Speaker 1: What happens when America's dad is revealed to be a perpetrator.
Speaker 1: Actress Lily Bernard knows all too well. On this emotional
Speaker 1: episode of Navigating Narcissism, Lily bravely opens up for the
Speaker 1: very first time about the horrific abuse she endured at
Speaker 1: the hands of Bill Cosby. When Lily first met Cosby
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine, she was just beginning her career. He,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, was one of the most famous, respected,
Speaker 1: and beloved men in the world. Since then, over sixty
Speaker 1: women have accused him of sexually assaulting, drugging, and raping them.
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, Cosby was convicted and went to prison,
Speaker 1: before being released on a legal technicality less than three
Speaker 1: years later. His crimes have been the focus of documentaries
Speaker 1: and news articles, but the experiences of the survivors are
Speaker 1: often glossed over. What did the grooming process look like?
Speaker 1: How did enablers and systems psychologically conspire to allow him
Speaker 1: to keep perpetrating for decades? Even more important, what happens
Speaker 1: to the survivors for years afterward. While this is a
Speaker 1: story of sexual assaults, abuse, and perpetration, it is frankly
Speaker 1: also a straight up story of narcissistic abuse. This is
Speaker 1: Lily's harrowing journey of surviving Bill Cosby, not just what happened,
Speaker 1: but what has happened to her since and the reality
Speaker 1: of her healing process. This podcast should not be used
Speaker 1: as a substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individuals
Speaker 1: are advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and or
Speaker 1: therapy from a healthcare professional with respect to any medical condition,
Speaker 1: mental health issue, or health inquiry, including matters discussed on
Speaker 1: this podcast. This episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering
Speaker 1: to some people. The views and opinions expressed are solely
Speaker 1: those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
Speaker 1: and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions,
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia or their employees. Thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: being here.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Here's where I'd like to begin. I truly believe that
Speaker 1: one of the most difficult things about being a trauma
Speaker 1: survivor is that people want you to keep sharing the
Speaker 1: story of the trauma. What I'd like to have happened
Speaker 1: today is your story and your experience as a survivor.
Speaker 1: This is about you and keeping that in mind. Where
Speaker 1: do you want to begin telling your story?
Speaker 2: I think the content is a good Okay, it begins.
Speaker 2: I want you to know I do feel safe, and
Speaker 2: I do get invited to do a lot of interviews
Speaker 2: on this subject and I usually decline, but I feel
Speaker 2: safe with you. Okay.
Speaker 1: Well I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: So I guess there's a greater context that's cultural for me.
Speaker 2: I'm a Cuban born immigrant and my heritage is African, Caribbean, Chinese,
Speaker 2: and European. And of those first three cultures, you know, Black, Latin,
Speaker 2: and Asian, it's really, as you know, against the status
Speaker 2: quo to speak about sexual assault. Absolutely, yeah, because society,
Speaker 2: the media is constantly denigrating the image of men of color,
Speaker 2: particularly black men, and so we're deeply invested in protecting Yeah,
Speaker 2: that rightfully so. But unfortunately in my case with Bill Cosby,
Speaker 2: where that played a personal role, yes, all that came
Speaker 2: to play, but it's not about race here. It's not
Speaker 2: about protecting the black male image. It's about rape, and
Speaker 2: rape crosses all sociocultural, all racial boundaries. I found that personally.
Speaker 2: So that's the context from which I'm coming. That's really
Speaker 2: difficult because unfortunately those Cosby fans and rape apologists who've
Speaker 2: attacked me the most in public, sometimes in person with
Speaker 2: raised fists, death threats, and rape threats have been black men.
Speaker 2: And that's really painful. You know, I have six children
Speaker 2: that I birthed in a ten year span, in five
Speaker 2: of them are young black men. So that's really a
Speaker 2: sad reality.
Speaker 1: With that context, because one of the first places I
Speaker 1: go when I hear that is not only is rape
Speaker 1: or sexual assault not allowable as a topic of discussion
Speaker 1: for people who have your heritage, who have my heritage,
Speaker 1: women of color aren't believed. Can you talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about that.
Speaker 2: It's really like an added burden, very painful. One thing
Speaker 2: that Bill Cosby did for me personally was to make me.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, you take your time.
Speaker 2: Both of my parents are mixed black people. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: like a lot of Black Cubans, I grew up with
Speaker 2: a deep seated, learned racial self hatred that you're not black,
Speaker 2: you're mulata. And I'd go to school when the kids
Speaker 2: called me nigger, and I'd come home and tell my parents,
Speaker 2: and my mom would say, well, go tell them your mulatta,
Speaker 2: and then they laugh at my face. My American. You know, classmates, dummy,
Speaker 2: Mulata is a nigger. So I'd go back home to
Speaker 2: my parents and I'd say, but they say, Mulata is
Speaker 2: a nigger, and my mom would say, well maybe in America,
Speaker 2: but in Cuba it's better than a nigger. So I
Speaker 2: grew up with that stigma, you know, that pain, not understanding.
Speaker 2: And I loved my black heritage. I gravitated towards it.
Speaker 2: I knew I was black. My hair is naturally kinky.
Speaker 2: And so when I met Bill Cosby, and he would
Speaker 2: talk to me really academically because he knew that I
Speaker 2: loved my black heritage. He knew that I was Cuban
Speaker 2: and a Cuban immigrant. He knew that I identified as
Speaker 2: being black and Latin, so he heralded that. So Bill
Speaker 2: Cosby played a role in really making me feel proud
Speaker 2: to be black, among so many other things that he
Speaker 2: made me feel good about. Does that make any sense?
Speaker 1: It makes absolute sense. I wanted to ask you, growing
Speaker 1: up and battling within you, his battle around racial identity
Speaker 1: with in you, how did that shape your identity, not
Speaker 1: only as a child, but ultimately as a woman. I
Speaker 1: want to understand that peace first and then because I
Speaker 1: fully understand the profundity and the power of somebody seeing
Speaker 1: that part of you.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: All we want, Lily, is to be seen right, right,
Speaker 1: And he saw a part of you that you were
Speaker 1: told not to see.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: That is a revelation, right when somebody does that for us,
Speaker 1: and we will feel drawn to that, and it will
Speaker 1: almost create an accelerated sense of trust.
Speaker 2: Yes it did.
Speaker 1: How do you think though grappling with that shaped you
Speaker 1: as a human being to have had those conflicting and
Speaker 1: actually brutalizing messages about race that you received.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I guess what my therapist is called the
Speaker 2: cognitive dissonance you.
Speaker 1: Cognitive dissonance is the tension we experience when things are inconsistent.
Speaker 1: For example, we love someone and they hurt us. At
Speaker 1: those times, we will often justify or try to find
Speaker 1: the good in a situation, for example, they didn't mean it,
Speaker 1: or even maybe I remembered it wrong. It is painful
Speaker 1: to recognize that someone we trust is harming us, and
Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance means that we will make those puzzle pieces
Speaker 1: fit even when it hurts us.
Speaker 2: So whereas I'm born into a culture Afro Cuban culture.
Speaker 2: We were immigrants living in Princeton Junction, New Jersey, trying
Speaker 2: to assimilate and trying to hide our blackness. There was
Speaker 2: all this shame right growing up. I mean like one
Speaker 2: time my mom was braiding my hair and I was twelve.
Speaker 2: I had no idea I had a natural afro because
Speaker 2: she would always keep my hair braided. And my little
Speaker 2: baby brother was crying. So she went to the room
Speaker 2: and my hair was out in a big afro. The
Speaker 2: doorbell rang and it was one of my blond neighbors
Speaker 2: in Princeton Junction selling girls got cookies and opened the
Speaker 2: door and she went wow. I was like what your hair.
Speaker 2: I was like what, And I looked in the mirror
Speaker 2: and there's this gigantic afro. That's my natural hair, a
Speaker 2: gigantic afro. She's like, your hair, it's so beautiful. I
Speaker 2: was like, just you know, throwing my afro around. My
Speaker 2: mom came and she saw me. She said, cochina marana,
Speaker 2: which in Spanish made you dirty, little pig, slapped my
Speaker 2: face really hard. I told you not to open the door.
Speaker 2: Oh the shame that our white neighbors would know that
Speaker 2: I really am an afro so that's where I'm coming
Speaker 2: into a trauma that's really deeply embedded. Where Bill Cosby
Speaker 2: saw my blackness and elevated and said it was good.
Speaker 2: Yes you're Latin, and yes you're black, and you're beautiful,
Speaker 2: You're great. I see. He was my daughter. And then
Speaker 2: Bill Cosby was not unsimilar to my dad in appearance.
Speaker 2: You know, my dad's a black man, Bill Cosby's black.
Speaker 2: My dad wore glasses. Bill Cosby were glasses. My dad
Speaker 2: had moles on his face. Bill Cosby had moles on
Speaker 2: his face. You know. I had suffered some really serious,
Speaker 2: life threatening abuse from my dad in my childhood through
Speaker 2: my early adulthood, and so I looked at Bill Cosby
Speaker 2: as a replacement father figure. My father changed the last
Speaker 2: twenty five years of his life and he became a
Speaker 2: very loving father, very remorseful for the abuse that he
Speaker 2: put me through when he was, you know, drunk.
Speaker 1: When we have these difficult relationships with parents growing up,
Speaker 1: we do gravitate towards parental figures.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The challenge for you, though, was the parental figure figures
Speaker 1: were also abusive. How did you first meet Bill Cosby?
Speaker 2: I was acting at Cornell University wanted to be on
Speaker 2: The Cosby Show, you know, because I just it stood
Speaker 2: for so much in America.
Speaker 1: What did it stand for for you?
Speaker 2: For me, it stood for excellence, black excellence. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's an expression that's said a lot, but it stood
Speaker 2: for black excellence. Showed the world that black people are
Speaker 2: not any different than white people, that we have hopes
Speaker 2: and aspirations and high achievements and vulnerabilities and problems like dyslexia.
Speaker 2: And to see a couple where there were two black
Speaker 2: professionals raising this family of five children in New York City.
Speaker 2: When we moved to the United States, we moved to Brooklyn,
Speaker 2: New York, so we lived in a brownstone So that
Speaker 2: was all very familiar to me, that New York City life.
Speaker 2: And so it just meant hope, it meant greatness, it
Speaker 2: meant advancement, but really that black excellence. And that's what
Speaker 2: The Cosby Show represented for me. And so ended up
Speaker 2: doing a silent bit in a season in the fall
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty eight with Betty Carter, oh the same.
Speaker 2: It was her guest role on The Cosby Show. And
Speaker 2: what was interesting in retrospect is when I did that
Speaker 2: little bit role, that She kept me in her dressing
Speaker 2: room the whole week, and that when Bill Cosby came
Speaker 2: into her room, she literally put her arm into my
Speaker 2: arm and held me really tight. I did not understand
Speaker 2: then why she was really holding me tightly, but she
Speaker 2: was treating me as if I were her granddaughter or
Speaker 2: something like that. And Bill Cosby came into the room
Speaker 2: multiple occasions, and we spoke at that time about jazz
Speaker 2: because she was a jazz singer, and about the influence
Speaker 2: of Cuban jazz and New Orleans. Because you knew that
Speaker 2: I was Cuban. I told him I was Cuban, and
Speaker 2: it was just a really beautiful, again, intellectual talk about
Speaker 2: jazz from a global perspective since I was Cuban.
Speaker 1: So is that where you met him?
Speaker 2: Actually the first time, my first time you met him,
Speaker 2: it was twenty four.
Speaker 1: You're twenty four, okay. What's interesting to me is that
Speaker 1: your draw to wanting to be on something like The
Speaker 1: Cosby Show really came from a very thoughtful, intentional place.
Speaker 1: So again, you were coming out of a top university.
Speaker 1: You're clearly an academically gifted person. You were classically training
Speaker 1: as an actor, and through sheer force of Will. You're like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be on that show, and you were
Speaker 1: on that show, and so he meets you in this
Speaker 1: dressing room and it's there that he's having conversations with
Speaker 1: you about your cubanness, and so he's getting information about you.
Speaker 1: You just think it's a conversation, but there was a
Speaker 1: very different process for him because this felt like intel gathering,
Speaker 1: like information gathering, and yet simultaneously you were having an
Speaker 1: incredibly I mean, it's a notable experience that this older woman,
Speaker 1: as you said, in these communities, in this case the
Speaker 1: black community, you don't talk about this. She was doing something.
Speaker 1: You know that it was almost like, how do I
Speaker 1: protect one of our children in this community? But couldn't
Speaker 1: say it right.
Speaker 2: But when Bill Cosby came into the room, I can
Speaker 2: honestly say that I wasn't really like starstruck seeing him
Speaker 2: because I was so just like basking in the comfort
Speaker 2: of being with Betty Carter like I was her granddaughter,
Speaker 2: and that was beautiful. But I do want to say
Speaker 2: that having had that bit part on that show that
Speaker 2: time and meeting the crew, it was predominantly black. You know,
Speaker 2: I saw it for the first time black everything you know,
Speaker 2: black makeup, black hair, black wardrobe, black stage designers, black
Speaker 2: stage managers, black director. Some of the writers were black,
Speaker 2: and it was so exciting to me. So I said,
Speaker 2: I want to be back on this show, but I
Speaker 2: want to come back in a speaking role, in a
Speaker 2: principal role. So two years later, I saw an ad
Speaker 2: in Backstage, which is the trade paper for actors, and
Speaker 2: it said that they were looking for stand ins for
Speaker 2: the Cosby Show. So I went and the line just
Speaker 2: really wrapped around the whole block Kaufman Astoria Studios. And
Speaker 2: when I finally got in, I had prepared a postcard
Speaker 2: with my picture on it, and I wrote a little
Speaker 2: note saying, thank you, mister Cosby. You know I was
Speaker 2: on the show two years ago as a silent bit,
Speaker 2: but I really want a principal speaking role on your show.
Speaker 2: And I gave it to him, and I believe same
Speaker 2: day when I got home, he called me. And so
Speaker 2: that summer he spent hours a week mentoring me. And
Speaker 2: that's where the what did you call it, investigation into
Speaker 2: the relief?
Speaker 1: Intel gathering?
Speaker 2: The intel? Yeah, who I mean, it was as if
Speaker 2: he were a news reporter. And so the first few
Speaker 2: meetings he was just gathering information from me, and I
Speaker 2: thought that he was just really genuinely interested in me.
Speaker 2: So I would tell him everything, and he must have
Speaker 2: asked me hundreds of questions, so he knew everything going in.
Speaker 2: He knew the abuse that I suffered as a child
Speaker 2: and young adult in my home, the domestic violence. He
Speaker 2: knew my feelings of worthlessness. He knew that as a
Speaker 2: member of the Abyssinian Baptist Church and all these things,
Speaker 2: and that I didn't drink. I didn't consume alcohol because
Speaker 2: my father would abuse me when he was drunk. So
Speaker 2: he knew that because I told him. But I mean
Speaker 2: so many things. He knew that I was a visual artist.
Speaker 2: On some occasions when he invited me to the mentoring
Speaker 2: he asked me to bring my artwork, and I would
Speaker 2: bring my artwork and we'd have discussions because he told
Speaker 2: me that he was an art collector, so we'd have
Speaker 2: discussions about my paintings. I also, in high school and
Speaker 2: in college, I played clarinet in the classical band, in
Speaker 2: flute and saxophone in the jazz band. So he encouraged
Speaker 2: me to take it back up again. So he helped
Speaker 2: me to find out where I could get flute lessons,
Speaker 2: and it was so exhilarating because my parents. My father
Speaker 2: was also an academic. He was, you know, electrical engineer,
Speaker 2: math professor. My siblings are PhDs and so academics and
Speaker 2: art were like a very high vibration art and intellect family.
Speaker 2: So it was really exciting to see another black man
Speaker 2: like my dad who was a creative and an intellect.
Speaker 2: It felt familiar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it felt familiar, but it also felt healthy. Yes, Lily,
Speaker 1: I think that you know, the survivor's stories tend to
Speaker 1: get very pathologized on the back, telling week vulnerable you
Speaker 1: just wanted someone to pay attention to.
Speaker 2: That's not it at all.
Speaker 1: You came in in your full strength, fully possessed of
Speaker 1: your blackness, which you've been denied of for so long,
Speaker 1: wanting to explore that in a creative space. A mentoring
Speaker 1: person is meeting you where you're at intellectually. That is
Speaker 1: what is so insidious about what this person did to you,
Speaker 1: is that they exploited your strengths. You're okay, take a minute.
Speaker 2: You know it's so many years ago, but it's like
Speaker 2: it was yesterday.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm sure it is. I mean, I'm feeling
Speaker 1: it here with you, and I just again so smart,
Speaker 1: and that was being harnessed by someone and you didn't
Speaker 1: know that at the time. You're going to going into
Speaker 1: this as though it was a trusted interaction.
Speaker 2: Back when it happened, you know, Like the betrayal is
Speaker 2: so deep. It happened in the early nineteen nineties, but
Speaker 2: then by nineteen ninety two, I was so traumatized by
Speaker 2: the betrayal that I actually ended up in the psych
Speaker 2: word from the trauma. And then I didn't understand, like
Speaker 2: part of the pain was like, oh, my god, he
Speaker 2: loved me as a daughter. How could he do this
Speaker 2: to me? But he loved me, you know, And so
Speaker 2: I couldn't understand how someone who had professed to love
Speaker 2: me so much as his daughter. Oh, he used to say,
Speaker 2: you're one of my kids, Bernard. You know, I love
Speaker 2: you like a daughter. You're one of my kids. And
Speaker 2: so I didn't understand that. And it wasn't until you know,
Speaker 2: fast forward two decades later that I started to understand
Speaker 2: he never loved me. It was fake. It was phony,
Speaker 2: you know, And that has helped me to process better
Speaker 2: the betrayal, you know, that it wasn't really love.
Speaker 1: We will be right back with this conversation.
Speaker 2: But I thought it was paternal love.
Speaker 1: Of you were being told it was paternal love. It
Speaker 1: felt like paternal love. And I'm not convinced this person
Speaker 1: is capable of love. I'm sorry. People say no, they
Speaker 1: might love in parts of their lives. Maybe I'm hardcore
Speaker 1: on this one, but no, that capacity, there is no
Speaker 1: love there. And it was using the word doesn't make
Speaker 1: it so. Was your mentoring all in person or all
Speaker 1: in person?
Speaker 2: Yes? I thought then that he was obsessed with me
Speaker 2: because he would call me so frequently, and several times
Speaker 2: a week. He would have me come to his brownstone
Speaker 2: in Manhattan where he lived, to mentor me and put
Speaker 2: me through these exercises that were theatrical exercises. He also
Speaker 2: had me come to this Cosby Show studios, and he
Speaker 2: would mentor me at the Cosby Show as well. He
Speaker 2: would mention me in his dressing room studio the Cosby Show.
Speaker 2: He introduced me very early on to the entire crew
Speaker 2: as someone who is a studied actor, you know, who's academic,
Speaker 2: who's performing off Broadway, as someone who for whom he
Speaker 2: was going to write a role, a main character, and
Speaker 2: so I very quickly had meetings with the producers, with
Speaker 2: the writers, with the directors, and that felt like also
Speaker 2: very empowering. He gave me free reign of the studios
Speaker 2: because he said that that when I act on the
Speaker 2: Cosby Show, I had a huge responsibility to uphold because
Speaker 2: it's the number one show in the world. And then
Speaker 2: he also of course invited my family to come to
Speaker 2: the studios with me. So he invited my dad, He
Speaker 2: met my dad, and he invited my brother, my sister,
Speaker 2: her boyfriend at the time, my cousin's friends. You know,
Speaker 2: it made it all the more difficult that when he
Speaker 2: did drug and sexually assaulted me, it made it the
Speaker 2: more difficult for me to then tell my family who
Speaker 2: met him and to whom he was really nice to them,
Speaker 2: you know, and.
Speaker 1: He was a big name in the culture. I think
Speaker 1: that we can't underplay this is that that was a
Speaker 1: nefarious move no matter what, right because in essay, by
Speaker 1: bringing your family into the fray, they get to meet
Speaker 1: this sort of cultural icon that was all with the
Speaker 1: goal of isolating you, because now you've lost a source
Speaker 1: of support. Otherwise, it was still going to be very
Speaker 1: difficult because he was so iconic. But then by adding
Speaker 1: that other layer of look, I'm going to bring you in,
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you the VIP treatment. They're getting
Speaker 1: to meet this person. It's creating these bonds and then
Speaker 1: fostering more isolation for you. It feels so calculated and
Speaker 1: so intentional over such a protracted period of time. When
Speaker 1: your family got invited at the time, were you suspecting
Speaker 1: anything stranger?
Speaker 2: No, no, no. My dad, being a black Latin immigrant,
Speaker 2: to see another black man in such a powerful position
Speaker 2: meant so much to my dad. So when my dad
Speaker 2: met Bill Cosby on the set, I'd never seen my
Speaker 2: dad look at somebody like that with so much admiration
Speaker 2: and gratitude. And Bill Cosby was telling my dad, you
Speaker 2: know how wonderful your daughter is. I'm going to help
Speaker 2: her become a star because she's such a great actor
Speaker 2: and she works hard. He called my mom on the phone.
Speaker 2: My parents were living in Spain, and so he called
Speaker 2: my mom in Spain and assured my mother that he
Speaker 2: would take care of me as if he were my father.
Speaker 2: So even though my parents were living far away in Spain,
Speaker 2: you know, they felt so good that he was taking
Speaker 2: care of me.
Speaker 1: They must have been so proud of you. I mean,
Speaker 1: what did it feel like to watch your family's pride
Speaker 1: in you, watching your career blossoming on such a world
Speaker 1: stage at that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess it meant a lot. Because of the
Speaker 2: abuse I suffered as a child, I was always looking
Speaker 2: for their approval and nothing that I could do, whether
Speaker 2: it was going to an Ivy League college, or being
Speaker 2: first chair clarinet or first chair saxophone or being a
Speaker 2: you know, award winning USGF gymnast, all of which I
Speaker 2: was nothing. None of that would make my parents treat
Speaker 2: me with the love and respect that I merited, as
Speaker 2: any child would. So that achievement was like, look, Mommy
Speaker 2: and Poppy, look I'm worthy. You know I'm worthy. My
Speaker 2: acting career is not just a whim a hobby, so
Speaker 2: I'm really serious about it. And look at this great
Speaker 2: this great person telling me that I have talent. So
Speaker 2: it meant so much.
Speaker 1: I bet it did, and it is. I mean, it
Speaker 1: really must have been a moment of pride in and
Speaker 1: at the time you weren't suspecting anything, so it was
Speaker 1: just it was a big moment. And I think that
Speaker 1: that's also so complicated about trauma right in that moment,
Speaker 1: without knowing what you would know. It was a profound,
Speaker 1: powerful moment for you in your life.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So there were three druggings and three sexual assaults,
Speaker 2: and in the first one, the betrayal was so profound
Speaker 2: that was an Atlantic city and just made absolutely no
Speaker 2: sense that I was actually able to block it out,
Speaker 2: I mean completely block out the memory in order to survive.
Speaker 2: Blocked it out because there's no way this could happen.
Speaker 2: Can I talk about a little bit about that one?
Speaker 1: Absolutely?
Speaker 2: I asked myself, like, why am I doing this interview
Speaker 2: because it's important, you know, he had already mentioned me
Speaker 2: for dozens of hours and weeks and means I had
Speaker 2: no idea that it was grooming. I had no idea whatsoever.
Speaker 2: So the first, the first incident happened, it wasn't a drugging,
Speaker 2: but I guess it was what you call gaslighting. So
Speaker 2: we were in his brownstone in Manhattan, and he was
Speaker 2: putting me through these theater exercises that any actor does
Speaker 2: when they're in acting schools, breathing. But he came up
Speaker 2: from behind me and he was telling me to expand
Speaker 2: my ribcage and how to breathe like when you breathe
Speaker 2: in the diaphragm should go out and lift up your ribcage.
Speaker 2: He was telling me to, you know, pull my head
Speaker 2: up high. All of a sudden, he grabbed my breast
Speaker 2: and I turned around really quickly, and I was like,
Speaker 2: mister C. Because he had me call him mister C.
Speaker 2: That's what I had to call him, mister C. Not
Speaker 2: mister Cosby, definitely not Bill Cosby. So I turned around.
Speaker 2: I said, mister C. I said, you grab my breast.
Speaker 2: And I was shocked, and he said I didn't grab
Speaker 2: your breast. He's said, yes, you grab my breast. He said, no,
Speaker 2: I didn't. He said you grab my breast, and we
Speaker 2: went back and forth a few times, No I didn't, Yes,
Speaker 2: you did, and he was, I guess, such a good
Speaker 2: actor that I was like. I actually ended up believing him,
Speaker 2: and I started thinking, geez, that's really terrible of me.
Speaker 2: He must have accidentally grabbed my rest. He must have
Speaker 2: been meaning to grab my ripe cage. And that's what
Speaker 2: he said, I grabbed your ribcage. So I was like, okay,
Speaker 2: well that was probably an accident. You know, he probably
Speaker 2: meant to grab my ribcage. He would never do that.
Speaker 2: Shame on me for thinking that he would do that.
Speaker 2: And then later he told me that I had to
Speaker 2: meet with a producer, a white man who would further
Speaker 2: my career, and that we had to go to the
Speaker 2: Trump tash Mahal Hotel in Atlantic City. So he said
Speaker 2: that the Trump taj Mahal Hotel was new, Michael Jackson
Speaker 2: had just been there, and that's a place where celebrities
Speaker 2: go to have meetings. And I remember telling my cousin
Speaker 2: about it, and she's like, why do you want to go?
Speaker 2: Why do you have to go to Atlantic City to
Speaker 2: meet a producer? You live in New York. Cosby lives
Speaker 2: in New York. This doesn't make no sense. Can I
Speaker 2: come with you? And so I asked Bill Cosby, can
Speaker 2: my cousin come with me? She lives in Princeton Junction
Speaker 2: on the way. He's like no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2: So my cousin was telling me, I don't know, this
Speaker 2: is fishy, don't go, don't go, and I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: going to go, you know. So Bill Cosby sent a
Speaker 2: car to pick me up at my apartment and the
Speaker 2: car took me whatever. It was a couple hours from
Speaker 2: New York to New Jersey. And then when I got there, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there was a producer with whom I met. We were
Speaker 2: in a dining area. There were a lot of chandeliers,
Speaker 2: and Bill Cosby came back and forth to the table
Speaker 2: a couple of times. It was just me and the
Speaker 2: producer talking and about my career and about the aspirations
Speaker 2: that I had and everything that I was doing with
Speaker 2: my career. And I had every reason to believe that
Speaker 2: this man was going to advance my career as a producer,
Speaker 2: and so thankful to Bill Cosby. And we had lobster,
Speaker 2: and then we went up to a suite, a very
Speaker 2: big sweet So when people criticize you for like being
Speaker 2: in a hotel room, let me tell you that anytime
Speaker 2: I've ever been in a hotel with Bill Cosby, which
Speaker 2: was just twice, once in Vegas in Atlantic City, it
Speaker 2: wasn't a hotel room. It was like, I'm talking a
Speaker 2: suite bigger than my house, probably like five thousand square
Speaker 2: big house, yeah, five thousand square feet, with a big
Speaker 2: living room and kitchen and an office area. So we
Speaker 2: went up to a suite. So I was sitting at
Speaker 2: a table like a corner table with that man in
Speaker 2: Bill Cosby. And by that time Bill Cosby had already
Speaker 2: known that I don't drink alcohol. He knew that, and
Speaker 2: so he gave me this drink and it was brown
Speaker 2: and I tasted it and it tasted like alcohol. I
Speaker 2: was like, drink alcohol. So he and the man had
Speaker 2: a moment that they looked at each other like awkwardly,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't suspecting anything. And then he came back
Speaker 2: with another drink, but it was still brown, and this
Speaker 2: time really sweet, like maybe he put something in it,
Speaker 2: soda or something in it. And he was getting giggling.
Speaker 2: He's like, drink, drink, drink, you know again, always to
Speaker 2: drink to my success and you're gonna be great. And
Speaker 2: he was literally pushing the glass up up my face
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh, okay, fine, you know, he's my daddy,
Speaker 2: you know, helping me whatever, you know, have fun, drink.
Speaker 2: And then very shortly thereafter, you know, I just started
Speaker 2: getting groggy and the room was spinning, and I started
Speaker 2: the inside my cheeks on the inside began salivating. And
Speaker 2: I had had food poisoning just a couple of months prior,
Speaker 2: with similar symptoms symptoms. So I thought, oh, was that
Speaker 2: lobster downstairs full of food poisoning? Am I getting food poisoning?
Speaker 2: That's what I thought. I had made no correlation whatsoever
Speaker 2: with him, you know, drinking, I'm like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I have food poisoning again, and so like I have
Speaker 2: to vomit, and still at the table, and I'm like
Speaker 2: and just like it's coming out. I'd like, excuse me,
Speaker 2: mister c And by the time I have to get
Speaker 2: to the bathroom, I couldn't even walk, you know, and
Speaker 2: he was holding me up, and I remember walking through
Speaker 2: this hallway was kind of white. There's a door on
Speaker 2: my left, the door aheaded me, a door to the right,
Speaker 2: and I just like got into the bathroom really quickly.
Speaker 2: Excuse me. I knew I was going to vomit, so
Speaker 2: he tried to come in with me. I was like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: and I vomited all over. I remember there was a
Speaker 2: telephone on the wall, which I thought it was strange,
Speaker 2: a telephone by the toilet, and I'm just vomiting all
Speaker 2: over my dress. And whenever I would see Bill Cosby,
Speaker 2: you know, I wanted to impress that I was a
Speaker 2: serious professional, so I dressed the part, and it was
Speaker 2: a Sunday. I had just come from church, and so
Speaker 2: I was dressed that part, you know, like a two piece,
Speaker 2: nice dressed outfit. Vomited all over my dress. And then
Speaker 2: the next memory I have, I must have passed out,
Speaker 2: because then the next memory I have, I'm on a
Speaker 2: couch and the couch was see this is the thing
Speaker 2: is going in and out of consciousness. Like I have
Speaker 2: like sensory memory, doctor Romaney, like sensory and colors, and
Speaker 2: so I remember the couch was like hard. It wasn't
Speaker 2: like a like a hard one. I think there were stripes.
Speaker 2: I don't know. But then he's like taking off my
Speaker 2: clothes and I'm still thinking, in my mind, doctor RAHMANI
Speaker 2: that I vomited. How disgusting, how embarrassing I've vomited in
Speaker 2: front of Bill Cosby. He's taking off my clothes to
Speaker 2: help me to wash it. That's in my mind, right,
Speaker 2: And then he starts taking off my stockings, and I'm
Speaker 2: like getting really embarrassed. I'm like thinking, okay, and I'm
Speaker 2: also drugged. I'm like, okay, stick off my stock as well. Okay,
Speaker 2: that's okay. Vomit on my stocking. I remember feeling embarrassed.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I don't have underwear under my pantyhose
Speaker 2: because it was built in pantyhose. So I started feeling
Speaker 2: really embarrassed. Oh no, pass out. I don't remember the
Speaker 2: next thing happening until now I'm waking up again. This
Speaker 2: time I'm on the floor, and this time, this time
Speaker 2: it's like a stick was inside of me. And I
Speaker 2: say stick because I couldn't associate it with a penis.
Speaker 2: I'm still detaching Bill Cosby to whatever horrible thing is
Speaker 2: physically happening to me. So I feel there's a stick
Speaker 2: inside of me. I'm on the ground, there's like a rug,
Speaker 2: and I say, there must be a rug. I remember
Speaker 2: the I remember a lot of patterns, like patterns on
Speaker 2: the tiles in the suite, like patterns like geometric kind
Speaker 2: of patterns. But this time, I remember the feeling of
Speaker 2: carpet on my back, and I remember feeling like velcro
Speaker 2: because as I was getting raped, my back was going
Speaker 2: up and down. So I remember that feeling on my back,
Speaker 2: and I remember the brownness of his skin right here
Speaker 2: on my left. I remember his face like that, you know,
Speaker 2: And then I pass out. Again, and then the next
Speaker 2: memory I have, I'm in a bathroom of some sorts,
Speaker 2: a porcelain or something chacuzi and it's light colored, like
Speaker 2: probably white. It's cold on my back, I'm totally naked,
Speaker 2: and there's water pouring on my chest. And that's how
Speaker 2: I woke up, to water pouring on my chest, and
Speaker 2: I remember, here, Bernard, you're okay. And I look to
Speaker 2: the right and there's Bill Cosby's face in the door,
Speaker 2: and I pass out again. And then the next memory,
Speaker 2: it's dark but it's the morning, and he's literally drag
Speaker 2: pulling my feet like this to the edge of the
Speaker 2: bed and propping me up because I had told him
Speaker 2: I had a performance that morning with Plays for a Living.
Speaker 2: It was a theatrical company with which I worked that
Speaker 2: performed at schools, rec centers, summer camps, halfway houses, programs
Speaker 2: about drug addiction and things like that. I played a
Speaker 2: teenager in it. I had to get to that performance,
Speaker 2: and it was early in the morning, like nine or something.
Speaker 2: But this was like a dusk when the sun is coming.
Speaker 2: So he pulls me at the edge of bed. He's
Speaker 2: putting on my clothes. I was still like a noodle.
Speaker 2: I couldn't move my hands or anything, and I'm totally
Speaker 2: confused what's going on? And he's telling me to hurry up,
Speaker 2: you have to get to work putting on my thing.
Speaker 2: And then the next memory I have, I'm being walked
Speaker 2: like by Bill Cosby being a doorman outside to a car,
Speaker 2: a car that he ordered for me, I guess, And
Speaker 2: I get into the car and I'm again dizzy, you know,
Speaker 2: like what confused, And the car driver was starstruck like
Speaker 2: that's Bill Cosby, and he just for the whole two
Speaker 2: and a half hour whatever was car right on the
Speaker 2: New Jersey Turnpike. He kept asking me, this man about
Speaker 2: Bill Cosby, are you gonna be on the show? And
Speaker 2: all I kept thinking was what happened? What happened. I
Speaker 2: looked down at my dress and there's the stain on
Speaker 2: my skirt. I looked at my pantyhose and the ribbing
Speaker 2: on the panty hose was all twisted, you know, like
Speaker 2: I would never put my pantyhose ont that. I looked
Speaker 2: underneath my thing and the crotch was inside out. I
Speaker 2: was like a mess, And then thinking like my cousin
Speaker 2: was right. I shouldn't have gone. What happened? I don't know?
Speaker 2: Was this a nightmare? Was this? Am I crazy? What happened?
Speaker 2: I still couldn't say that it was rape, Doctor Romeney,
Speaker 2: I couldn't say it was rape. I'm like, some terrible
Speaker 2: thing happened to me. I didn't know what it was
Speaker 2: because I was still holding Bill Cosby in such wonderful esteem,
Speaker 2: you know, having spent those dozens and dozens of hours
Speaker 2: of him like a daughter and amoring my family to him.
Speaker 2: I just because the abuse that I endured as a
Speaker 2: child wasn't sexual. You know, it was physical, but it
Speaker 2: wasn't sexual. So this was all different to me, A
Speaker 2: father figure doing that to me. So I couldn't I
Speaker 2: couldn't connect the two. And then when I got to
Speaker 2: my apartment in New York City, I remember I had
Speaker 2: to change. I remember what I put on. I mean,
Speaker 2: I remember to the tea what I put on. And
Speaker 2: I'm taking off my clothes and putting on this light
Speaker 2: tan flannel shirt and some suspenders and going to performance.
Speaker 2: I remember, like, how am I going to get my
Speaker 2: lines out? I remember being on the subway, like where
Speaker 2: am I? Like? I was trying so hard to be conscious,
Speaker 2: like what I couldn't like. It was really hard for
Speaker 2: me to just be conscious, like I don't like, am
Speaker 2: I sick? What's going on in my head? Is it
Speaker 2: food poisoning? Still I'm thinking I have food poisoning. It's
Speaker 2: not making sense. And I just made a decision like
Speaker 2: this didn't happen, Like.
Speaker 1: My conversation will continue after this break, and so.
Speaker 2: Like as aid, they progressed. Of course the drugs wore off,
Speaker 2: but I was like, Okay, that was weird. That didn't happen. Okay,
Speaker 2: that didn't happen. And I just blocked it out. And
Speaker 2: I was able to do that through childhood, you know,
Speaker 2: when something, yeah, like when my dad threw me through
Speaker 2: the window or tied me in a chair in a
Speaker 2: you know, in a dark basement, or knocked me unconscious
Speaker 2: with the skateboard. I was able to block that out
Speaker 2: so that I could move forward, you know, with my life,
Speaker 2: because if you think about that stuff, then the alternative
Speaker 2: is suicide. So I literally blocked it out so much
Speaker 2: that weeks later when he flew me out to Las
Speaker 2: Vegas to meet the producers of a Different World. That's
Speaker 2: what he said, because as well as being on the
Speaker 2: Cosby Show. He said that I was going to be
Speaker 2: on a Different World, which he was a producer of,
Speaker 2: and so I was really excited about that, and that
Speaker 2: I would have to meet the directors, that the produce, us,
Speaker 2: the casting people at the Hilton, the Las Vegas Hilting
Speaker 2: and it was the same thing that meetings are conducted
Speaker 2: in hotel suites because it's convenient for everybody to meet there,
Speaker 2: and so that's where I was going to have my
Speaker 2: audition for a Different World. Of course, when we got there,
Speaker 2: the producers were never there. He had a bottle of
Speaker 2: sparkling apple cider for me and a bottle of champagne,
Speaker 2: which he said was for himself, and he told me
Speaker 2: not to worry because even though the producers didn't show up,
Speaker 2: you're still going to be on the show. Everything's going
Speaker 2: to be all right. Let's drink to your success. And
Speaker 2: so he gave me the he poured from the sparkling
Speaker 2: apple cider my class and he gave it to me,
Speaker 2: and the same thing, drink, drink, drink, push up, push
Speaker 2: up the bottle up to my face to drink. And again,
Speaker 2: now in my mind you when I'm here, I'm having
Speaker 2: no memory of what happened in that. It's hard for
Speaker 2: people to understand that, but you, as a therapist, I'd
Speaker 2: like to hear you talk about that. You can understand.
Speaker 2: I freaking blot the whole thing out of my head,
Speaker 2: so I had no memory of at that point of
Speaker 2: Atlantic City, and I'm sitting here and now I'm getting
Speaker 2: dizzy again. But what do I think this time? He
Speaker 2: gave me the wrong glass. So I'm like, mister c
Speaker 2: you gave me the wrong glass. I told you I
Speaker 2: don't drink alcohol, and so he made me chuck it
Speaker 2: so quickly, so I'm thinking, my mind, now, oh my god,
Speaker 2: he accidentally gave me a whole glass of champagne. I'm
Speaker 2: getting drunk, so I start running away from him because
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, help me, stay awake. I'm starting to
Speaker 2: pass out. We're running around the table and then all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, boom, I fall boom, and my left
Speaker 2: ribcage hits the corner of a coffee table, which cuts
Speaker 2: me and bruises me. My head goes banging on the floor,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh my god, how embarrassing. I got
Speaker 2: drunk in front of Bill Cosby. He's tickling me on
Speaker 2: the ground and I don't know why he's stickling, but
Speaker 2: he was tickling me. And then my next memory is
Speaker 2: I'm on a bed somewhere it's dark, and he's raping me,
Speaker 2: I mean full blown. And then I pass out and
Speaker 2: he did ejaculate on my belly. I remember that I
Speaker 2: was screaming no. I was going in it out of consciousness.
Speaker 2: I remember screaming, no, stop. You know I'm not on
Speaker 2: the pill. What are you doing. It was really clear
Speaker 2: now that Bill Cosby is raping me. And then after
Speaker 2: he ejaculated on my abdomen, he plopped himself and whispered
Speaker 2: in my ear, Damn, Bernard, You're so strong. You're so strong, Bernard, Damn.
Speaker 2: And I think that's because I was a USGF gymnast.
Speaker 2: I did karate. I was strong. I tried to the
Speaker 2: best of my ability to push him off during the
Speaker 2: rape when I was screaming no. At one point he
Speaker 2: took his hand and he covered my mouth, and I
Speaker 2: remember there's a lot of saliva on my mouth. I
Speaker 2: remember the feeling of his fingers on my mouth as
Speaker 2: he was like saying, shut up, Bernard, shut up. And
Speaker 2: I was trying to scream and then he took the
Speaker 2: pillow and he pushed it into my face. And because
Speaker 2: I was incapacitated, my arms were they felt heavy like
Speaker 2: lead and I couldn't move them rubber like like I
Speaker 2: was paralyzed. And so I thought at that moment when
Speaker 2: he was pushing the pillow in my face to silence
Speaker 2: my screams of no, I thought I was going to
Speaker 2: die of suffocation. So consequently, right now I have difficulty
Speaker 2: putting my heads on pillows because I wake up in
Speaker 2: these panic attacks that I'm being suffocated and I can't breathe.
Speaker 2: I literally can't breathe. And like in Atlantic City, this time,
Speaker 2: this time he went to the bathroom. When he was
Speaker 2: in the bathroom, there's a light coming in, so I
Speaker 2: have difficulty when I see lights coming in through crack doors.
Speaker 2: And then he came back with a wet towel and
Speaker 2: he was like cleaning me and rubbing me all around
Speaker 2: my thighs and down there. And then I must have
Speaker 2: passed out and fall asleep. When I woke up, there
Speaker 2: was my clothes neatly folded that he had put me
Speaker 2: in some kind of a T shirt. I woke up
Speaker 2: in a T shirt that wasn't mine, like some college
Speaker 2: T shirt. And then my clothes were full of there
Speaker 2: and a note with some money. Oh, in Atlantic City,
Speaker 2: he gave me money too, He like shove money in
Speaker 2: my hand before I left. And here he had money again,
Speaker 2: like a couple hundred or few hundred bucks money, And
Speaker 2: so that made me feel like shameful, like money, like
Speaker 2: I'm not a prostitute. What the is this money thing?
Speaker 2: And then but I couldn't forget that one, doctor Rameney,
Speaker 2: because of the bruise and the cut on my ribcage.
Speaker 2: I couldn't block that trauma. But I knew enough that
Speaker 2: I couldn't be in the same room with that man
Speaker 2: by myself. So I continued to go to the studios
Speaker 2: because he had promised the role to me, because I
Speaker 2: had met with the directors, the producers. There was talk,
Speaker 2: but I never was in the room with him by
Speaker 2: myself again until more than a year later, and he
Speaker 2: called me and said, Okay, we wrote the role for you.
Speaker 2: It's ready, but you have to come to my Brown's
Speaker 2: done and talk to my agent. And I thought, ah,
Speaker 2: daylight afternoon, nothing could happen. And so there, Yeah, he
Speaker 2: drugged and sexually assaulted me that time. He didn't rape me.
Speaker 2: He wasn't successful at raping me. And that's when I
Speaker 2: made the first connection, because when I drank the sparkling
Speaker 2: apple cider and I began getting dizzy, I was like, whoa,
Speaker 2: Everything just flooded back into my memory. And that's when
Speaker 2: I realized, Wow, you drugged me, And all the Atlantic
Speaker 2: City memory came rushing back. You know, you drugged me
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas. You know a year agoing in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2: You drugged me a year and a half ago or
Speaker 2: whatever it was in Atlantic City, and oh my god.
Speaker 2: And I had a huge confrontation with him. I told
Speaker 2: him I was going to go to the police. I
Speaker 2: was going to go to the hospital and find out
Speaker 2: what he put in my drink. And he told me.
Speaker 2: We were yelling at each other in his brownstone. He
Speaker 2: was telling me that the minute I go to the police,
Speaker 2: that he would go to the police after me and
Speaker 2: follow a police report against me for false accuisition and defamation.
Speaker 2: He had also said that he would erase me and
Speaker 2: blacklist me, tell all of Hollywood that I was a
Speaker 2: slaught and a whore and slept my way to the top.
Speaker 2: He also said he would erase me. He said he
Speaker 2: would erase me, and that all it took is one
Speaker 2: phone call. I interpreted that that he would kill me.
Speaker 2: He didn't say the word kill, but to me, a
Speaker 2: RaSE means you know, something exists and then you erase
Speaker 2: it and it's not there anymore. So I feared for
Speaker 2: my life and he literally, you know, pushed me down
Speaker 2: the stairs. I had to catch a cab, and it
Speaker 2: was horrific. Even trying to get myself from his Browns
Speaker 2: onto the corner to catch a cab. I was stumbling
Speaker 2: and tripping because I was drugged, and I remember holding
Speaker 2: on to the lamp post and trying to wave down
Speaker 2: a cab. When I got back to my apartment, my
Speaker 2: boyfriend at the time was there, who had met Bill
Speaker 2: Cosby before through me. We both confronted Bill Cosby on
Speaker 2: the phone, and he reiterated the same kind of threats
Speaker 2: to my boyfriend at the time, and we just like,
Speaker 2: there's nothing we could do. He made it very clear
Speaker 2: what he would do to us if we went public.
Speaker 2: He made it very clear that no one would believe us,
Speaker 2: and we just he silenced us both, you know, he
Speaker 2: threatened us to silence and that was that.
Speaker 1: First of all, thank you for sharing that. It's not
Speaker 1: easy to share. Yeah, something so interesting about your stories.
Speaker 1: How many details you remember, right, the feeling of the carpet,
Speaker 1: the stripes on the sofa, that's often used again survivors. Well,
Speaker 1: you remembered all that. Why can't you remember this? Right?
Speaker 1: But it's different, it's entirely different. Some of the work
Speaker 1: comes from a researcher named doctor Jennifer Fried. When we're
Speaker 1: betrayed in such a fundamental way, in this case, a
Speaker 1: person who is a father figure to you, raping you
Speaker 1: is such a profound betrayal that she talks about something
Speaker 1: called betrayal blindness. We actually create a blindness because it's
Speaker 1: almost impossible to conceive of those things together. One of
Speaker 1: the things you said to me that stuck with me
Speaker 1: is I just felt there was a stick inside of me. Right,
Speaker 1: it's a distortion of what was happening, But it wasn't
Speaker 1: being contextualized as a rape. That blindness of betrayal, So
Speaker 1: we forget, but we don't really forget. It's a blindness.
Speaker 1: It's not that we don't see it. We can't see it.
Speaker 1: And then what happened in Vegas you fell, and you
Speaker 1: incurred a different injury than in some ways the physiology
Speaker 1: of that injury. Saying, wait a minute, this thing happened,
Speaker 1: the memory starts to form out a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But you also have to remember you were drugged, and
Speaker 1: that's going to impair your memory process. To remember something,
Speaker 1: we have to pay attention to it, and that attention
Speaker 1: for you was disrupted. So there were two things happening.
Speaker 1: Not only of someone giving you some sort of sedative
Speaker 1: is going to impair memory, but then these other trauma
Speaker 1: processes operating, so we don't form these memories correctly. So
Speaker 1: you know Pavlov's dogs, right, It's all that. It's the
Speaker 1: thing we call classical conditioning. The pillow, the light, the carpet,
Speaker 1: the smell of the ciders all get paired. The shower
Speaker 1: they get paired, and they get a power waste freeways.
Speaker 1: All these things they get paired. And now you have
Speaker 1: to deal with the cataclysm of the person who was
Speaker 1: the father figure who has all the power, did this
Speaker 1: horrible thing, and that is a catastrophe in our brain.
Speaker 1: Next time on navigating narcissism. This was more than just
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby. You felt the responsibility of your race. How
Speaker 1: did you manage that?
Speaker 2: It's hard? It still is hard. Yeah, I get attacked still.
Speaker 1: Lily reveals the last time she saw Bill Cosby.
Speaker 2: So he starts yelling at me and in front of everybody,
Speaker 2: because this ain't about me trying to fuck you, Bernard.
Speaker 1: I already hit that you ain't shit the trauma of
Speaker 1: his trial, but it was also.
Speaker 2: Really scary being in that courtroom.
Speaker 1: The outrage over his release.
Speaker 2: That was also like a stab in the back. I
Speaker 2: felt deeply.
Speaker 1: Betrayed her healing process.
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone has ever asked me that question.
Speaker 1: And the aftermath of suffering silently for twenty two years,
Speaker 1: what was your life like after this?
Speaker 2: I was highly suicidal.
Speaker 1: Join us next week for part two of my conversation
Speaker 1: with Lily