Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Please
Speaker 1: be advised this episode contains explicit descriptions of sexual abuse.
Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. I've been thinking a lot lately
Speaker 1: about the people who save us, who shine a light
Speaker 1: and help us see away forward, even when our lives
Speaker 1: seem hopeless and bleak. These people aren't necessarily our parents
Speaker 1: or grand parents, or aunts or uncles. They don't have
Speaker 1: to be related to us by blood or live under
Speaker 1: the same roof. When we encounter them as children, as teenagers,
Speaker 1: or even later in life, we don't always recognize them
Speaker 1: as our guardian angels. But this is what they are.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Debbie Millman, and this episode is
Speaker 1: about the possibility of extraordinary resilience in the face of
Speaker 1: violence and trauma, and the redemptive power of love and
Speaker 1: strength found in the unlikeliest of places. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that the best advice that I could give anybody
Speaker 1: who's had this experience or is having this experience, is
Speaker 1: seek help. Seek help. There was once, and I don't
Speaker 1: know if it still exists. It probably does in some
Speaker 1: parts of the world, in some parts of the United States,
Speaker 1: or even seeking help is a statement of weakness, and
Speaker 1: that's not the case. It's the biggest possible strength that
Speaker 1: a person could have is to say I need help.
Speaker 1: I need help. Debbie is a force of nature, designer, author, artist, illustrator,
Speaker 1: branding genius and co founder of the world's first master's
Speaker 1: program in branding at the School of Visual Arts in
Speaker 1: New York City. She's also one of the most luminous,
Speaker 1: soulful people I know. It's an honor to share her story.
Speaker 1: I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, secrets that
Speaker 1: are kept from us, secrets we keep from others, and
Speaker 1: secrets we keep from ourselves. So I would like to
Speaker 1: begin by asking you about the landscape of your childhood,
Speaker 1: your family, the town you grew up in. Um, can
Speaker 1: you just talk to me a little bit about little
Speaker 1: Debbie Sure? Um? Well, I was. I'm a native New Yorker.
Speaker 1: I was born in Brooklyn in one and we lived there,
Speaker 1: my mother and my father and me for two years,
Speaker 1: and then they moved me to Howard Beach, Queens and
Speaker 1: I lived in Howard Beach until the middle of third grade.
Speaker 1: And by that time they had had another child, my
Speaker 1: younger brother who's two and a half years younger than
Speaker 1: I am, and in the inutile of third grade, my
Speaker 1: dad bought his own pharmacy. He was a pharmacist and
Speaker 1: had worked in Manhattan at a pharmacy that no longer exists,
Speaker 1: a mom and pop type shop called City Drug and
Speaker 1: that was across the street from the Carnegie Delhi and
Speaker 1: I remember him telling me as I was growing up
Speaker 1: that Bernadette Peters used to come into the pharmacy quite
Speaker 1: a lot, and he thought she was rather spectacular um.
Speaker 1: And so we moved to Staten Island in the middle
Speaker 1: of third grade and lived there until the end of
Speaker 1: fifth grade. In that time, my parents ended up getting
Speaker 1: divorced and at the end of fifth grade. By the
Speaker 1: end of fifth grade, my mom was getting remarried and
Speaker 1: moved my brother, me, and her new husband, who had
Speaker 1: two daughters of his own, to Long Island. And I
Speaker 1: lived on Long Island from sixth grade until the end
Speaker 1: of twelfth grade, and then immediate high tailed it to
Speaker 1: college and never went back to Long Island to live.
Speaker 1: Debbie falls out of touch with her father for several
Speaker 1: years after her parents divorce, and only reconnects with him
Speaker 1: when she's twelve or thirteen years old. Her most positive
Speaker 1: memories of that time are very connected to one particular person,
Speaker 1: a woman named Betty who was in a long relationship
Speaker 1: with Debbie's dad. Betty lived on two Street in Chelsea,
Speaker 1: and she was, um, I guess what you'd call a
Speaker 1: career girl. You know, she was Uh. She lived by
Speaker 1: herself in a studio apartment on the third floor of
Speaker 1: a brownstone. She was a typist, that's what she did.
Speaker 1: But she was fiercely independent and really celebrated and relished
Speaker 1: in her independence. I thought she was very beautiful. She
Speaker 1: did everything effortlessly well, and she was kind to me,
Speaker 1: and she was one of the first consistently kind people
Speaker 1: to me in my life. And I think it was
Speaker 1: watching the way she moved through the world, her independence,
Speaker 1: her strong mindedness about what was just, her efforts to
Speaker 1: protect me when my father had um anger episodes. Those
Speaker 1: were things that I think embedded her deeply in me.
Speaker 1: And as an impressionable young girl, she was the first
Speaker 1: role model I think I actually encountered somebody that I
Speaker 1: could see living their own life on their own terms,
Speaker 1: supporting themselves. And I think that's really what ultimately influenced me.
Speaker 1: I wanted to dress like her, I wanted to live
Speaker 1: like her, Um, I wanted to be her. Kindness was
Speaker 1: in short order in the homes Debbie grew up in.
Speaker 1: She has described her father as both brilliant and turbulent.
Speaker 1: My dad was very charismatic, and he had a wonderful
Speaker 1: oratory talent that he used quite well, so he was
Speaker 1: able to express himself with a lot of conviction. He
Speaker 1: was very tall, he was very handsome, he was fast
Speaker 1: on his feet, very witty. But he also had, and
Speaker 1: it was quite hidden most of the time, UM, a
Speaker 1: really intense temper. And that temper could be triggered by
Speaker 1: just about anything. You never really knew when it was
Speaker 1: going to emerge and what would trigger it. And so
Speaker 1: I don't really ever remember a time in my life
Speaker 1: when I wasn't afraid of him, because I was terrified
Speaker 1: that something that I did and inadvertently would cause him
Speaker 1: to blow up. And so I was always very scared
Speaker 1: around him, inasmuch as I was also and this is
Speaker 1: sort of where it gets complicated, really trying to get
Speaker 1: his approval and really wanting very badly for him to
Speaker 1: be proud of me and to love me. And there
Speaker 1: was no question in my mind that he did love me.
Speaker 1: It was just really really hard for him to express well.
Speaker 1: And what you're describing to that hair trigger living in
Speaker 1: a situation where you don't know what's going to set
Speaker 1: it off exactly exactly, and so good times could immediately
Speaker 1: become horrific because somebody would say something or do something,
Speaker 1: or he would get angry about something, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: everybody was on on watch. Debbie's father doesn't but come
Speaker 1: physically violent until she's a bit older. The first episode
Speaker 1: she remembers involves Betty Thanksgiving and a turkey we were eating,
Speaker 1: and I remember there was a football game on and
Speaker 1: he was watching it, and he ended up getting very
Speaker 1: angry with all of us for not being appreciative enough
Speaker 1: and happy enough. He always wanted us to be happy.
Speaker 1: He threw the turkey across the room and started to
Speaker 1: chase Betty around the room, and then she tried to
Speaker 1: get away from him by running outside, and then he
Speaker 1: ran outside after her and picked up a shovel and
Speaker 1: was chasing her through the woods um and then came
Speaker 1: back alone. We were not allowed to go outside to
Speaker 1: help her. He didn't hit her, but he locked her
Speaker 1: out and kept her locked out all night, and she
Speaker 1: ended up sleeping in the unlocked car thankfully that was
Speaker 1: open and um, that memory is just seared into my
Speaker 1: brain and I'll never forget that. While her dad is
Speaker 1: chasing Betty around the yard, Debbie and her brother hide
Speaker 1: in the bathroom and locked the door. Eventually things calmed
Speaker 1: down and her father becomes contrite. Tries to pave over
Speaker 1: his behavior with extravagant gifts and gestures, but the pockets
Speaker 1: of peace never last very long. That was the first
Speaker 1: time I witnessed any violence. But then later he'd be
Speaker 1: throwing things. I don't know that he ever ever hit
Speaker 1: any of the women he was with with his hands.
Speaker 1: That I'd never witnessed, but I did witness a lot
Speaker 1: of throwing things, rocks, furniture, lamps, um, some which would
Speaker 1: would hit hit us or hit her. And that was
Speaker 1: that was really hard, really hard, yeah, really really hard
Speaker 1: to have a parent with such a terrible and unpredictable temper.
Speaker 1: But the incident with the turkey and Betty, that's nothing
Speaker 1: compared with what comes next. We're going to pause for
Speaker 1: a moment. Debbie's newly divorced mom attends a meeting of
Speaker 1: parents without partners. Imagine match dot Com for divorced or
Speaker 1: widowed people, except in real life unfolding chairs, probably in
Speaker 1: a church basement, And there Debbie's mom meets and marries
Speaker 1: her next Mr. Wrong. She married a man who, um
Speaker 1: was brutal. You know, whatever anger issues my dad had
Speaker 1: at that point, you know, we had never ever beaten
Speaker 1: me or my mother. Um he had. He had a temper,
Speaker 1: and I was terrified of that temper as far back
Speaker 1: as I can remember. But I had never witnessed anybody
Speaker 1: actually hitting anybody until he came into our lives and
Speaker 1: he hit all of us. He hit my brother repeatedly.
Speaker 1: He beat me. He beat his own daughter once so
Speaker 1: badly she couldn't go to school. He would beat me
Speaker 1: and my brother every time we did come back from
Speaker 1: my dad from a weekend with my dad. At that point,
Speaker 1: I have to say it was my choice to say
Speaker 1: I'm not going to see him anymore because I couldn't
Speaker 1: bear being beaten. Now, my dad didn't protest it. He
Speaker 1: didn't go to court to try to continue to see us.
Speaker 1: The he did stop paying his child supports and my
Speaker 1: mom had to take him to court. Okay, I just
Speaker 1: want to be sure you're hearing what's happening here. Debbie
Speaker 1: is put in the insanely impossible, heartbreaking position of either
Speaker 1: a seeing her dad and being beaten for that offense
Speaker 1: by her stepdad, or be not seeing her dad. I
Speaker 1: remember going with her to court, and I remember getting
Speaker 1: all dressed up that morning because I wanted to look
Speaker 1: pretty so that maybe when he saw me he tried
Speaker 1: to rescue me. But he didn't show up. I was
Speaker 1: wearing a dress that my mother had made me. She
Speaker 1: was a seamstress and made all my clothes pretty much, um.
Speaker 1: And it was a orange and pink and white, tiny
Speaker 1: little flowers pattern all over the fabric, and it had
Speaker 1: put sleeves, and I was wearing a pair of white boots.
Speaker 1: And I thought I looked really, really good, um, and
Speaker 1: thought he would think that too, but he never showed up.
Speaker 1: Debbie has another memory of being on the front porch
Speaker 1: of her house. Her father has come by to give
Speaker 1: her a birthday present, and her mother and stepfather won't
Speaker 1: let him in the house, so Debbie has to go
Speaker 1: out on the porch, and Debbie's father wants her to
Speaker 1: tell him that she wants the present, that she really
Speaker 1: really wants the present, and she does. She really wants it.
Speaker 1: She feels guilty for wanting it because her mother and
Speaker 1: stepfather have told her that her dad is a bad guy,
Speaker 1: but finally she admits that she wants it. And at
Speaker 1: that point, I guess my mother and stepfather were so
Speaker 1: worried about what he would say or do um that
Speaker 1: he turned on the intercom in an effort to listen
Speaker 1: to what was happening. But they pressed their wrong button
Speaker 1: and music went on the microphone. And so I stood
Speaker 1: there and I think we were all It was all
Speaker 1: this sense of humiliation and shame and fear and longing.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about shame. It's almost redundant to
Speaker 1: say that shame is a taboo subject. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: practically synonymous with taboo. But over and over again, what
Speaker 1: I see in my life as a writer, as a
Speaker 1: teacher of writing, and as host of this podcast is
Speaker 1: that so many of us walk around feeling consumed by shame,
Speaker 1: and that feeling is one of being very very much alone.
Speaker 1: And the only cure, the only way to blast our
Speaker 1: way out of that horrible isolation chamber of shame, is
Speaker 1: to speak to its source, to tell the truth, because
Speaker 1: I can promise you this. Whatever we feel the most
Speaker 1: ashamed of is also what makes us most beautifully, imperfectly,
Speaker 1: profoundly human. Things go from very bad to very much worse.
Speaker 1: Debbie stepfather, the one who Mom met in the Parents
Speaker 1: without Partners meeting, is not only beating Debbie. That's not all.
Speaker 1: The real dark, dark dark years were between nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: two and in nineteen seventy five, the right after they
Speaker 1: got divorced and right before I was reunited with my dad.
Speaker 1: Seventy two, seventy three, seventy seventy five were the dark
Speaker 1: years of my life because this man who my mother
Speaker 1: married UM was not only physically violent and not only
Speaker 1: emotionally violent, he was also sexually violent and was a
Speaker 1: um and and and raped me repeatedly from the time
Speaker 1: I was UM maybe ten and a half eleven, twelve thirteen.
Speaker 1: In those years until until he finally until my mother
Speaker 1: finally divorced him um I. It was a very different
Speaker 1: time than it is now, and at that time in
Speaker 1: my life, Danny I didn't know that something like this
Speaker 1: could happen to anyone like it. This was something that
Speaker 1: didn't seem conceivable to even happen, and I thought I
Speaker 1: was the only person in the world this was happening too.
Speaker 1: He was very strong, he had been a professional boxer
Speaker 1: in Germany. He was German, and told me that if
Speaker 1: I ever told anyone that he would kill my brother,
Speaker 1: and I believed him. He beat my brother repeatedly and
Speaker 1: treated him terribly while we were all together, but I
Speaker 1: and I really thought that he would and could, and
Speaker 1: he said he had it all figured out, and so
Speaker 1: I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell anybody. I actually
Speaker 1: didn't know that it ever happened to anybody else until
Speaker 1: I read a letter in newsday I was. I loved
Speaker 1: getting the newspaper my parents. My mother got the newspaper,
Speaker 1: got it every day, and I'd read the comics and
Speaker 1: do the cryptograms. And there was a letter to Anne
Speaker 1: Lander's about somebody who was writing to her about being abused,
Speaker 1: and she urged that person to tell someone. And I
Speaker 1: cut the letter out and put it onto my mattress
Speaker 1: because I suddenly realized I wasn't alone. But for years
Speaker 1: and years I was too afraid to tell anybody because
Speaker 1: I was really convinced. I was ten eleven, twelve thirteen
Speaker 1: years old that I would be responsible for my brother's death,
Speaker 1: and so I didn't tell anyone, no one. Imagine a
Speaker 1: little girl who cuts the letter out of a newspaper
Speaker 1: and keeps it under her bed to remind herself that
Speaker 1: she is not alone to give words to what's happening
Speaker 1: to her, even if she is unable to speak these
Speaker 1: words for many years. This conversation between Debbie and me
Speaker 1: took place during the few days following the courageous testimony
Speaker 1: of Dr Christine blass Ford a neat response of Brett
Speaker 1: Kavanaugh to her testimony. The idea being there was no corroboration,
Speaker 1: the idea of being why didn't she say something at
Speaker 1: the time, The idea being it's her word against his.
Speaker 1: The sense of the loneness that you must have felt,
Speaker 1: and not having the language for it right, not even
Speaker 1: having the neural pathways to understand what was happening. I
Speaker 1: had no idea, no idea. At some point, when she's
Speaker 1: twelve or thirteen, Debbie gets her period, and then she
Speaker 1: doesn't get her period. She becomes petrified that she's pregnant.
Speaker 1: She doesn't speak the truth to a single soul. Instead,
Speaker 1: she makes up a story because what else can she do?
Speaker 1: Who can she turn to? I ended up concocting a story,
Speaker 1: and I told my mother that I had been assaulted
Speaker 1: at school, and she took me to a doctor. She
Speaker 1: also informed the school, and and then I had all
Speaker 1: the added guilt of lying, and she took me to
Speaker 1: a doctor and the doctor examined me, and the doctor
Speaker 1: told my mother that it was not possible that this
Speaker 1: was a one off situation because of this scar tissue
Speaker 1: that I had, and told her instead that I must
Speaker 1: be lying because I must have had a boyfriend because
Speaker 1: of what he saw as repetitive activity. A twelve year
Speaker 1: old girl, a sixth grader must have a boyfriend, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that must be it. So I wasn't believed, and I
Speaker 1: just had to continue on. My mother never confronted me
Speaker 1: about it. She didn't accuse me of lying. We're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break. We'll be back in a moment,
Speaker 1: So let's fast forward more than forty years. Debbie tells
Speaker 1: me that during Dr Christine Blassie Ford and Brett Kavanaugh's
Speaker 1: testimony just a couple of days earlier, while she's glued
Speaker 1: to the television along with so many women in America,
Speaker 1: her mother texts her and asks how she's doing. I
Speaker 1: wrote her back and said, you know, it's been a difficult,
Speaker 1: in challenging a couple of days, and we then got
Speaker 1: into a back and forth text conversation and I once
Speaker 1: again asked her how it was possible during the time
Speaker 1: that it was happening to me, because it all happened
Speaker 1: in the house where we all lived, in the one
Speaker 1: bathroom that that we had in that house, with the
Speaker 1: door locked, How she could not know? How could she
Speaker 1: not know that this was happening to me? And she
Speaker 1: insist that she didn't, And at this point I really
Speaker 1: do believe her, because I don't think that she would
Speaker 1: have been able to live with herself if she did
Speaker 1: believe that it was happening. Nevertheless, um she told me
Speaker 1: something that I didn't know before, which was that after
Speaker 1: she told my stepfather what had happened to me in school,
Speaker 1: that he responded with such indifference that it was leave
Speaker 1: then that she knew what had happened. And that makes
Speaker 1: a lot of sense now because she never berated me
Speaker 1: for lying, she never accused me of having a boyfriend,
Speaker 1: and then very shortly after that experience, she did divorce him.
Speaker 1: It's amazing the way of family secret can continue to
Speaker 1: reveal itself and reveal itself over the course of a lifetime,
Speaker 1: like this other layer that you in your mid fifties discover. Yes, Yes,
Speaker 1: because if somebody had said, well, what why did your
Speaker 1: mother ultimately leave your stepfather, I would have said, I
Speaker 1: actually don't know. I just assumed it was because he was,
Speaker 1: you know, a heinous person um. And now I know.
Speaker 1: Remember how I said, this is a story of resilience. Well,
Speaker 1: that's feeling a little bit too easy to me. We
Speaker 1: bat around the world resilience a lot. It falls into
Speaker 1: a basket of words like authenticity, vulnerability, ideas that many
Speaker 1: of us, like a lot, see value in, but aren't
Speaker 1: sure exactly how to achieve. This next part is what
Speaker 1: most inspires me, not the horrific story of abuse you've
Speaker 1: just heard, but the story of a spirit that was
Speaker 1: greater than the violence perpetrated on it. This, my friends,
Speaker 1: is about the deepest kind of triumph. You know, your
Speaker 1: brain can only only except what it thinks it can tolerate.
Speaker 1: And I wish that I had the memory of every
Speaker 1: single assault that was perpetrated on me. I wish that
Speaker 1: I remembered every single time so that I could figure
Speaker 1: out a way to erase it somehow. I mean, I
Speaker 1: wish I remember the first time. I remember specific times,
Speaker 1: but I don't remember every time. But I do remember
Speaker 1: walking one day on the sidewalk of my neighborhood in
Speaker 1: on Long Island, thinking, if only this wasn't happening to me,
Speaker 1: I would be the happiest person alive. Just think about
Speaker 1: what it takes to formulate that thought. If only this
Speaker 1: wasn't happening to me, I would be the happiest person alive.
Speaker 1: I am only now thirty years into analysis and therapy,
Speaker 1: really trying to understand how did I actually managed through event?
Speaker 1: And I always wanted a better life. I started therapy
Speaker 1: two years out of college, So I did six years
Speaker 1: of therapy with one UH with one counselor, and then
Speaker 1: went into like a real analysis that began in and
Speaker 1: I've been working with the same doctor ever since. And
Speaker 1: so she saved my life. She has given me a
Speaker 1: way out of that horror I was. I was functional,
Speaker 1: and I'm very fortunate that I was never addicted to
Speaker 1: drugs and I was never self destructive. But I think
Speaker 1: that wanting so much more, and also being creative and
Speaker 1: seeing that I could make things allowed me to essentially
Speaker 1: escape and otherwise really dismal, dismal experience. Yeah, let's talk
Speaker 1: about that, because I feel like so much of your
Speaker 1: story and mine in this regard, has to do with
Speaker 1: being saved in a way by creativity, by art. Do
Speaker 1: you know the term narrative medicine? No? Yeah, I love it. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I thought you would. It's it's a it's a it's
Speaker 1: a relatively new literary field. And I remember the first
Speaker 1: time I heard it, um, and I heard it in
Speaker 1: relation to my own work, to my memoirs, that you
Speaker 1: know that what I have been doing all these years
Speaker 1: without having the term for it is narrative medicine in
Speaker 1: some way. And I kind of recoiled against it because
Speaker 1: it felt a little bit too self helpy to me,
Speaker 1: or too much like writing a therapy or journal ing. Um.
Speaker 1: But I've come to understand what it means to share
Speaker 1: a story, to shape a story, to craft, to craft
Speaker 1: art out of the chaos of a life. Well, because
Speaker 1: I thought about this so much, I've come to the
Speaker 1: conclusion that my longing for a better life was bigger
Speaker 1: than my shame about my existing life, and so that
Speaker 1: is what propelled me forward. I also, the older I've gotten,
Speaker 1: the less secretive I've been, and I kept the my
Speaker 1: abuse and violation and even even the fundamental um dysfunction
Speaker 1: in my relationship with my dad pretty much secret. Until
Speaker 1: the last five years. I was really ashamed of of
Speaker 1: what happened to me. I felt that I would be
Speaker 1: seen as damaged or inferior, and told my closest friends
Speaker 1: and and partners, but was not in any way a
Speaker 1: spokesperson for overcoming trauma or abuse. And initially it was
Speaker 1: more motivated by a sense of not letting those bad
Speaker 1: experiences sort of win or overtake the theme of my life.
Speaker 1: And I would always tell people, I, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to give in to that. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to let that thought me And in fact, you you
Speaker 1: you don't have the capacity to let it stop you
Speaker 1: or not. It will impact you if you don't deal
Speaker 1: with it. It will catch up to you and overtake
Speaker 1: you if you don't. It's only really in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years that I've become very transparent about these
Speaker 1: experiences with my close friends and partners and colleagues. Um,
Speaker 1: this is the most substantial conversation I've ever had about
Speaker 1: it in any kind of public forum. Debbie did briefly
Speaker 1: touch on her history of abuse when she was a
Speaker 1: guest on the Tim Ferris Show a couple of years back. Tim,
Speaker 1: who is as prepared as he is intuitive as a host,
Speaker 1: asked Debbie about her work as a board member for
Speaker 1: the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization dedicated to eradicating sexual violence.
Speaker 1: On their website. Tim had noticed a comment of Debbie's
Speaker 1: about her work for Joyful Heart. She said that it
Speaker 1: made her entire life makes sense, and Tim wondered, what
Speaker 1: does she mean by that? Do I tell the truth?
Speaker 1: This is this? I mean at that point it wasn't
Speaker 1: a secret, but it was very private, really private. This
Speaker 1: is my personal trauma. I'm now going to talk to
Speaker 1: one of the most popular podcast hosts in the world
Speaker 1: about this very personal, very tender trauma. And I just
Speaker 1: took that, as you put it, Danny so well, that
Speaker 1: step into courage and I told my story. I told
Speaker 1: it for the first time, and life has not been
Speaker 1: the same since. You know, Tim, the show is a
Speaker 1: really popular show. I get emails every single week, sometimes
Speaker 1: every day, and that podcast was done several years ago
Speaker 1: with people sharing and disclosing and needing help or wanting resources.
Speaker 1: And UM, and now I'm having this conversation with you
Speaker 1: because I did talk to some degree to Tim about it,
Speaker 1: but not not to this degree, not to this degree,
Speaker 1: because I'm wondering how it has felt for you as
Speaker 1: this has stopped being a secret, because what our secrets,
Speaker 1: secrets are built on shame. If we keep a secret,
Speaker 1: it's because we feel afraid, guilty, most often a shame
Speaker 1: that somehow alone, you know that, somehow this is not
Speaker 1: an okay way to be, It's not an okay way
Speaker 1: to feel. And when we actually um explode that, there's
Speaker 1: something on the other side of that. Can you talk
Speaker 1: about that at all? Absolutely? Um. You know you said
Speaker 1: something to me after I interviewed you on our podcast
Speaker 1: that I've repeated it probably thousands of times. At this point,
Speaker 1: you and I were having I don't know if you
Speaker 1: remember this, but we're having a conversation about confidence. At
Speaker 1: that point in time, like three or four books on
Speaker 1: confidence had come out, and somehow it came up in
Speaker 1: our conversation and you, very very um clearly, he said, Oh,
Speaker 1: I think confidence is overrated. And I stopped and was like, what,
Speaker 1: because this is something I've been searching for my entire life.
Speaker 1: Confidence and you said, oh, I think it's overrated. I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, overly confident people are mostly obnoxious.
Speaker 1: And I said, well, then, what how do you how
Speaker 1: do you exist in the world? And you said, I
Speaker 1: think what is more important than confidence is courage. Courage,
Speaker 1: courage to take that first step. And then my life
Speaker 1: was changed because okay, courage, courage is what you need.
Speaker 1: Tearing allowed for a certain camaraderie from others that were
Speaker 1: also abused that suddenly we could look at each other
Speaker 1: and say me too, in a really profound way. There's
Speaker 1: also parts of me now and looking back on it,
Speaker 1: you know, why didn't I tell anybody? Okay, I know
Speaker 1: you tell my brother, But why didn't I run away?
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking about it now, is the adult that
Speaker 1: I am not as a little girl that had no
Speaker 1: place to run or was afraid that her brother would
Speaker 1: be killed, or was powerless to a much larger, stronger
Speaker 1: person who was supposed to take care of me. Um
Speaker 1: and and trying to make sense of all of that
Speaker 1: is likely going to be a lifetime. Take me a lifetime.
Speaker 1: But I don't hate myself as much as I did
Speaker 1: for it had thing happened at all. And I still
Speaker 1: really grapple. You know, there is not a pat ending
Speaker 1: to this story or this experience. I grapple a lot.
Speaker 1: It's all an evolution. And I can look back and
Speaker 1: at my twenties and my thirties and my forties and
Speaker 1: now in my fifties, and what I can sincerely tell
Speaker 1: you is that every decade has gotten better, and every
Speaker 1: year has gotten better, despite mishaps or you know, bad
Speaker 1: experiences or sad experiences or heartbreak. What I can tell
Speaker 1: you that there's not a year that's gone by in
Speaker 1: my continuing to try to understand and it makes sense
Speaker 1: of it and make sense of who I am and
Speaker 1: my place in the world. That I can tell you
Speaker 1: has not gotten better and has not gotten clearer. And
Speaker 1: I just hope that that will continue over the rest
Speaker 1: of my life. This really rough story has a really
Speaker 1: lovely PostScript. Remember Betty her single working girl apartment on
Speaker 1: West Street in Manhattan. That's signified for Debbie the possibility
Speaker 1: of independence, security, glamour, and success, the one happy home
Speaker 1: experience she had ever known as a kid. Well, guess
Speaker 1: where Debbie lives now, because she lived on two Street
Speaker 1: and that was my one sort of memory of having
Speaker 1: a happy home experience. Whenever I would go to restaurants
Speaker 1: in Chelsea or the high Line, I'd always cut across
Speaker 1: twenty four Street and touch the numbers for for nine whereas,
Speaker 1: which is where she lived, on the gate, on the
Speaker 1: outside gate of the house. And then I, ultimately, because
Speaker 1: of that, was able to buy a place on street
Speaker 1: that I saw was for sale, and I live at
Speaker 1: four four nine, but I live really close by and
Speaker 1: and see it all the time. But I told Betty
Speaker 1: she sent me photos that she had of the block
Speaker 1: um that that she had had from from back in
Speaker 1: the seventies, and she was just so touched and thrilled.
Speaker 1: And where we still keep in touch, so he knows
Speaker 1: where I am and what I'm doing. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank my dear friend Debbie Millman for appearing on Family
Speaker 1: Secrets and sharing her story of courage and resilience. You
Speaker 1: can find out more about Debbie's work on Debbie Millman
Speaker 1: dot com, and I urge you to listen to her
Speaker 1: fantastic podcast, Design Matters. I also encourage you to learn
Speaker 1: more about the Joyful Heart Foundation, which carries out its
Speaker 1: mission through an integrated program portfolio of healing, education, and
Speaker 1: advocacy for survivors of sexual assault. That's Joyful Heart Foundation
Speaker 1: dot org. Family Secrets is an I Heeart media production.
Speaker 1: Dylan Fagan is the supervising producer, Andrew Howard and Tristan
Speaker 1: McNeil are the audio engineers, and Julie Douglas is the
Speaker 1: executive producer. If you have a family secret you'd like
Speaker 1: to share, you can get in touch with us at
Speaker 1: listener mail at Family Secrets Podcast dot com, and you
Speaker 1: can also find us on Instagram at Danny Writer, and
Speaker 1: Facebook at Family Secrets Pod and Twitter at fam Secrets Pod.
Speaker 1: That's fam Secrets Pod. For more about my book, Inheritance,
Speaker 1: visit Danny Shapiro dot com