Speaker 1: So it is days after my mother passed away, and
Speaker 1: this has been an incredible journey. I have realized that
Speaker 1: people don't really talk about death and grief in a
Speaker 1: digestible way. I'm finding that out from a lot of people.
Speaker 1: I'm finding out. I mean, I've never had a response
Speaker 1: to anything like I've had to divorce and death. And
Speaker 1: I'm seeing that there are a lot of similarities and
Speaker 1: not just parallels, but like these two topics are converging
Speaker 1: because many people have chosen certain types of partners as
Speaker 1: a result of their childhood, and the types of messages
Speaker 1: that I'm getting are about generational trauma, meaning you know,
Speaker 1: the parents that you had and the dynamics that you
Speaker 1: experienced as a child, if they were traumatic or very damaging,
Speaker 1: and then really getting into thinking about their childhoods and
Speaker 1: there's anger and there's confusion, and there's compassion, and there's
Speaker 1: being closed off. And I mentioned that I literally have
Speaker 1: lived nowhere but in my childhood for the first time
Speaker 1: in forty five years, in so many different ways, and
Speaker 1: you kind of put it all through a strainer, and
Speaker 1: with any luck, you end up with the good because
Speaker 1: you end up being compassionate about the fact that if
Speaker 1: someone was so miserable that they would abuse you and
Speaker 1: be mean to you and abuse themselves and be self destructive.
Speaker 1: You know, they're filled with toxinsotional toxins, physical toxins, disease
Speaker 1: and addictions, and like they cannot contain it, and so
Speaker 1: they dump it on you. And I realize that, you know,
Speaker 1: parents dump so much on their children, even good parents,
Speaker 1: and the kids wear it and you have to be
Speaker 1: very aware of that. And I want to also talk
Speaker 1: about motherhood more, and I want to talk about some
Speaker 1: stuff that has been happening with myself and my daughter.
Speaker 1: But basically the letters that I've been getting and the
Speaker 1: emails I've never I mean divorce, it's been divorced and
Speaker 1: traumatic experiences, Like no one was talking about divorce in
Speaker 1: this type of way. They're illogical way sometimes it's psychological way,
Speaker 1: but in a very like traumatic way, and how to
Speaker 1: deal with it, how to manage it logistically and then
Speaker 1: also emotionally. So as I mentioned in my post, I've
Speaker 1: been grieving this horrendous trauma, the worst of my whole life,
Speaker 1: the most significant loss. And also I was getting so
Speaker 1: many messages about divorce that we are going to come
Speaker 1: back with divorce in the next couple of weeks, and
Speaker 1: that I'm reading all your messages, but I am am
Speaker 1: moved by these messages about your life, your lives, your life.
Speaker 1: I'm reading them, I'm seeing them, you know, and I
Speaker 1: know that this is freeing you and you do not
Speaker 1: feel alone, and you feel seen and you are seen
Speaker 1: so and I am certainly not an expert on death
Speaker 1: or grief, like I am divorced, but I've had my
Speaker 1: own way of doing it, and i will share it
Speaker 1: with you because it's been a different way than I've
Speaker 1: seen other people do or I've done in the past.
Speaker 1: And there are many brands of death, so they are
Speaker 1: One brand is you had a person lives a very
Speaker 1: long life. They're at ninety eight years old. You had
Speaker 1: a good relationship with them, and it's so sad and
Speaker 1: they were around for so long and you can't believe
Speaker 1: it's over. But there's some peace to it, there's some meaning.
Speaker 1: There's a brand where someone's very sick and it's been
Speaker 1: torturous and you feel guilty that for years you were
Speaker 1: a caretaker and that you wanted it to be over.
Speaker 1: And that's a level of guilt, you know, there's grieving
Speaker 1: when God forbid someone who passes before their time or
Speaker 1: before you and you're older, or something like that, Like
Speaker 1: that's like traumatic, or God forbid an accident or someone
Speaker 1: takes their own life. I mean, there were so many
Speaker 1: different brands, you know, frustration. Lorie Peterson and I have
Speaker 1: been messaging back and forth from Orange County. So there
Speaker 1: are many brands of death. And I, as a kid,
Speaker 1: never really experienced death because I didn't really have a
Speaker 1: family for most of my life and so I didn't
Speaker 1: hadn't had people around me that had really died. And
Speaker 1: I always this is going to sound strange, but not envied,
Speaker 1: but like I felt left out with people that had
Speaker 1: had family members pass away because they were going through
Speaker 1: something and I was always like I didn't understand it.
Speaker 1: I couldn't relate to it. I didn't know what it
Speaker 1: would feel like, you know, grief. And my dog Cookie passing,
Speaker 1: which will become relevant later, was a traumatic event. My
Speaker 1: dog lived eighteen years and she was a family member
Speaker 1: because I did, as I've now been more open about,
Speaker 1: I haven't had family. And when Dennis, my ex and
Speaker 1: a friend of thirty years, passed, it was it was
Speaker 1: it was a brand of death. It was it was
Speaker 1: feeling guilty because he loved me so much and would
Speaker 1: send me these love letters, and some of them were
Speaker 1: not lucid. And it was over the course of years,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot that I didn't know and understand,
Speaker 1: and and I was frustrated and blamed myself, thought I
Speaker 1: could have done something, blamed other people because I was
Speaker 1: open about certain things to them and felt that they
Speaker 1: didn't do it. I mean, you go through a million things,
Speaker 1: and the stages of grief is a very true thing,
Speaker 1: and they're not all the same for everybody. They say
Speaker 1: the stages, but they don't have to be in order
Speaker 1: and they don't have to all happen. And so this
Speaker 1: brand of death is a different brand than I had
Speaker 1: ever heard of, than I had ever experienced, and that
Speaker 1: many of you hadn't really thought about. And now people
Speaker 1: that I know and people that I don't know are
Speaker 1: reaching out and it's making them think differently, and it's
Speaker 1: it's it's having meaning because I am telling people that
Speaker 1: I know and also people that I don't know, when
Speaker 1: I hear their story, it is not going to be
Speaker 1: what you think it's going to be. This brand this
Speaker 1: particular brand, this generational trauma brand, complicated being a very
Speaker 1: understated word for this brand of death with a person
Speaker 1: that's supposed to be the most significant safe relationship in
Speaker 1: your life, dying is not what you expect. I know
Speaker 1: other people that haven't spoken to certain family members, have
Speaker 1: estranged relationships. They've put it in a drawer, like me,
Speaker 1: They've locked it. They don't think about it. Days could
Speaker 1: go by. You don't think about this person. You are
Speaker 1: positive they are gone from your life, so you will
Speaker 1: not when they die. It will just be something that
Speaker 1: just happens. Like my father died, and it made me
Speaker 1: very very sad that he never really wanted anything to
Speaker 1: do with me and was very dismissive of me. My
Speaker 1: real father, I call him, because I had a stepfather
Speaker 1: that was more of a father and more significant. He
Speaker 1: had a lot of issues and he is very old
Speaker 1: and also very sick, and I'm just waiting for that
Speaker 1: shoe to drop and then me to be under the
Speaker 1: couch for a month. But that was the most significant
Speaker 1: male relationship in my life was my stepfather. Because when
Speaker 1: my mother was away and left for months at a time,
Speaker 1: and when she went to a mental institution, and when
Speaker 1: she had just left and had a boyfriend somewhere in
Speaker 1: Wales and wasn't at my graduation, she just decided not
Speaker 1: to go. All these times he was there and so
Speaker 1: I didn't want to attach to him when I was
Speaker 1: young because I didn't really want him around and he
Speaker 1: was problematic. He did end up getting his ship more
Speaker 1: together and was more of a solid figure, and he
Speaker 1: had a lot of problems. He had left the family before,
Speaker 1: and then I became his family, and I was sort
Speaker 1: of a way for him to like show my mother
Speaker 1: how much he would love her and take care of
Speaker 1: her because he was obsessed with her, as everybody was.
Speaker 1: So I was really with him more and he was compassionate.
Speaker 1: He was certainly very problematic. But when my real father died,
Speaker 1: someone who really kind of just left me when I
Speaker 1: was young, they were in a relationship. He didn't treat
Speaker 1: me right. I went back to my mother into the
Speaker 1: arms of the next man, who was my stepfather, who
Speaker 1: was the most significant relationship. This is still in the
Speaker 1: formative years, which we'll get into, because I did not
Speaker 1: realize until recently that between zero and eight is when
Speaker 1: you're formed as a person. So if you had some
Speaker 1: good memories and some love before your parent fell off
Speaker 1: the rails, you know, you might have a shot. And
Speaker 1: so so that that real father, when he died of cancer,
Speaker 1: it was unresolved, and it was definitely why didn't he
Speaker 1: love me? And for years I tried to get his love,
Speaker 1: and for years he abandoned and dropped me and was
Speaker 1: mean to me. I mean I had two parents be
Speaker 1: very very mean to me, said me and things to me.
Speaker 1: To the day when he died, I thought I was
Speaker 1: going to get some sort of resolution. And a friend
Speaker 1: of mine who was friends with him because people again
Speaker 1: glamorized him and worshiped him, and he always dated younger,
Speaker 1: pretty people, and he was a Hall of Fame horse trainer,
Speaker 1: and I used to beg for his affection. I used
Speaker 1: to pretend publicly that like I was the daughter of
Speaker 1: Bobby Frankel, because I wanted them to think that I
Speaker 1: was somebody and like that I could go to the
Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby and I could like be that. My stepfather, John,
Speaker 1: who wasn't as successful a trainer, but still successful, he
Speaker 1: included me. He took me, He took me to Saratoga
Speaker 1: and like put me in the Winter Circle pictures. My
Speaker 1: real father, who was the real success, which was a
Speaker 1: big rivalry between those two men always discarded me. And
Speaker 1: one year I went with an ex fiance to the
Speaker 1: Kentucky Derby and he got the ticket. He brought me there,
Speaker 1: and the tickets are a fortune, and I called my
Speaker 1: father to ask him if he could get his tickets
Speaker 1: and he said he blew us off, and he said no,
Speaker 1: and he didn't have any. And this is always how
Speaker 1: he was. I don't have any. He was very He
Speaker 1: also was scathing. So I had two scathing parents, which
Speaker 1: will explain my personality a little bit, like I have
Speaker 1: to try to tone it down. And I think this
Speaker 1: will significantly change me. I've been hardened by the racetrack
Speaker 1: and by two very scathing parents and the abuse and
Speaker 1: everything else. But we showed up at the races that
Speaker 1: day and I overheard my father, because we had to
Speaker 1: buy tickets. I overheard him saying to other people, I
Speaker 1: have all these tickets. I don't know what I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do with them. I could probably sell them or something.
Speaker 1: He was just mean my whole life, and he was
Speaker 1: a mean person, and everybody could glamorize it. The way
Speaker 1: that they want to. He was very successful. He was
Speaker 1: very good friends with Joe Tory, the guy from the Yankees,
Speaker 1: who also ended up disliking me, not knowing me whatsoever,
Speaker 1: because people thought that my father, who was enamored with
Speaker 1: some fame, like he was enamored with the Joe Torris
Speaker 1: and baseball because the trainers were they like the workers,
Speaker 1: even though they, you know, the owners were the rich
Speaker 1: blue bloods and the owners and a lot of celebrities
Speaker 1: hang out around racetracks. And my father was a god,
Speaker 1: but he was a really mean, mean person, and he
Speaker 1: was mean to me to the last breath through through
Speaker 1: the baby cam like that thing that you can hear.
Speaker 1: My father's friend who's my friend, also heard it, heard
Speaker 1: how mean he was to me, and that the first
Speaker 1: time he got a glimpse into what I my pain
Speaker 1: for all my years, and it was validation, like because
Speaker 1: people see different sides to people. And I've heard people
Speaker 1: in the letters that you guys have written me tell
Speaker 1: me that your mother or you know, a parent was
Speaker 1: you know, cold to you, couldn't connect to you what
Speaker 1: was charming and wonderful to everybody else. And it can
Speaker 1: it can really be very sad, so we don't have
Speaker 1: to get into too much about my real father. But
Speaker 1: he was not a parent in any any part of
Speaker 1: the situation. He tried to connect with me at a
Speaker 1: certain age when he started seeing pictures of me with
Speaker 1: John Paracella, and I was glad. I was I was
Speaker 1: enamored by the glamour of that he lived in La
Speaker 1: and I was watching sixteen Candles. I'm pretty and pink,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be out there and thought I
Speaker 1: was going to live this fabulous life. And he courted me.
Speaker 1: But once I relinquished and decided to allow my real
Speaker 1: father to be my father, I put changed my name
Speaker 1: from Bethany Paracella, which I literally would like to go
Speaker 1: and change back. I've always hated my name because my
Speaker 1: father it was like being bougie and like having that
Speaker 1: name and pretending that he was a father. And it
Speaker 1: happened in college. I had never legally been Paraslla. It
Speaker 1: was just that in third grade I went with John
Speaker 1: Paracella to register at school and they asked my last name,
Speaker 1: and I felt guilty that it was Frankly, it was
Speaker 1: on my passport my whole life, and so I said
Speaker 1: Paracella and there are so many people in my life
Speaker 1: that only know me as Beth Paracella. But so in
Speaker 1: college because of my stepfather really lashing out at me,
Speaker 1: every single thing I owned came to my dorm room
Speaker 1: from my life with my mother and my stepfather. He
Speaker 1: had physically lashed out at me, and I took the
Speaker 1: name Frankel, and I leaned in and I wanted my
Speaker 1: real father to like accept me, like I was going
Speaker 1: to now be his daughter. And he dropped me like
Speaker 1: a hot potato. He wanted nothing to do with me.
Speaker 1: He literally all the courting. It was like I was
Speaker 1: a woman that had been courted and just dumped. It
Speaker 1: was like the dog chases the cat, the cat runs away,
Speaker 1: the cat chases the dog, the dog runs away. So
Speaker 1: he was not a great person, and he was really
Speaker 1: pretty much a piece of shit my whole life. And
Speaker 1: I tried so hard to write letters and to ask him,
Speaker 1: and he just really was this cold, detached person. My
Speaker 1: mother was not detached in that same way. She was
Speaker 1: miserable and toxic and mean, but she had emotions underneath
Speaker 1: and would cry and wasn't detached like you could have.
Speaker 1: You know, she was emotional, but just very erratic. So
Speaker 1: my real father when he died, it was not the
Speaker 1: same type of feeling. It just wasn't the same brand
Speaker 1: it was. My ex was with me, my daughter was
Speaker 1: in my belly. I tried to make meaning out of it.
Speaker 1: I took some meaningful things from his house that I
Speaker 1: still have here. He was hostile in his death. On
Speaker 1: a Today's Show episode about Father's Day, I said something like,
Speaker 1: and I don't really have a father, like a throwaway comment,
Speaker 1: but down deep, I guess he loved me. And he
Speaker 1: used to watch every single thing that I did, and
Speaker 1: he used to watch The Apprentice and he rooted for me.
Speaker 1: But what good is loving someone if you're not going
Speaker 1: to tell them or remote He just was not capable,
Speaker 1: which was the problem that my mother had with him.
Speaker 1: And he never was able to be in relationship because
Speaker 1: of his generational trauma and his parents and how they were.
Speaker 1: And when he he heard me say that on that
Speaker 1: show that day, he really cut me off in his mind,
Speaker 1: cut me off financially, which was a part of the relationship.
Speaker 1: Like every year, I think he'd send me five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars for or maybe more for my birthday, or twenty
Speaker 1: five hundre dollars. Fifteen hundred dollars was all the money
Speaker 1: in the world to me. I waited for it for
Speaker 1: some reason, because I always have to be fully accountable.
Speaker 1: For some reason, he agreed to pay fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: for my first wedding. I should have just taken the money.
Speaker 1: I don't know why he agreed to do that. And
Speaker 1: there was a negotiation and a debate back and forth
Speaker 1: about who was going to pay for my college between
Speaker 1: he and John. So he died and I was I
Speaker 1: really didn't care that much. It didn't affect me. This
Speaker 1: loss of my mother was a very different brand of death,
Speaker 1: and I did not expect to experience what I would experience.
Speaker 1: So the way that I went into this, which was
Speaker 1: not intentional, just what happened. I'm a loner. Another thing.
Speaker 1: My father, my real father, was a loaner. He was
Speaker 1: a loner's whole life. He'd be alone in the house.
Speaker 1: My mother was a loaner. To it's Kelly Rippa who
Speaker 1: said to me, that's genetic. And I am a loner
Speaker 1: a lot. So I intervene in that and I do
Speaker 1: a lot more than they did. But and like my father,
Speaker 1: like his work became his social every day you get
Speaker 1: up and you shower, and you go to the track
Speaker 1: and you see people and you go to dinner. Like
Speaker 1: so my work and that The Housewives in that way
Speaker 1: was good for me. Reality television was good for me
Speaker 1: because I would be even in my twenties, I was
Speaker 1: the one who wanted to like a home early and
Speaker 1: be in my pajamas and could be alone for days
Speaker 1: on end and like not tell anybody about it. I
Speaker 1: could like not do Thanksgiving because it was triggering me
Speaker 1: and I'd be alone. I wouldn't tell anybody because I
Speaker 1: don't want, like anyone to know or feel bad. And
Speaker 1: some of you can relate to that. The pandemic leaned
Speaker 1: right into that for me and really like enveloped me
Speaker 1: in it being okay and normalizing being alone. And so
Speaker 1: it's taken. I'm still it's still taking me a while
Speaker 1: to get myself out. And so I think that Jewish
Speaker 1: people in sitting shiva is a good thing. And I
Speaker 1: was talking actually to Jill Zarin about this, because you
Speaker 1: grieve for a week. But what I personally don't agree
Speaker 1: with is the distraction of it. Because when Dennis died,
Speaker 1: I went to the funeral, and I remember drinking wine
Speaker 1: that morning because it was like making me cope. And
Speaker 1: then I went over to someone's house after that they
Speaker 1: were having you know, they're starting I guess the shive
Speaker 1: at their house. And then you were in your house
Speaker 1: and people flew into New York and like came to
Speaker 1: see me and like it does help, and they're visiting,
Speaker 1: and it's it's you know, if you have a family,
Speaker 1: you're doing it together. And I'm not. I'm not there's
Speaker 1: no way to judge anyone's version of how they're going
Speaker 1: to do this. I'm not saying that at all. I'm
Speaker 1: just saying if you're a person, that can really distract.
Speaker 1: Because I had an ex who had a mother who
Speaker 1: died and we did shive for a week and all
Speaker 1: we did was drink and tell stories and look at pictures,
Speaker 1: and then it was over and then you know, people
Speaker 1: go back to normal life and you've had like a
Speaker 1: social week, and that's daring. So I have not done
Speaker 1: it that way. My daughter came back to me. I
Speaker 1: was supposed to go to a volleyball tournament, and thank
Speaker 1: god she had the volleyball tournament. It was my weekend
Speaker 1: with her. I did not want her to be laying
Speaker 1: with me in misery, and like I didn't want to
Speaker 1: like share that with her. She knew my mother, but
Speaker 1: she had seen her two times in person and done
Speaker 1: art with her and spend time with her. She would
Speaker 1: call her sometimes and send her things. And in fact,
Speaker 1: when my mother would call, she would really just stay
Speaker 1: to brin like I don't have much to say, colostomy
Speaker 1: bag and I'm this and it's that, and not really
Speaker 1: much good. Like she was selfish in that way too,
Speaker 1: Like she wasn't saying, oh, tell me about what's going
Speaker 1: on outside, or let's talk about your mom when she
Speaker 1: was a little girl, Like my mother was not capable of,
Speaker 1: like not being super deep and dumping really adult shit
Speaker 1: on my daughter, because that's what she did on me
Speaker 1: my whole life. But my daughter's not equipped for that.
Speaker 1: Like I was an adult at five years old, and
Speaker 1: that's not like when I first found my mother's throwing
Speaker 1: up and found her her her trolley and her laxative
Speaker 1: caddie and would call the cops and see people being beaten,
Speaker 1: you know, with an inch of their life, like and
Speaker 1: was at the racetrack with degenerates and drugs and guns
Speaker 1: like I was an adult. It's just what it is.
Speaker 1: I'm not complaining, no poor me. I'm just saying, like,
Speaker 1: my daughter's not that person, and I can get into that.
Speaker 1: And how I described this to her yesterday, you could
Speaker 1: see she doesn't even have the emotional bandwidth to hear
Speaker 1: the stories of my childhood, which have been very watered
Speaker 1: down but just need to be explained so she doesn't
Speaker 1: wonder why her mom never had a relationship with her mom,
Speaker 1: and now her mom's dead, and now her mom's mom
Speaker 1: is dead, and now her mom is crying. And wait,
Speaker 1: you could have been like trying to very very dilute
Speaker 1: it down and fold into the batter some stories of
Speaker 1: my life and how it wasn't great. I mean, she's
Speaker 1: old enough to understand to realize that, not to process it.
Speaker 1: But I didn't want her. I was so happy she
Speaker 1: had this volleyball tournament. I actually there was a moment
Speaker 1: when I thought like I was going to be there,
Speaker 1: like that's psychotic now realizing what I've gone through, But
Speaker 1: I like put her somewhere, and I was so happy,
Speaker 1: and she won a medal, which of course I had
Speaker 1: placed a meaning on, and she came back on Sunday
Speaker 1: and she had all her stuff and she was exhausted,
Speaker 1: and you know, she hugged me and we had ramen
Speaker 1: together and it was a distraction and I was glad
Speaker 1: for it. And I made her this amazing cinnamon roll
Speaker 1: in the morning that I like wanted to. I was
Speaker 1: so tired of it because I was three hours a night,
Speaker 1: but like just was paranoid that I wouldn't wake up
Speaker 1: and be able to make her this big, like gold
Speaker 1: belly cinnamon roll of strawberry frosting, and like she's like,
Speaker 1: I love you, mamma. Can I hug? Can we hug?
Speaker 1: And we hugged, and you know, and and just showing
Speaker 1: I've been showing our pictures of my mom, Like I
Speaker 1: haven't dumped the whole bag of shit on her at all,
Speaker 1: but it's, you know, she's getting it. She's very emotionally,
Speaker 1: you know, intelligent and and so off she went to
Speaker 1: school and then she went to her dad for a
Speaker 1: couple of days, and so that was good too. So
Speaker 1: I have been alone in my house. I have people
Speaker 1: that work here that I've been with me for years,
Speaker 1: that I love, that have gone through their own losses
Speaker 1: and have experienced the dentist losses of me that you know,
Speaker 1: it's made meaning there because I've thought about them and
Speaker 1: their children and the things that they've gone through and
Speaker 1: how they're always for me and they're my family, but
Speaker 1: like they're not really my family meaning in the sense
Speaker 1: that like I don't live in their house. And we
Speaker 1: started talking about some of their traumas and things that
Speaker 1: have happened for them. And I have always you know,
Speaker 1: Laney's been in my life for so many years. I've
Speaker 1: always said she's in my will. But like saying that,
Speaker 1: I mean God forbid dropping dead tomorrow and her not
Speaker 1: being and my will are not the same thing. And
Speaker 1: so I like started to take the action with my
Speaker 1: you know, team, to like actually put them in my
Speaker 1: will and in my like what's going to happen to them?
Speaker 1: And they're old, They've spent all these years working with me,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, like are they going to be
Speaker 1: are they going to be protected? What's most important to
Speaker 1: them is it? Are they worried about being old and alone? No,
Speaker 1: because some of them have big families. They you know,
Speaker 1: is Laney worried that her son is not going to
Speaker 1: be able to go to college. Does she want that
Speaker 1: for him? Like what? What? What worries her? And I
Speaker 1: didn't want to make her feel vulnerable and uncomfortable, but
Speaker 1: for her to talk to, you know, my business people
Speaker 1: about like what, you know, how they can be protected,
Speaker 1: like my home version of whatever a retirement account is,
Speaker 1: and like a will and things like that. You know,
Speaker 1: it was like Laney's going to be in a Rolls Royce.
Speaker 1: When I dropped dead, I was alone the whole week.
Speaker 1: I was alone, listening to seventies, you know, Carol King
Speaker 1: radio and like having memories of Barry Mann alone. My
Speaker 1: first album it was the Big White one that opened
Speaker 1: and had like three parts to it, and I wore
Speaker 1: it down and Neil Diamond and Carly Simon and James
Speaker 1: Taylor and air Supply and it brought back a lot
Speaker 1: of memories. There were some songs I absolutely couldn't couldn't
Speaker 1: listen to, and and I took nature walks and reconnected
Speaker 1: and connected with my area because I don't have a
Speaker 1: good relationship with exercise, and I'm always envious to people
Speaker 1: who like every morning they just worked out, and you
Speaker 1: know I do that in the Hamptons. I go on
Speaker 1: my beach walks and it opened up this I couldn't
Speaker 1: say in my house. So every day, twice a day,
Speaker 1: I would like put my big hat on and put
Speaker 1: the Carrol King radio on and listen to Barry Manelow
Speaker 1: and everybody nothing modern. I literally did not crave. I
Speaker 1: was like rejecting anything current, anything like there could be
Speaker 1: the way we wore, like a gaga could slip in
Speaker 1: because it like is nostalgic from the way we were,
Speaker 1: but like nothing, and I didn't want any of it.
Speaker 1: And I cried on these walks and I connected with
Speaker 1: nature and my lived in my childhood, and through this
Speaker 1: week decided that I was going to finally go visit Saratoga,
Speaker 1: where I went as a kid. I was gonna take
Speaker 1: Brin back there because I have not been willing to
Speaker 1: revisit there. I've never gone back because it was the
Speaker 1: only escape from this hell. And we would have one
Speaker 1: month and there would always would still be fights up there,
Speaker 1: but I don't remember there being a lot of like
Speaker 1: police level fights. I remember everybody just being happy up
Speaker 1: there for that one month, and my mother wasn't always there.
Speaker 1: But like I said, those drives up there, the memories
Speaker 1: are chill my skin, like, and Saratoga's changed so much.
Speaker 1: It's not a place that's nostalgic anymore. It's very commercial
Speaker 1: and like it used to be so farm stand and
Speaker 1: so provincial, and so I like have it in a
Speaker 1: time capsule, and I just haven't wanted to go this
Speaker 1: place dairy house that had this like soft custard with
Speaker 1: so many flavors that we used to go to, and like,
Speaker 1: I have all these memories, so all these memories were
Speaker 1: flooding in that I never had because the music was
Speaker 1: connected to the memories. And my version of sitting Shiva
Speaker 1: was a week of just being alone and really like
Speaker 1: you know, having compassion and forgiving and going there real
Speaker 1: and doing therapy, realizing that if your formative years or
Speaker 1: zero to eight, that like that's why these are so strong,
Speaker 1: like these memories, and you know, and that's also when
Speaker 1: it was like bad. But I just you know, I
Speaker 1: had my own version. Today's the first day I've washed
Speaker 1: my hair. And it's funny because I was looking I
Speaker 1: was I showered to have my grandma sweater on, and
Speaker 1: I was thinking, like I was listening to the song
Speaker 1: You're So Vain, and there's a line in You're so
Speaker 1: vain from Carly Simon about Saratoga. And I was thinking
Speaker 1: about how I'm not so vain and people comment on
Speaker 1: that that I'm willing to be like just look like
Speaker 1: this and not you know, care. And my mother was
Speaker 1: not pretentious or superficial. She was vain, but she was
Speaker 1: the one wearing overalls to the you know, during the
Speaker 1: day all the time. She never had makeup on, Like
Speaker 1: you know, there are a lot of similarities with myself
Speaker 1: and her. She didn't wasn't vain in that way. She
Speaker 1: was internally like you know, with a disorder pain vein,
Speaker 1: Like it was just she just that addiction and that
Speaker 1: blimia just just ruled her entire life and killed her.
Speaker 1: And it's crazy that the one thing that she was
Speaker 1: so vain about was the thing that rotted her. And
Speaker 1: I have a different relationship to age now. You know,
Speaker 1: people used to think that you were in your late
Speaker 1: thirty your thirties, and like you were done, like you
Speaker 1: were look old. And she thought she was old at forty,
Speaker 1: I mean, and she started to look old at forty
Speaker 1: because of what she was doing to her body and
Speaker 1: destroying herself. But like it's hard for me because I'm
Speaker 1: having a rebirth right now, like I'm healing generational trauma
Speaker 1: right now, and I am at an age where I
Speaker 1: looked at her as so old, and so there's a
Speaker 1: lot of guilt, a lot of guilt, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't like me. I want to fix everything, and
Speaker 1: my therapist says, I fix everything. I go there's a
Speaker 1: problem in the Hampton's right now with encampments, and like
Speaker 1: I've got my team there, palettes of aid. There's something
Speaker 1: going on in Puerto Rico, like I saw it. Why
Speaker 1: you know, why couldn't I go to Florida and just
Speaker 1: be like, I'm gonna like solve this, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: go into this type of rehab and you're gonna be like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, And I was scared to do that,
Speaker 1: and I didn't even know to do that, and I
Speaker 1: had so much anger for my life. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like it's Monday morning quarterback. Listen. She had a friend,
Speaker 1: she had a good friend who knew nothing about this,
Speaker 1: so she compartment mentalized this enough that she had a
Speaker 1: friend that is in that house showing me Cartier giant
Speaker 1: pearl earrings that we've like I've put next to pictures
Speaker 1: at my confirmation, Tiffany Pearls and I mentioned the brands
Speaker 1: because I didn't realize, like she's the one who made
Speaker 1: my stepfather like into nice things and culture all of
Speaker 1: us with like knowing what things were, and like disco music,
Speaker 1: which I wasn't even allowed. I realized that too. My
Speaker 1: mother was living at Studio fifty four as Studio fifty
Speaker 1: four when I was growing up. That's when she was
Speaker 1: going out partying, and like I lived for disco. I
Speaker 1: had a secret life on hot skates. No one at
Speaker 1: my school they would have made fun of me. They
Speaker 1: all were into the doors. Everybody that went to Saint
Speaker 1: Agnes in sixth and seventh and eight, you know grade
Speaker 1: there was no disco. I had a secret life of disco.
Speaker 1: No one knew about Indian food, No one knew about sushi.
Speaker 1: My mother was living this Like she went to f
Speaker 1: I t she went to Pratt, she went to Parsons.
Speaker 1: She was like this like fabulous person. I don't know
Speaker 1: where she got it from. It's like amazing to see that,
Speaker 1: Like she left her house at sixteen and just found fabulousity.
Speaker 1: It really really is. And I've been talking a lot
Speaker 1: about well, first, Brenne and I decided together, we came
Speaker 1: up with a good solution for her ashes her friend
Speaker 1: in Florida. I got her someone to take care of
Speaker 1: her for the last couple of years. And this woman
Speaker 1: is like, you need to come here, and you need
Speaker 1: to do this here, you know all this. And I
Speaker 1: was feeling guilty because I was feeling like I don't
Speaker 1: want to go in that. I don't think I can
Speaker 1: handle going in that apartment. But then why should I
Speaker 1: go there? And her friend, her actual friend of eleven years,
Speaker 1: was like, no, she hated for And I remember that
Speaker 1: she hated Florida as a kid, And this makes me
Speaker 1: sad too. The I said to her friend, why did
Speaker 1: she move to Florida? She hated Flora. She never went out,
Speaker 1: she didn't go swim, she didn't go to the beach.
Speaker 1: She couldn't give a shit. And this woman said, because
Speaker 1: she wanted to go somewhere where no one knew her,
Speaker 1: which also broke my heart. Like a picture that this
Speaker 1: woman sent me of her, this beautiful specimen of all
Speaker 1: those that had all the all the opportunity and just
Speaker 1: continue to choose the wrong men and devolve. You know,
Speaker 1: men are such a massive theme and and and devolve
Speaker 1: that this man the last man that beat her, and
Speaker 1: there were police reports that this her friend found and
Speaker 1: before that was an alcoholic. Like the male choices were
Speaker 1: just always driven by how someone loved her, never how
Speaker 1: she loved them. Something that is like genetic, like something
Speaker 1: that has been a massive theme in my life. And
Speaker 1: you know, my daughter, there'll be a boy in school
Speaker 1: and she'll say, ex likes me a lot of many times,
Speaker 1: and she's never seen anything about this with me, Like
Speaker 1: this is like it's like in our weaving of the souls.
Speaker 1: As Michael Caponi, my philanthropy partner, said, you know, my
Speaker 1: daughter will say this person likes me. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: do you like them? Like I'm you know, trying to
Speaker 1: break these chains by also saying like it's great that
Speaker 1: someone likes you, and yes, it's great someone be chivalrous
Speaker 1: and like you first and write the Valentine first or
Speaker 1: whatever happens. But like, ultimately someone else cannot love or
Speaker 1: like you enough for you to like them like or
Speaker 1: love them like it's not that's not how this thing
Speaker 1: is gonna work. And I realize now that like it's
Speaker 1: because she came from an abusive household with a father
Speaker 1: that was a tyrant, and so she just went out
Speaker 1: and wanted love, like if someone would love her enough.
Speaker 1: John Parasla love bombing, he lived, love bombed her all
Speaker 1: those cardier stuff and those pearls and everything she couldn't
Speaker 1: even afford himself, Like she was this woman who was
Speaker 1: so stunning and perfect, like he wanted to like, you know,
Speaker 1: and same with Bobby, Like she didn't really love these guys,
Speaker 1: and she really she loved one of the guys after
Speaker 1: you know, before the monster. This like one guy, but
Speaker 1: he was an alcoholic and she was attracted to that
Speaker 1: for that reasons, Like we have to intervene in our
Speaker 1: lives and think about why we're choosing people. The game
Speaker 1: is moving very quickly when you are choosing people, but
Speaker 1: you have to find a way to think about why
Speaker 1: and and and so, like I'm thinking about that for
Speaker 1: my own life, Like you just want people, you know.
Speaker 1: Several of my axes have said to me or friends
Speaker 1: have said to me about these people. You're never gonna
Speaker 1: find someone who's going to love you as much as
Speaker 1: they do. And one of my exes said to me,
Speaker 1: you will never find someone who will love you as
Speaker 1: much as I will, pleading with me to be with them,
Speaker 1: and as a person who had no real parents or
Speaker 1: parental structure, like, yes, take me. I want to be loved.
Speaker 1: I want to be loved. To give it to me,
Speaker 1: you love, Yes, I believe you. I believe in I
Speaker 1: believe it. No one's gonna love how No one loved
Speaker 1: me as a child. Why would anyone else love me
Speaker 1: more than this person who wants to be my family?
Speaker 1: And then it gets layered that like with my ex Peter,
Speaker 1: who I married like his parents. I loved his parents.
Speaker 1: His mother was like a mother to me. Mary and
Speaker 1: Susman was like a mother to me. She took me
Speaker 1: wedding dress shopping. She would take me. It wasn't about
Speaker 1: the material things, but she would take me to go
Speaker 1: like to where are we gonna get the wedding test?
Speaker 1: To get my makeup done? And she would like take
Speaker 1: me shopping is a you know mother would do. And
Speaker 1: she would talk to me and she was funny and
Speaker 1: like I was marrying them too, you know, like there
Speaker 1: are different reasons. They may not even be the person
Speaker 1: you're with, You're marrying their family, like they're different reasons
Speaker 1: we're making these decisions, and like I when we broke up,
Speaker 1: you know, it broke my heart that I broke her
Speaker 1: heart because she loved me, and I broke her heart,
Speaker 1: And like they don't come from or understand a person
Speaker 1: from a damaged childhood like myself. Brian Koppleman, you know
Speaker 1: his his mother, Bunny Coplman, loved me. I was like
Speaker 1: attracted to her. You know, you're you're finding these different things.
Speaker 1: So I realized when my mom I was doing what
Speaker 1: my mother was doing for so many years and and
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to crack into this. I haven't
Speaker 1: been serious about therapy for a while where I'll be
Speaker 1: like regular where like you know how you'll like make
Speaker 1: a standing manicure appointment and be like, Okay, the second
Speaker 1: I leave here, I'm making the next appointment. That's how
Speaker 1: regular I've been in the last couple of uh, certainly
Speaker 1: the last year, maybe a couple of years, but really
Speaker 1: the last year where it's like f and it could
Speaker 1: be it could be, and the same thing for my daughter,
Speaker 1: it'll be like it could be once a month. It
Speaker 1: just has to be like that it's happening again because
Speaker 1: it's something you may not want to do, but once
Speaker 1: you do it, you feel better. It's like working out.
Speaker 1: And if you cannot afford therapy, you know, do the
Speaker 1: apps that have a therapist. Okay, if you cannot afford therapy,
Speaker 1: go online and look up things that you know, people
Speaker 1: like me and other people say like generational trauma or
Speaker 1: like formative years, like I literally till yesterday did not
Speaker 1: really realize and had to send to my friend who
Speaker 1: was a complicated relationship with her mother the formative year thing,
Speaker 1: which gave me some comfort. It made me realize, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm not in a total basket case, because I
Speaker 1: do have glimpses of love from when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and going through the old pictures is bringing me there.
Speaker 1: And it made me very sad the first couple of
Speaker 1: days of this grief, like tortuously, like bad, and because
Speaker 1: I wanted my mommy and I wanted to be there
Speaker 1: and I wanted more of it. And that move you
Speaker 1: move through that, you move out of the bad, you
Speaker 1: move into that, and then you move into like guilt
Speaker 1: and like logic and what you could have done and
Speaker 1: you could have brought you, you know, and then and then
Speaker 1: you kind of go in and out of that, and
Speaker 1: then you're just playing nostalgic songs and they're just reminding
Speaker 1: you of something and you're just like honoring. I'm wearing
Speaker 1: a ring that was my mother, that was mine when
Speaker 1: I was thirteen, and a one that I bought with
Speaker 1: Brynn recently in an antique shop that we believe is
Speaker 1: the same one that I had when I was younger,
Speaker 1: because I've never seen anyone else with it, but we
Speaker 1: want to believe that this bee that I got for
Speaker 1: like my confirmation, that's like a diamond script bee, and like,
Speaker 1: you know, just trying to connect and like, there's a
Speaker 1: beautiful picture of my mother when she looks like the
Speaker 1: bandu sole, like this French beautiful woman, and she had
Speaker 1: these two rings on that she wore every day and
Speaker 1: I've always coveted them. And this friend of hers that
Speaker 1: found like found these pictures sent a picture. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, those are the rings, and she's like
Speaker 1: in a scavenger hunt and she found them for me,
Speaker 1: and it's making me so happy that she had this
Speaker 1: friend of eleven years that I'm connecting with and that
Speaker 1: you know, she deserves all this stuff. I'm like take
Speaker 1: whatever you want and she's like, no, I want you
Speaker 1: to have it all. And it's like, like I said,
Speaker 1: cartier and stuff, real stuff. And it makes me happy
Speaker 1: because it means she had a friend that she could
Speaker 1: trust because anybody could have gone in there. My mother
Speaker 1: was so vulnerable and anybody would take from her. Anybody
Speaker 1: could have gone in there and stolen all this stuff.
Speaker 1: And this beautiful person, Julia is her name, but it's
Speaker 1: spelled like with an L. And she said to me
Speaker 1: that she's now connecting with her mother because of this.
Speaker 1: She bought her mother a ticket. So I'm feeling like
Speaker 1: there's all these things swirling because of this death, and
Speaker 1: I'm sharing it with you because a lot of things
Speaker 1: are swirling with you and a lot of you are reconnecting.
Speaker 1: And my friend is now thinking about therapy, and like
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff is swirling with mothers and daughters
Speaker 1: and it's and we're entering, we're coming into Mother's Day.
Speaker 1: It's like the perfect time to talk about this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I'm sending people a lot of messages saying it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. I know your mother abuse do. I know
Speaker 1: she's angry and evil and all. It's not really about
Speaker 1: that it's about doing something so you don't go through
Speaker 1: like torture and trauma. Like take one part of that off,
Speaker 1: Go send her a mixtape of songs from her generation,
Speaker 1: write a letter, send a gift, because this person is
Speaker 1: in tremendous pain. They've been evil, but they didn't just
Speaker 1: wake up and decide to be evil. That's the generational trauma.
Speaker 1: That's the stuff that comes from decades that was passed down.
Speaker 1: And like, there are ways that I am like my mother,
Speaker 1: even though it's stuff that I don't want to be.
Speaker 1: And there are ways that I'm like my father, but
Speaker 1: you know, at least to understand where you come from
Speaker 1: and why. You know. I can be biting, you know,
Speaker 1: but I've turned it into a good sometimes in the
Speaker 1: sense that you know, my daughter's pretty incredible, and I
Speaker 1: don't suffer fools, and I don't negotiate with terrorists, and
Speaker 1: I'm strict in that way. She messes around me, she
Speaker 1: disrespects me. She says something like, I snap it right away.
Speaker 1: I don't let really any of them slide. I'm tremendously
Speaker 1: loving and amazing, and I never turned down a snuggle.
Speaker 1: I never turned down a cuddle. We hog I mean,
Speaker 1: I live for my kid, but I don't play games.
Speaker 1: And the way that I with my daughter that I've
Speaker 1: handled it was is to like tell her the stories,
Speaker 1: but like not you know, overwhelm her with it, you know.
Speaker 1: And Melinda, my therapist, who's a psychoanaly is like so happy.
Speaker 1: She's like can't believe. She's like, now the deep work
Speaker 1: will happen. And the same thing with Breck. They're like,
Speaker 1: this is profound because I feel different already. I feel
Speaker 1: like different, even that I'm willing to go back to Saratoga,
Speaker 1: even that I've been willing to like think about my
Speaker 1: childhood and go there, it's a door that's been locked.
Speaker 1: And reconnecting with people. Matt Littman said to me, Tody,
Speaker 1: did you butt dial me? Because like, I don't talk
Speaker 1: to my friends from that age. I transact with them
Speaker 1: like once in a while, they'll be like someone will
Speaker 1: see something and instagram a message me. But anyone from
Speaker 1: pretty much my entire childhood until my twenties, with the
Speaker 1: exception of two friends that I met in high school,
Speaker 1: but I met them in boarding school, so I was
Speaker 1: removed from the situation, and one of them I moved
Speaker 1: out of boarding school into their house, just to give
Speaker 1: you an idea of like I moved into another person's
Speaker 1: home with it. You know, those are my two friends.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting because I met them out of this
Speaker 1: psychotic environment. So I've like they're they're in some sort
Speaker 1: of separate bubble, you know, like they're they're they're they're
Speaker 1: like protected from I did anybody that I met through
Speaker 1: that entire life, even my friend Alyssa that I was
Speaker 1: good friends with, whose mother took me to the hospital
Speaker 1: when I had chicken pox because my stepfather John ignored
Speaker 1: me when I said I had bumps all over my
Speaker 1: stomach and like no one, like I had no parents
Speaker 1: to take me to doctors. I hurt myself fell off
Speaker 1: a mountain years ago. My mother kind of like blew
Speaker 1: me off on the phone, like there was no compassion,
Speaker 1: no caring, no chicken soup. When you don't feel well,
Speaker 1: when you're an adult, no one's moving you into a
Speaker 1: college dorm, no one's moving you out, no one's you know,
Speaker 1: like I was in a so Alyssa, who's mother and
Speaker 1: you know, horrified that I literally had chicken pox at
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, took me to the hospital. I had
Speaker 1: one hundred and five. I fainted when they took my blood.
Speaker 1: Like all these people I've really kept at arm's length.
Speaker 1: They're like, well, text me and I'll say thank you
Speaker 1: and excel. Like they're just like I've cut them out.
Speaker 1: I've like put them in a compartmentalized state. And now
Speaker 1: I've been reconnecting with them, you know, because like I
Speaker 1: can like deal with what part of my life they
Speaker 1: were adjacent to. And I know a lot of this
Speaker 1: is going to be like very familiar to and you
Speaker 1: didn't even know it reading my old journals. And what's crazy, though,
Speaker 1: is that John was like actually a pretty not a
Speaker 1: bad terrible person. It's the only time he really ever
Speaker 1: touched me, and there was a time he stopped touching her,
Speaker 1: but his degenerate friends did sexually, you know, assault abused
Speaker 1: me and because he was around degenerates. But he's eighty
Speaker 1: two years old, and I forgive because he had a
Speaker 1: heart and he cared and he was, you know, living
Speaker 1: in a life of animals, like you know, and he
Speaker 1: was enraged and substances, and you don't think about it
Speaker 1: when you're young. You don't know like people could be
Speaker 1: doing that are doing cocaine and like they're what they're doing,
Speaker 1: you don't know what the hell they're doing. It's due
Speaker 1: to fifty four. They're not doing you know, they're not
Speaker 1: They're not drinking fucking boba. He did. He treated me
Speaker 1: like a daughter, and I have he has to get
Speaker 1: that credit. And he did admit what went on way
Speaker 1: more than my mother did. And I'm gonna have a
Speaker 1: driver take him because I don't think he can he can't.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have him drive himself, but I'm gonn
Speaker 1: have someone take him bring him to my house so
Speaker 1: I have a property. It feels weird. He's Celiac, I guess,
Speaker 1: and he's lost a lot of weight, and it feels
Speaker 1: weird to like be in a restaurant with him. And
Speaker 1: it's gonna be uncomfortable for me, it's gonna be comfortable
Speaker 1: for Britney's and look very old and frail, and it's
Speaker 1: gonna be triggering. But I'm gonna put that aside because
Speaker 1: that's a lot of why I didn't see my mother.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to have him brought here and sit
Speaker 1: out on the lawn and he'll get to like watch
Speaker 1: her do sports and he'll he asked about her metal.
Speaker 1: I've been texting him. He texts very fast. We've been laughing.
Speaker 1: We actually were talking about some of my personal traumas
Speaker 1: that we've discussed on my other podcasts that you guys
Speaker 1: won't listen to because I'm not going to get specific
Speaker 1: right now, but you'll understand what I'm saying. And I
Speaker 1: said to him that someone once told me when they
Speaker 1: were kind of threatening me, now you're going to see
Speaker 1: what I was like on the basketball court. Incidentally, he
Speaker 1: was best friends with Rick Patino, the famous basketball coach
Speaker 1: who actually named horses after like him and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And he was a big basketball fan. And he went
Speaker 1: to Saint John's stepfather and it made me laugh because
Speaker 1: this was a person who had played basketball, but not professionally,
Speaker 1: just like was a good basketball player. And I said,
Speaker 1: he was asking about a situation of my life. And
Speaker 1: I said to him, this person said to me, now
Speaker 1: you're going to see what I was like on the
Speaker 1: basketball court. And I said, I said, I survived, and
Speaker 1: I prevailed, and I fought hard, and I came out
Speaker 1: on top. And I said to John Paracella, I said,
Speaker 1: I said, I should have said back, Now you're going
Speaker 1: to see what I was like on the racetrack at
Speaker 1: five years old at the shoeshine stand, hanging out in
Speaker 1: the jockeys room. I mean like and he laughed because
Speaker 1: like he was like fu, he said, there's nobody the
Speaker 1: NBA growing up. Now you're gonna see what I was
Speaker 1: like on the NBA basketball court still does not hold
Speaker 1: a candle to being raised on the racetrack by wolves
Speaker 1: and animals. So we laughed because like it's very It's
Speaker 1: like people want to know why I am like the
Speaker 1: way I am. It's I was because I grew up
Speaker 1: on the racetrack. It's like it's there's no place, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not a place to be raised. I mean I
Speaker 1: remember going to John Paracela and being at OTB off
Speaker 1: track bedding, the degenerate place. People were smoking and like gambling.
Speaker 1: It's seven years old. We'd stop at OTB because he
Speaker 1: was John Paracelo. It was a degenerate gamber who'd crack
Speaker 1: my piggy bank open for money. I mean, it's like crazy.
Speaker 1: So this is like a memoir. In the end, this
Speaker 1: is podcast. So Melinda, my psychoanalyst, said something so fascinating,
Speaker 1: which you guys are going to think is interesting and
Speaker 1: it's about she said, your mother. We came up with
Speaker 1: this together. But like the fact that my mother would
Speaker 1: have a lifelong eating disorder, which by the way, affected
Speaker 1: me too. There was a time in like high school,
Speaker 1: high school when people were talking about food, and I
Speaker 1: talked to my daughter about that yesterday too, I told
Speaker 1: her about the eating disorder. I was like, listen to me,
Speaker 1: girls are going to come in with fat diets and
Speaker 1: I only ate this and I look fat and I
Speaker 1: look and I'm like, that will ruin your life. It's
Speaker 1: almost like when people tell their kids, like, don't do
Speaker 1: you do drugs, You'll die, Like it will ruin your life.
Speaker 1: That's why we never talk about food in this house.
Speaker 1: We don't talk about any why I was bad, I
Speaker 1: was good. This thin weight, it's like not discussed in
Speaker 1: my house. There was the word die is in the
Speaker 1: word diet is not discussed. So and my whole life
Speaker 1: it was my mother. Oh, I gained tampat like every day,
Speaker 1: and I had that where there were times that I
Speaker 1: took laxatives and there were times when I would in
Speaker 1: living in that apartment in New York City where I
Speaker 1: would you know, go out night and get drunk, go
Speaker 1: to nightclubs, come home downstairs and eat like a whole
Speaker 1: you know, Enteman's cake, or eat a pint device and
Speaker 1: a binge because you were drinking. I did. Then college
Speaker 1: to you get a whole pizza and then starve. I
Speaker 1: never had the throw up that's disgusting. I never had that.
Speaker 1: I could never make myself throw up, but like and
Speaker 1: then would starve myself. I'm gonna be good, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be bad. So it wasn't a classic eating disorder like
Speaker 1: that is like anorexic or believe it. But it was
Speaker 1: a disorder because it wasn't in order. And that's what
Speaker 1: I wrote Naturally Thin about because I don't know how
Speaker 1: I got involved in my own life because I wanted
Speaker 1: to be happy. Your life was defined by like I
Speaker 1: was good, I was bad, I was fat, I was thin.
Speaker 1: I gained way to ruin your day, you know, and
Speaker 1: I was like twenty five pounds heavier because I had
Speaker 1: no It was a disorder, but it wasn't in the
Speaker 1: you know, it never got completely out of control. It
Speaker 1: was more binge and never perd binge and then naughty
Speaker 1: and be good, good, and bad. Those words are not
Speaker 1: should not be associated with food. Food is not your
Speaker 1: best friend or your enemy. That's naturally thin. But Melinda said,
Speaker 1: I mean, Bethany, you have a brand called skinny Girl,
Speaker 1: like like is it Freud? Is it? Who knows what?
Speaker 1: But like and then that she was also in alcohol.
Speaker 1: Her big disorders were we're eating and alcohol. I mean
Speaker 1: I made all my money on alcohol. I mean, it's insane.
Speaker 1: But skinny Girl is about having a good relationship with food.
Speaker 1: It's about allowing. It was about allowing, like it was
Speaker 1: never about depriving. The whole book, the whole brand was
Speaker 1: about like, now you get to have a margarita that's
Speaker 1: slightly sweet. Now you get to have microwave popcorn, but
Speaker 1: it's better for you. Now you get to have salad dressings,
Speaker 1: but they're better for you. It was never about depriving.
Speaker 1: So it was like, somehow resolving that disorder. And yes,
Speaker 1: the word skinny can be problematic, and if I were
Speaker 1: naming it tomorrow, I wouldn't do that. It was just
Speaker 1: the margarita was a skinnier version. But Freud would have
Speaker 1: a fucking field day with that. Like that was like
Speaker 1: a resolution to a disorder, and it became something you know,
Speaker 1: that represents a healthier relationship with these things, to be
Speaker 1: able to have Margerita whatever, and then alcohol, you know,
Speaker 1: to have an alcohol brand and a wine brand. I
Speaker 1: mean she drank wine, you know, out of the faucet.
Speaker 1: So and then she said, and now, Bethany, this is
Speaker 1: becoming so clear because I told her my mother wanted
Speaker 1: to be a star. She wanted to be fabulous. You know,
Speaker 1: she held me down. I wanted to go to acting classes.
Speaker 1: She wouldn't take me. She had a friend she once
Speaker 1: told me to made commercials. I badgered her day and night.
Speaker 1: She she didn't take me. She once told me she
Speaker 1: made She once told me intentionally, I guess that I
Speaker 1: was offered a Disney contract when I was like five
Speaker 1: years old, and that she turned it down. I regretted
Speaker 1: it my whole life, my whole life. I obsessed over it,
Speaker 1: like I could have been something. I could have had
Speaker 1: a Disney contract, like when I was a little girl.
Speaker 1: I begged her, why didn't you say yes? And like
Speaker 1: I wanted to go backwards. I wanted her to call
Speaker 1: the friend who did commercials. Like she never helped me.
Speaker 1: She never she wanted to be famous, like she wanted
Speaker 1: to be me. She was jealous of me like and
Speaker 1: so Malinn and my father too, would name drop the
Speaker 1: David Milch's and the dough Tories, and you know, he
Speaker 1: was a horse trainer. He was good at one thing,
Speaker 1: and he made a lot of He made a lot
Speaker 1: of money. And I thought he was so rich. And
Speaker 1: I was so enamored by the rich and my father's
Speaker 1: rich and he lives in the Pacific Palisades and go
Speaker 1: to the Derby and pretend and pretend and pretend. And
Speaker 1: Melinda said, you, and I said, passed all of their goals.
Speaker 1: I am wealthier, even even with inflation and all of it.
Speaker 1: I'm more successful, more relevant, more wealthy than my father.
Speaker 1: I and my Linda said to me, you surpassed and
Speaker 1: you completed their goals, Like that's what happens with generational trauma,
Speaker 1: Like you completed each of their goals. And that all
Speaker 1: the times that people ask me why I have the
Speaker 1: hard work and determination and the drive, I never go
Speaker 1: deep enough. I think it's my father was very driven
Speaker 1: and he was the best of what he did. And
Speaker 1: my mother too, She was a worker. They were workers.
Speaker 1: She worked her ass off. She didn't complain, she was
Speaker 1: They were. They are people who worked. They are not complainers.
Speaker 1: They are workers like I. You know, I'm surrounded by
Speaker 1: people sometimes like people I've been in relationships with. People
Speaker 1: want waw and they're complaining and what like pros play hurt.
Speaker 1: That's how I grew up like pros play hurt. Period.
Speaker 1: No complain, no explain, Like I work. You take all
Speaker 1: my money today, I'll be at a restaurant. Tomorrow, I'll
Speaker 1: be making money. I'll be working, I'll be bartending, I'll be.
Speaker 1: I am a worker to day I die. And I
Speaker 1: don't expect anyone to ever do anything that I've never done.
Speaker 1: But I took whatever they did into the end zone,
Speaker 1: you know. And there's something about that that I that
Speaker 1: I like feel in my body like I did it,
Speaker 1: I made it. And I think she thinks that that
Speaker 1: is very related the hard work and drive. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot that's like unfolding, and that's why it's been
Speaker 1: good for me. The music, the walking, like the being alone,
Speaker 1: like I'm using this to be good to like, you know,
Speaker 1: work it out. Britt and I decided we were gonna
Speaker 1: take cookies ashes, which have been in my laundry room
Speaker 1: in a corner. For years, we have not touched them,
Speaker 1: we have not addressed it. But we made a decision
Speaker 1: that we would take my mother's ashes because her friend
Speaker 1: that has been this good friend is gonna come here.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna fly her here. I'm gonna send something, Send
Speaker 1: some money to that woman who's been taking care of her,
Speaker 1: who's like at her house, like take care of as
Speaker 1: many people as I can. Fly her friend here, have
Speaker 1: her stay here, put her in a hotel, hell, give
Speaker 1: her an experience. She's reconnected with her mother, as I
Speaker 1: told you. And we're gonna put the ashes with cookies.
Speaker 1: I think in the water my new house in the Hampton,
Speaker 1: so like Cookie and my mother are together. I know none.
Speaker 1: This is all not real, and like you know, it's
Speaker 1: things that we make up and you know our lives,
Speaker 1: but maybe it is real. I said to Brim, what
Speaker 1: do you think happens? She said, I don't know, Mama.
Speaker 1: She said, I think you come back. I think you recarnate.
Speaker 1: She didn't say those words, so I think you come
Speaker 1: back as something else. I said what she said, like,
Speaker 1: and I was sharing with Michael Capponi, my partner said
Speaker 1: he said, one day, I'll tell you what I think.
Speaker 1: And you know, he talked about the weaving of the
Speaker 1: souls and he's into cabala and spirituality. But he said,
Speaker 1: maybe one day, you know, bring comes back as your
Speaker 1: mother's daughter, and like all that gets resolved. And I
Speaker 1: can't see anything but my mother and my daughter right now.
Speaker 1: I can't see like you guys brought it to my attention.
Speaker 1: I had seen it myself, but was like thinking, it
Speaker 1: is it true? And she looks like her and she
Speaker 1: has that like seventies essence of her, so I can't
Speaker 1: see anything. But and I was thinking maybe cookie and
Speaker 1: bring love issh, like can we do that, mama? And
Speaker 1: all the stuff the way I sell bags and that
Speaker 1: a lie address that I can't believe this woman found
Speaker 1: in my mother's closet from thirty years ago. All of
Speaker 1: this stuff is going to come. And Broom was like, please, Mama,
Speaker 1: please don't do it without me, like please, And I
Speaker 1: hate stuff, but I'm like, I can't wait for it
Speaker 1: to come, and I can't wait to go through it
Speaker 1: with Brin. So that's all got you know, got meaning.
Speaker 1: And it's just important that I really mention well first
Speaker 1: that there have been a lot of signs. You know.
Speaker 1: My mother was the one who'd say to me, a
Speaker 1: black crow is a design of death. And I saw
Speaker 1: black crow the other day just like by itself and
Speaker 1: it wouldn't move, and I like, I remember her saying that,
Speaker 1: and so that was meaningful to me. So many crazy
Speaker 1: memories that like are so insane. It's a movie. It's
Speaker 1: like literally it's a movie. So I have, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't really just make it all that. It was
Speaker 1: like I was living every day and my house was
Speaker 1: like shit, it wasn't they were just it just wasn't
Speaker 1: a child's house, you know. But take these moments with
Speaker 1: your family, Take these moments with your kids. Take these
Speaker 1: moments and really appreciate them, like as Mother's Day comes,
Speaker 1: like appreciate them, cherish them because they're like fireflies. I
Speaker 1: think it's so crazy that they call that movie Firefly
Speaker 1: Lane because they're like fireflies, like they're fleeting. And then
Speaker 1: you're in a bed crying at fifty three and you're
Speaker 1: like remembering just like an ice cream cone with your
Speaker 1: mother that's like the firefly like popcorn in the middle
Speaker 1: of you know, on a road, Like why do I
Speaker 1: just remember rest stop popcorn. Like I and Bryn recently
Speaker 1: when I was going to go that weekend, she was like,
Speaker 1: wanted to go on a road trip because I have
Speaker 1: a driver, he always drives us. It's like I want
Speaker 1: to go just mom and Peanut and I want to go,
Speaker 1: and like we're going to take a road trip. I'm
Speaker 1: planning a trip this summer. You know, pictures on my
Speaker 1: mother from me and taking me to Egypt and Greece,
Speaker 1: and like this summer, I'm taking her on a special trip,
Speaker 1: but not just like one of these like fancy like
Speaker 1: Sancho pe I'm taking her somewhere or see something that
Speaker 1: we haven't seen. So it's got meaning. I'm making meaning
Speaker 1: out of this, and I believe I'll be have a
Speaker 1: more open heart, more forgiving. And I've taken the entirety
Speaker 1: of my mother and I've put this, all of this
Speaker 1: through a strainer and it's I'm I just have the
Speaker 1: good now, I'm just I just have the good and
Speaker 1: there's I'm gonna make meaning out of it. And this
Speaker 1: podcast has been such a gift to have a place
Speaker 1: to put this. I have like had this inside and
Speaker 1: me even writing notes, reading journals, listening to letters all
Speaker 1: of it. And and I had an experience recently where
Speaker 1: Brynn was feeling from you know, someone that she had
Speaker 1: the weight of the world and she's feeling guilty and
Speaker 1: someone's making her feel guilty of something about something, and
Speaker 1: she feels everything and like she's wearing it. And you know,
Speaker 1: one day we'll get into the pandemic. And and how
Speaker 1: much she had on her back when she my kid
Speaker 1: broke down bad. And that's how we started her therapy.
Speaker 1: I said to her yesterday, you are a butterfly, and
Speaker 1: you have to do what work, what is good for
Speaker 1: you and what is healthy for you. And I will
Speaker 1: always support that you are not living my life. You
Speaker 1: are not living any parents life. It's amazing that she
Speaker 1: right now is making meaning out of this and wanting
Speaker 1: to spend time with her grandparents and wanting to be
Speaker 1: more thoughtful, et cetera. I said, regarding anything negative in
Speaker 1: her feeling this pressure as that you are living your
Speaker 1: this is your life. You fly, But love you guys,
Speaker 1: Thank you, and thank you for all the messages I'm
Speaker 1: learning from you as much as hopefully you're learning or
Speaker 1: just expressing or being inspired by whatever this brings up.
Speaker 1: For you,