Speaker 1: I'm going to read you something written by Dylan Farrow,
Speaker 1: daughter of legendary actress Mia Farrow and filmmaker Woody Allan.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite Woody Allan movie? Before you answer, you
Speaker 1: should know When I was seven years old, Woody Allan
Speaker 1: took me by the hand and led me into a
Speaker 1: dim closet like attic on the second floor of our house.
Speaker 1: He told me to lay on my stomach and play
Speaker 1: with my brother's electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me.
Speaker 1: He talked to me while he did it, whispering that
Speaker 1: I was a good girl, that this was our secret,
Speaker 1: promising that we'd go to Paris and I'd be a
Speaker 1: star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train,
Speaker 1: focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around
Speaker 1: the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to
Speaker 1: look at toy trains. Dylan Farrow wrote that after her
Speaker 1: father was received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Golden Globes,
Speaker 1: Dylan's experience has been widely covered, often questioned, sometimes attacked
Speaker 1: by the media, Hollywood elite, and the public over the
Speaker 1: last three decades. But what has been rarely talked about
Speaker 1: is what happened to Dylan after the age of seven?
Speaker 1: When did she last see her father? How did she
Speaker 1: navigate her teen years? How did she feel when her
Speaker 1: father married her sister Sunni. On this episode of Navigating Narcissism,
Speaker 1: Dylan Farrow reveals her experiences with self harm, eating disorders, depression,
Speaker 1: the devastating effects of suffering in silence, and how motherhood
Speaker 1: and marriage have helped her heal and thrive. From Red
Speaker 1: Table Talk podcasts and iHeartMedia, I'm Doctor Rominy and this
Speaker 1: is Navigating Narcissism. This podcast should not be used as
Speaker 1: a substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individuals are
Speaker 1: advised to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy
Speaker 1: 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, iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: or their employees. Dylan, It's such a pleasure and such
Speaker 1: an honor to meet you and just to have a conversation.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: You know, Dylan, when we hear an experience like yours,
Speaker 1: it's so easy to get focused on the notoriety and
Speaker 1: the fame of the perpetrator, and in doing that, we
Speaker 1: actually lose the true story of the survivor. You today,
Speaker 1: on navigating narcissism. The focus is on you, your experience
Speaker 1: of healing and surviving and even thriving after that. And
Speaker 1: as a therapist, I can tell you survivors are asked
Speaker 1: many times, unfortunately, to keep telling the story of what
Speaker 1: happened over and over again. I believe that survivors should
Speaker 1: be in full ownership of their stories. So Dylan, I
Speaker 1: want you to begin telling us your story wherever you
Speaker 1: feel comfortable.
Speaker 2: Thank you. It's a little difficult to pinpoint a beginning
Speaker 2: because I would say it started when I was in infancy.
Speaker 2: I almost feel like there wasn't really a chance for
Speaker 2: me to experience a nor quote unquote childhood from infancy.
Speaker 2: I was tremendously overprivileged, and I had this fairy tale
Speaker 2: childhood that had a much darker side to it that
Speaker 2: started as soon as I can remember, even having memories.
Speaker 2: I've backtracked the abuse about that long. It was a
Speaker 2: constant throughout my childhood of grooming and abuse, which culminated
Speaker 2: in the attic incident when I was seven or eight
Speaker 2: years old, and I think people tend to look at
Speaker 2: that as sort of an isolated event, when really it
Speaker 2: was a long process.
Speaker 1: It is a long process, and I think that your
Speaker 1: framing on that is so important, Dylan, because we do
Speaker 1: often get caught up in this culmination and an episode
Speaker 1: that feels like the defining event, but it wasn't that.
Speaker 1: It was a process, and that process shaped your identity
Speaker 1: and it shaped psychology. You also said something that really
Speaker 1: jumped out at me was this idea, I grew up
Speaker 1: incredibly privileged. I grew up in a fairy tale. I
Speaker 1: think that made this all worse, because does that make sense?
Speaker 1: We want stories everything to fit. So when there's the
Speaker 1: fairy tale and then there's something very dark happening, it's
Speaker 1: very hard even for an adult to bridge that. It's
Speaker 1: impossible for a child.
Speaker 2: Actually, when you were speaking, that did resonate with me
Speaker 2: because there were definitely two very different sides to my childhood,
Speaker 2: and one was completely idyllic, and the kind of the
Speaker 2: kind of life that we can only dream about. When
Speaker 2: I talked to my child about my childhood, she has
Speaker 2: no concept of like taking a private plane to Paris
Speaker 2: for the weekend. There were limousines, there were planes, there
Speaker 2: was travel, there was fun, there was a nursery filled
Speaker 2: with toys from Fio Schwartz. We were regulars at the
Speaker 2: Russian Tea Room. And then to have that very dark
Speaker 2: undercurrent of things that were going on at the same time,
Speaker 2: It seems almost impossible when that was my reality, and
Speaker 2: to me, both sides of that were what I considered normal.
Speaker 1: I mean, those were both real experiences, and I think
Speaker 1: we want all the pieces to fit. So how could
Speaker 1: it be a fairy tale and dark and people say, well,
Speaker 1: pick one or the other. And am I concern for
Speaker 1: people who have those sorts of stories. Is it often
Speaker 1: diminishes the empathy that that person gets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like people expect when I talk about the
Speaker 2: dark side of it. Well, I wasn't locked in a
Speaker 2: basement full of cockroaches and abuse like on the Hour
Speaker 2: or anything like that. This was taking place in a
Speaker 2: palatial apartment on the Upper West Side, or in this
Speaker 2: beautiful country house in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: But trauma doesn't know from setting right, and.
Speaker 2: That was part of my difficulty, I think in coming
Speaker 2: to terms with the documentary Alan B. Farrow that came
Speaker 2: out was sort of absorbing the fact that there were
Speaker 2: all of these good times interlaced with abuse, with times
Speaker 2: when I would be taken away from my family for
Speaker 2: one on one episodes with my father where I'd be
Speaker 2: isolated where I'd have to suck his thumb or put
Speaker 2: my head in his lap or something like that. Very
Speaker 2: snapshot memories for me at this point that are incredibly vivid,
Speaker 2: but a little disconnected.
Speaker 1: And that's what we would expect in a trauma survivor.
Speaker 1: Memory gets de siiced and diced, as it were, by
Speaker 1: the entire experience of trauma. So this is a process
Speaker 1: that sounds like it sort of developed through your entire childhood.
Speaker 1: It culminated though, when you were seven years old. What
Speaker 1: I want to understand from you is everything since that event,
Speaker 1: because that's the healing and the surviving and the growth
Speaker 1: that you've gone through.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because the healing portion of my life has
Speaker 2: been the entirety of it. There hasn't been a time
Speaker 2: when I wasn't healing from this. Something interest that my
Speaker 2: mom said to me at one point, she said, we
Speaker 2: have no idea who you might have been if this
Speaker 2: hadn't happened to you, And that really stuck with me,
Speaker 2: because it's true, I really have no concept of who
Speaker 2: I am without this, and a lot of my healing
Speaker 2: process has been trying to connect with a part of
Speaker 2: me that I don't even know exists, trying to find
Speaker 2: something normal in myself, trying to find something that is
Speaker 2: I can't say not traumatized, because I don't think it's
Speaker 2: ever going to completely go away, but a part of
Speaker 2: myself that is not connected to trauma, to these events
Speaker 2: in my life and motherhood has been a huge part
Speaker 2: of that, because it's just been such a completely different
Speaker 2: experience than anything I've ever known, and it's sort of
Speaker 2: forced me to evaluate who I am and what I
Speaker 2: want to pass on to my daughter. So obviously I
Speaker 2: haven't spoken with her about any of this and in
Speaker 2: any real meaningful sense because she's six years old, but
Speaker 2: as she approaches seven and eight, which was the ages
Speaker 2: where all of this culminated for me, it's been a
Speaker 2: little bit emotional, honestly, in seeing this little person who's
Speaker 2: not me, but it's an extension of me who has
Speaker 2: none of that, and seeing her and watching the way
Speaker 2: she interacts with the world and with me and with
Speaker 2: her father, And it's been healing in seeing that, because
Speaker 2: it feels like I was able to pass on peace
Speaker 2: to her that I never had.
Speaker 1: What you're sharing I've heard so many times, especially when
Speaker 1: there's a childhood trauma, childhood betrayal, the process of being
Speaker 1: a parent and doing it in an intentional way, being
Speaker 1: acutely aware of your child's safety and attachment to you
Speaker 1: and place in the world becomes an integral part of healing. However,
Speaker 1: there's also their own developmental arc which is markedly different
Speaker 1: than yours, and it's a really complex bunch of feelings.
Speaker 1: In many ways, it's the very question your mother put
Speaker 1: to you when she said, what would your life have
Speaker 1: been like had all of this not happened? Your daughter,
Speaker 1: in many ways is living that, and that can bring
Speaker 1: up a range of feelings from not only joy and healing,
Speaker 1: but sometimes even grief of what would have been for us.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I would add even jealousy. It's been an
Speaker 2: emotional journey for me seeing this little person who I
Speaker 2: was able to give this to a childhood free of abuse,
Speaker 2: free of trauma. Maybe it's impossible not to traumatize anybody.
Speaker 2: But she's happy and she's and she's completely separate from
Speaker 2: anything that I'd gone through, and that is very freeing
Speaker 2: in a way.
Speaker 1: It is because it's introducing you to an entire reality
Speaker 1: of your life without the trauma. And I'm so grateful,
Speaker 1: Dylan that you shed that insight into this concept of jealousy,
Speaker 1: because I don't think that that's unusual, and trauma survivors
Speaker 1: will say, this is what safety with parents, in her case,
Speaker 1: safety with a father, because you didn't have that, and
Speaker 1: for a moment you'll say, what would they be? Like,
Speaker 1: I think it's part of that process, and yet it's
Speaker 1: almost like this strange, joyful jealousy, but it's still a
Speaker 1: sense of you had something I didn't have. And I'm
Speaker 1: really glad you shared that because I think that will
Speaker 1: normalize and destigmatize a reaction that many people have in
Speaker 1: the circumstances you're in.
Speaker 2: I really hope so, because there are so many complex
Speaker 2: and varied emotions that come with this kind of trauma,
Speaker 2: and it's a journey in itself to unravel and unten
Speaker 2: go and parse these very sometimes conflicting emotions. I will
Speaker 2: feel anger, resentment, maybe even a little jealousy towards my daughter.
Speaker 2: Things that might be construed as negative emotions. They play
Speaker 2: into it as well. And accepting those feelings and working
Speaker 2: through them and allowing yourself to feel them is a
Speaker 2: huge part of that journey.
Speaker 1: It is very much a journey, and I think it's
Speaker 1: very much a journey of complex trauma, which is very
Speaker 1: consistent with what you experienced, sort of a traumatizing experience
Speaker 1: which was inescapable when you were rendered powerless that happened
Speaker 1: over an extended period of time. It's a little different
Speaker 1: than what we would see sometimes in traditional post trauma.
Speaker 1: You know, somebody who'd been the victim of a crime
Speaker 1: one time or something like that. This is different and
Speaker 1: the emotions that are around it are different, and it
Speaker 1: can be confusing unless it's been unpacked by a therapist
Speaker 1: who understands complex trauma.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean a lot of the times, especially early
Speaker 2: on in the period where I wasn't healing so much,
Speaker 2: I would feel a lot of negativity towards myself for
Speaker 2: feeling these things like oh, I shouldn't feel that way.
Speaker 2: I should feel this. I'm a bad person for feeling
Speaker 2: this way. I don't think I'll ever not feel this way,
Speaker 2: and that's okay too. I feel like allowing myself to
Speaker 2: sort of sit with my anger, with my resentment has
Speaker 2: helped unlock a little bit more insight into who I am,
Speaker 2: where I am, and where I want to be.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more people experiencing the full out of
Speaker 1: complex trauma there will be that period of shame. I'm
Speaker 1: a bad person for feeling this. It's a lot of
Speaker 1: self blame from a world at large public perspective. We
Speaker 1: have an image of what we think someone who's gone
Speaker 1: through trauma should be. They should be sad, they should
Speaker 1: be crying, they should be scared, they should be worried,
Speaker 1: and so when emotions like anger and resentment surface, I
Speaker 1: hate to say it, but I think our societal understanding
Speaker 1: with people like, what, no, You're supposed to be sad,
Speaker 1: and so as a result, the person experiencing it feels
Speaker 1: maybe I'm having the wrong emotion. There are no wrong
Speaker 1: emotions ever for anybody. So I think that is a
Speaker 1: really important part of the healing process.
Speaker 2: I definitely agree, and for a long time I felt
Speaker 2: that there was definitely a way that I should be
Speaker 2: reacting to this, that I should be feeling, and when
Speaker 2: I couldn't sort of squeeze myself into that box, I
Speaker 2: was frustrated with myself because I had an idea of
Speaker 2: what other people's idea was and I wasn't the perfect survivor.
Speaker 2: That was very frustrating to me, because I knew I
Speaker 2: was a survivor, but I wasn't good at it. I
Speaker 2: had to accept that that doesn't take away from my survivorhood,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't detract from what I went through, because
Speaker 2: survivors come in all shapes and sizes, and not all
Speaker 2: of them are going to feel the exact same things
Speaker 2: about what they went through.
Speaker 1: I'm so curious what you think a perfect survivor would
Speaker 1: have looked like.
Speaker 2: I think, going back back to the aftermath of my
Speaker 2: abuse and the experience I had with the Yale New
Speaker 2: Haven people where I had to repeat my story over
Speaker 2: and over and over, I think that that very early
Speaker 2: on put an idea in my head that I'm not
Speaker 2: doing this right. I'm not telling this story right, I'm
Speaker 2: not experiencing this the right way. That they wanted something
Speaker 2: from me and I wasn't giving it to them, which
Speaker 2: of course was its own completely evil thing going on
Speaker 2: that I couldn't even comprehend at the time. But to
Speaker 2: the mind of me as a child, it was trying
Speaker 2: to communicate, trying to explain, trying to get through to
Speaker 2: these people and not being able to which impacted me
Speaker 2: and I'm sure enormous other ways, but I think it
Speaker 2: also put this concept in my head that I wasn't
Speaker 2: really a survivor of anything because I didn't do that. Right.
Speaker 1: What you're rich you're saying just hit me like a
Speaker 1: title wave. Is that being the perfect survivor in many
Speaker 1: ways was contingent on the outside world because it was
Speaker 1: how they received it. Is that if you were a
Speaker 1: perfect survivor, then your story would have been readily clear
Speaker 1: to them. You wouldn't have had to explain it over
Speaker 1: and over again. And because they weren't, that was a
Speaker 1: comment on you as a survivor when we know that
Speaker 1: the vast majority of trauma survivors are gaslighted to this day. Yes,
Speaker 1: so I'm taking a second to take that in because
Speaker 1: you nailed it. That's it. Because if the trauma survivor
Speaker 1: is able to be convincing, then they're a perfect survivor.
Speaker 1: Just so people understand this, Can you explain what happened
Speaker 1: at Yale New Haven after the abuse in the attic?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm sure you can probably explain it better
Speaker 2: than I can, because my entire scope of the experience
Speaker 2: was that in the aftermath of my abuse, I was
Speaker 2: forced to repeat my story a number of times to
Speaker 2: these specialists at Yelle New Haven, and that report was
Speaker 2: ordered by I think the prosecutor in the case, Frank Mako.
Speaker 1: After the alleged abuse happened in the attic, Dylan told
Speaker 1: her mother, who told the therapist. In every state, when
Speaker 1: a minor shares information about known or suspected child abuse
Speaker 1: that sets off a legally mandated series of steps, the
Speaker 1: therapist was required by law to make a report to
Speaker 1: the appropriate department of Child Services. The high profile nature
Speaker 1: of the case meant that numerous agencies got involved to
Speaker 1: investigate Dylan's report of abuse by her father. This resulted
Speaker 1: in a series of interviews and assessments that would be
Speaker 1: overwhelming for any child and incomprehensible where the public stakes
Speaker 1: were so high.
Speaker 2: Instead, I was subjected to a battery of questions over
Speaker 2: and over again about the abuse, and in the end
Speaker 2: the report was delivered to my father and it said
Speaker 2: exactly what he wanted to hear. All I remember from
Speaker 2: that time is that a very nice lady named Bee
Speaker 2: would show up at the house and my mom and
Speaker 2: I would get in the car and we would be
Speaker 2: taken to a doctor's office or some office. It was
Speaker 2: never the same place twice, and I would meet with
Speaker 2: a doctor or a group of doctors, and I would
Speaker 2: be shown an anatomically correct doll and asked where Daddy
Speaker 2: touched me? And I was a kid and that should
Speaker 2: not have happened. The result was a travesty, both for
Speaker 2: me psychologically and I think in terms of the investigation
Speaker 2: that was going on.
Speaker 1: What you were put through as a child. I think
Speaker 1: the nature of the case, the nature of the individual
Speaker 1: featured in the case here was an obsessive zeal to
Speaker 1: protect him and not you, to make sure that you
Speaker 1: got this so right. They documented it so right that
Speaker 1: maybe maybe they could almost have a gotcha moment like,
Speaker 1: oh nope, see that was inconsistent. That's what it felt
Speaker 1: like to me, and then they would be off the hook.
Speaker 1: Of having to view this person who they held in
Speaker 1: high regard and esteem through this perspective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was my take on it too. It's interesting
Speaker 2: because I learned most of this as an adult, and.
Speaker 1: Why would you have learned that as a seven year
Speaker 1: old child.
Speaker 2: Not I've learned that as a seven year old child.
Speaker 2: So my experience and lining up what I remember with
Speaker 2: the truth of what was going on was very interesting
Speaker 2: for me because in a way it was validating in
Speaker 2: a sense of like, yes, I was gas lit and
Speaker 2: this sort of tactic should never have been used on
Speaker 2: a seven year old child, like this was absolutely wrong
Speaker 2: and bad. And for many, many years, and up until
Speaker 2: my twenties even I did not consider myself a victim
Speaker 2: or survivor of anything, well, maybe of molestation. It was
Speaker 2: how I sort of categorized it in my head. And
Speaker 2: I'd even had conversations with people close to me. I
Speaker 2: had said to them, I think the reason I'm reacting
Speaker 2: to this is because of what happened when I was
Speaker 2: a child, and the response from this person was, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, like, calm down, it's not like you were raped.
Speaker 2: I internalized that conversation as oh, no, you're absolutely right,
Speaker 2: it's not like I was raped. I have no right
Speaker 2: to feel this way. That impacted me for a very
Speaker 2: long time, and it wasn't until really my late twenties
Speaker 2: that I started to fully understand the scope of what
Speaker 2: I'd been through and accept the depth of my own trauma.
Speaker 1: The way we were all told the story, the press
Speaker 1: and the media was we heard your story up until
Speaker 1: you were eight, and then there was a big gap
Speaker 1: in the story until we heard again the powerful words
Speaker 1: you wrote in twenty fourteen. Can you talk to us
Speaker 1: about that almost twenty year gap. What was your process
Speaker 1: of healing, surviving, living like in that twenty year period.
Speaker 2: I was very much surviving and not thriving. I was
Speaker 2: very much coping instead of healing. I had pushed down
Speaker 2: everything that I had gone through. I told my mom,
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: I don't want to think about it. I don't want
Speaker 2: it mentioned in my presence. Just I think my words
Speaker 2: were tell me when he's dead, and that was it.
Speaker 2: My wishes were honored to the letter that nothing concerning
Speaker 2: that era ever came up in my presence, at least
Speaker 2: not in the family. And then I'd wonder why I'd
Speaker 2: see a picture in a magazine and have what I
Speaker 2: didn't realize was a panic attack, or you know, a
Speaker 2: joke would happen on TV and I'd have what I
Speaker 2: didn't know was a PTSD flashback. I just sort of
Speaker 2: internalized that as Oh, I'm touchy, I'm sensitive. Just get
Speaker 2: over at, Dylan. So I was very much punishing myself
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways, and I was coping through
Speaker 2: a lot of it.
Speaker 1: We will be right back with this conversation. During those
Speaker 1: twenty years, Dylan, were you in therapy or really this
Speaker 1: was a period where your family respected your wishes not
Speaker 1: talk about it, and you didn't have those supports.
Speaker 2: I had a wonderful therapist when I was I want
Speaker 2: to say around eleven years old. I had named doctor Alexander,
Speaker 2: and she was one of the only therapists who tried
Speaker 2: to get to talk about it. I was very resistant,
Speaker 2: but she was patient and understanding and really wonderful. She
Speaker 2: passed away while I was in therapy, and it was
Speaker 2: devastating for me. It took me a very long time
Speaker 2: to find and connect with therapists sort of in general,
Speaker 2: because I've been in therapy since I was since I
Speaker 2: can even remember there were a few of the bad
Speaker 2: ones during that twenty year period, but I didn't really
Speaker 2: start seeking therapy in earnest until around twenty fourteen. So
Speaker 2: it took me up until recently to find a therapist
Speaker 2: that I truly feel comfortable and connected with, somebody who
Speaker 2: specializes in trauma and particularly sexual trauma. And it's made
Speaker 2: a huge difference.
Speaker 1: It's interesting, Dylan, because I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear about it. I don't want
Speaker 1: anyone to bring it up. Absolutely makes sense to anyone
Speaker 1: who's been through it, but there's an opportunity cost there, right,
Speaker 1: because under that line, it's almost like it's almost all
Speaker 1: this debris that's piling up, like behind a dam. Yes,
Speaker 1: and that's where we see the things you were describing,
Speaker 1: panic attacks really almost like overwhelming freezing anxiety. All of
Speaker 1: this stuff is happening. You're not addressing the thing which
Speaker 1: is so deeply uncomfortable, and you just don't want to.
Speaker 1: But you know, the psyche does what the psyche does,
Speaker 1: and like I said, all the debris accumulates and it
Speaker 1: sneaks up, and you were going through adolescence, you've lost
Speaker 1: your therapists, which at that age, to have a therapist
Speaker 1: die is actually a trauma and a loss and a grief.
Speaker 1: We don't talk about enough because it doesn't happen a lot,
Speaker 1: but certainly it could happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also, I want to say that I really appreciate your
Speaker 1: distinction between coping and not healing. That's such an important thing.
Speaker 1: I'd never even thought of it that way. It's such
Speaker 1: a wise way to put it, because coping makes it
Speaker 1: look to the world like you're doing okay. You're getting
Speaker 1: up and you're jumping through the hoops, you're brushing your teeth,
Speaker 1: you're going to bed, you're folding your clothes. That's coping.
Speaker 1: And I think coping actually gets too good a brand
Speaker 1: in some ways, because I think it belies what's happening
Speaker 1: behind it. We want to believe, oh, well, they're doing
Speaker 1: the stuff they're supposed to do and everything's fine, and
Speaker 1: we often don't think about looking under the hood. I'm like,
Speaker 1: the car is shiny, I'm not so sure the engine's okay,
Speaker 1: And I think that that's tricky. And I'm really really
Speaker 1: glad you brought that up because you put it so beautifully.
Speaker 1: I'm actually going to steal that from you for oh elect,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you right now. But here's the thing. You're
Speaker 1: going through adolescence. Your family's doing the loving thing and
Speaker 1: supporting you by honoring your boundary, which I think was
Speaker 1: very important. Other things, though, were happening. And if I may,
Speaker 1: your father had married your stepsister, my sister. So let
Speaker 1: me say that again, and I apologize for getting that wrong.
Speaker 1: So your father mary, your sister. As you're going through
Speaker 1: this twenty year period not only of adolescence, but managing
Speaker 1: this trauma that you're not processing and not adequately supported
Speaker 1: and all of that, it's so incredibly difficult.
Speaker 2: I still have trouble wrapping my brain around that sentence
Speaker 2: your father married your sister. It is so bizarre and
Speaker 2: it is so outlandish. And the fact that anybody can
Speaker 2: look at that sentence or hear it and think, oh,
Speaker 2: it's totally normal. They're in love and blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: It just the mental gymnastics needed to accept that sentence
Speaker 2: as something normal baffles me.
Speaker 1: I mean, Dylan, it's a trauma. That sentence is a trauma.
Speaker 1: A father marrying a sister is a trauma. It's not
Speaker 1: even mental gymnastics left the room a long time ago.
Speaker 1: We're in trauma now. I mean that is betrayal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the most essential betrayal because, frankly, Dylan, if not again,
Speaker 1: nothing else had happened. This was the sole event that occurred.
Speaker 1: This in and of itself is a seismic traumatic event.
Speaker 1: And this wasn't the only thing that happened. The other
Speaker 1: things that happened to you were much more undercutting your
Speaker 1: sense of safety in the world. It was as though
Speaker 1: up was down and high was low and hot was cold,
Speaker 1: Like where does one look for safety in the midst
Speaker 1: of that?
Speaker 2: I don't even know. I spent years managing depression and
Speaker 2: eating disorder PTSD anxiety. I had a lot on my plate,
Speaker 2: and I was simultaneously trying to pretend that it wasn't there.
Speaker 2: I was cutting myself, I was binge eating was not
Speaker 2: mentally healthy. So it was very, very difficult, I think
Speaker 2: for me to understand what I was going through. It
Speaker 2: took me years to put words to it. I didn't
Speaker 2: have the language, I didn't have the tools. During that
Speaker 2: twenty year.
Speaker 1: Period, no one could navigate this easily. What was that
Speaker 1: turning point for you? What did that look like.
Speaker 2: I guess. If we had to land on one event,
Speaker 2: it was the Golden Globes in twenty fourteen. My father
Speaker 2: got the Lifetime Achievement award and I snapped, and that,
Speaker 2: of course led to its own trauma. But it was
Speaker 2: an interesting night because I wasn't even watching the Golden Globes.
Speaker 2: I don't watch award shows, and I was playing video
Speaker 2: games and then suddenly I get a message from a
Speaker 2: friend and it was I'm so sorry that this happened
Speaker 2: to you, like if you need anything, blah blah blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, And I was like, who died? Like I
Speaker 2: was like, was there an earthquake? I had no idea.
Speaker 2: And suddenly I had six more messages, all the same thing,
Speaker 2: like I'm so sorry, Like are you okay? Do you
Speaker 2: want to talk? And I was completely confused. And then
Speaker 2: finally I turned on the news and I saw it,
Speaker 2: and all of the coping that I had been doing
Speaker 2: just wasn't cutting it. Suddenly I had a panic attack,
Speaker 2: a PTSD episode the likes of which I had never
Speaker 2: experienced before. I saw a clip of him being awarded
Speaker 2: the thing and all the people in the audience clapping
Speaker 2: and cheering and the speech that preceded it, and I snapped.
Speaker 2: The next thing, I remember, I was just in bed,
Speaker 2: I was just crying, and my husband was with me,
Speaker 2: and I was a mess. I was a wreck. And
Speaker 2: it took me a while to sort of parse my thoughts.
Speaker 2: My first assumption was just did they not know? Like
Speaker 2: they must not know, I have to say something. I
Speaker 2: wrote down all my thoughts and I posted them on
Speaker 2: my private Facebook just for my friends and acquaintances to see.
Speaker 2: A lot of the response I got to that was
Speaker 2: have you considered publishing this? And I thought, oh, well,
Speaker 2: maybe I should. And I remember talking to Ronan at
Speaker 2: that point. He was definitely nervous when I brought up
Speaker 2: the idea of putting it out there publicly. It was
Speaker 2: also the first time that I had ever talked to
Speaker 2: him about the abuse, and we had a very long
Speaker 2: conversation where at one point he started crying. It was
Speaker 2: a bit of a turning point for us, both, I think,
Speaker 2: in our relationship and sorry. We stayed on the phone
Speaker 2: for a couple of hours, and while he wasn't thrilled
Speaker 2: with the idea, he was basically like, you're going to
Speaker 2: do what you're going to do. And after that phone call,
Speaker 2: I decided that this was something that I had to do,
Speaker 2: you know, not just for myself. I felt almost like
Speaker 2: a moral imperative to disclose this publicly. So I gathered
Speaker 2: all my thoughts and wrote everything down and I sent
Speaker 2: it out into the world. I sent it first to
Speaker 2: Nick Christoph because he was the only person I really
Speaker 2: I knew he was. He was a friend of my mom's.
Speaker 2: He passed it along to the op ed section at
Speaker 2: The New York Times, who promptly rejected it and said
Speaker 2: it was either too volatile or unethical. But he said,
Speaker 2: you know, like, if you can't find a home, I'm
Speaker 2: willing to put this on my column for you. And
Speaker 2: at the time I was also trying at the La Times,
Speaker 2: and that was a week long process to try and
Speaker 2: shepherd it through to publication, and at the last second
Speaker 2: that was shut down too. So I went back to
Speaker 2: Nick and I, you know, you said you said you'd
Speaker 2: be willing to put this in your column. Is this
Speaker 2: something that you're that you're serious about? He was absolutely willing.
Speaker 2: He ran it in his column, but it was rigorously
Speaker 2: fact checked by a team of lawyers, and then it
Speaker 2: came out, and there was, of course a big response,
Speaker 2: and immediately The New York Times gives my father unlimited
Speaker 2: unfact base for a rebuttal and this is all pre
Speaker 2: me too or anything. People really didn't have any clue
Speaker 2: what it meant to deal with survivors at this point,
Speaker 2: so I was sort of navigating this alone. Another traumatic
Speaker 2: experience for me was releasing that off ed because the
Speaker 2: response was just not at all what I'd envisioned would happen.
Speaker 2: It wasn't how I would react if I'd been on
Speaker 2: the outside. What was the response still in decidedly negative?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I remember it well. I'll tell you it's
Speaker 1: nine years ago, which to me is still recent. So
Speaker 1: you're saying it was pre me too, but we're not
Speaker 1: talking about nineteen thirty. Nine years ago is very age memory, RIGHTA.
Speaker 2: I tried very hard to stay away from the news,
Speaker 2: but most of it was just parroting the story that
Speaker 2: they'd heard twenty years earlier from my father and talking
Speaker 2: about the Yale New Haven Report and talking about the
Speaker 2: fact that it never went to trial. And at the
Speaker 2: time I didn't have Twitter or anything like that, so
Speaker 2: I just sort of laid low and decided obviously something
Speaker 2: is very wrong here, and so I surrendered control of it.
Speaker 1: Do I remember when I read it Dylan, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: she's calling out the enablers, right. And I didn't know
Speaker 1: much about the story, but I was still working in
Speaker 1: this area, and I remember thinking, oh, no, when you
Speaker 1: call out the enablers, nothing good ever happens. I remember,
Speaker 1: this show's called Navigating Narcissism. So it's about these unempathic, entitled, grandiose, arrogant, manipulative,
Speaker 1: gas lighting people who get away with a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1: But the reason they get away with all that stuff
Speaker 1: is because the enablers let it happen. The very publication
Speaker 1: that wouldn't publish your op ed was more than willing
Speaker 1: to publish his unfact checked OpEd right there. That's enabling
Speaker 1: by people who had tremendous power in the industry. So
Speaker 1: how did this affect your life? Because you've now laid
Speaker 1: out for us twenty years, you've not really been unpacking this.
Speaker 1: You're not really doing a lot of trauma informed work
Speaker 1: on this. You're having experiences like depression, anxiety, eating disorder PTSD,
Speaker 1: all the things we'd expect for somebody who hasn't had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to process their trauma. Twenty fourteen comes up.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to use snapped. I'm going to say
Speaker 1: that you actually had the kind of emotional reaction we
Speaker 1: would expect from somebody who had been harmed and invalidated
Speaker 1: and was watching their abuse or be emboldened. That's how
Speaker 1: I frame it. I'm not giving you snapped. Your reaction
Speaker 1: makes all the sense in the world. It really does,
Speaker 1: if from an entirely trauma in FOREGM perspective, because you
Speaker 1: were already struggling because you weren't processing the trauma. Now
Speaker 1: it's in your face again. How did it affect your
Speaker 1: life now in your process of healing and living well?
Speaker 2: In the immediate aftermath, I definitely was re traumatized, and
Speaker 2: there was a whole new level of trauma added to
Speaker 2: what was already there. The revictimization that occurred in that
Speaker 2: time was devastating to me, and I became a gloraphobic.
Speaker 2: To this day, I have anxiety about leaving my house.
Speaker 2: Even to just go to the grocery store is something
Speaker 2: that I have to manage. I've been in therapy. I've
Speaker 2: been doing treatments for my depression and luckily things have
Speaker 2: taken an upturn. Things were tricky for a while because
Speaker 2: the news would happen and I'd have to formulate a response,
Speaker 2: and that was its own trauma. One of the things
Speaker 2: that has happened for the better was getting the documentary
Speaker 2: Alan V. Farrow released. That was huge for me just
Speaker 2: in terms of peace of mind. I've also been examining
Speaker 2: myself under the lens of trauma for the first time
Speaker 2: and sort of forcing myself to sit with the uncomfortable emotions.
Speaker 2: And I'm very lucky that i also have a very
Speaker 2: strong support network my family, for my husband, an incredible daughter.
Speaker 2: Dedicating myself to healing has been a really long, hard road.
Speaker 1: It is a very long road because it's a daily practice, right,
Speaker 1: Healing's not just It's not a destination, and it's not
Speaker 1: I think on our big problem is we too often
Speaker 1: try to apply biomedical frameworks to mental health healing and
Speaker 1: processes that people who have endured traumatization. Traumatization and especially
Speaker 1: at such a public level, you know, by not just individuals,
Speaker 1: but by institutions. There's a woman named doctor Jennifer Frid
Speaker 1: who talks about institutional betrayal, and that's a massive form
Speaker 1: of trauma. That an entire institutional system that's nameless and
Speaker 1: faceless but comprised of many people that are collectively re
Speaker 1: traumatizing a person actually has its horrific fallout for people.
Speaker 2: It's true. I can't watch movies anymore. I can barely
Speaker 2: watch television. I watch The Mandalorian exclusively. Anytime something comes
Speaker 2: up that my husband wants to watch with me, he's
Speaker 2: very very sweet. He checks the cast to make sure
Speaker 2: that it's safe quote unquote, and you know, he'll let
Speaker 2: me know if, oh no, we can't watch that. It's
Speaker 2: very nice of him to do that. He's basically been
Speaker 2: like he's like that website like does the Dog Die?
Speaker 1: It's so just. You know, there's a site called common
Speaker 1: Sense Media, but I never knew there's one called dust.
Speaker 1: What is it about casts that you want your husband
Speaker 1: to check out before you watch a film?
Speaker 2: Well, there are those in Hollywood who don't believe me,
Speaker 2: very staunchly defend my father, and it's hurtful, and that's
Speaker 2: probably actually a small word for it. It's devastating to me,
Speaker 2: it would be to any survivor to be told, we
Speaker 2: don't believe you, you're lying. We stand with your abuser,
Speaker 2: but to have somebody do it publicly, somebody well known,
Speaker 2: somebody with renown, with respect, it's crushing. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: I've ever like fully been able to describe what goes
Speaker 2: through my head when that happens, especially especially when it's
Speaker 2: somebody that I respected or somebody that I was a
Speaker 2: fan of. That saying never meet your heroes, don't disclose
Speaker 2: your abuse to them either, And what you said about
Speaker 2: enablers really resonated with me in that sense too, because
Speaker 2: that's exactly what it is, exactly the way you described it.
Speaker 2: They're just very high powered enablers.
Speaker 1: And those are the most dangerous ones of all because
Speaker 1: they can literally shape narratives, decide if narratives get shared,
Speaker 1: distort what's being shared. And even in an an ordinary
Speaker 1: system you're working for a employer, no one's ever heard
Speaker 1: of your small family system or something like that, enablers exist.
Speaker 1: The retraumatization that can happen from people continuing to uphold
Speaker 1: the person who is callously denying and did harm. That
Speaker 1: harm is leading a person to engage in more self blame,
Speaker 1: more self doubt, which are really really pernicious processes. What's
Speaker 1: amazing about you is. You would think after one op
Speaker 1: ed that would have taken you out of the op
Speaker 1: ed business and said never can, but you bravely went forward.
Speaker 1: You remarkably wrote another amazing op ed during the Me
Speaker 1: Too movement I did, and you did it again. Good
Speaker 1: for you about healing that could not have been easy.
Speaker 1: Can you talk about what that process was like?
Speaker 2: In a lot of ways, it was a lot easier
Speaker 2: because people were talking about me too in general. People
Speaker 2: were also starting to understand like, hey, maybe we should
Speaker 2: give survivors a platform, So it was very different experience.
Speaker 2: When I wrote the second piece and it was published
Speaker 2: in the La Times, where my first piece had been
Speaker 2: turned down, which spoke to progress. To me, it was encouraging,
Speaker 2: but my expectations were lower because I at that point
Speaker 2: had even just internalized it as well, the world just
Speaker 2: hates me, but I'm going to do this anyway because
Speaker 2: it's not like their opinion can get any lower. So
Speaker 2: I really just was like, to hell with it at
Speaker 2: that point. But I was angry because people were talking
Speaker 2: about high profile names for the first time in ways
Speaker 2: that they hadn't been discussed before. People were putting the
Speaker 2: lens on people and nobody was talking about little old me,
Speaker 2: And I mean, maybe that was egotistical of me to
Speaker 2: assume that that I'd be important enough to be discussed,
Speaker 2: but it mattered to me. And the biggest sticking point
Speaker 2: to me in the whole experience of that whole revictimization
Speaker 2: process was not mattering that my story didn't matter, that
Speaker 2: that little girl who this happened to did not matter.
Speaker 2: That outraged me in a way that I can't even
Speaker 2: properly articulate. The biggest problem was still that there was
Speaker 2: no evidence. Basically, people were taking things on basis of like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: there are fifty accusers. It was just me. I was
Speaker 2: alone and I had some court documents, but that was
Speaker 2: really it. And what I needed then was ronan Pharaoh
Speaker 2: to put all the facts in one easily digestible place
Speaker 2: that people can reference easily. And I didn't have that.
Speaker 2: So it was a slow climb from twenty fourteen to
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen eighteen to Alan v. Farrow. That was when
Speaker 2: I noticed the significant change in public opinion.
Speaker 1: How has that shift in public opinion correlated with or
Speaker 1: walked alongside your process of healing?
Speaker 2: Any survivor would say that being believed, and their story
Speaker 2: being accepted and heard and given space is probably at
Speaker 2: the core of their healing to be truly believed, to
Speaker 2: be listened to, to feel like this horrible thing didn't
Speaker 2: just happen and get ignored, that it mattered, that they matter.
Speaker 2: Speaking from my personal experience, what I was hoping to
Speaker 2: get from the experience to know that, like, I'm just
Speaker 2: some lady living in the middle of nowhere in Connecticut,
Speaker 2: but these really, really terrible things have happened to me,
Speaker 2: and that matters at least as much as some movie
Speaker 2: you saw that made you like jazz or New York
Speaker 2: City or something like that.
Speaker 1: That you matter, that you're seeing that you're recognized that
Speaker 1: you exist. A trauma survivor will say, my life is
Speaker 1: being defined by this person having done this thing to me,
Speaker 1: and I need to individuate out of that. And you
Speaker 1: being seen and saying that this is real, this is important,
Speaker 1: and you also said something so so important. Fifty accusers
Speaker 1: one hundred accusers was never going to be one. If
Speaker 1: there was a powerful person you needed to come up
Speaker 1: with this vast armada of people who were willing to
Speaker 1: say publicly with at tremendous risk this happened to me,
Speaker 1: and what happened to you. It happened within the context
Speaker 1: this was your father. The impact of that impacted your development.
Speaker 1: This isn't a trauma competition. It's not that there's one
Speaker 1: kind his it was worse than another. But this was
Speaker 1: a person you looked to for caregiving, to put pancakes
Speaker 1: on a plate. The way trauma impacts us is somewhat different,
Speaker 1: you know, a little bit different if it happens to
Speaker 1: you as a child versus an adult, the nature of
Speaker 1: your relationship with that person. All trauma affects us badly.
Speaker 1: Developmental betrayal traumas have a particularly insidious effect because again,
Speaker 1: they're catching you at a time when all of you
Speaker 1: is still being shaped. You know, I watched Alan v.
Speaker 1: Faroh a couple of times, and not only was a
Speaker 1: remarkable way to lay all of that out, it was
Speaker 1: unbelievably well edited and put together and drew us into again.
Speaker 1: For me, as somebody who studies and analyzes narcissistic abuse,
Speaker 1: that entire theme was there, the steadfast way you showed
Speaker 1: up in that Dylan, I personally thought that I'm so
Speaker 1: glad every trauma survivor will see this because you held
Speaker 1: that space as a survivor. I feel privileged to be
Speaker 1: able to tell you that one on one here because
Speaker 1: I was really struck by that. A piece that was
Speaker 1: left open ended in that story was the last time
Speaker 1: you saw your father? How old were you the last
Speaker 1: time you ever had contact with him?
Speaker 2: I have a memory of a last time that I
Speaker 2: saw him. I was sitting by the pond at my
Speaker 2: mom's house, and I was slaying in the water, and
Speaker 2: I just remember watching my mother and father walking up
Speaker 2: the hill to one side, and they were just walking together,
Speaker 2: their backs were to me, and that was the last
Speaker 2: time I ever saw them together. And that's the last
Speaker 2: time I remember ever seeing him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you don't remember what age that was, but
Speaker 1: it sounds like it was a very long time ago.
Speaker 2: It was a very long time. I must have been seven.
Speaker 2: I remember that it was during the point where they
Speaker 2: were having trouble because it was a very uncertain time
Speaker 2: for me personally. I was just a kid and seeing
Speaker 2: my family sort of fracture and break apart was very
Speaker 2: difficult for me. I remember I saw my mom crying
Speaker 2: for the first time and just being like just so
Speaker 2: surprised because I'd never seen an adult cry before. It's
Speaker 2: very sad to look back. The memories themselves evoke feelings
Speaker 2: in me of loss and grief, and it's very fractured,
Speaker 2: but very it's very real.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to live in that space. And for children,
Speaker 1: the timeframes and the ages and all of that, it
Speaker 1: becomes a morphisical. You can recall the pain better than
Speaker 1: you can recall a date or an age or something
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: He did try to contact me twice that I know of.
Speaker 2: It was around eighteen, but I was not eighteen. I
Speaker 2: was older, and I was home and I got a letter,
Speaker 2: and I never get letters, so I was confused. And
Speaker 2: it was postmarked from London, which was even more confusing.
Speaker 2: There was no handwriting. It was all typed. There was
Speaker 2: no return address. It was just postmarked from London. And
Speaker 2: I opened it and it was two or three pages typed,
Speaker 2: and it opened up with now that you're eighteen years old,
Speaker 2: and I thought to myself, I'm not eighteen. But I
Speaker 2: was very confused, so I skipped to the end and
Speaker 2: it was signed your father or dad or something like that,
Speaker 2: and I read the letter and it was basically a summons.
Speaker 2: It was I want you to appear before me. I'm
Speaker 2: going to explain what really happened. He talked about sending
Speaker 2: a helicopter and meeting me on a park bench in
Speaker 2: Central Park, and I was just frozen with terror and
Speaker 2: I had a complete, complete panic attack, and my mom
Speaker 2: took the letter and I never saw it again. The
Speaker 2: second time that I know of that he that he
Speaker 2: wrote to me, I was at college and for some reason,
Speaker 2: I was checking my mailbox, which was I never got
Speaker 2: mail because I was close enough from home that I
Speaker 2: could get anything that I wanted, and I had a
Speaker 2: slip in there that said I received a package, and
Speaker 2: I was again I was baffled, because nobody sends me
Speaker 2: mail except for him. Apparently. I claim the package and
Speaker 2: I'm handed this enormous Manila envelope, about the size of
Speaker 2: a big textbook and just as heavy, and I look
Speaker 2: on the front and it's addressed to my real name,
Speaker 2: not Dylan, the name I changed to that I keep private,
Speaker 2: and it was my address at Bard College, and it
Speaker 2: was marked with a return somewhere in New York, I
Speaker 2: think Layman or Lyman, something like that, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't know this person, but they obviously know me.
Speaker 2: So I take the package and I head to the
Speaker 2: campus center and I'm sitting at a table with some coffee,
Speaker 2: and I'm opening this package and out spills hundreds of
Speaker 2: photographs and some of them even have like little thumbtack
Speaker 2: marks in them, so they were hanging up somewhere, and
Speaker 2: they're all of me, and they're all of him. And
Speaker 2: there's a note written on like a piece ofly legal paper,
Speaker 2: and this one is handwritten, and it said, uh, basically,
Speaker 2: I sent you these photos to remind you of the
Speaker 2: good times. I want you to know that I miss you,
Speaker 2: and soon he misses you, and our daughters think of
Speaker 2: you as their sister. And it was signed love for
Speaker 2: your father. I freaked out.
Speaker 1: In either of those letters, was there any sense of awareness,
Speaker 1: even a tiny bit of what he had did, what
Speaker 1: all of this had done to you, the psychological hardship
Speaker 1: you'd endured. I'm not even expecting that he would cup
Speaker 1: to anything that was any nothing, none.
Speaker 2: If it was about me, it was all about so
Speaker 2: it was all about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so entitled. I'm ready you will show up
Speaker 1: at this time, and I'm ready to see you because
Speaker 1: it works for me. And going to send you all
Speaker 1: these pictures. The level of manipulativeness of a gesture like that,
Speaker 1: with no contextualization, no awareness of your process, no sense
Speaker 1: of boundary, it is, you know, I not that I'm
Speaker 1: surprised by it. I mean, to me, it's textbook. I
Speaker 1: think it's a hurt, a hurt for you, a hurt
Speaker 1: that anyone would be put through this level. Again, we're
Speaker 1: back to the unseeing you don't matter what you've been through,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. I'm ready, I want what I want, so
Speaker 1: here I come. And then even using these manipulative posturings
Speaker 1: of well these folks, these these people think of you
Speaker 1: as your their sister.
Speaker 2: You have no for clarifying that because I'm all so
Speaker 2: their aunts. Yeah, you know, like you're also my brother
Speaker 2: in law, okay, and your wife is my sister and
Speaker 2: my step mom, so like it's nice to know how
Speaker 2: I fit in your warped little family unit.
Speaker 1: Yes, but it's only from his point of view. It's
Speaker 1: just the manipulativeness to just and also that sense of
Speaker 1: feeling so entitled that you could just breach the wall
Speaker 1: into a life that someone's constructed. I mean, I still
Speaker 1: think the college years are very fragile years. Right, You're
Speaker 1: an emerging adult, you're coming out of adolescence into adulthood,
Speaker 1: you're finding yourself independently, autonomously. It's a hard time of
Speaker 1: life for anybody that entitlement that like. And I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna plow right into your life, not even stopping to
Speaker 1: think how this would affect the other person. That kind
Speaker 1: of entitled encroachment as it were. It is so unsettling,
Speaker 1: and it is so unempathic. I just just is wrong.
Speaker 2: I freaked out completely in the middle of the campus center.
Speaker 2: I started crying, and I immediately I went to my
Speaker 2: friend's dorm and I called my mom's lawyer to see
Speaker 2: if there was anything, and there wasn't, because apparently two
Speaker 2: letters doesn't constitute harassment, but it does, maybe not legally,
Speaker 2: but emotionally. Emotionally, I felt very violated. I felt very
Speaker 2: harassed and stalked almost because he wasn't contacting me at
Speaker 2: a place that he knew he looked me up.
Speaker 1: It spoke to so much manipulation. It wasn't transparent, right.
Speaker 1: It had this feeling of subterfuge to it, which is worse.
Speaker 2: The fake name to Obviously, if he'd put who it
Speaker 2: was from on the envelope. I wouldn't have opened it,
Speaker 2: but he knew that, and to get me to open it,
Speaker 2: he went that extra mile, and that really just sent
Speaker 2: a shiver down my spine even now, just like thinking
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: My conversation will continue after this break. You had talked
Speaker 1: in the beginning about grooming, this idea of a long
Speaker 1: drawn out process of using a position of power to
Speaker 1: gain a less empowered person's trust, isolating them, making them
Speaker 1: dependent on you, and then praying on them. What's so
Speaker 1: interesting is that sort of another kind of grooming process
Speaker 1: seemed to be sort of starting up again, going to
Speaker 1: send these entitled letters, going to send these sorts of
Speaker 1: memories and to draw you back in. It's almost like
Speaker 1: we're combining two processes, the process of grooming, but the
Speaker 1: process we talk about in toxic relationships, of hoovering, of
Speaker 1: pulling someone back in. It's like hoover grooming, Like it's
Speaker 1: two things happening at the same time. It's so manipulative,
Speaker 1: and the piece I struggle with most is that it's
Speaker 1: there's absolutely no consideration of how this thing will land
Speaker 1: in this other person's life. Yeah, got to call you
Speaker 1: out on your language again, Dylan, you said you freaked out.
Speaker 1: You didn't freak out, so you had an expectable reaction
Speaker 1: to something this distressing coming into your world. All of
Speaker 1: your reactions, Dylan, have been exactly what we would expect.
Speaker 1: They're not snapping, they're not freaking out. They're actually responding
Speaker 1: exactly as we'd expect someone who'd feel incredibly unsafe to react.
Speaker 2: And I think I'm still learning the language to communicate
Speaker 2: with myself when I say things like snapped, when I
Speaker 2: say things like freaked out. And I'm glad you called
Speaker 2: me out on that because it's true, and I need
Speaker 2: to be more gentle with myself and the way I
Speaker 2: talk about myself and my experiences, because there is still
Speaker 2: a part of me that is dismissive, almost like you're like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: now I've come so far, like why does this even matter?
Speaker 2: But it does.
Speaker 1: It matters. It will always matter the pieces that you
Speaker 1: can hold compassion for. It's mattering, and it will not
Speaker 1: be the light you navigate by, it won't be what
Speaker 1: guide you, won't be the most important thing about you,
Speaker 1: not at all, but it matters, and it's part of
Speaker 1: you and your body and your psyche will in some way,
Speaker 1: shape or form, undercut your sense of trust in other people.
Speaker 1: These are the things that trauma survivors grapple with for
Speaker 1: the long term. And the unkindness of the world is, oh,
Speaker 1: come on, that was thirty years ago. And I really
Speaker 1: want to snap back at folks and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: that person's nervous system didn't get the memo that it
Speaker 1: was thirty years ago, because the way it's encoded and
Speaker 1: body and mind is that it could have happened five
Speaker 1: minutes ago. That the nervous system just lives to protect you,
Speaker 1: and so you do continue to react. And what we
Speaker 1: teach trauma survivors is it's this beautiful thing called our
Speaker 1: body and mind trying to keep us safe when the
Speaker 1: rest of the damn world didn't. So thank you very much.
Speaker 1: This is my body doing what it needs to. So
Speaker 1: don't you dare judge me. That's what I want to
Speaker 1: say for people. But that's probably a little heavy handed
Speaker 1: at a dinner party. So I'm like God, but like you, now,
Speaker 1: this is how the nervous system works. But that's all
Speaker 1: that's been happening. It's creating safety, it's creating trust where
Speaker 1: all of that was taken away. And I always feel
Speaker 1: like forever survivors are often tapping on the thin ice
Speaker 1: on a pond on an icy day, like is this
Speaker 1: going to be strong enough for me to walk on?
Speaker 1: Whereas everyone else seems to be running onto the pond
Speaker 1: with reckless abandon The trauma survivors are sort of tapping
Speaker 1: and thinking this could crack and I could go into
Speaker 1: that freezing cold water, to which any survivor would need
Speaker 1: to know. You tap on that ice as long as
Speaker 1: you need until you feel safe enough to stand on it,
Speaker 1: and that's you taking care of you. And that's actually
Speaker 1: a really important, beautiful thing. And that's the permission. Just
Speaker 1: like you'd give your daughter permission to take her time
Speaker 1: to do something until she felt safe. It's just to
Speaker 1: show yourself the same grace.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now I'm still very much learning about myself, how
Speaker 2: to treat myself, and also re acclimating to the world
Speaker 2: around me, learning how to form secure attachments. That's a
Speaker 2: term I learned from my therapist, because that's definitely not
Speaker 2: a thing that I had, and try to navigate the pond.
Speaker 2: Like you said, in some ways, I can take a
Speaker 2: couple steps onto the pond and enjoy the ice. But
Speaker 2: then I have to stop and I have to tap again,
Speaker 2: and I have to allow myself to do that instead
Speaker 2: of being frustrated with myself sometimes, and that's when language
Speaker 2: like I snapped or I freaked out like comes up
Speaker 2: because I do get frustrated with myself because it has
Speaker 2: been thirty years and I want so badly to enjoy
Speaker 2: the world the way everyone else does.
Speaker 1: For keep in mind, you say it's been thirty years,
Speaker 1: I'd argue it's been well, you wrote that last up
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, it's been five years. It's been six years.
Speaker 1: And it continues right, people continue to talk about it.
Speaker 1: You could turn on the TV and see actors and
Speaker 1: performers that have said things that really, you know, put
Speaker 1: you on edge, in validated you. So it's not just
Speaker 1: thirty years ago. It could be as recently as yesterday, no, like.
Speaker 2: Even today, Like right before we started talking, I got
Speaker 2: a message from somebody about Barbie movie that was directed
Speaker 2: by Greta and they were like, what was her stance
Speaker 2: on all of that? And I was just like, Okay,
Speaker 2: well I'm going to bring you up to speed with
Speaker 2: what I know about greta kerwig, Like you know, it
Speaker 2: pops up unexpectedly in my life from time to time,
Speaker 2: and thankfully I've gotten from a place that doesn't tank
Speaker 2: me for three weeks anymore. I'm happy to say that
Speaker 2: it'll make me uncomfortable for maybe ten minutes now, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't disrupt my life the way it used to,
Speaker 2: which speaks to progress, which makes me feel very encouraged
Speaker 2: that five years from now I might feel even better.
Speaker 1: I would be willing to bet a lot that you
Speaker 1: will be feeling better because that progress of things not
Speaker 1: throwing you off for three weeks is huge progress. And
Speaker 1: being aware that that's happening and that some of those
Speaker 1: dark nights of the soul that will come up, that's
Speaker 1: just sort of the that's the path forward, and in
Speaker 1: a way saying Okay, this is what it is supposed
Speaker 1: to be. It's a really really big deal. Standing strongly
Speaker 1: in your role as a mother, as a wife, in
Speaker 1: all these other supportive relationships you have. Supportive relationships are
Speaker 1: so important, but right I mean, I've imagine they've been
Speaker 1: huge for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, I would not be where I am without
Speaker 2: my husband, without my daughter, without my mom, without my friends.
Speaker 2: I'm very lucky that I have this support network that
Speaker 2: is just so here for me, and it's never a burden,
Speaker 2: it's never a hardship. I don't feel like I'm a
Speaker 2: negative force in the people that I loves lives. I'm
Speaker 2: just incredibly, incredibly lucky.
Speaker 1: You also made that happen. It's not just luck. I
Speaker 1: think it's so wonderful to hear you do have a
Speaker 1: happy marriage. I think many people feel when they've endured
Speaker 1: trauma that they won't have the opportunity to craft a
Speaker 1: successful adult intimate close relationship. That's always the fear that
Speaker 1: I can't do this. I've been too harmed and you've
Speaker 1: done that.
Speaker 2: I read a real keeper, and I managed to keep him.
Speaker 2: That's amazing to I mean, he actually did break up
Speaker 2: with me once, very early on. It was interesting because
Speaker 2: it was because early on in our relationship I expressed
Speaker 2: a disinterest in sex basically, and he was like, why
Speaker 2: is that And I was like, well, I'm you know,
Speaker 2: I told him the whole story and this is just
Speaker 2: a thing that you're never going to change. And to
Speaker 2: my surprise, he said, I can't accept that. I was
Speaker 2: a bit bowled over by that. Because other relationships I
Speaker 2: had just like, oh, that's really sad, but you know,
Speaker 2: like whatever, Like, as long as you'll have sex with me,
Speaker 2: we'll figure it out, you know. But he didn't want that.
Speaker 2: He wanted a relationship with a whole person, which which
Speaker 2: struck me. It just completely caught me off guard. And
Speaker 2: he said, if this isn't something that you're willing to
Speaker 2: work on and heal from, then I don't see any
Speaker 2: future between us. And I really liked this guy, but
Speaker 2: I was also very angry. So I let him break
Speaker 2: up with me, and then three hours later I called
Speaker 2: him back and I was like, Okay, I've calmed down
Speaker 2: a little bit, and I think you may have had
Speaker 2: a point, and I'm willing to examine this a little
Speaker 2: bit more thoughtfully if it means we can be together.
Speaker 1: It's a great story, and it's also the reminder that
Speaker 1: in a healthy adult relationship, a healthy relationship of any kind,
Speaker 1: that each of you, especially when it's two adults, each
Speaker 1: of you are the protector of the other one's vulnerabilities.
Speaker 1: He learned what was vulnerable in you, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've learned what's vulnerable in him. In an unhealthy relationship,
Speaker 1: those vulnerabilities are exploited or weaponized. In a healthy relationship,
Speaker 1: we protect them. It's almost as though we hold their
Speaker 1: hand as a limp through something.
Speaker 2: It's true, and seeing him, seeing the way he stepped up,
Speaker 2: he's become my fiercest advocate and protector. It's changed everything
Speaker 2: for me because even just knowing that that is possible,
Speaker 2: let alone for me, I never imagined, Especially around the
Speaker 2: time that I met him, when I was very much
Speaker 2: struggling with my trauma and my sexuality, it was very
Speaker 2: difficult for me to sort of parse that language and
Speaker 2: understand at the root of it what he wanted was
Speaker 2: for me to be okay. He saw that the way
Speaker 2: I was maneuvering around my trauma was not healthy, and
Speaker 2: he called me out. And he continues to call me out,
Speaker 2: which is good for me. He never lets me become
Speaker 2: complacent in a space of negative trauma. He's always there
Speaker 2: to be like, Okay, let's work through it.
Speaker 1: You've just given a profound lesson to all survivors and
Speaker 1: partners of survivors, because I think sometimes partners of survivors
Speaker 1: don't always know how to help their partner navigate trauma.
Speaker 1: You know, when am I stepping in too much, too little,
Speaker 1: But it's to see that potential for growth in your partner,
Speaker 1: to keep them safe safe. I'm here, I'm going to
Speaker 1: keep you safe. It's almost like teaching a child to
Speaker 1: jump into the deep end of the pool. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to let anything happen to you, and I'm right
Speaker 1: here and I'm going to catch you. But you've got
Speaker 1: to jump in, and that's really what he was giving you.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy, so so happy for you and Dylan.
Speaker 1: What are your relationships like with your family of origin.
Speaker 1: Do you still feel connected in that space? It sounds
Speaker 1: like you're still close to your mom. And how are
Speaker 1: they all doing.
Speaker 2: They're good, and I've had to sort of accept whatever
Speaker 2: distance they want from me. I have to make space
Speaker 2: for their trauma as well. I love them all to
Speaker 2: the moon and back. I mean, I would take a
Speaker 2: bullet for any one of them. I just hope that
Speaker 2: they're happy in doing well, even the ones I don't
Speaker 2: speak to as regularly. There's a lot of us, so
Speaker 2: obviously you have some of us. We are in better
Speaker 2: contact than others. They're very much my family.
Speaker 1: We talked about your daughter at the beginning. Do you
Speaker 1: think you will speak with her about your experience at
Speaker 1: some point eventually.
Speaker 2: Event I've thought long and hard about how I want
Speaker 2: to communicate this to her, and obviously there have been
Speaker 2: sort of like many conversations that have arisen because my
Speaker 2: daughter asked at one point, where is your dad? Why
Speaker 2: don't I talk to my grandpa? And that was uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: I gave her a bit of a non answer, just
Speaker 2: that he's not around, that I don't talk to him,
Speaker 2: and that you're never going to talk to him either,
Speaker 2: And she's been very accepting of that so far. But
Speaker 2: I understand that she's going to have questions in the
Speaker 2: long run, and I want to keep that channel of
Speaker 2: care communication open with her that I don't want her
Speaker 2: to feel like there's anything that she can't ask me.
Speaker 2: I've sort of internalized that as there will be a
Speaker 2: moment and I'll know when that is when that discussion
Speaker 2: will happen. And I want it to happen, because, yes,
Speaker 2: it's important for me that she does understand what I've
Speaker 2: been through and how that's shaped me, and to have
Speaker 2: her understand that it's important to me. But I don't
Speaker 2: want it to be in any way damaging to her
Speaker 2: when that discussion does happen. So I'm just sort of
Speaker 2: keeping an ear out, keeping an eye out, and answering
Speaker 2: little questions here and when they come up.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, it will evolve, it will unfold, you know,
Speaker 1: turn like the pages of a book. She will get older.
Speaker 1: You will also have come further in your process of healing,
Speaker 1: and you've given her the essential tool that one day
Speaker 1: when she does talk to you about it. You're giving
Speaker 1: that to her now, which is a secure attachment, a
Speaker 1: safe space, a place where she can fully be herself,
Speaker 1: where she doesn't feel ever judged, where she all feels
Speaker 1: safe and seen. It's the single greatest gift that any
Speaker 1: parent can give their child, which is a sense of
Speaker 1: safety in the world and a sense of being seen
Speaker 1: and recognized and loved unconditionally. And so you're giving her
Speaker 1: all of that. You have gone to this process of
Speaker 1: going from an experiencer to a coper to a survivor.
Speaker 1: I would say, now, a thriver, you really are. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're doing remarkable things. What has been most useful for
Speaker 1: you in this process?
Speaker 2: Gosh, I mean, it's been the collective experience of having
Speaker 2: the support network, finding a good therapist, finding medication that
Speaker 2: works for me. It's been trying to get out of
Speaker 2: my comfort zone a little bit every now and then,
Speaker 2: even if it's just to, you know, pick my daughter
Speaker 2: up from school, which is something that I have anxiety about,
Speaker 2: being gentle with myself when I can self care, self care,
Speaker 2: self care, and I mean the chances when I have
Speaker 2: been able to talk about it, to feel seen and
Speaker 2: validated and listen to that's been remarkable as well, people
Speaker 2: who have reached out to me to let me know
Speaker 2: that I've had some sort of impact. It's humbling and
Speaker 2: it's also incredibly healing to know that I'm not alone
Speaker 2: out there.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you said that, because it's not going to
Speaker 1: ever be one thing. It is the all of it,
Speaker 1: and I'm glad you laid it out in the way
Speaker 1: you did, because I think anyone going through any form
Speaker 1: of healing from trauma, particularly early life betrayal trauma, has
Speaker 1: to understand that there is no one thing, that it
Speaker 1: is all of it. It's a daily process. There'll be
Speaker 1: some days where you are five steps forward and then
Speaker 1: though six steps back. That's the nature of it, and
Speaker 1: it's to be gentle with yourself every day and in
Speaker 1: the macro, you are stepping forward like you are going forward.
Speaker 1: And I do particularly appreciate the one thing you had
Speaker 1: said which is so important to healing, which is sometimes
Speaker 1: getting out of your comfort zone because you've created safe spaces.
Speaker 1: Getting out of the comfort zone. It's not always easy
Speaker 1: for people who are surviving trauma, but that every so
Speaker 1: often doing that, you recognize that you build up some
Speaker 1: new sort of new muscles by doing that.
Speaker 2: So I think, yeah, and I'm not saying, you know,
Speaker 2: like go bungee jumping immediately, Like it's little things done
Speaker 2: when you feel comfortable. I feel like if there's something
Speaker 2: that like you're really hitting a wall up against, maybe
Speaker 2: don't do that just yet. But things like picking up
Speaker 2: my daughter from school, or running an errand to CBS
Speaker 2: or you know, like something small like that. It helps
Speaker 2: give me a little nudge to say, like you can
Speaker 2: do that. You did it, and you were safe, and
Speaker 2: you accomplished everything you need to accomplish. Yeahhi, even if
Speaker 2: it's just getting your daughter from point A to point B,
Speaker 2: that's that's a thing you did.
Speaker 1: Good job, exactly, good job, because don't underestimate Sometimes it
Speaker 1: is those trips to the pharmacy or the grocery store,
Speaker 1: the school pickup, that you start building this sense of
Speaker 1: efficacy like Okay, I did it. I could try that again.
Speaker 2: As being appropriately congratulatory of yourself, I think is you know,
Speaker 2: like get yourself some chocolate for that.
Speaker 1: I'm done with that ultimate reward, so it's yes. Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh.
Speaker 2: It's just been fascinating to hear your thoughts on all
Speaker 2: of this because I often wonder what would an expert
Speaker 2: think about like X, Y and Z. It's been really
Speaker 2: fascinating to have that put into context for me, especially
Speaker 2: you know, the letters and behaviors, and also the reminder
Speaker 2: to speak more gently to myself.
Speaker 1: It's been an absolute pleasure. Healing from any form of
Speaker 1: betrayal trauma is a very very difficult experience to have
Speaker 1: to do that when it's a story in the public eye,
Speaker 1: when there were institutional betrayals happening at the same time,
Speaker 1: when all of that was happening, it can feel almost impossible.
Speaker 1: And really, what you've shared with us is that it's
Speaker 1: not there were many bumps in the road, This was
Speaker 1: not an easy process, that it's still a work in progress,
Speaker 1: but that you you're in an amazing, really remarkable, beautiful place.
Speaker 1: Your voice is beautiful and strong, and the way you
Speaker 1: show up and to do that while you're being invalidated
Speaker 1: by the world. I cannot think of many things harder
Speaker 1: to do from my seat as a psychologist and hearing
Speaker 1: this will help so many people who have had different
Speaker 1: forms of betrayal trauma, experience different kinds of toxic relationships
Speaker 1: and are seeing that it is a process. Yours was
Speaker 1: a really like a beautiful revelation on how this process
Speaker 1: can unfold. So again, I can't thank you enough, Dylan.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Thank you for saying so.
Speaker 1: Here are my takeaways from my conversation with Dylan in
Speaker 1: our first takeaway. Healing from betrayal and trauma is also
Speaker 1: about accepting uncomfortable feelings. Many trauma survivors will find themselves
Speaker 1: facing chronic self doubt and shame, and even times when,
Speaker 1: as Dylan shared, she would feel both joyous and jealous
Speaker 1: when witnessing the family she had created and the healthy
Speaker 1: relationship between child and father within that family. That is normal,
Speaker 1: but it can also be unsettling. Uncomfortable feelings are part
Speaker 1: of this process of healing and learning to let them flow.
Speaker 1: Through us without judging them and accepting that this is
Speaker 1: what healing and integration are about is a part of healing.
Speaker 1: For this next takeaway, Dylan talks about the idea of
Speaker 1: the perfect survivor, whom she frames as a trauma victim
Speaker 1: who shows up with the right kind of evidence and
Speaker 1: right story so they are believed right away. In a
Speaker 1: case like hers, where people did not want to believe
Speaker 1: this about an iconic figure, she was subjected to assessment
Speaker 1: and interrogation and processes that were re traumatizing, and she
Speaker 1: had the experience that she was doing something wrong because
Speaker 1: they kept making her talk about it again and again.
Speaker 1: Too often we put the onus of the trauma on
Speaker 1: the survivor, not the perpetrator, and especially when this happens
Speaker 1: to a child, it can do harm. In our next takeaway,
Speaker 1: Dylan makes an interesting contrast between surviving, coping, and thriving,
Speaker 1: and it's an important distinction because it can sometimes create
Speaker 1: an unclear picture. She recognized that she had been coping,
Speaker 1: getting through the days, getting things done, jumping through the
Speaker 1: hoops of life, but was sort of stuck. And because
Speaker 1: she was getting through the days, it may have looked
Speaker 1: like she was doing just fine. In twenty fourteen, when
Speaker 1: she felt her strong response to the announcement at the
Speaker 1: Golden Globes, she recognized that she had been coping, but
Speaker 1: that there was still a lot of work to do
Speaker 1: towards healing and thriving, which is not just about getting
Speaker 1: through the days, but about actual healing and growth. For
Speaker 1: this next takeaway, language matters for trauma survivors. At times,
Speaker 1: she would characterize her reactions as having snapped or freaking out.
Speaker 1: This self pathologizing is not unusual in people who have
Speaker 1: not only endured trauma and are reacting to emotionally triggering situations,
Speaker 1: but something we see in survivors of narcissistic and antagonistic relationships.
Speaker 1: Her reactions at those times to situations that brought up
Speaker 1: feelings related to the original trauma were expectable and should
Speaker 1: have been a call for her to be kind and
Speaker 1: gentle with herself. In this next takeaway, trauma steals safety
Speaker 1: and betrayal trauma steals relational safety, leaving a person with
Speaker 1: a lifelong process of slowly trying to build and ultimately
Speaker 1: create and foster secure attachments. In Dylan's life, she has
Speaker 1: created significant safe attachments her husband, her child, other family friends.
Speaker 1: Her story is a reminder that in a healthy, loving,
Speaker 1: and securely attached relationship, we protect the vulnerabilities of the
Speaker 1: other person and never exploit them. Trauma or betrayal don't
Speaker 1: steal that capacity, and the work is to create those
Speaker 1: connections and maintain them every day. And for our last takeaway,
Speaker 1: Dylan shared what worked for her healing. A strong support network, therapy, medication,
Speaker 1: sometimes stepping out of her comfort zone, and self care.
Speaker 1: All of those have been shown to be important tools
Speaker 1: in the life long work of healing from trauma. It's
Speaker 1: never just one thing that helps people in the process
Speaker 1: of healing and growth.