Speaker 1: Sam Harkness was thirteen years old when his mother left
Speaker 1: one day, leaving no note, no forwarding address, no information
Speaker 1: on where she was going. Sam and his brothers were
Speaker 1: then left with the question of not only why, but
Speaker 1: also where and how. The telling of Sam's story is
Speaker 1: all the more remarkable because Sam's half brother, Read Harkness,
Speaker 1: made a series of films about Sam's antics while he
Speaker 1: was a child and an adolescent. The film Sam Now
Speaker 1: beautifully intercuts this footage of Sam the child with Sam
Speaker 1: the adult on a journey to find his mother and
Speaker 1: the far more complex journey of what to do when
Speaker 1: he finally finds her. It's the story of complex and
Speaker 1: difficult personalities in a family, how they affect everyone, the
Speaker 1: challenges in balancing empathy, compassion, boundaries, and reality at how
Speaker 1: healing is a process of evolution. This podcast should not
Speaker 1: be used as a substitute for medical or mental health advice.
Speaker 1: Individuals are advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and
Speaker 1: or therapy from a healthcare professional with respect to any
Speaker 1: medical condition, mental health issue, or health inquiry, including matters
Speaker 1: discussed on this podcast. The views and opinions expressed are
Speaker 1: solely those of the podcast author or individuals participating in
Speaker 1: the podcast, and do not represent the opinions of Red
Speaker 1: Table Talk Productions, iHeartMedia, or their employees. So Sam and Reid,
Speaker 1: welcome to Navigating Narcissism. Your film is one of those
Speaker 1: films I call sort of a film that sticks to
Speaker 1: the hippocampus. You can't quite shake it. It's so visually beautiful.
Speaker 1: It's a richly told story. It is such a unique
Speaker 1: use of foot I can't wait till everyone in the
Speaker 1: world can see this film because it is actually one
Speaker 1: of the more beautiful, evocative films I've seen. Your dream
Speaker 1: is a psychologist dream. So thank you for bringing your
Speaker 1: art into the world. It's wonderful to our listeners. Sam
Speaker 1: and Read our brothers. Sam is a subject of this film.
Speaker 1: Read is a filmmaker, and what's stunning about the film
Speaker 1: is it stitches together twenty five years of home videos.
Speaker 1: Read shot of Sam and their film. Sam Now is
Speaker 1: really a movie about love. It's about longing, it's about loss,
Speaker 1: it's about family, and it's also about intergenerational issues within
Speaker 1: a family and understanding how the trauma and loss of
Speaker 1: one generation pays forward into another and how it impacts them.
Speaker 1: So that's my take on it, my shrinky take. I
Speaker 1: would love to hear from both of you. Tell us
Speaker 1: please a little bit about the film.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for then intro. This is a
Speaker 2: film I started when I was a teenager, and I
Speaker 2: persisted for twenty five years. And the reason why is
Speaker 2: because I was really interested in some characteristics about my
Speaker 2: little brother. He's my half brother, and this sort of
Speaker 2: resilient attitude he had. He would always take falls but
Speaker 2: then bounce right back up, which is not something I
Speaker 2: naturally do. So I kept filming him over the years
Speaker 2: and started to learn more about him and see this
Speaker 2: kid kind of grow up. At this point that we
Speaker 2: bring up making a film about Sam's missing mother, my stepmother.
Speaker 2: She disappeared one day from our family without telling anyone.
Speaker 2: This is a shock to the family. Nobody expects it,
Speaker 2: and eventually the police are contacted and weeks later, a
Speaker 2: missing person's detective gets back to our family and says,
Speaker 2: we found her. She's not being held against her will
Speaker 2: and she doesn't want to any of you. So we're
Speaker 2: left with that for the next three years, and it's
Speaker 2: a really awkward thing in the family. The adults don't
Speaker 2: seem to know what to do, and our brother Jared
Speaker 2: is very depressed and is dropping out of school, and
Speaker 2: there's not much support for Sam either, So it becomes
Speaker 2: a strange thing where I find, as the older brother
Speaker 2: that I should get involved.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you, Sam? And I think listeners almost
Speaker 1: need a moment to take this in.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 1: Basically, one day your mother disappeared, and then not only
Speaker 1: do you find out that it wasn't an accident or
Speaker 1: something like that, but that she's very much alive and
Speaker 1: doesn't want to talk to you. This is so many
Speaker 1: layered losses that for many people it's incomprehensible. Interestingly, the
Speaker 1: story of the father leaving is one that I don't
Speaker 1: want to say quite normalized, but it's definitely sort of
Speaker 1: steeped in the culture. The idea of a mother leaving
Speaker 1: is a very rare and anomalous experience. And so so Sam,
Speaker 1: how old were you at the time your mother left?
Speaker 3: It was right when I was entering high school, so
Speaker 3: right before my freshman year May it was thirteen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, so thirteen.
Speaker 1: The reason I want to know the age is that
Speaker 1: that's actually a pretty significant juncture, right, This is sort
Speaker 1: of now a boy, girl, anyone. It's in puberty and
Speaker 1: coming out of puberty into adolescence, and so's there's a lot.
Speaker 1: There's a lot happening even on a good day for
Speaker 1: the average thirteen year old boy.
Speaker 4: Let alone. Now you're a thirteen year.
Speaker 1: Old boy about to go to high school and your
Speaker 1: mother has disappeared. Is Jared younger than you or older
Speaker 1: than you?
Speaker 3: Older by two and a half years.
Speaker 1: So Jared's an adolescent. You're coming into adolescence, and now
Speaker 1: your mom is gone. So before we get to that,
Speaker 1: what was your relationship like with your mom when she
Speaker 1: was still there and you were living with her.
Speaker 3: Yes, So, firstly, my parents were divorced, and so it
Speaker 3: was a very i think typical split time. A custody
Speaker 3: between the two parents was every other weekend in a
Speaker 3: couple of week days at my mom's house, and I
Speaker 3: think we had a close relationship. I think I was
Speaker 3: closer with my dad solely because I was very into
Speaker 3: athletics and sports and he really nourished that part of me.
Speaker 3: And also a lot of my friends were in my
Speaker 3: dad's neighborhood. So sometimes when we're at my mom's house,
Speaker 3: it was kind of a little more isolation. But my
Speaker 3: mom was really responsible for a lot of like academics
Speaker 3: and keeping up with a lot of our social lives. Again,
Speaker 3: even though it wasn't necessarily in her neighborhood, she kept
Speaker 3: up on like birthday parties and making sure we made
Speaker 3: those in planning play dates and all these things. I
Speaker 3: think she understood my social life better and knew a
Speaker 3: lot of my friends and my friend's parents as well.
Speaker 3: She was more on top of, like meals every night,
Speaker 3: more on top of routine.
Speaker 1: I would say, I'm so glad you shared that, Sam,
Speaker 1: because you know, I think that one would say a
Speaker 1: mom would abandon a child or move away or just disappear,
Speaker 1: that maybe they weren't being a mom before they left.
Speaker 4: But what you're describing is very mom stuff.
Speaker 1: Routines and meals and setting up playdates and social life
Speaker 1: and homework.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's momming.
Speaker 1: And so you know you very much had that relationship
Speaker 1: with her. Frankly, sand which magnifies the magnitude of the loss,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't like this was a checked out mom.
Speaker 1: What I'm hearing from you is that she actually, at
Speaker 1: least on these measures, was very present and was doing
Speaker 1: the things we would expect that a mother would do
Speaker 1: for both you and your brother.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I would even say that I had the
Speaker 3: not to like rate the relationships for my mom and
Speaker 3: my brothers. But I think I had the lowest kind
Speaker 3: of attachment to her between my brothers, and so my
Speaker 3: brother Jared had an even stronger attachment. I think the
Speaker 3: way me and my dad kind of vibed in sports
Speaker 3: and whatnot, my brother Jared and my mom vibed a
Speaker 3: lot more with everything else. Like he was much more
Speaker 3: of an academic and she was very much into that.
Speaker 3: And it's not like I had a batterlyhip with her.
Speaker 3: Is this more that I could see there was more
Speaker 3: of a closeness with them.
Speaker 1: And read I know that she was your stepmother. How
Speaker 1: did that affect you? You were quite a bit older.
Speaker 1: How did it affect you when she left?
Speaker 2: She left right around a time when I was also
Speaker 2: like moving out and I was actually living in Portland
Speaker 2: at the time. I thought it was just like the
Speaker 2: strangest thing, and thought that she was just going to
Speaker 2: come back like any day.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It's like seemed like the kind of thing where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: something's happened and she's she's going to be back any day,
Speaker 2: and then time passes. I keep checking in with our
Speaker 2: dad and there's no news, and it gets weirder and
Speaker 2: weirder as time goes on.
Speaker 1: So, Sam, can you share what it was like in
Speaker 1: those early days your mom's disappeared and it took a
Speaker 1: minute to figure out what had happened. What was that
Speaker 1: early period of time like for you, not just when
Speaker 1: she had first left, but then when there's recognition that
Speaker 1: she was okay, but that she did not want to
Speaker 1: talk to you. How did all of that feel and
Speaker 1: play out.
Speaker 3: For you initially? I think like one of the big
Speaker 3: memories that sticks out to me was continuing to go
Speaker 3: to my stepdad's house even when my mom was very
Speaker 3: clearly gone and not well maybe we didn't know she
Speaker 3: was coming back yet, but there was like a good
Speaker 3: couple of months where we continued the routine of going
Speaker 3: over to my stepdad's house and we would literally Jared
Speaker 3: and I would show up asking my stepdad, Hey, is
Speaker 3: mom home, and then he would say no, and then
Speaker 3: he would ask questions back to us, have you heard
Speaker 3: from her? And it was a very bizarre exchange. And
Speaker 3: that's kind of what it's referencing with a little bit
Speaker 3: of the role reversal, where sometimes I felt like we
Speaker 3: also had to have some responsibility for where she was
Speaker 3: or having tabs on what's going on and when we
Speaker 3: had no idea. But that was kind of when I
Speaker 3: think it was starting to hit that I was like,
Speaker 3: this is not normal that we just keep going to
Speaker 3: this house expecting her to be there and she's not.
Speaker 3: And then when we found out that she wasn't coming
Speaker 3: back we kind of heard about the investigator and that
Speaker 3: she wasn't gonna be returning, that was hard. But I
Speaker 3: think that's when I made a pretty quick switch, and
Speaker 3: I probably didn't emotionally process it very easily. I think
Speaker 3: I switched to like, oh, I'm independent, I'm a young man,
Speaker 3: I can do this, I've been able to do this,
Speaker 3: and really just put off processing it all together and
Speaker 3: didn't really think about it too much.
Speaker 1: So in a way, Sam, I'm hearing, it's almost like
Speaker 1: you managed it a little bit like one might a death,
Speaker 1: Like she's gone, that's it, keep going.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: We'd get gifts sent to us like Christmas and our birthdays,
Speaker 3: and she had made sure that you couldn't track where
Speaker 3: they were coming from. And so gift giving is kind
Speaker 3: of a triggering thing for me sometimes. So especially like packages,
Speaker 3: that was a thing that like, I don't know, held
Speaker 3: some sort of hope for me. Sometimes was like these
Speaker 3: these packages that would show up and almost like a
Speaker 3: replacement for her presence, but I you know, I don't know,
Speaker 3: held on to it in some kind of way. That
Speaker 3: was like, oh, she is coming back, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hope can be a miraculous thing and a treacherous thing.
Speaker 1: The gifts that would come from a person who disappeared
Speaker 1: who is your mother, and who didn't want to be
Speaker 1: found but was still making her presence known clearly brought
Speaker 1: up a mix of emotions. In an ambiguous situation like this,
Speaker 1: Hope is really tricky. It begs the question of whether
Speaker 1: it would have been easier if she didn't send the
Speaker 1: gifts at all, so Sam and his brothers could just
Speaker 1: move on. Hope can create connective tissue in a relationship
Speaker 1: even when the person is physically gone. So it fostered
Speaker 1: a hope and in a way then that gift actually
Speaker 1: had quite a different impact. And I mean, at some
Speaker 1: level one would say we would never know We'll never
Speaker 1: know what her agenda was in sending those gifts, because
Speaker 1: there was you know, to send a gift from a
Speaker 1: mother that you'd have once had, who has no intention
Speaker 1: of maintaining a relationship with you is an incredibly confusing experience.
Speaker 1: The question I have for you, Sam, it's interesting you're
Speaker 1: going back to your stepfather's. Your mother's clearly not there,
Speaker 1: your stepfather's asking you have you heard from her? I
Speaker 1: want to understand where the grown ups were in all
Speaker 1: of this, Like were your feelings being processed? Were there
Speaker 1: people so solicitous of you and holding you close and
Speaker 1: protecting you and soothing you. I'm confused as to why
Speaker 1: they'd send you there, Like why they wouldn't just keep
Speaker 1: you in one place until that all got figured out?
Speaker 1: So can you break that down a little, because I
Speaker 1: don't actually even fully understand that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say that the Harkness family is very
Speaker 3: good at physically showing up and kind of like you
Speaker 3: mentioned that protective. They'll form that protective bubble around you
Speaker 3: and make sure your needs are met and be there.
Speaker 3: But the hard conversations aren't had, and the asking for
Speaker 3: you know how I'm feeling, or the emotional processing support
Speaker 3: isn't there really either. But you know, my grandma was
Speaker 3: there so much for me, just when my dad needed
Speaker 3: help with childcare. I think I was over at her
Speaker 3: house probably, and she lives two blocks away from my
Speaker 3: dad's house, which was really convenient, and she's kind of
Speaker 3: got this open door policy that you know, me and
Speaker 3: my brother were probably there eating dinner five or six
Speaker 3: nights of the week. And again she was there. She
Speaker 3: was great, But I don't remember anybody really coming to
Speaker 3: like ask us about what was happening.
Speaker 1: And for you read because obviously you were in the
Speaker 1: family system though you were moving away. First of all,
Speaker 1: what was your relationship like with her? And then how
Speaker 1: did that you know, how did you manage those early
Speaker 1: days of her being gone, and then when it got
Speaker 1: confirmed she's not coming back.
Speaker 2: Before she left, I felt like our relationship had gotten
Speaker 2: kind of closer and closer, even though you know, she's
Speaker 2: got this whole separate house that's a little bit more
Speaker 2: removed from the Harkness family. I would go over there.
Speaker 2: My stepbrother's close in age to me, so like we
Speaker 2: would do sleepovers over there, hang out with my brothers,
Speaker 2: And I felt like, as I got older, I got
Speaker 2: closer with Joyce because we really shared this sort of
Speaker 2: like artistic drive, and she was really encouraging of like
Speaker 2: me taking Sam out and doing the filmmaking them we
Speaker 2: were doing. She was like, that's so great, you know,
Speaker 2: Like she would just be so excited and she's like
Speaker 2: I'd be like, okay, I'm here to pick up Sam,
Speaker 2: and she's like great, you know. She just she was
Speaker 2: so encouraging. So I think that my memory of her
Speaker 2: before leaving was that same kind of energy, And so
Speaker 2: I had a kind of blind optimism when it comes
Speaker 2: to this sort of road trip idea, that it's like,
Speaker 2: if we can find her, like she'll at least be
Speaker 2: able to connect with us in some way, you know.
Speaker 1: And I want to come into that road trip because
Speaker 1: this is the significant piece of the film before I
Speaker 1: get to that for either of you. Because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of viewers, myself included when I saw the film,
Speaker 1: are going to wonder did anyone, even children in the family,
Speaker 1: see any red flags that would have led you not
Speaker 1: to say, well, of course she's going to leave, because
Speaker 1: obviously you were all startled by it. But when you
Speaker 1: told the story backwards, you felt like Okay, this doesn't
Speaker 1: this isn't completely in a vacuum or out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think a couple months before she left, she was
Speaker 3: taking a few trips. I remember her going to Texas
Speaker 3: a couple times and maybe California once, and that was
Speaker 3: a little bit out of the ordinary for her. I
Speaker 3: don't remember her traveling much at all besides maybe to
Speaker 3: go visit her parents in Oregon. And we didn't go
Speaker 3: on trips very often either. When I traveled, it was
Speaker 3: usually with my dad. Yeah, not a lot with my
Speaker 3: mom and her doing solo trips. That was like a
Speaker 3: little bit of like, oh, that's interesting that she's traveling
Speaker 3: by herself, not with my stepdad. But we were very
Speaker 3: well informed about it. We knew when she was leaving,
Speaker 3: when she was coming back, and all that. So again
Speaker 3: wasn't a red flag at the time, but now that
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about it, that was like, it's interesting to
Speaker 3: think about.
Speaker 1: Okay, So there was things that while they were happening,
Speaker 1: you never nobody, Sam whatever connected dots of she went
Speaker 1: to Texas and California, She's going to leave.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's not how you connect that.
Speaker 1: But then you go backwards and you say, there was
Speaker 1: that slight change in behavior.
Speaker 4: What about you read you were a little older.
Speaker 1: Was there anything you were observing that now in retrospect
Speaker 1: you thought no.
Speaker 2: But when we started making a film about this, I
Speaker 2: did a really deep investigation where I was talking to
Speaker 2: all of our family members and all of her friends
Speaker 2: at the time, and stuff came out through that. So, like,
Speaker 2: I learned that she started kind of retreating from friendships,
Speaker 2: long term friendships, and she was demoted at a job,
Speaker 2: and a few things were happening that kind of might
Speaker 2: have sent her to a place of feeling like she
Speaker 2: just her old life had kind of come to a
Speaker 2: place where she just wasn't happy.
Speaker 1: Okay, So again things that be told backwards, but in
Speaker 1: real time, hey, you didn't know some of those things
Speaker 1: until afterwards or be when they were happening. It would
Speaker 1: have been a bit of a leap of conceptual leap
Speaker 1: to say, oh, she's gone to Texas, so she's going
Speaker 1: to leave.
Speaker 4: So I understand that.
Speaker 1: But what I want to do now is really get
Speaker 1: into this idea of the road trip, because this is
Speaker 1: why this is such a wonderful film, because not only
Speaker 1: is there this beautiful footage of a boy growing up,
Speaker 1: told through the lens of his brother. Then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, it becomes a road trip film, which, of
Speaker 1: who doesn't love a road trip film and.
Speaker 4: A very very unique road trip.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even until after I talked to Read and
Speaker 1: Sam that it jumped out to me that healing is
Speaker 1: a road trip and it's fashion, even if it's not
Speaker 1: literally in a car. Survivors of any kind of difficult,
Speaker 1: confusing relationship, especially if it is something as formative as
Speaker 1: a relationship with a parent, feel compelled to sort of
Speaker 1: go on a bit of a journey to figure it out.
Speaker 1: Read and Sam got into a are to literally look
Speaker 1: for their mother and stepmother. Most survivors do this psychologically.
Speaker 1: They explore and ask questions and go backwards and forwards
Speaker 1: in their mind to figure it out.
Speaker 4: Where did this go? What just happened?
Speaker 1: So would lud love to do, is have you share
Speaker 1: with us what the goal of the road trip was
Speaker 1: going to be, what you hoped would happen from both
Speaker 1: of your perspectives. So here you are setting off on
Speaker 1: a road trip, honestly like no other. What was the
Speaker 1: goal of this road trip?
Speaker 2: Sam was so gung how about this He's like, this
Speaker 2: is happening during my midwinter break. This is the only
Speaker 2: window I have my schedule. Is really important that this
Speaker 2: is the timeframe that I have. So I was like, Okay, okay,
Speaker 2: I guess, I guess. I guess we're going then. And
Speaker 2: I was not prepared. First of all, I'm the only
Speaker 2: one that's got a driver's license. And then and then
Speaker 2: like we're borrowing our dad's minivan, and like we don't
Speaker 2: have any money, and so we're like borrowing money from
Speaker 2: family members. Our grandma sends us with like a batch
Speaker 2: of cookies, and you know, we didn't really have a
Speaker 2: solid lead, but we had one location, and we have
Speaker 2: this location in Long Beach, California. There's supposed to be
Speaker 2: like a history professor that might have been in contact
Speaker 2: with her. So we're like, hey, we're gonna just like
Speaker 2: go down there and meet this guy in his office hour.
Speaker 2: So that's gonna be your best shot.
Speaker 1: So how did you come to the determination about the
Speaker 1: professor in Long Beach? Did you look at old correspondence?
Speaker 1: Was it a recollection you had?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it came up through these interviews. I was
Speaker 2: doing this like in a research investigative process. That I
Speaker 2: was doing. We're doing it through the film, and you
Speaker 2: can see how that comes about our step brother Peter,
Speaker 2: through Joyce's first marriage. He's about my age. We were
Speaker 2: having a conversation and he mentioned a name, and through
Speaker 2: research we figured out that he was down at this university.
Speaker 2: And we thought that if we just cold called him
Speaker 2: that he might just like hang up on us, you know,
Speaker 2: too easy for him to just like, you know, go cold,
Speaker 2: and so we thought our best shot was to, like,
Speaker 2: you know, okay, here's the actual relatives. Showing up at
Speaker 2: his office after driving a thousand miles, that's probably like,
Speaker 2: you know, he's probably like entertained us, you know.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you get in the minivan, you point it south,
Speaker 1: you drive one thousand miles, You show up at the
Speaker 1: university in Long Beach, and smartly, so you show up
Speaker 1: at office hours when all of us professors had to
Speaker 1: have our doors open.
Speaker 4: What happened when you got to Long Beach and showed
Speaker 4: up at the university, he wasn't there.
Speaker 1: As we often are professors often missed their office hour.
Speaker 2: We get there and not only is he like not
Speaker 2: there at the time, but we're told he's on semi
Speaker 2: permanent leave of absence. He's out, so is super discouraging.
Speaker 2: Just a really upsetting thing for me, who you know,
Speaker 2: figured this was our one shot.
Speaker 3: It did feel like almost this just you know, sign
Speaker 3: on the wall saying like you failed, like you this
Speaker 3: is it? That was it? Like you drove all this
Speaker 3: way and you you failed. It's kind of just like
Speaker 3: what I like running into a wall immediately.
Speaker 4: So was the road tripe or bust.
Speaker 2: No. Right after that, we went to the beach to
Speaker 2: throw a frisbee and deliberate, and you know, Sam is
Speaker 2: still maintaining is cool. He's like, eh, well we're at
Speaker 2: the beach. Let's throw a frisbee. I was ready to
Speaker 2: break down, and I thought I was going to be
Speaker 2: the one that, like, you know, Sam might be crawling
Speaker 2: on my shoulder. But at this point I think, like
Speaker 2: I'm ready to lose it, and Sam's being the sort
Speaker 2: of stable one. And I realized in my notes that
Speaker 2: I have I have a few phone numbers listings I
Speaker 2: had found for this professor, and so we decide on
Speaker 2: this beach to start making some phone calls.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we practice. Reid has me practice like
Speaker 3: if your mom picks up or if Professor Goslin picks up,
Speaker 3: what do you say? I was like, oh, yeah, well
Speaker 3: I'll just say that I'm Sam, I'm her kid, or
Speaker 3: you know, my mom picks up, I say, hi Mom.
Speaker 3: I remember feeling excited because I had like some giddy energy.
Speaker 3: I think you can see it in the movie that
Speaker 3: you know. I'm like kind of smiling through everything I'm saying.
Speaker 3: And I make the call and my mom picks up.
Speaker 3: I say, like Mom, and then I think she picks
Speaker 3: up that it's me pretty quickly too. I think I
Speaker 3: like talk for like five minutes straight, just updating her
Speaker 3: without her even like getting much of a word in.
Speaker 3: And I'm just updating her on my life, in Jared's
Speaker 3: life and what I'm doing. And I was like, I'm
Speaker 3: in California. I was looking for you, as if that's
Speaker 3: a really normal thing to like like in an introduction, Hey,
Speaker 3: I was looking for you, And well let me tell
Speaker 3: you about Like I've traveled to Europe, I've done all
Speaker 3: this stuff, and I've been to Japan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got a girlfriend girlfriend Jared.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then it does end with an invite over
Speaker 3: to see her, to come see her, but also with
Speaker 3: a pretty like Stern. Don't tell anybody you found me
Speaker 3: or where I am, or that you've spoken to me.
Speaker 3: And I think that was kind of understood from the beginning, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: you've gone through a lot of effort to not be found.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to just tell everybody where you are.
Speaker 3: But it both ends with this welcoming like you and
Speaker 3: reed come come see me, come in person, and also
Speaker 3: don't tell people about this.
Speaker 1: I have to say that that moment of the film
Speaker 1: was incredibly, incredibly affecting for me, when you are sitting
Speaker 1: on the beach talking on the phone, and what was
Speaker 1: amazing to me, Sam, amazing was you literally did just
Speaker 1: jump into a conversation, like just kind of giving her
Speaker 1: an update, as though she was someone who had been
Speaker 1: on a business trip and you hadn't talked to her
Speaker 1: for a week or two.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I have to say, Sam, the vast majority of people
Speaker 1: in your situation would have become rageful, angry, accusatory. How
Speaker 1: could you There's something very special about you. I have
Speaker 1: to say. Your brother captured it initially saying you're very resilient,
Speaker 1: And it was there that I actually to pause the film.
Speaker 4: At that point.
Speaker 1: I was almost sort of crying and upset, like, how
Speaker 1: is he able to do this? And he should be
Speaker 1: angry at her, like as though Sam was responsible for
Speaker 1: channeling my emotion in that scene, right, anyone who watches
Speaker 1: this an incredibly powerful scene. And so how did you
Speaker 1: just spring into just the update instead of not only
Speaker 1: did you give her the update and not going to
Speaker 1: all the accusations. Then she's asking you, hey, please do
Speaker 1: not if you will blow my cover, not share this.
Speaker 1: Like I said, the vast majority of people will say
Speaker 1: to heck with you? Do you know how many people affected?
Speaker 1: You affected Jared and what it said? I am telling
Speaker 1: everyone where you are you had no right to know
Speaker 1: you respected that boundary. You kind of were being sort
Speaker 1: of blue lanterny there. That was sort of kind of
Speaker 1: epic because I think a lot of people would say,
Speaker 1: I'm not keeping your secret, I'm not doing this, and
Speaker 1: would have likely reacted with a lot of negative emotion
Speaker 1: at the time of the call. So how did that
Speaker 1: play out for you and what was happening inside of
Speaker 1: you that you were able to just make this about
Speaker 1: update and you and Read were able to show up
Speaker 1: and not violate something she asked you to do.
Speaker 3: From the very beginning as little foresight as I had
Speaker 3: back then in that trip, I think the one thing
Speaker 3: I knew I did want was to just pick up
Speaker 3: where he left off with my mom's relationship and not
Speaker 3: have to hold your accountable to anything. I don't think
Speaker 3: holding it an accountable was ever a goal of mine,
Speaker 3: and in fact was an area I wanted to stay
Speaker 3: clear of to not scare her away. I think I
Speaker 3: was worried about that as well. I even thought, like
Speaker 3: sometimes when the camera was around when we first get
Speaker 3: to see her, when Reid and I got to see her, like,
Speaker 3: I had a little bit anxiety about that, and like,
Speaker 3: maybe we should put the camera away read maybe we
Speaker 3: shouldn't film this, as you know, a major possibility of
Speaker 3: her being scared away and disappearing again and being inhearder
Speaker 3: to find. So I hear and see people like kind
Speaker 3: of see that more like as resilience in bravery, and
Speaker 3: I see a lot more as I'm willing to ignore.
Speaker 1: Sam made such an important point here, and it was
Speaker 1: a revelation for me. I had to check myself because
Speaker 1: I got so caught up in the zeal of resilient
Speaker 1: Sam that I didn't step back and consider capitulating Sam
Speaker 1: survival Sam, Sam who has mastered the ability to push
Speaker 1: emotions down to keep relationships going. This is so important
Speaker 1: because survivors are often congratulated, and right here I am
Speaker 1: guilty as charged.
Speaker 4: I just did it with him.
Speaker 1: Right here, they're congratulated for not sharing their emotions, for
Speaker 1: not being angry. Maybe him holding back that anger wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily a superpower, but simply a manifestation of how he
Speaker 1: was emotionally silenced by her loss.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to kind of push feelings down for the sake
Speaker 3: of others. There.
Speaker 1: Good for you for picking it up that way, because
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. On a second watching of the film,
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, you know, why does
Speaker 1: she still get to call the shots after her leaving?
Speaker 1: And you were making accommodation for her, which my next
Speaker 1: thought was this skill may not serve Sam well in
Speaker 1: the future. Yep, And so I think that there is
Speaker 1: that moment of wow, he's being so nice. Then it's again.
Speaker 1: The next reaction was anger, Why does she still get
Speaker 1: to call the shots? She called the ultimate shots? In
Speaker 1: many ways, it's Sam who should be accommodated too, And
Speaker 1: yet you were still doing the accommodating for a very
Speaker 1: clear reason that you didn't want to.
Speaker 4: Scare her away.
Speaker 1: Read What was that day like for you that Sam
Speaker 1: got her on the phone and then the two of
Speaker 1: you rolled up to her house?
Speaker 2: Oh what a mix of emotions. I mean, definitely one
Speaker 2: of the most like profound moments, day moments. You know,
Speaker 2: so much is happening there, and it's reduced to just
Speaker 2: me and Sam, you know, like we're the only ones
Speaker 2: experiencing this and we're not allowed to talk about it
Speaker 2: with anyone. So it's like there's this strange electricity, like
Speaker 2: what does this mean? What's going to happen? What's she's
Speaker 2: going to be like when we see her? See I
Speaker 2: was just like, it'll be cool, Everything's gonna be fine.
Speaker 2: We don't need to really even talk about it. I'm
Speaker 2: just excited to see her. And for me, it's just
Speaker 2: more questions are coming up. I just I'm just like, well,
Speaker 2: why if she's so cool with us coming, Like, why
Speaker 2: did she have to be hidden for so long? Like
Speaker 2: why couldn't she have just reached out? So it was
Speaker 2: so strange. And then when we get there, she's all
Speaker 2: smiles and hugs and welcoming and even has like like
Speaker 2: sushi and like the very saved soda that she used
Speaker 2: to have in the fridge at their old house. She
Speaker 2: was keyed in to bits of this old life and
Speaker 2: she was able to step back into that performance of
Speaker 2: who she was as a mother instantly. But like right away,
Speaker 2: there's no like I'm sorry, or like gosh, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: you guys have been through so much. I can't believe it.
Speaker 2: You know. It was just like here I am. And
Speaker 2: then we go and we like have this like sit
Speaker 2: down thing at a coffee shop and she basically gives
Speaker 2: this this passionate speel about why she laughed, which is
Speaker 2: another scene in the movie that is just very intense.
Speaker 1: So you went from the house to the coffee shop
Speaker 1: and that's where she starts talking about her why.
Speaker 4: That's right, Sam, to start.
Speaker 1: With you, What did it feel like to hear her
Speaker 1: why her reason for leaving, and how did that affect
Speaker 1: your process of sort of figuring all of this out.
Speaker 3: I remember not holding a ton of value in it.
Speaker 3: It's not gonna be that valuable to me to know why.
Speaker 3: And I think also, like knowing my mom, she could
Speaker 3: be somewhat manipulative in a very charismatic way, and I
Speaker 3: kind of know sometimes when I'm stepping into that, and
Speaker 3: that felt like one of those times. So it just
Speaker 3: didn't feel like a full, like honest answer and reasoning.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it felt more like I have to defend
Speaker 3: myself first before I actually give you any kind of
Speaker 3: like substantial reasoning behind what I did.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you got her defense. When the substantial reasoning came,
Speaker 1: did it ring true or like you said, you were
Speaker 1: able to see it with a grain of salt, knowing
Speaker 1: that it may potentially be sort of a distortion or
Speaker 1: a manipulation.
Speaker 3: Well, the thing is, I don't know if I've ever
Speaker 3: actually heard or discussed with her a full reasoning why,
Speaker 3: and so I don't think I've gotten that deep with
Speaker 3: her yet before.
Speaker 1: Wow, So you still, after all these years, you haven't
Speaker 1: gotten that deep with her? This is I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask you a strange question, but you may not be
Speaker 1: able to answer. Do you think she knows?
Speaker 3: That is a great question. I'm not sure. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I want to say she has been putting in some
Speaker 3: work more recently on good just a lot of what's
Speaker 3: going on, But I don't know. I don't know for.
Speaker 1: Sure and read you were at that same coffee shop meeting,
Speaker 1: so you heard sort of the defense followed by sounds
Speaker 1: like I'm not very convincing, sort of why as it were,
Speaker 1: how did that encounter leave you feeling?
Speaker 2: That coffee shop explanation was so intense. I mean she
Speaker 2: says things like I had to leave to get out
Speaker 2: of the control of everybody and then like rebuild her life.
Speaker 2: So basically she's saying she had to leave and she
Speaker 2: had to start a new life, and I couldn't make
Speaker 2: sense of that. I mean, even to this day, I
Speaker 2: play back that taper. I watched that scene and there's
Speaker 2: a lot of things in there that I'm still trying
Speaker 2: to like really understand. I think it's possible that, you know,
Speaker 2: she was going into a place where she was she
Speaker 2: was really losing her mind and would have been an
Speaker 2: unpleasant person to be around. But I still can't get
Speaker 2: over the simplicity of just like, Okay, well, once you're
Speaker 2: able to send a gift, or once you're able to
Speaker 2: like just send a letter, you know, like just let
Speaker 2: these guys know. Because the more time that goes on,
Speaker 2: I could see that it was like it was getting
Speaker 2: worse I just felt like I had so many more
Speaker 2: questions at that point, and so I kept going back
Speaker 2: and interviewing her and talking to her and trying to
Speaker 2: like crack this open because I wanted to understand and
Speaker 2: I wanted to know was there things that were happening.
Speaker 2: Was like, they're like any like abuse or anything that
Speaker 2: like would have really made a person need to go
Speaker 2: on like a witness protection plan level escape.
Speaker 4: And it doesn't seem like that's what you found out.
Speaker 2: No, I didn't find anything like that out. But we
Speaker 2: did learn a lot about Joyce's upbringing. And I think
Speaker 2: that that's really the thing is that you know, Sam
Speaker 2: brought up like attachment with his dad and his mom,
Speaker 2: and I felt a little more attached to his dad.
Speaker 2: I mean, in Sam's case, he had attachment to two parents.
Speaker 2: I think that in Joyce's case, she didn't have any
Speaker 2: parental attachments. Like the way she describes it and the
Speaker 2: way that we see her adoptive family on camera, there
Speaker 2: wasn't to secure attachment potentially, And I don't know you
Speaker 2: can tell me as a psychologist if this is where
Speaker 2: this kind of behavior begins.
Speaker 1: You know, as you're asking read, is you weren't learning
Speaker 1: about some sort of very clear reason why she left.
Speaker 1: But what you did on Earth was more information about
Speaker 1: her family of origin, which wasn't a safe place. It
Speaker 1: wasn't characterized by attachment. We come to find out that
Speaker 1: Joyce was adopted, and there's a complicated series of issues
Speaker 1: related to that. Absolutely those things can matter. Attachment is
Speaker 1: so important to how we go through the world as
Speaker 1: adults that it can shape things. So in essence, a
Speaker 1: seed may have been planted decades before, in the sense
Speaker 1: that when people have disruptions in early attachment, they could
Speaker 1: be the loss of a caregiver. It could be chaos
Speaker 1: in the early family system. It could be neglect, coldness,
Speaker 1: it could be abandonment at a very young age. And
Speaker 1: attachment is laid down when we're young. Most of this
Speaker 1: happens before the age of three and four, as the
Speaker 1: child is looking to a safe, consistent place to come
Speaker 1: to where they feel that their vocalizations will be recognized
Speaker 1: and responded to.
Speaker 4: By a caregiver.
Speaker 1: And there were disruptions in all of that is what
Speaker 1: you had heard from Joyce, and that absolutely can result
Speaker 1: in this. People who don't have secure attachments will often
Speaker 1: have anxious or avoidant or disorganized attachments in adult life,
Speaker 1: which means intimacy becomes difficult, empathy becomes difficult, the capacity
Speaker 1: for staying in uncomfortable circumstances because of that lack of
Speaker 1: intimacy and depth, some people just want to do a
Speaker 1: cut and run because it just doesn't feel safe. And
Speaker 1: so all of those early attachment experiences, this is why,
Speaker 1: this is why supporting new parents and creating safety for children,
Speaker 1: it's not just putting time into an infant. It is
Speaker 1: a payout that can last seventy eighty ninety years because
Speaker 1: it will affect how that person goes through life in perpetuity.
Speaker 1: Be attachment wounds that Joy experienced absolutely could be a
Speaker 1: major explanatory factor into how she was able to leave
Speaker 1: a custodial role being the mother to three sons because
Speaker 1: she also had Peter. Yeah, so she the mother to
Speaker 1: three sons, a stepmother to a son. That's a lot
Speaker 1: to leave. And so it often isn't a simple explanation.
Speaker 1: And once we open the lid on attachment, we recognize
Speaker 1: that these are wounds that far predated the birth of
Speaker 1: any of you and that you ended up kind of
Speaker 1: getting and this is why we talk about intergenerational trauma
Speaker 1: and intergenerational cycles. The tracks for this were planted long
Speaker 1: before the next generation even exists, and that becomes important
Speaker 1: as a way of lifting a sense of responsibility for
Speaker 1: the survivors who had absolutely nothing to do with this.
Speaker 1: They came long after those initial traumas were set, and
Speaker 1: these can sometimes be cycles handed down two, three, four,
Speaker 1: even more generations. So it's quite profound. Do you have
Speaker 1: any thoughts about that?
Speaker 2: I mean, that's super enlightening for me. My fine, and
Speaker 2: like you know, this, this story to you know, be
Speaker 2: a really complex narrative and that like we're looking at
Speaker 2: all these different members of family, we're looking at different generations,
Speaker 2: and you know, we're starting to see all of these clues.
Speaker 2: You start to see kind of a map, and I
Speaker 2: think it is the kind of movie that you can
Speaker 2: watch multiple times in order to get more out of it.
Speaker 2: But you know, you know, me starting with a simple
Speaker 2: question of like why is Sam resilient? These things start
Speaker 2: to get answered through looking at this sort of like
Speaker 2: generational mapping, and it's also strange, but I it all
Speaker 2: begins to make sense at the same time, Like, yes,
Speaker 2: that makes sense if you know in eighteen months. Joyce
Speaker 2: was in a Japanese orphanage at the end of World
Speaker 2: War Two and the circumstances were really crazy, and a
Speaker 2: military family adopted her and brought her back, probably under
Speaker 2: some pressure from the military that you know, there's just
Speaker 2: too many orphaned babies now mixed raced orphan babies in Japan.
Speaker 2: She comes to Oregon and finds that she doesn't feel
Speaker 2: like she fits in or is accepted, or there's not
Speaker 2: a good connection, and that persists, you know, all the
Speaker 2: way through her teens. It seems we don't have enough
Speaker 2: information to like really understand what goes on there. But
Speaker 2: from her story, it was not a healthy experience, not
Speaker 2: a positive experience.
Speaker 1: Sam, What was it like for you as more and
Speaker 1: more light got shed on your mother's origin story of
Speaker 1: being adopted from a Japanese orphanage at a time when
Speaker 1: the mixed race orphans were really really viewed through the
Speaker 1: most humanizing of lenses, coming to the States, not having healthy,
Speaker 1: secure attachments with the adoptive family. As that picture filled
Speaker 1: out for you, how did it impact your process of growth, healing,
Speaker 1: moving beyond this sort of experience that happened when you're
Speaker 1: twelve or thirteen years old.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there's multiple points of like I can
Speaker 3: kind of remember when more light was being shed on
Speaker 3: everything and my kind of perception of it all was growing.
Speaker 3: But I do remember having a very little understanding when
Speaker 3: I was younger. I remember once having a conversation with
Speaker 3: my mom, maybe when I was like younger than ten,
Speaker 3: I didn't really understand adoption very well, and I had
Speaker 3: asked her, it sounds really weird, but why doesn't she
Speaker 3: just look for her biological mom or like something like that,
Speaker 3: and she snapped at me. I remember in a way
Speaker 3: that was just kind of like, we don't, like I'm
Speaker 3: not going to talk about this with you anymore. And
Speaker 3: I remember like so early messaging of something we talk about.
Speaker 3: And then there were other clues later on just about
Speaker 3: kind of like I think the mistreatment she kind of
Speaker 3: had from her adoptive family. And I would hear little
Speaker 3: stories about how she was kind of just like a
Speaker 3: second class family member to everybody, and the punishment she
Speaker 3: would go through, like time out standing in corners. And
Speaker 3: I think we had like a pet monkey at one
Speaker 3: point that she would always talk about how the monkey
Speaker 3: was a higher up family member than her. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: I was getting all these clues that like this adoptive
Speaker 3: life is not good for her, and that she won't
Speaker 3: talk about the biological life. And so I think later on,
Speaker 3: when I started to learning more and more, after we'd
Speaker 3: found my mom again and she talked about a little
Speaker 3: bit more, I think I started to understand a little
Speaker 3: bit more of the like the trauma that was involved.
Speaker 3: And you know, now it kind of feels like she's
Speaker 3: experienced two different abandonments through her life, one from her
Speaker 3: biological family and then one you know, although I think
Speaker 3: she also distanced herself. But like you see in the
Speaker 3: movie Her Mom teen, her adopted mom teen like says
Speaker 3: that there is no choice to her anymore. So that's
Speaker 3: like a second basically abandonment happening there as well. So
Speaker 3: I think I started to understand and empathize a lot
Speaker 3: more that, like, she had gone through a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think just that understanding was really helpful for me.
Speaker 4: It's good tonight.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting you say that, you know, her own
Speaker 1: adoptive mother saying there is no more joyce to me.
Speaker 1: But actually the person who endured sort of the worst
Speaker 1: of the abandonment was you and you did hold space
Speaker 1: for her, which really is an interesting juxtaposition that in
Speaker 1: this case it was the child who was behaving most compassionately.
Speaker 1: And this is something we'll circle back to in a
Speaker 1: little bit. But what gets so challenging is to hear
Speaker 1: a story like Joyce's which you receive with compassion. Of course,
Speaker 1: this is a very complicated early life to be a
Speaker 1: child who've been brought to another country to be treated
Speaker 1: like a second class citizen, and what that would do
Speaker 1: to someone. And yet Sam read you endured something very real,
Speaker 1: and it's the balancing of those two truths, the truth
Speaker 1: of Joyce's early difficult life and the truth of the
Speaker 1: losses that you endured, Jared Peter, all of you endured,
Speaker 1: and those two things can coexist, but it creates something
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable where you ping pong between going back and
Speaker 1: forth between I feel yea for her, I don't feel good,
Speaker 1: I feel bad for I don't feel good. And the
Speaker 1: hard work is being able to hold those two things
Speaker 1: simultaneously in your mind, to hold compassion for her, but
Speaker 1: also hold grace for yourself and giving yourself permission to
Speaker 1: be angry and not saying well she went through that,
Speaker 1: So I have no right to be angry. You have
Speaker 1: right to feel any way you want. It's the only
Speaker 1: way for these emotions to be processed. It's one of
Speaker 1: the things that was stunning about the film was that
Speaker 1: we as the viewer had to sit with the discomfort
Speaker 1: of the story. And when you created that discomfort in us,
Speaker 1: we were able to have tremendous empathy with the discomfort
Speaker 1: that all of you had to endure at a relatively
Speaker 1: young age. So I really I appreciate that about your storytelling.
Speaker 1: My session with Sam and Reid will continue after this break.
Speaker 1: So after a long beach, after the coffee shop meeting,
Speaker 1: after all of that, what happens all road trips come
Speaker 1: to an end? Did you just turn the minivan around
Speaker 1: and drive back to Portland? What happened after that?
Speaker 2: A lot of things happen in the movie. You can
Speaker 2: see there's like a point where I like stand up
Speaker 2: and address the family over what's going on, But I
Speaker 2: think we should just fast forward to Sam is still
Speaker 2: just like wanting to protect Joyce in the scenario feels like,
Speaker 2: you know, like, hey, everything's fine and she's back in
Speaker 2: my life. We're good. Everything's good now, and I. One
Speaker 2: of the last things I say is like, well, don't
Speaker 2: you want to know why she left? She's like no,
Speaker 2: I'm good, Like everything's good now. So fast forward to
Speaker 2: years later, Sam's point of view changes pretty dramatically.
Speaker 4: Can you talk about that, Sam?
Speaker 1: Many years later, you go from I don't need to
Speaker 1: know why I'm going to you know, in essence protect her?
Speaker 1: What shifted for you and why did that happen?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Sam, I touched my own relationships with behaviors. I
Speaker 3: it was like recognizing as some of like my mom's
Speaker 3: behaviors too, which I could pick up on being annoying,
Speaker 3: and I could recognize like this is like not how
Speaker 3: I want to behave, But I didn't quite pick up
Speaker 3: on like, oh, that's stuff my mom would do, not
Speaker 3: until I went to therapy afterwards. And I kind of
Speaker 3: had a three year relationship that went really poorly and
Speaker 3: it was totally my fault and felt a lot of
Speaker 3: shame and guilt around it. And that was kind of
Speaker 3: the catalyst for me going to therapy, and that's when
Speaker 3: I started to work a lot more on like, you know,
Speaker 3: this is kind of the impact. I think a lot
Speaker 3: of this, a lot of the abandonment had on me,
Speaker 3: and not even just the abandonment, but like some of
Speaker 3: the more toxic behaviors I'd seen in my mom throughout
Speaker 3: my life too.
Speaker 1: It's interesting what you're describing, Sam, because we see this
Speaker 1: in many people who go through what you went through.
Speaker 1: They go through it in childhood, they go through it,
Speaker 1: they don't think about it, don't even have languaging for it,
Speaker 1: and then come into adulthood and then notice that there
Speaker 1: are things in their life that are not going well,
Speaker 1: particularly intimate relationships, and then sort of begin to connect
Speaker 1: those dots Joyce's behavior.
Speaker 4: You were hurt by it.
Speaker 1: You know, there's no way you could soften that that
Speaker 1: this did directly affect you. It wasn't that Joyce did something.
Speaker 1: And I can find a way to think differently it. Oh,
Speaker 1: we don't have to take it on. We don't need
Speaker 1: to talk about why she did it. This is when
Speaker 1: people say just think differently. I'm like, yeah, nah, doesn't
Speaker 1: work that way. You know that the poison comes up
Speaker 1: through the groundwater, as it were, Like this stuff, if
Speaker 1: it's not processed, it doesn't mean we're doomed.
Speaker 4: It means it needs to be processed.
Speaker 1: And so and that's the piece is that And you
Speaker 1: did go to therapy, and this is what therapists do.
Speaker 1: We're just really good at connect the dots because it's
Speaker 1: not our story, it's not our life. So we're able
Speaker 1: to get a little bit of a zoomed out view
Speaker 1: to help a person connect those dots and start seeing that.
Speaker 4: I want to go back a little.
Speaker 1: Bit ahead of that, because Long Beach, you go back,
Speaker 1: Mom drops you off, and there's still though that disconnect
Speaker 1: for Joy, she did not feel the need to see Jared.
Speaker 1: That also is very affecting that why wouldn't you You've
Speaker 1: seen your once and why wouldn't you want to see
Speaker 1: your other? So she remains still very very detached, and
Speaker 1: then she turns around, she goes home. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: like it was over there. Your mom, Joy started coming
Speaker 1: back into your life. Is now going to be more contact?
Speaker 1: How did that play out? I know, Red, you know,
Speaker 1: talk to the family, said what was going on? But
Speaker 1: it's not like then she went to Long Beach and disappeared.
Speaker 1: She actually became a little bit more of a presence
Speaker 1: in your life again.
Speaker 4: What did that feel like?
Speaker 3: It definitely felt like this very tightrope walk of a
Speaker 3: balance of we have a small relationship and we see
Speaker 3: each other once a year maybe and very much on
Speaker 3: her terms. Like you know, she she didn't really come
Speaker 3: to Seattle. Maybe she came once every three years or so,
Speaker 3: and it was us having to visit her, which I
Speaker 3: always thought was difficult because three of her sons were
Speaker 3: in Seattle, and you know what parent wouldn't love to
Speaker 3: have all of their adult kids in the same city
Speaker 3: to like visit at the same time. That was kind
Speaker 3: of like me starting to realize that, like, you know,
Speaker 3: she's not going to leave her comfort zone. She's going
Speaker 3: to keep everything on her terms and as flexible as
Speaker 3: she makes herself seen with like yeah, I'll like buy
Speaker 3: a train ticket for you to come out or do whatever.
Speaker 3: But it's like very much we have to go out
Speaker 3: to you, yeah, and yeah, you're not going to come
Speaker 3: to us. So that was like kind of that middle
Speaker 3: part of the relationship was a lot of space. Still
Speaker 3: so much space, and yeah, it wasn't exactly what I'd
Speaker 3: hoped for.
Speaker 1: A piece of their story that is actually very telling
Speaker 1: and may not be completely clear, is that Joyce did
Speaker 1: end up moving away from Long Beach to southern Oregon.
Speaker 1: As Sam points out, her children are all in Seattle,
Speaker 1: so she is closer, but still far enough that seeing
Speaker 1: each other would be logistically challenging. This feels almost metaphorical
Speaker 1: that in these kinds of challenging relationships there may be
Speaker 1: some shift, but that that larger goal of connection and
Speaker 1: closeness feels elusive. Were you part of this whole journey
Speaker 1: of like joyce coming back into every one's life or
Speaker 1: was this much more something that was for Salm and
Speaker 1: his brother.
Speaker 2: It was mostly for Sam and Jared, Jared especially, so
Speaker 2: Jared was invited to come live with her. You might
Speaker 2: have been invited to Sam, I don't remember, but Jared
Speaker 2: was invited. He goes in, he lives with her down
Speaker 2: in southern Oregon, and she really is involved with like
Speaker 2: getting him back on track. It's like they're just like, Okay,
Speaker 2: let's deal with school. Let's get you, you know, enrolled
Speaker 2: in a university. Let's get you a job, you know,
Speaker 2: all of the driver's license, like all of these things
Speaker 2: she was so good at with Jared, and Jared is
Speaker 2: just like just springs back to life from somebody who's
Speaker 2: so depressed and doesn't want to do a thing. To
Speaker 2: you know, really right away after we found her. He
Speaker 2: bounces back in school, he bounces back his energy. He's
Speaker 2: like there's like a shot in the movie where he's
Speaker 2: throwing her frisbee with us, And I don't think he
Speaker 2: had like done anything like that in the last few years.
Speaker 2: Like he just was just like a lump on the couch.
Speaker 2: It's really sad to think about now. But the Jared
Speaker 2: that we know now is like is not that way.
Speaker 2: He actually like works with those kind of kids at
Speaker 2: the same school where we see him in the movie,
Speaker 2: and like helps them with like confidence and starting in
Speaker 2: their assignments and all these things, which is pretty special.
Speaker 2: So Joyce played an active mother role for Jared and
Speaker 2: helped him kind of bounce back. But with Sam, she
Speaker 2: wasn't really it was all still very compartmentalized and like
Speaker 2: she wouldn't just come up and visit us all together.
Speaker 2: That wasn't a thing. Sam and Jared were invited to
Speaker 2: go down there, or Sam and Jared and Peter might
Speaker 2: have been invited to go down there. I'm like these
Speaker 2: very special invitations. And then I was still doing my thing,
Speaker 2: which is like I started a project. I started a
Speaker 2: film about this and so I would go and I
Speaker 2: would visit with her, and film is like, you know,
Speaker 2: she's doing stuff with Jared or interview Joyce to just
Speaker 2: kind of learn more about the story and her upbringing,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. And so our relationship became very
Speaker 2: tied to the movie.
Speaker 1: Okay, and it's interesting read if we go all the
Speaker 1: way back. One of the things that facilitated your early
Speaker 1: relationship with Joyce was how enthusiastic she was about your
Speaker 1: creative pursuits. So, I mean, the very thing she brought
Speaker 1: she brought again, and so there was a consistency to that.
Speaker 1: And to then witness Jared sort of coming back to life,
Speaker 1: it speaks to how muddy the water of these complicated
Speaker 1: relationships is the easy thing to do. If somebody gave
Speaker 1: you the elevator pitch of this film, coming of life,
Speaker 1: film mother, abandoned son, sons go on road trip and
Speaker 1: find her, people would immediately paint Joyce to be the
Speaker 1: two dimensional villain, what kind of woman leaves her children?
Speaker 1: But what happens is is you punch the story out,
Speaker 1: as we have to do in all of these stories.
Speaker 1: What happens for the people in your role Sam Jared
Speaker 1: read it's so complicated because something terrible did happen, and
Speaker 1: she was a attentive mother at one point, and Jared
Speaker 1: did pop back to life when she came back, and
Speaker 1: she was still very cagey, and she still did want
Speaker 1: things on her terms. This kind of ebb and flow
Speaker 1: roller coaster good things, bad things is the characteristic of
Speaker 1: these sorts of complex and at times antagonistic relationships. The
Speaker 1: film brings that to light, but here we think of
Speaker 1: the most This idea of a mother abandoning and a
Speaker 1: child is really sort of like a top shelf of
Speaker 1: like things you never do and it happened, and it's
Speaker 1: still not that simple.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just want to speak to uh. Read was
Speaker 3: going over some of the poster ideas with me, and
Speaker 3: there was one where he was talking about, there's like
Speaker 3: a silhouette of my young and my young face, and
Speaker 3: then they wanted to have my mom's silhouette like back
Speaker 3: to back in this like kind of sunset looking poster,
Speaker 3: and I was like, absolutely not, Like this is not
Speaker 3: like a protagonist antagonist, Like I think I was in
Speaker 3: a lighter light and hers was a darker light and
Speaker 3: that's just too easy, Like that's way too simplified in
Speaker 3: the story. It really reminded me of this like Anakin
Speaker 3: Skywalker or like Darth Vader type. It's like, this is
Speaker 3: not like hero villain. We got to be more complex
Speaker 3: than that.
Speaker 1: And like, yeah, And I think that that's where this
Speaker 1: film is so powerful, is that what every survivor says
Speaker 1: is that I've gone through something terrible. This relationship, whatever
Speaker 1: form it takes, has hurt me. And everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're terrible, They're terrible, And the person experiencing the relationship says,
Speaker 1: it's not that simple, because if it was, I would
Speaker 1: have just walked away and cut this person out. And
Speaker 1: this is the core of what we struggle with in
Speaker 1: every story we tell, and it's really magnified in your story.
Speaker 1: So what's happening though in the background, because now Joyce
Speaker 1: has moved Just so listeners are more clear, Joyce is
Speaker 1: no longer in California, She's moved closer. She's only about
Speaker 1: five hours away, so she's a lot closer to everyone,
Speaker 1: though not that close. Five hour drive is still quite
Speaker 1: a distance. But in the midst of all this, you
Speaker 1: still have your your father's family. How are they supporting
Speaker 1: you to this part of it because I have to say,
Speaker 1: as complicated as it was to deal with the initial
Speaker 1: abandonment and finding her, what's even more complicated is this
Speaker 1: very delicate dance of bringing her back into your life.
Speaker 4: And initially you were really, really really.
Speaker 1: Careful, Sam, because you were trying to, in essence, stave
Speaker 1: off another abandonment. But you're still very embedded in your
Speaker 1: father's life and your extended family. How are they helping
Speaker 1: you through this process?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that my dad was very supportive and appreciated.
Speaker 3: I think the relationship, like rebuilding the relationship with their
Speaker 3: mom and again kind of like very results oriented wise.
Speaker 3: He was very happy with how Jared was doing, you know,
Speaker 3: Jared coming back and like graduating and having a job,
Speaker 3: having a car, having all this success. And I do
Speaker 3: want to mention that when my mom came up to
Speaker 3: Seattle and visits my dad's house, in my grandma's house,
Speaker 3: you know, those were two things that I had kind
Speaker 3: of in my mind eliminated. Was never ever happening again.
Speaker 3: You like kind of categorize it. It's like this person
Speaker 3: will never be in this space again. And I understand that.
Speaker 3: And when it happened, it was very like blew kind
Speaker 3: of my mind and almost shut off a lot of
Speaker 3: the processing of what was going on because environmentally I
Speaker 3: was not prepared for it. The people who were talking
Speaker 3: to each other, my dad, my mom talking to each other,
Speaker 3: wasn't prepared for that either. It just kind of almost
Speaker 3: triggered a fight flight or freeze for me. And I
Speaker 3: was very frozen, very much. Couldn't understand to me that
Speaker 3: time period that like day is a snow globe captured
Speaker 3: piece that you know, it's just completely outside of the ordinary,
Speaker 3: completely outside of the wayship I have my mom, Like,
Speaker 3: I can't fit it anywhere in the entirety of this
Speaker 3: story at all. Like I don't understand it still to this.
Speaker 1: Day, Red, do you have any insights on that day,
Speaker 1: because it was actually quite It was a very interesting moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is coming after Sam's confronted Joyce through letters
Speaker 2: about her leaving him and the effect it's had on him,
Speaker 2: and he's actually angry as a grown adult, and he's
Speaker 2: said some pretty interesting things. But he's requested also that
Speaker 2: Joyce makes more of an effort to come and like
Speaker 2: be a part of our lives in Seattle, especially like
Speaker 2: come see Sam and Jared come try to be a
Speaker 2: little more normal about the relationship. And what is normal?
Speaker 2: Who knows, but he's like made this request. He really
Speaker 2: wants Joyce to be a little more active and proactive.
Speaker 2: And so this on this Halloween Day in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: she up and just applies all of this energy to
Speaker 2: reinserting herself back into the whole Harkness family. She's like,
Speaker 2: let's go surprise Randy and then let's go see Grandma,
Speaker 2: and you know, on a total whim and so she's
Speaker 2: like kind of getting a kick out of the surprise
Speaker 2: factor And wouldn't it be funny if this happened? And
Speaker 2: you know what's going to happen, what's gonna happen next?
Speaker 2: And in my mind, I think that she was charged
Speaker 2: by Sam's request, and I wonder if she was intentionally
Speaker 2: self sabotaging it.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it is interesting because one of
Speaker 1: the things that jumps out at me at this is
Speaker 1: there is a certain it's a little bit of a
Speaker 1: lack of empathy of what would it be like if
Speaker 1: I showed up?
Speaker 4: What is it like if I show up at all
Speaker 4: these people's houses.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is that empathy is not just understanding
Speaker 1: the feelings of others, but understanding our impact on other
Speaker 1: people and catching ourselves before we do something that may not,
Speaker 1: i don't know, feel good for the other person, right,
Speaker 1: And so there was a little bit of an empathic
Speaker 1: fail there in the sense of I'm going to come
Speaker 1: in and like you said, read it was this shock value,
Speaker 1: was this lack of awareness, was this this is what
Speaker 1: I feel like doing, so I'm just going to do
Speaker 1: it that obviously we don't know, but it definitely seemed
Speaker 1: a bit tone deaf at best.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, I will say also that like
Speaker 2: the family is used to drop ins on each other,
Speaker 2: like we're all like kind of loose in this way.
Speaker 2: It is like we were free range kids. But you know,
Speaker 2: this is something really different that's happening, where like, you know,
Speaker 2: people that haven't seen her in like fifteen years, and
Speaker 2: you know, she comes to the door and my dad
Speaker 2: doesn't even recognize her, like invit seran thinks he's just
Speaker 2: like some friend of ours. And then she comes in.
Speaker 2: It takes him like, you know, a couple of minutes
Speaker 2: before he's like, oh my gosh, it's Joyce. And then
Speaker 2: things like are like oh okay, and now he's like,
Speaker 2: now he's going into this place where he's like what
Speaker 2: do I do about this situation? And you know, he's
Speaker 2: such a sweet and he really you can see in
Speaker 2: the scene he's like, Okay, well, like let's kind of
Speaker 2: roll with this and see how it plays out, you know,
Speaker 2: and he's just he's a first grade teacher for like
Speaker 2: thirty years, so he's like been through all kinds of
Speaker 2: experiences with you with kids and has this temperament that's
Speaker 2: just like kind of just like okay, we'll just kind
Speaker 2: of go with things here. And then we all go
Speaker 2: over to our grandma's house and the party kind of grows,
Speaker 2: but it's a grandma's house where we really where Joyce
Speaker 2: reaches a point where she really starts to like let
Speaker 2: us in a little bit more to what's going on
Speaker 2: with her and our grandma, who's very wise lady has
Speaker 2: done lots of work with early child development and attachment
Speaker 2: and all these things, like actually happens to approach Joyce
Speaker 2: about narcissism and offers her a book on narcissism, and
Speaker 2: Joyce says, that's me, and then she goes on to
Speaker 2: sort of describe her coping mechanism a little more clearly
Speaker 2: for the first time. And it's pretty enlightening, even after
Speaker 2: we've gone through this roller coaster of a day of like,
Speaker 2: you know, we're surprising our dad and then and this
Speaker 2: is uncomfortable, and then like Grandma just like embraces her
Speaker 2: and puts on tea and and like let's talk like,
Speaker 2: you know, just just like old times. And her experience
Speaker 2: of that day was that like how nice it was that,
Speaker 2: you know, Joyce came back into the fold. And I
Speaker 2: think my dad's experience was just like what a unnerving
Speaker 2: what a he says the word it was. It was freaky.
Speaker 2: It was freakish to me. So it was a mix
Speaker 2: of many things. And I think it was you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't what Sam had wanted. I think he had
Speaker 2: wanted something different. Do what did you want, Sam? What
Speaker 2: did you want to have happened?
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe just like a dinner with me, Jared and
Speaker 3: Peter it would have been that would have been a
Speaker 3: good start. Yeah, you know, I don't need her to
Speaker 3: keep herself secret from everybody, but yeah, I think letting
Speaker 3: more people in on what like could be happening, instead
Speaker 3: of having having the jump on them a little bit
Speaker 3: would have been better. Like I would have loved for
Speaker 3: my grandma and my mom to like meet and see
Speaker 3: each other and they know actually that relationship's going still
Speaker 3: very well for them. But I just, yeah, I think
Speaker 3: it was not approached very well.
Speaker 2: M M.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I love that moment when your grandmother's like, Okay, well
Speaker 1: this is what I think you are, And it actually
Speaker 1: puts a finer point on that. One thing we know
Speaker 1: is many people with any kind of narcissistic presentation do
Speaker 1: have some sort of traumatic origin. The entire narcissistic presentation
Speaker 1: then is sort of a defense against that kind of
Speaker 1: existential hole that the attachment disruptions can sometimes cause, and
Speaker 1: so everything's a defensive maneuver with little regard for the
Speaker 1: other people.
Speaker 4: So your grandmother was spot on.
Speaker 1: What was really compelling to me was how Joyce was
Speaker 1: actually able to receive it and says, yes, that's me,
Speaker 1: which actually isn't the normative reaction. Most people who've handed
Speaker 1: a book about narcissism would either throw it against.
Speaker 4: The wall start to rage, how dare you?
Speaker 1: What was fascinating to me was Joyce's willingness to be
Speaker 1: in that moment with it. Again not unusual when people
Speaker 1: who've had more of that traumatic origin. So narcissism is
Speaker 1: also not a singular picture because the origins of it
Speaker 1: can come down so many different pathways. In some ways
Speaker 1: that can also affect the presentation. We will be right
Speaker 1: back with this conversation with Sam and Reid. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a point that came up in the film. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be selfish here because I found it very affecting.
Speaker 1: And I've told you that I found this really affecting,
Speaker 1: which was when your mom who left your life comes
Speaker 1: back in your life, lives five hours away, expects you
Speaker 1: to come see her. That there was one year, one
Speaker 1: year at Christmas, Sam, when you had a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff going on in your life, and he was like,
Speaker 1: you just didn't reach out. You didn't feel that you'
Speaker 1: something you had to do. She became very angry as
Speaker 1: the viewer. I mean, you did something almost hitchcocky in
Speaker 1: here that you left so many things towards the end,
Speaker 1: and yet we felt like we were seeing them all along.
Speaker 4: It was genius filmmaking.
Speaker 1: And so I remember I was there with Joyce, I
Speaker 1: really was. I was there with her, I was there
Speaker 1: with all of you. Then she pulled what I call
Speaker 1: the Christmas maneuver, and that was the moment Joyce lost me.
Speaker 1: I remember literally talking to the screen and saying, how
Speaker 1: dare you? Sam owes you nothing, He does not owe
Speaker 1: you a Mary Christmas. Don't ever watch a movie with me,
Speaker 1: by the way, because it's a whole conversation thing. But
Speaker 1: I was like, how could you do this to Sam? So, Sam,
Speaker 1: now I get the privilege of hearing from you what
Speaker 1: was happening for you? You said I can't be bothered
Speaker 1: this Christmas? And then you had to withstand some of
Speaker 1: her anger. What was that moment like for you?
Speaker 3: You know? At that point it too. I've been pretty
Speaker 3: far along in my in my like social work career,
Speaker 3: and so some of the professional skills I had been
Speaker 3: developing and working on it, I think we'll also just
Speaker 3: kind of fit my own like you know, personality and
Speaker 3: the soft skills I already had growing up. I definitely
Speaker 3: had an immediate response of like the kind of you know,
Speaker 3: she had this how dare you? Tone? And the immediate
Speaker 3: thought was I was like, how dare you? Like where
Speaker 3: do you think I get it from? But so I
Speaker 3: really tried to absorb it in this way that was like, Wow,
Speaker 3: I'm really sorry, I hurt you. I am a little
Speaker 3: bit overwhelmed. And I was going on this like kind
Speaker 3: of like getaway with my girlfriend to like a little staycation.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be a weekend long, and I was like,
Speaker 3: can I really get back to you after this, Like
Speaker 3: after the staycation, I've been like working super hard. And
Speaker 3: I think I actually worked every holiday too. I was
Speaker 3: working in homelessness youth services and I was working in
Speaker 3: the shelter at the time, and yeah, I kind of
Speaker 3: just like was trying to be accountable to it, and
Speaker 3: probably a little bit of me was social working here
Speaker 3: a little bit. Like it was like, I'm really sorry,
Speaker 3: it's my mistake. I did this and and I hurt you.
Speaker 3: Let me like get back to you on this when
Speaker 3: I get back, and not only enraged her further, and
Speaker 3: she sent like a couple more emails like right back,
Speaker 3: and this is I'm I'm on like the ferry to
Speaker 3: this like one hour away destination where we have this
Speaker 3: airbnb set up and everything, and yeah, within that time,
Speaker 3: she sends like two more pretty scathing emails where she's
Speaker 3: kind of yelling at me for like being ungrateful and
Speaker 3: that I was always mad at her, never let it
Speaker 3: go that she had left or never forgave her, and
Speaker 3: a lot of things that were just like pretty hurtful.
Speaker 3: After like a couple of responses, I was like pretty
Speaker 3: hurt and I didn't have it left into me for
Speaker 3: like to hold together relationships. It was kind of ignoring
Speaker 3: it again. And then she again sent a couple more emails,
Speaker 3: so she got caught up in this big whirlwind of
Speaker 3: like she needs to be like getting all this out
Speaker 3: at me. But eventually there was like a very much
Speaker 3: apologetic email where she mentions also that you know, there's
Speaker 3: there's a lot of harm that happened to me when
Speaker 3: I was younger, and also there's I was in therapy
Speaker 3: for a long time and all this stuff, and you know,
Speaker 3: I'm unhinged. Like basically she's like admitting to being like
Speaker 3: to having these mental health issues. And it was bizarre,
Speaker 3: it was weird. It was isolating for me. I don't
Speaker 3: think any of my other brothers got that side of
Speaker 3: her ever, And I started to feel this like I'm
Speaker 3: the scapegoat of my brothers. I'm the ones she can
Speaker 3: like do this too, and know it's gonna be okay,
Speaker 3: and that I and especially now in my line of work,
Speaker 3: where like I, you know, you can say those things
Speaker 3: to me and it's okay. So I have to like
Speaker 3: put up more boundaries now with her in that aspect
Speaker 3: of like I can't. I'm not gonna let you isolate me.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna let you like do these things. Were like,
Speaker 3: if this is gonna happen, you have to do it
Speaker 3: to all my brothers and not just me. But yeah,
Speaker 3: so that that was pretty hard and really difficult when
Speaker 3: I confronted my brothers about it and showed them the emails.
Speaker 3: Has this ever happened to you? And they're like no.
Speaker 1: It is not unusual in a family system where the
Speaker 1: person who may have some narcissistic ish patterns will focus
Speaker 1: on one person in the family system that they are
Speaker 1: more disregulated with or demanding of, and take out more
Speaker 1: of their rage with, and might typically be seen just
Speaker 1: as in this case with siblings, with one sibling being
Speaker 1: a bit more of a scapegoat and getting the worse
Speaker 1: of it and the others getting little or none of
Speaker 1: it at all, and not only doesn't feel good, it
Speaker 1: can feel worse when the people it's not happening to
Speaker 1: may minimize it or play it down, which can sort
Speaker 1: of feel gaslighty. This triangulated dynamic, which appears at various
Speaker 1: times in this story, is a signature element of family
Speaker 1: systems impacted by these personality styles.
Speaker 3: Not even just no, but excused her a little bit too, like,
Speaker 3: I don't think this is going to be a thing.
Speaker 3: I don't think you have to worry about it. And
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't know, I am like worried
Speaker 3: about it being more of a pattern, and yeah, it
Speaker 3: was kind of ignored and not dealt with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that doesn't feel good.
Speaker 1: I mean that, that doesn't feel good read as one
Speaker 1: of I mean again, this is unique opportunity here you are,
Speaker 1: You were part of this conversation. Did you really believe
Speaker 1: you just thought this wasn't going to happen anymore?
Speaker 3: I will say, Covey, that read actually I think was
Speaker 3: hearing me more. Oh, it was more. It was Jared
Speaker 3: and Peter who oh okay, okay, they have more of
Speaker 3: a relationship on the line.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: You know again, a lot of what you were having
Speaker 1: to bear under Sam was sort of the projected shame
Speaker 1: of Joyce right. That's the nature of these relationships is
Speaker 1: that the shame builds up to such an intolerable level
Speaker 1: in her she doesn't have healthy tools for coping with it.
Speaker 1: And in these relationships, people with these personality styles they
Speaker 1: project that shame on the person they believe evoked that shame.
Speaker 1: You evoked that shame without having the Christmas s greeting,
Speaker 1: you were going to get the worst of it. In
Speaker 1: many ways, It's quite likely that Jared and Peter weren't
Speaker 1: so much in that shame of voking role. And the
Speaker 1: shame of voking role is often the person who puts
Speaker 1: up with them a little bit more and then sometimes
Speaker 1: sets a boundary. So that person and you did you
Speaker 1: set a boundary. I'm gonna go and do what I
Speaker 1: need to do this weekend, spend time with my partner.
Speaker 1: So when we understand it that way doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: any less hurtful. Listen, someone does anything, someone pushes and
Speaker 1: shoves you, that's going to her. Even if you understand
Speaker 1: what's behind the shove, there's still a moment of hurt
Speaker 1: and pain. So I really appreciate you sharing that. And
Speaker 1: now may I ask this, what is your relationship with
Speaker 1: your mother, Like now, right.
Speaker 3: Before this movie released, it was pretty good in a
Speaker 3: sense that like we're checking in almost every month to
Speaker 3: every other month, and I think we do sometimes have to, like,
Speaker 3: you know, there was a Thanksgiving where it felt like,
Speaker 3: you know, there's a certain amount of time we can
Speaker 3: be around each other before I start to have anxiety
Speaker 3: about her or she maybe feels, yeah that like I'm
Speaker 3: in some sort of shame out of her. So, you know,
Speaker 3: it's I think we're starting to understand how much we
Speaker 3: can actually like interact with each other. And I want more,
Speaker 3: for sure. I always want more out of it, but
Speaker 3: I'm being as realistic as possible as I'm moving forward.
Speaker 3: I think every kind of minute this film is out,
Speaker 3: I have a worry that she'll see it and that
Speaker 3: she's going to have some response of you know, on
Speaker 3: a spectrum from disappearing again to like maybe someone more
Speaker 3: in the middle of just yelling at me and read
Speaker 3: or or silence or I do I'm not entirely sure,
Speaker 3: but yeah, or seeing it and then holding it in
Speaker 3: and never speaking to anybody about it, how she feels
Speaker 3: about it, and that I would also be terrible. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So there's there's a lot of anxiety right now with
Speaker 3: the film being out, that like something could change and
Speaker 3: I relation should immediately and as far as we know,
Speaker 3: she hasn't seen it. But yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: But there's a curiousness and a fragility that the relationship
Speaker 1: has with always that this is now something that's hanging
Speaker 1: out there as a possibility. So before we end, we'd
Speaker 1: like to play this clip.
Speaker 2: So when we set out to find your mom, what
Speaker 2: were you hoping to accomplish.
Speaker 3: I think I had a kind of a fantasy in
Speaker 3: mind of what was going to happen. I don't think
Speaker 3: I actually cared that much for a relationship with my
Speaker 3: mom at that point. I was like fairly independent, and
Speaker 3: I didn't really think it through, to be honest, like emotionally,
Speaker 3: how I'd feel about it or what it would do
Speaker 3: to me. Did you get what you wanted? If you
Speaker 3: were to ask me, like right after the trip, did
Speaker 3: I good I wanted? I would have said yes. But
Speaker 3: now asking myself in like my late twenties, no even
Speaker 3: finding her, like the connection is still a little severed.
Speaker 3: Later on in my adult life, I kind of found
Speaker 3: out that I was both concerned with myself being capable
Speaker 3: of abandoning somebody and also concerned about being abandoned by
Speaker 3: more people, and then realizing that I had that that capability,
Speaker 3: I was like, oh no, like I can just like
Speaker 3: shut somebody out.
Speaker 4: So do you agree with that?
Speaker 1: I think that's like you're really eloquent kind of laying
Speaker 1: out of what has happened. Do you still given that
Speaker 1: was part of the film and now some time has passed,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about that?
Speaker 3: I would say some of those fears are still very
Speaker 3: valid in my life and sort of a kind of
Speaker 3: I'd mentioned before. I don't think I've ever really gotten
Speaker 3: a full understanding or explanation from my mom about why
Speaker 3: she left. But sometimes when I'm acting out the same
Speaker 3: behaviors she has had that were like kind of negative
Speaker 3: behaviors of sabotage, abandoning others, distancing myself emotionally and physically,
Speaker 3: that's the closest I get to understanding what she did
Speaker 3: and why she did it is whenever I'm playing that
Speaker 3: through or like also playing out that same cycle. But
Speaker 3: I definitely have recognized it more and so I can
Speaker 3: step out of it easier. I can remove myself, I
Speaker 3: can more prevention of it as well. I would say
Speaker 3: then when that video is being taped, I was kind
Speaker 3: of like in the middle of it and having a
Speaker 3: hard time with it and barely getting out of it.
Speaker 3: And now I'm in a much better spot. I can
Speaker 3: see it coming. Yeah, and like replacing a lot of
Speaker 3: those maladaptive coping mechanisms with better ones that serve me
Speaker 3: a lot better.
Speaker 1: And I think that's great to hear, Sam, because it's
Speaker 1: a real reminder that people do. We do get out
Speaker 1: of these acute states of distress, and we do find
Speaker 1: our footing. And I mean, I'll be frank with you, Sam,
Speaker 1: very rarely in this kind of a relationship does anyone
Speaker 1: get that question of why ever answered. And it's learning
Speaker 1: how to move forward. It's its own form of ambiguous grief, right,
Speaker 1: learning to move forward without ever knowing the why. If
Speaker 1: someone in front of us we love dies from a disease,
Speaker 1: we're sad, especially if they died prematurely, but we understand
Speaker 1: that they got a disease. There's a why that we
Speaker 1: can get our head around. This why is again, is
Speaker 1: so many whys in these relationships never get answered. We
Speaker 1: have to struggle to make our meaning of it. But
Speaker 1: then we also have to learn to move forward not
Speaker 1: only without that why, but also never blaming ourselves, because
Speaker 1: that's a tendency many many survivors have, and then finding
Speaker 1: that balancing act of how to have a relationship with
Speaker 1: her where the fear of her abandoning you again holds
Speaker 1: you back from making decisions in the relationship that.
Speaker 4: Are healthy for you. Do you have any further thoughts,
Speaker 4: either of you, Sam read.
Speaker 2: I do have something I want to say, which is
Speaker 2: Joyce is somebody who like she's done some things within
Speaker 2: these stories that are hurtful, right, and we've pointed out
Speaker 2: these sort of specific things where you know, this is
Speaker 2: this is a hurtful thing that has happened. You know,
Speaker 2: leaving your kids is a really big one. And then
Speaker 2: certainly these sort of these later things where Sam Fields targeted.
Speaker 2: But even still, you know, she's still an active family
Speaker 2: member for all of us here, and none of us
Speaker 2: are trying to push her away. Even in making the movie,
Speaker 2: it's not about bringing shame to Joyce. It's about understanding
Speaker 2: her and trying to understand her and all the characters
Speaker 2: and what has happened and really look at sort of
Speaker 2: like the fact is some of these things are like
Speaker 2: outside of any of our control. These are things that
Speaker 2: might have happened at eighteen months old, this sort of patterning.
Speaker 2: And Sam you know, works in this professionally, he coaches
Speaker 2: in breaking out of patterns. But like, I think that
Speaker 2: we'll have to realize that it's like not really about us.
Speaker 2: It's like these are things that like they exist in
Speaker 2: a lot of families, and you know, when we do
Speaker 2: feel isolated alone, the answer to that is to share.
Speaker 2: And I know Joyce put a great distance between herself
Speaker 2: and her kids and Harkness family, you know, partially, that's
Speaker 2: like her her thing. She can do that. You can
Speaker 2: do that in your life if you want. But it
Speaker 2: did create some reactions, right, It created some things, And
Speaker 2: I just hope that people, you know, society, our families
Speaker 2: can start to evolve a little bit more to a
Speaker 2: place of like, how do we understand this a little
Speaker 2: bit better? How can we get to a place where
Speaker 2: we like really can like embrace these qualities and the
Speaker 2: like this is a condition, This is something that is
Speaker 2: real in our family and a lot of other families.
Speaker 2: How can we move forward as a family without severing,
Speaker 2: without like alienating, without like pushing somebody out. I think,
Speaker 2: I think it's really hard, and we might ed ever
Speaker 2: get to that place. But I feel like the film
Speaker 2: at least presents a long enough storyline where other people
Speaker 2: can start to learn and maybe think about things a
Speaker 2: little differently.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and every family is so different, which is what's
Speaker 1: so challenging, and I think that that's where people struggle,
Speaker 1: is they'll see parts of their family and pieces of
Speaker 1: the story, but not others, and every family makes different decisions.
Speaker 1: I think the real burden and the real burden of
Speaker 1: healing is how to hold compassion for yourself and compassion
Speaker 1: for the other and not quitting yourself and holding space
Speaker 1: for the other in a way that's as safe for
Speaker 1: yourself as possible. That is a very very thin razor's
Speaker 1: edge on which to balance, and I think we're always
Speaker 1: course correcting as we try to do that. And I
Speaker 1: think that it's really quite an amazing story. I think
Speaker 1: Sam your journey in particular, since we get to see
Speaker 1: you go from childhood into adulthood and have had sort
Speaker 1: of a lot of the ups and downs with your mother,
Speaker 1: But it shows us that these things will also continue
Speaker 1: to evolve. And also I don't believe you have kids yet, Sam,
Speaker 1: but you do read and we talk about how do
Speaker 1: these cycles end. They end with how the next generation
Speaker 1: of children get parented. That you have a generation of
Speaker 1: kids who now have parents who are more self examined,
Speaker 1: who really cultivate attachment and security, and then a new
Speaker 1: generation of children from this family where it was difficult,
Speaker 1: spring into the world feeling secure and safe in the world,
Speaker 1: and new things happen. So I think that's where it's
Speaker 1: all of us being self reflective so we can then
Speaker 1: do right and doing the work frankly, and then we
Speaker 1: can do right by the children we have. We ain't
Speaker 1: going to get it perfect, but at least at a minimum,
Speaker 1: we can help our children feel safe. And that's the
Speaker 1: real legacy that gets paid forward. That if you learn
Speaker 1: that from Joyce, of that I need to double down
Speaker 1: on making sure that my own children feel safe, then
Speaker 1: none of these lessons were in vain, and that you
Speaker 1: really really took something quite valuable on how you'll move
Speaker 1: forward and also so be able to hold space for
Speaker 1: her in light of a very complex history. So what
Speaker 1: I really love about your film, what I really love
Speaker 1: about your story and how you've told it is that
Speaker 1: this isn't about black and white cartoon villain images. This
Speaker 1: is actually about really robust takes on these stories and
Speaker 1: everyone is so different, and that if we can always
Speaker 1: bring in empathic and compassionate lens but also have that
Speaker 1: compassion for ourselves, I think rather amazing things can happen
Speaker 1: in your film is one of those examples. Do you
Speaker 1: have any last thoughts or feelings or questions you want
Speaker 1: to share?
Speaker 3: I think approaching this movie also with like a gender
Speaker 3: lens of if the parental figure gender was swapped, this
Speaker 3: is a totally different movie, right, And just like appreciate
Speaker 3: that the women, the moms, the meatriarchal figures in our
Speaker 3: life are doing so much of the emotional labor and work,
Speaker 3: and that the story is this big because when that
Speaker 3: figure disappears, a lot of that's gone. And yeah, I
Speaker 3: just like I don't want to recognize that and make
Speaker 3: sure that you know that people are seeing it through
Speaker 3: that as well.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought that up, Sam, because I
Speaker 1: think that that is why the story was so affecting.
Speaker 1: You're right, if this had been a story about a
Speaker 1: dad who got up and left, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: frank with you, people have been kind of been like, okay,
Speaker 1: and show me something new. We much much more rarely
Speaker 1: see this, this story of a mother leaving, which is
Speaker 1: actually much more of a cultural taboo, to be quite
Speaker 1: frank with you, and I think we view it through
Speaker 1: that lens. But also so the other side of the
Speaker 1: patriarchy is the assumptions we make, again in a gendered lens,
Speaker 1: from the matriarchy, and the sort of you know, the
Speaker 1: unrecognized emotional work of nourishing children's psyches and developing them
Speaker 1: into adults disproportionately has and continues to fall on women's shoulders.
Speaker 1: But again the sixth story. It's even been explored in
Speaker 1: stories like The Lost Daughter, I mean, other really compelling
Speaker 1: films that are taking on this idea of what happens
Speaker 1: when the mother goes, and it's a much more demonizing narrative.
Speaker 1: And I had to catch myself so the second time
Speaker 1: I watch it, I thought, I need to look at
Speaker 1: it through that lens, because if Joyce had been a man,
Speaker 1: I actually don't think the same level of demonization would happen.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why it's an incredible story, and
Speaker 1: there's so many layers to how we think about this
Speaker 1: and for you Sam and Sam and read both of
Speaker 1: you as survivors of this, to lose a mother in
Speaker 1: this way, you had far fewer cultural templates and archetypes
Speaker 1: to turn to than if you had had your father
Speaker 1: get up and leave, which I think is actually a
Speaker 1: more universalized story.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So to which end? How can people find you?
Speaker 1: Support you? How can people see this film? Because now
Speaker 1: that we're talking about it, people are going to want
Speaker 1: to see this and I cannot recommend this enough. So
Speaker 1: how can people do this?
Speaker 2: Ah? The good news is it'll be broadcast nationally on PBS.
Speaker 2: Oh great, this may on independent lens and PBS now
Speaker 2: has a app that you know, anyone can watch it
Speaker 2: for free on you know, whatever device they have, Just
Speaker 2: get the PBS app. And right now we are doing
Speaker 2: a film festival tour too, so we'll be in maybe
Speaker 2: we'll be in your city. You can look for us
Speaker 2: on samnowmovie dot com and see if we'll be showing up.
Speaker 4: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: We'll put that link in the show note so people
Speaker 1: can see if it's coming close to them.
Speaker 2: So, thank you, thank you, doctor Reminie.
Speaker 1: Here are my takeaways from my conversation with Sam and Reed.
Speaker 1: The road trip metaphor is particularly poignant because it captures
Speaker 1: the process of growing through complex family relationships. Anyone who
Speaker 1: has had to unpack this kind of family trauma and
Speaker 1: loss knows that while we may not literally be getting
Speaker 1: into a car, it's a mental journey through trying to
Speaker 1: find answers, disappointments, frustrations.
Speaker 4: And discovery.
Speaker 1: Certainly, the road trip in the film yielded those kinds
Speaker 1: of discoveries, but framing it as such for ourselves may
Speaker 1: give us a tangible metaphor that can help us understand
Speaker 1: that it's a process. In this next takeaway, keeping secrets
Speaker 1: is always such a challenging family dynamic, and Sam was
Speaker 1: put in that position when he got to Long Beach
Speaker 1: and found his mother. Something so personally powerful and that
Speaker 1: he knew would profoundly affect his brother and family was
Speaker 1: something he was being instructed to keep a secret by
Speaker 1: the person who abandoned him.
Speaker 4: While many of the.
Speaker 1: Secrets that people and families are often instructed to keep
Speaker 1: as children are not as heavy, secret keeping is a
Speaker 1: tall and inappropriate order to place on a child, and
Speaker 1: yet it happens all the time.
Speaker 4: In this next takeaway.
Speaker 1: Accountability is so important in a relationship, and even if
Speaker 1: someone in any kind of close relationship behaves poorly, hearing
Speaker 1: them take responsibility for it can be quite restorative for
Speaker 1: the person who is hurt. The dynamic that Sam found
Speaker 1: himself in being afraid to ask for a accountability from
Speaker 1: his mother because he was afraid he would scare her
Speaker 1: away is a classical dynamic for children in what feel
Speaker 1: like fragile relationships with parents. Over time, the child can
Speaker 1: get indoctrinated to believe that accountability is too risky, and
Speaker 1: in adulthood may find themselves in relationships where there is
Speaker 1: anxiety about needing it or asking for it. In this
Speaker 1: next takeaway, do we ever get the question of why answered?
Speaker 1: In difficult, narcissistic, or any kind of relationship with someone
Speaker 1: who does not have self reflective capacity. Probably not understanding
Speaker 1: our motivations for why we do what we do requires
Speaker 1: self awareness, vulnerability, and a dropping of defenses.
Speaker 4: Not getting a.
Speaker 1: Why can make moving forward feel difficult. But one element
Speaker 1: of certain personality styles is a lack of insight into
Speaker 1: their own motivations. When healing from these kinds of losses
Speaker 1: and relationships, a challenging part of the radical acceptance is
Speaker 1: giving up on ever getting the question of why answered.
Speaker 1: In this next takeaway, trauma, loss and attachment disruption can
Speaker 1: play a significant part in the development of narcissism. While
Speaker 1: understanding this can result in compassion for someone with a
Speaker 1: narcissistic or antagonistic personality, it can also raise guilt and
Speaker 1: confusion in survivors. A person's trauma may absolutely explain their
Speaker 1: challenges with empathy, attachment, and self awareness, and yet at
Speaker 1: the same time you can still feel hurt by their behavior.
Speaker 1: Sam's story is such a reminder of how complex these
Speaker 1: personalities and relationships are, and in our last takeaway, this
Speaker 1: episode really brings up the role of place in understanding
Speaker 1: and healing. Sam shares that despite the numerous challenges that
Speaker 1: his story had, the moment when his mother showed back
Speaker 1: up at his father's home was unsettling and upside down.
Speaker 1: For many people who have gone through any kind of
Speaker 1: relationship characterized by abandonment, lack of empathy, and lack of clarity,
Speaker 1: you may find that on many days you are moving forward,
Speaker 1: then one day you find yourself back in a place,
Speaker 1: for example, a childhood home or place you lived with
Speaker 1: someone and a person can really feel thrown backwards. That
Speaker 1: sequence with Sam was a reminder of how powerful place
Speaker 1: and location can be, how it can impact our emotions,
Speaker 1: and for survivors to be kind to themselves when they
Speaker 1: have to face the place wo