: Billy It's okay. If not, I don't remember. She's also
Speaker 1: very cagy. I don't know what was your understanding then
Speaker 1: of what was going on with her. She's just your
Speaker 1: mom is wild, you know, your mom is wild. And
Speaker 1: I felt like the poverty did not help, you know,
Speaker 1: being super broke all the time and taking care of
Speaker 1: a kid. It's it's traumatic, you know, but there was
Speaker 1: there was always a sense of IO can totally take
Speaker 1: care of IO. You were scheming and like hustling. Always.
Speaker 1: You were like figuring out the way to get what
Speaker 1: you needed or wanted that your parents couldn't provide. You know,
Speaker 1: most kids can't go home and or do homework or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I'd be like, okay, how do I get quarters.
Speaker 1: I'm showing Austin my go to hustle spot in front
Speaker 1: of a McDonald's on Broadway, and this McDonald's right here
Speaker 1: was like my like north Star. If I could get
Speaker 1: enough money to get a happy meal, I was like,
Speaker 1: it was a good day. How would you get money?
Speaker 1: I made like ghosts out of tissues and sold them,
Speaker 1: and ghosts like Halloween ghosts, like you bawl up a
Speaker 1: tissue and then you take another tissue and you put
Speaker 1: it over the top, and then you put like a
Speaker 1: rubber band for the neck, and then you draw a
Speaker 1: little face on it. And I would walk around and
Speaker 1: sell those. I was a cute little kid, being like,
Speaker 1: you know, give me a dollar, and people be like, damn,
Speaker 1: a dollar would be like two dollars, and like damn,
Speaker 1: people would buy my like weird dumb ship. I look
Speaker 1: at the world as like a Rubik's cube, where I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, so I'm nine, I can't get a job.
Speaker 1: I've got seventy five cents. I need to make it
Speaker 1: to tomorrow, and I need to eat. Okay, So when
Speaker 1: this piece goes there and that piece goes there, and
Speaker 1: I know I can call it this person for that
Speaker 1: and maybe I can eat the scraps over there, It's
Speaker 1: just like a riddle. You know. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: she was really rough, and on the other hand, I
Speaker 1: got this sense that, like anything that I came up
Speaker 1: with was a valid Your parents and my parents as well,
Speaker 1: you know, never questioned our creativity, are intelligence or self sufficiency.
Speaker 1: You would come to school in army fatigues, and you
Speaker 1: were so adamantly and clearly, very very sure that you
Speaker 1: were a boy. You were a boy. You presented as
Speaker 1: a boy. There was no distinguishing feature that would mark
Speaker 1: you or gender you as a girl. You were very
Speaker 1: clear in your communication that I am a boy, period,
Speaker 1: full stop, and don't fucking ask me. And your dad
Speaker 1: in particular, was just like, yeah, that's yo. You know,
Speaker 1: Iowa was io. You declared it to me. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like I had to You just declared it to me.
Speaker 1: You said, I'm a boy. I told this to my
Speaker 1: dad when I was really little. You know, we were
Speaker 1: just walking through Central Park and you went to join
Speaker 1: some kids to play baseball, and they said you couldn't
Speaker 1: play because you were a girl. And you marched up
Speaker 1: to me and said, from now on, dad, I'm a boy.
Speaker 1: I'm your son. You will refer to me as he,
Speaker 1: and that's it. Do you understand? And I just accepted it.
Speaker 1: So I went home and I said, hey, Rebecca, I says,
Speaker 1: I says, she's a boy. Rebecca's like great, fine. She
Speaker 1: gave things that were totally above and beyond, like accepting
Speaker 1: me for who I was. Right. She fostered my imagination
Speaker 1: and she like read to me a ton and like
Speaker 1: there was always books and music and always always always
Speaker 1: music and dance and culture and like fostering my imagination.
Speaker 1: Around this time, my dad left for Europe, he says,
Speaker 1: to try to get clean, leaving me alone with my mom.
Speaker 1: I think the thing is my mom didn't realize that
Speaker 1: she was an unsafe place for me. She applied the
Speaker 1: same like dieting standards to me that she applied to herself.
Speaker 1: And she applied the same professional expectations of me as
Speaker 1: an eight year old as she did of herself as
Speaker 1: a thirty eight year old. You know, but thinking back
Speaker 1: when she was with Billy, it seems like they lived
Speaker 1: that way too, you know, like that was accepted back then,
Speaker 1: and as the world changed around her, she stayed the same.
Speaker 1: There was definitely like a disconnect for her about like
Speaker 1: what a child needs. So we're down here. This is
Speaker 1: like this is the City Hall area, very kind of
Speaker 1: epic architecture. I took Austin downtown to a place where
Speaker 1: I made a drastic move to change my life. Is
Speaker 1: this the way? Oh? This is it is? Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is the building. I'll never forget these columns ever, So
Speaker 1: the New York County Family Court. It all started when
Speaker 1: I arrived at a new school for seventh grade, and
Speaker 1: I had huge dark bag circles under my eyes and
Speaker 1: I was really really pale and really really skinny. And
Speaker 1: at that school they had an actual gym that was
Speaker 1: gender segregated, and so the first gym class, they sent
Speaker 1: me down and we're like, okay, go change in the
Speaker 1: locker rooms. And I was like, like, I can't go
Speaker 1: in the girls. I can't go in the boys, like
Speaker 1: and I had this gender meltdown, and they were just
Speaker 1: like okay, Like you need to talk to the school psychologist,
Speaker 1: like what's going on. He asked me what my home
Speaker 1: life was like. I was like, uh, because I was
Speaker 1: not supposed to talk to people of authority because my
Speaker 1: mom's love of her life had been killed by the police.
Speaker 1: Authority was bad. And I told her. I told her
Speaker 1: that our fridge had no food in it, which barely
Speaker 1: mattered because the power was off half the time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I told her that I stole most of my meals,
Speaker 1: but I didn't go to doctors. I didn't sleep enough,
Speaker 1: and my mom and I would scream at each other
Speaker 1: like banshees. I told her that I was hungry and
Speaker 1: scared and that I hated my life. So one day,
Speaker 1: this woman shows up at my school the middle of
Speaker 1: the day and this woman is standing in the hall
Speaker 1: and she's like are you I I'm like yeah, and
Speaker 1: she was like Hi, I'm so and so I'm your
Speaker 1: social worker and I'm here to take you away. And
Speaker 1: I was like, I need to call my mom and
Speaker 1: she's like, you're not allowed to. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't give a funk, like I'm calling my mom,
Speaker 1: like I will fight you physically. You don't want that scene.
Speaker 1: Just let me call my mother and tell her what's happening,
Speaker 1: because I'm not doing that to her where I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna vanish off the face of the earth. My mom
Speaker 1: was like, don't go with anybody. Don't go with anybody.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill your guidance counselor. So I was like,
Speaker 1: it wasn't her, it was me, And I'm okay, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be in touch with you when I can.
Speaker 1: I gotta go. So I left, I got my coat,
Speaker 1: went and got outside, went outside and got in a
Speaker 1: van with this woman and they drove us right down
Speaker 1: here the New York City Family Court Building and they
Speaker 1: took me upstairs and we went into an office and
Speaker 1: they basically were like, all right, well here it is
Speaker 1: like this is the moment. You now get to decide
Speaker 1: what you want to do with your future. And I
Speaker 1: was like, holy sh it, give me a minute. I
Speaker 1: need to think about it. And I went this room
Speaker 1: and they got me some French fries, and then my
Speaker 1: mom showed up and started screaming in the next room
Speaker 1: about how I was a liar. I had told them
Speaker 1: that I hadn't really been to the dentist, and she
Speaker 1: was like, I listed the dentist all the time, and
Speaker 1: she's calling me she and I heard it through the wall,
Speaker 1: and I was like, nah, fuck this, like my mom
Speaker 1: is calling me a liar. I'm not going home. I
Speaker 1: told them I wanted to live with my dad in Germany.
Speaker 1: I just got a call from New York that you
Speaker 1: were in the custody of the city and that you
Speaker 1: had brought about your removal from the house. And I
Speaker 1: got the next plain to New York and then began
Speaker 1: this long battle of me trying to win custody. And
Speaker 1: I made the mistake in the first interview with your attorneys,
Speaker 1: because the city assigned your attorneys of being a little
Speaker 1: bit protective of Rebecca because they were trying to characterize
Speaker 1: her as a kind of monster, and I was saying, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: Rebecca is not a monster. You don't understand. And I
Speaker 1: was just saying, Rebecca, can you just stop back off.
Speaker 1: I wants to live with me. Let I live with me.
Speaker 1: Stop fighting this, and then we don't have to go
Speaker 1: through this whole court thing, and I can just you know,
Speaker 1: it's time to move on. Okay, Rebecca, You've come to
Speaker 1: the end of your rope on this thing. You know,
Speaker 1: my lawyer said to me, if you speak to her again,
Speaker 1: I'm no longer your lawyer. She is the opponent. We
Speaker 1: have to win. Don't be a pussy like that's how
Speaker 1: they talk. The custody battle lasted three months. The courtroom
Speaker 1: wasn't a place where my mom shined. It was very
Speaker 1: sad for me to see Rebecca funk it up um
Speaker 1: and come in with a black eye, come in with
Speaker 1: a lawyer who was half an hour late and couldn't
Speaker 1: get his tie straight, and and then say stupid things
Speaker 1: like she has a vast knowledge of the human body,
Speaker 1: and that's why you didn't go to see the dentist.
Speaker 1: When I watched her say these things, and the judge
Speaker 1: kept looking up at me like we were looking at
Speaker 1: each other silently, going like, oh boy, you know, um
Speaker 1: it was very painful. Actually, Rebecca defeated herself. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the phone call when you called me to tell me.
Speaker 1: I don't recall anything except we won and you were delighted.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I think your first words, where can
Speaker 1: we go? My first question was as my mom monkay ah, right,
Speaker 1: that's true. Yeah, of course you were very defensive of
Speaker 1: your mom. You're from the very beginning you were worried
Speaker 1: about her condition. You made the move to defend yourself,
Speaker 1: but you were very worried about it. Of course you were.
Speaker 1: After it was over, during mandated welfare checks, I saw
Speaker 1: my mom for the first time since she lost the case.
Speaker 1: The first time we showed up, my mom showed up
Speaker 1: with a big black eye. The second time we showed up,
Speaker 1: she showed up with like a bag of ice over
Speaker 1: her other eye and it was bleeding. When she said
Speaker 1: that her boyfriend had thrown a bell and it had
Speaker 1: accidentally skewered her eyeball, and just all this bullshit, you know,
Speaker 1: because she had a fucked up, monstrous boyfriend, and I
Speaker 1: know that I've like just destroyed her, and she's like
Speaker 1: bleeding from the eyes like some kind of biblical matriarch.
Speaker 1: And I was just like, I can't fucking handle this.
Speaker 1: I think I came outside and threw up or something.
Speaker 1: She had to go to the hospital. She almost lost
Speaker 1: her eye. M just fucked up, fucked up things happened
Speaker 1: here after the break Germany. I lived in a beautiful,
Speaker 1: small university city in Germany called and you were plunged
Speaker 1: into a kind of better than normal circumstance, like a
Speaker 1: wonderful circumstance to which you were completely unaccustomed. I stepped
Speaker 1: off the plane in Germany and it was like the
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone. People got mad when you jay walked, and
Speaker 1: the error was chris so clear. Everybody thought I knew
Speaker 1: jay Z because I was from New York. And everybody
Speaker 1: was nice to each other. And I had a wonderful
Speaker 1: kind of nineteenth century apartment with many rooms and bedrooms
Speaker 1: and dining rooms and balcony. My dad lived with his
Speaker 1: girlfriend in a big apartment. I learned how to use
Speaker 1: a fork and knife. I had a computer and a
Speaker 1: full refrigerator, both powered by electricity, but I wasn't an
Speaker 1: easy kid. You actually just wanted me to be your
Speaker 1: dad and leave any other circumstance. And that was your
Speaker 1: declaration to me. You know, I didn't escape that fucking
Speaker 1: jail for you to have a girlfriend and a career
Speaker 1: and a life in the theater. I'm here, now, let's go.
Speaker 1: I was impossible. I had never had any dishes to wash,
Speaker 1: and I resented having to take out the trash. I
Speaker 1: hated having to share my dad, and I was coming
Speaker 1: to grips with something huge that I couldn't identify yet.
Speaker 1: When you hit puberty, you just announced made another announcement.
Speaker 1: You just kind of came to me and said, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be a girl now. I had never tried
Speaker 1: to be a girl before, and being in a safe
Speaker 1: environment made me long for acceptance and friends. So I
Speaker 1: thought I'd try it. I grew my hair out and
Speaker 1: got tighter jeans, but I had a real problem with authority.
Speaker 1: I got kicked out of two German schools and then
Speaker 1: a boarding school in England. You were a nightmare. You
Speaker 1: were determined to like burn the world down. I mean
Speaker 1: when you went away to boarding school in Europe. He
Speaker 1: went to this progressive this is my friend Cora again.
Speaker 1: And I was afraid that you were going to live
Speaker 1: in Europe for the rest of your life and I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to see you, um. But I didn't live
Speaker 1: in Europe for the rest of my life. When I
Speaker 1: was sixteen, I got kicked out of that boarding school
Speaker 1: and my dad's heroin addiction had escalated, so I had
Speaker 1: nowhere else to go but the place that I had
Speaker 1: fought so hard to escape, that New York City apartment
Speaker 1: with my mom. But I just remember there being a
Speaker 1: very sharp disconnect between the years that you were with
Speaker 1: seven the years that you were living with your mom. Um.
Speaker 1: And I remember one night this is so anecdotal, and
Speaker 1: again I wasn't there, so it's like third person bullshit,
Speaker 1: But your mom was in a state, and all I
Speaker 1: remember really from the story was that the ambulance was called,
Speaker 1: and I think she was having like a psychotic episode. Basically,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of concern. Maybe you can fill
Speaker 1: me in. Sure. It was the night before I was
Speaker 1: taking my final exams graduate high school, so I was seventeen.
Speaker 1: It was also the night before my mom's birthday. She
Speaker 1: came home really really really drunk and really upset that
Speaker 1: I hadn't taken her out for her birthday. That hadn't
Speaker 1: happened yet. She was obliterated and was saying that I
Speaker 1: was a horrible child because I hadn't done anything for
Speaker 1: her birthday. And I went in and I was like, Mom,
Speaker 1: your birthday tomorrow, would take out to dinner. And she
Speaker 1: was so upset and so convinced that I was a
Speaker 1: horrible spawn that she was started talking about getting on
Speaker 1: the six train and riding into the end of the
Speaker 1: line and getting out and walking. I was scared my
Speaker 1: mom was going to hurt herself. I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do, so I called the cops. Then they showed
Speaker 1: up with an ambulance, and I was in my pajama
Speaker 1: pants and had no shoes on, and had nothing in
Speaker 1: my pockets about my cell phone and my keys. And
Speaker 1: they knocked on the door, and I just like freaked
Speaker 1: out because I was so I was like, I can't
Speaker 1: and I like I went downstairs to the second floor
Speaker 1: and stayed at the other end of the hall while
Speaker 1: they went in and effectively arrested her. And when they
Speaker 1: passed by me to take her into the ambulance, she
Speaker 1: looked at me with this just betrayal and terror and fear,
Speaker 1: and was just like burning her eyes through me of like,
Speaker 1: how could you invite the police into our home? And
Speaker 1: I went to the officer and I was like, can
Speaker 1: I please just get in the ambulance with her for
Speaker 1: a second and explain to her that this is for
Speaker 1: her safety? And he was like sure. So I jumped
Speaker 1: in the ambulance and sat down and was like, mom,
Speaker 1: this happened because I don't want you to hurt yourself,
Speaker 1: and of course she just spewed violence at me and
Speaker 1: we immediately started f eating and the fucking e MT
Speaker 1: sitting across from muscos are you inebriated? And I was
Speaker 1: like what, and she was like, your pupils are dilated.
Speaker 1: Are you intoxicated? And I was like, my pupils are
Speaker 1: fucking dilated because it's four in the morning and I
Speaker 1: am terrified and my mother is strapped into an ambulance
Speaker 1: right now. And she was like, that's it, you're intoxicated
Speaker 1: to your coming with us, lam traps me into the seat.
Speaker 1: I was in disbelief as they drove us to the
Speaker 1: hospital and then they locked us in separate rooms. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. I but then I made my escape. I
Speaker 1: basically convinced this like young guard dude to like let
Speaker 1: me use the bathroom down the hall And as I
Speaker 1: was going to the bathroom, I saw an exit sign
Speaker 1: down the hallway and I just fucking ran and I
Speaker 1: took off in my socks, and like the sun was
Speaker 1: starting to come up, and I ran all the way
Speaker 1: back to the apartment and I fell asleep. Then she
Speaker 1: came home, and she threw everything in the house at
Speaker 1: my door and tried to beat it down with my
Speaker 1: own baseball bat, tried to bust it down with the body.
Speaker 1: I don't know how that piece of ship in section
Speaker 1: eight housing door held up, but it did. And eventually
Speaker 1: she passed out. I woke up that morning, you know whatever,
Speaker 1: an hour of tormented non sleep later, and I went
Speaker 1: to high school and somehow passed my exams. Goddamn, it's
Speaker 1: a miracle. Huhm. I was a bad one. This went
Speaker 1: on for years. We fought brutally all the time. Eventually
Speaker 1: I found that bottle of desks and under her mattress.
Speaker 1: I was furious. I couldn't believe everything she'd put me through.
Speaker 1: Because she'd been high. I wanted nothing to do with her,
Speaker 1: and when I was twenty two, I moved out for
Speaker 1: good and then I met Katie. Hi, Hi, I'm recording you.
Speaker 1: Oh my, how did we meet Katie? Well, I was
Speaker 1: really embodying my grungy coffee girl Harry armpitted lesbian self,
Speaker 1: and Um, one of our mutual friends introduced us. And
Speaker 1: then you swooped up real stylish, like in your piel Mercedes.
Speaker 1: And we went to the Googgenheim because where I'd seen
Speaker 1: New Yorkers and at our first date non date, which
Speaker 1: was not a date but was definitely a date. Um,
Speaker 1: what happened at the Guggenheim, Well, they have individual bathroom
Speaker 1: stalls at the Guggenheim. Shout out to the Guggenheim for
Speaker 1: their romantic design. And I think you said, like, I
Speaker 1: have to go to the bathroom, and UM, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm coming with you. And I walked into the bathroom
Speaker 1: with you, and I really hope you use this for
Speaker 1: your podcast because this is really funny and I and
Speaker 1: I said I wish that I could straddle you right now,
Speaker 1: and he said, why can't you? And then I came
Speaker 1: over and straddled you, and we basically hooked up for
Speaker 1: the first time in the Gugenheim bathroom with people like
Speaker 1: pounding on the wall, M and Co. And then you
Speaker 1: invited me over your apartment in which you had just
Speaker 1: recently moved and had one box on the floor and
Speaker 1: we had our like first romantic dinner on a cardboard
Speaker 1: box on the floor with no furniture. Katie and I
Speaker 1: were together for the next few years, and during that
Speaker 1: time she got to know my mom. In terms of Rebecca,
Speaker 1: I mean, she's wild and she's I don't want to say,
Speaker 1: I'm not the most integrated, grounded person that you'll ever meet.
Speaker 1: When your mom was either immersed in being intoxicated and
Speaker 1: consumed by her own depth of pain, there was no
Speaker 1: room for you, um, and that you were immersed in
Speaker 1: her pain, um involuntarily and without really comprehension of what
Speaker 1: was going on. What what is your understanding of where
Speaker 1: her pain came from? I mean, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it has to do with Billy Um, whom she
Speaker 1: has always talked about a lot, this saga of losing
Speaker 1: the love of her life and the unresolved story and
Speaker 1: history of that and living in the past and um
Speaker 1: that being an open wound. Katie and I broke up,
Speaker 1: and I started doing some pretty self destructive things of
Speaker 1: my own. I was a workaholic and drinking too much
Speaker 1: to try and manage the anxiety that was surfacing. I
Speaker 1: was insistent that I was not a victim and that
Speaker 1: everything was fine, but inside I was a disaster. When
Speaker 1: I was twenty seven, I went to California for work
Speaker 1: and the bottom fell out. You called me and we're like,
Speaker 1: I need your help. I need you to come here
Speaker 1: right away. It was urgent, everything called very urgent um
Speaker 1: and I got on a plane as quick as I could.
Speaker 1: What did you find when you got there? You were reallyish,
Speaker 1: shell of yourself um, you a feeling of being really
Speaker 1: hollow um and your face like barely had any color
Speaker 1: in it, and you were crying kind of consistently, but
Speaker 1: frantically and randomly. You couldn't sleep. You would wake up
Speaker 1: in terror, literal terror, like shaking and and yelling and
Speaker 1: feeling like you were going to die. And it was
Speaker 1: really scary. Do you think I thought that I was
Speaker 1: going crazy? Yes? I mean definitely you expressed that you
Speaker 1: thought you were going crazy. I was having a mental breakdown.
Speaker 1: I started calling Katie and my dad constantly to not
Speaker 1: be alone. You were having panic attacks, and you were
Speaker 1: having um great disturbances of the spirit. It was like, oh,
Speaker 1: a black cloud is moving over my head from behind me,
Speaker 1: and I everything is dune and I have to die.
Speaker 1: The pain and stress were building, and I didn't know
Speaker 1: where they were coming from. Something bigger than me was
Speaker 1: overtaking my mind, and I was terrified. And I remember
Speaker 1: there was a particular day when I went to the
Speaker 1: beach and it was a big, blazing, beautiful blue day,
Speaker 1: and I sat on the beach, wrapped in a towel
Speaker 1: and everything was black and it disturbed me so much.
Speaker 1: I got into my car and I was sobbing so
Speaker 1: hard I could almost not drive. It was all coming
Speaker 1: to an unbearable head. And I called my dad. At
Speaker 1: the end of my rope, I got back to my
Speaker 1: friend's house I was staying at, and I called you, saying,
Speaker 1: I want to get off this planet, holding a end
Speaker 1: of mine's gun in my hand. I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: And you said to me, if you kill yourself, you
Speaker 1: will take me with you. Oh, I probably did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably true. It is Yeah, that would be unacceptable.
Speaker 1: So I didn't and at that point I was faced
Speaker 1: with Okay, if it's not blue pill, then what does
Speaker 1: red pill look like? And for me, it was to
Speaker 1: embark on a quest for understanding. I decided to live,
Speaker 1: but to change everything. If I was going to make it,
Speaker 1: I was going to have to rip the plant out
Speaker 1: of the ground and repot it in entirely new soil.
Speaker 1: I started exercising, going to a twelve step program for
Speaker 1: the loved ones of addicts. I stopped drinking and went
Speaker 1: to therapy twice a week, and I started writing a
Speaker 1: book about my childhood. You discovered agency you were digging,
Speaker 1: you were looking, you were managing the information you were discovering.
Speaker 1: It wasn't happening to you. You were actually taking charge
Speaker 1: of experience. So that's a very important thing to do. Eventually,
Speaker 1: I was diagnosed with PTSD, which explained the mental breakdown,
Speaker 1: and I realized that I had been denying something I
Speaker 1: knew clearly when I was a kid. I'm transgender. I'm
Speaker 1: a man in a female body, which was a massive
Speaker 1: thing to unravel of its own. It took me nine
Speaker 1: months to get back on my feet, but when I did,
Speaker 1: I threw myself headlo into my new life. Tonight, we
Speaker 1: hear from artist Io till it Right, whose photography projects
Speaker 1: have sparked a dial is an artist, activist, writer of
Speaker 1: the new memoir Darling Days Bout Darling Days. I moved
Speaker 1: to California full time and set up shop in the desert.
Speaker 1: My mom and I started to connect again. Our relationship
Speaker 1: works a lot better three thousand miles apart. Hey, I listen,
Speaker 1: are you coming back across the country? Can't you bring
Speaker 1: me a tumbleweed growing? Tumbleweed called me back by so.
Speaker 1: Understanding that my mom wasn't just choosing to be an
Speaker 1: asshole was a really big thing, And that then led
Speaker 1: me to wondering about what caused all of the pain
Speaker 1: that she was trying to medicate away. How did she
Speaker 1: get there? How did she get to the point where
Speaker 1: like she could make choices that would imperil her kid
Speaker 1: and not know Billy all right is this same recording.
Speaker 1: It's February six, two thousand and sixteen, and we are
Speaker 1: sitting in Williamsburg, and for the first time, we're having
Speaker 1: a sit down interview session for what will become the
Speaker 1: Ballad of Billy Balls and his baby Girl. Here's my mama. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Billy knew it at Harvard School. If I don't move
Speaker 1: past my anger and she doesn't move past her grief,
Speaker 1: we're not going to ever be able to have a
Speaker 1: functional relationship with each other. And I'm trying to change
Speaker 1: it because I don't want to be angry at her forever. Okay, obvious,
Speaker 1: so much love, be so much on but man, goal
Speaker 1: in arms, but all the things that Billy didn't want
Speaker 1: to show her she doesn't want to see. I need
Speaker 1: to know that stuff. She just needs to know where
Speaker 1: he is. I want to find Billy's bodies so that
Speaker 1: she can say goodbye to him and maybe have a
Speaker 1: happier life. We're gonna find that, Okay, Okay, and you
Speaker 1: know what, I did find him. That's in two weeks.
Speaker 1: If you or someone you know is having suicidal ideations,
Speaker 1: please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at to seven,
Speaker 1: three eight to five. This lifeline provides free and confidential support.
Speaker 1: If you're queer and needs support, you can call the
Speaker 1: Trevor Project also seven at one eight six six four
Speaker 1: eight eight seven three eight six. I called them during
Speaker 1: my darkest moments and they saved my life. Use it.
Speaker 1: Crimetown is Zack Stewart Pontier and Mark Smirling. The Ballad
Speaker 1: of Billie Balls is hosted by me Io Till It
Speaker 1: Right and made in partnership with Cadence thirteen. You can
Speaker 1: find me on the internet. I'm Io loves you on everything,
Speaker 1: and if you want to know more about my story,
Speaker 1: pick up my memoir Darling Day. We also want to
Speaker 1: hear from you. We have a voicemail set up and
Speaker 1: I love it when you call. Here's Casey from Dallas.
Speaker 1: I had kids, young have two kids, being a mom
Speaker 1: with such a hard job, and I screwed up so
Speaker 1: many times. I wish my kids could listen to this
Speaker 1: and have the same kind of compassion and understanding that
Speaker 1: you have for your mom and your dad, because it's
Speaker 1: the hardest job to love someone so much and have
Speaker 1: so much power over the way their life turns out
Speaker 1: while just being a human being and trying to figure
Speaker 1: life out for yourself. If there's something on your mind, thoughts, feelings, complaints,
Speaker 1: call us and leave us a voicemail at five seven
Speaker 1: oh three nine too. Especially if today brought stuff up
Speaker 1: for you, just call us and tell us about it.
Speaker 1: You can also get into our discussion forum on our website.
Speaker 1: The Ballad of Billy Balls dot Com. This show is
Speaker 1: produced by Me, Kevin Sheppard and Ryan Swigert. Our senior
Speaker 1: producers Austin Mitchell, editing by Zach Stewart Pontier and Mark Smirling.
Speaker 1: Fact checking by Jennifer Blackman. This episode was mixed by
Speaker 1: Kenny Qcak. Music and sound design by Kenny Qcak. Our
Speaker 1: title track is Dark Allies by Light Asylum. Archival researched
Speaker 1: by Brennan Reats. Thanks to Daniella Aria, Rachel Lee Wright,
Speaker 1: Emily Wiedermann, Green Card Pictures, Alessandro Sentauro, Bill Clegg, Ben Davis,
Speaker 1: Oran Rosenbaum and the team at Cadence thirteen. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Sophie Martinez, Cora Fisher Andrea Frank's, Sarah Driver, Seth Tillott,
Speaker 1: Katie Atherton, Nicole Rauscher, Lena Tillott, Leslie Wright, d D Tillott,
Speaker 1: Brunetta Robinson and Jones Stockhammer and Amber and Johnny for
Speaker 1: taking me in when I needed it the most, and
Speaker 1: of course, my Mom, without whom none of this would
Speaker 1: be possible