Speaker 1: The following episode of Just Be with Bethany Frankel contains
Speaker 1: potentially disturbing content, and we want to alert trauma survivors.
Speaker 1: It contains material that for some may be difficult to
Speaker 1: discuss or listen to.
Speaker 2: Hello, This podcast has certainly taken an interesting turn.
Speaker 3: Overall, just overall.
Speaker 2: It started out as the concept for it was just
Speaker 2: to have really interesting guests like moguls and power players
Speaker 2: and just visionaries, which we've had amazing people like Matthew McConaughey,
Speaker 2: and we've had Hillary Clinton and Mark Cuban and just
Speaker 2: really incredible guests and conversations. And then we had really
Speaker 2: interesting people like Elizabeth Moss talk about rewives. And then
Speaker 2: one day I just decided I wanted to sit down
Speaker 2: and talk about divorce because I hadn't really ever told
Speaker 2: the story. Sometimes I think that I've told you stories
Speaker 2: because you've seen snippets of my life on reality TV
Speaker 2: or in sound bites or in articles, and I realize,
Speaker 2: so realize that that's not really even me, and that's
Speaker 2: not really the story. That's a reaction to someone at
Speaker 2: a restaurant to describe something, and so you kind of
Speaker 2: like are piecing together the puzzle of a person, and
Speaker 2: not that you need to know the whole of who
Speaker 2: I am as a person, but as this journey evolves
Speaker 2: from the day that I was in my apartment on
Speaker 2: the season one of Housewives and the man Jason I
Speaker 2: was dating said we'll talk about it later multiple times,
Speaker 2: and it was sort of obvious that I was being
Speaker 2: like sort of dissed on TV, and you all said
Speaker 2: I was your Carrie Bradshaw and like you felt badly
Speaker 2: for me. It was It was wild because I was like, oh, wait,
Speaker 2: you can be flawed and have something bad happened to
Speaker 2: you and connect with people. It was the first time
Speaker 2: that I realized that the medium was meaningful versus just
Speaker 2: like showing people what you want to show them. And
Speaker 2: I think that in that medium. The one thing that
Speaker 2: I did vowed to do from the very beginning was
Speaker 2: that I was going to be warts and all and
Speaker 2: like tell you the truth about the girl that you
Speaker 2: know was broke and wanted a life and a family
Speaker 2: and to be somebody and do something. But so along
Speaker 2: the way, in an edited show with their own story,
Speaker 2: people got some some version of me, and in the
Speaker 2: media people have gotten some version of me. But through
Speaker 2: these different experiences, I've realized that you really haven't got
Speaker 2: and the real version of me, And it's not really
Speaker 2: about me, but it's about us. And the real responsibility
Speaker 2: that I've ultimately assumed and honor and cherish is to
Speaker 2: be able to share, to connect, to help other people,
Speaker 2: to heal other people together and them in turn heal me.
Speaker 2: Social media, for example, and this podcast, you know, not
Speaker 2: really this podcast is really great because it's really just
Speaker 2: a vehicle to communicate, and it's a direct to consumer vehicle.
Speaker 2: But social media has given me a great gift of
Speaker 2: connection and communication. And while it can be toxic, and
Speaker 2: it can be evil, and it can be mean because
Speaker 2: people can be toxic and evil and mean, it's been
Speaker 2: a really great vehicle for philanthropy and for communication and
Speaker 2: for healing. And I was dancing one night. I was
Speaker 2: going out. I was looking cute. I was deciding to
Speaker 2: be social. I said, I was adventuring my I was
Speaker 2: entering my adventure era and I was wearing an alad.
Speaker 2: This is a I know this brand because I remember
Speaker 2: it was the black dress that I used to borrow
Speaker 2: from my mother. And her apartment was her She had
Speaker 2: nice things, but it was the only really like nice,
Speaker 2: major thing that I could wear. And I didn't even
Speaker 2: understand what alia was, but it was so tight and
Speaker 2: like so hot. And so I was dancing last week
Speaker 2: in my alayah dress to the song I'm Alive by
Speaker 2: Celine Dion. There's been a remix, and I was really happy,
Speaker 2: like I was feeling really happy and free. I was
Speaker 2: releasing things. And the next morning I was on the
Speaker 2: phone with Melinda, my therapist, and I've been I've been
Speaker 2: walking lately, which is I know it sounds ridiculous, but
Speaker 2: I don't really exercise, And in the summer, I come
Speaker 2: alive and I walk on the beach in front of
Speaker 2: my house, and it's my therapy. It's my church, it's
Speaker 2: my spirituality, it's my yoga, it's my everything. It's my soul.
Speaker 2: And I wait all year to do that. And if
Speaker 2: I go to Florida or go away on a trip,
Speaker 2: I I do that. If I snowboard, it's like doing that.
Speaker 2: It's my other version. But I'm just not a person
Speaker 2: who like traps myself in exercise and and my house
Speaker 2: in the suburbs. I haven't connected to like nature in
Speaker 2: any way, and so recently, I've been Every morning I
Speaker 2: wake up, I'm basically still in pajamas, put a brawn
Speaker 2: and just walk out and nature walk a lot of
Speaker 2: waterfalls near my house. Sometimes you guys see me post
Speaker 2: a picture of something that looks like a stream or
Speaker 2: just like rocks, or it's just it's just a new
Speaker 2: thing I'm doing because I feel like I'm breaking out
Speaker 2: and I'm alive. So I was on the phone with
Speaker 2: Melinda and I was telling her I was I'm so happy.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy. I've never been happier. I don't know
Speaker 2: what's going on. I mean, I don't know if that's true,
Speaker 2: but like in the context of recent I just feel happy.
Speaker 2: I feel free, I feel alive. I'm just good. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm just good because I was releasing and I was connecting,
Speaker 2: and you guys are releasing and connecting and and the
Speaker 2: meat you got wrong. This premonition, the version of this premonition.
Speaker 2: So I'll clarify it for you. The night before, I
Speaker 2: was dancing to the song I'm Alive in an A
Speaker 2: Lie address. This morning, I was walking on a nature
Speaker 2: walk and I was happy, and I saw a nine
Speaker 2: to five four number come through, which is Florida, some
Speaker 2: version of Florida. And I was on a FaceTime with
Speaker 2: Milinda and the number came through and I like went
Speaker 2: over to pick it up and then she was like hello, Beth,
Speaker 2: and I go, I can't talk right.
Speaker 3: I was very dismissive. I can't.
Speaker 2: I thought it was someone, this woman. I had this
Speaker 2: caretaker that I had gotten for my mother a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago, several every day, which was some gesture
Speaker 2: that I could do to just have someone be there.
Speaker 2: And I just had this weird feeling like wait a minute,
Speaker 2: because this one's called before. And I had this weird
Speaker 2: feeling and I texted to my assistant and said, please
Speaker 2: call this woman. And I said to Milinda, my mother's dead.
Speaker 2: I think my mother's dead. And as I do with
Speaker 2: my therapist because I can can't go deep. You know,
Speaker 2: I've done therapy with other people in relationships because that's
Speaker 2: been a challenging area of my life, and I do
Speaker 2: it myself, but I always feel like I'm cheating a
Speaker 2: little bit. I feel like I'm cheating a lot of
Speaker 2: areas of my life when it comes to emotions, like
Speaker 2: I can't go super deep. We dip in and we
Speaker 2: reference things. But so one of the things that H
Speaker 2: has come to be very clear is that I fix
Speaker 2: you know me, I like organize my entire house. I
Speaker 2: situation happens, I know how to tackle it. A problem
Speaker 2: happens in business, there's a mistake that's been made, there's
Speaker 2: a contract, it needs to be reworked. Like, I can
Speaker 2: fix it. I can handle it. There's a there's a dilemma,
Speaker 2: there's a logistical issue.
Speaker 3: And so immediately I was like.
Speaker 2: My assistant said I'm sorry by text, and I was
Speaker 2: like my mother's dad like and I didn't even there's
Speaker 2: no way to process that sort of information right, Like
Speaker 2: I was in like thinking, I was in like solution mode.
Speaker 2: So I was like, Okay, wait a second, I'm just
Speaker 2: to get in the car and I'm supposed to take
Speaker 2: Britt to volleyball and she's going to the tournament Philadelphia,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to miss it, and I don't
Speaker 2: want to go. And I thought in my mind that
Speaker 2: I would be disconnected from this because all the ways
Speaker 2: that I thought about this scenario, which I haven't really
Speaker 2: allowed myself to think that much, was that this was
Speaker 2: in a box and that like every time I tried
Speaker 2: to reach out to her or connect her in some
Speaker 2: way more for her. I used to say, it's more
Speaker 2: for her. I just want to make sure she's not
Speaker 2: alone and that she has help and that she feels safe.
Speaker 2: And then when I introduced my daughter Brynn to her
Speaker 2: for Brinn, because Brynn was asking me about it, and
Speaker 2: it's always these like problem solving things like so eventually
Speaker 2: I wouldn't regret this, like you know, like I want
Speaker 2: to send her someone so she feels happy and not
Speaker 2: alone and she can be taken care of in her house.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize she had a friend. Thank god, she
Speaker 2: had one good friend, and that this person who I
Speaker 2: sent for her to take care of her house also
Speaker 2: became a very good friend and a family member. But
Speaker 2: like that I did the connecting not for me from Brynn,
Speaker 2: like because so then there'll be no regrets not thinking
Speaker 2: about that, I would have no regrets really, but that
Speaker 2: like brinin wouldn't be like wait, why did I ever
Speaker 2: get to meet your mama? And so like in this moment,
Speaker 2: I was thinking of Brennan and the volleyball tournament and
Speaker 2: like I want to go and I want to see
Speaker 2: her and I feel like I'm going to disappoint her,
Speaker 2: and I always am thinking of her to the point
Speaker 2: if there's something I know my daughter wants me to do,
Speaker 2: I am incapable of thinking about what I want. It
Speaker 2: sometimes bothers me when she lets me know something that
Speaker 2: she wants, Like we're on a vacation and she wants
Speaker 2: to go somewhere and she wants to do somebody, she
Speaker 2: wants to see something. Because the minute I know that
Speaker 2: she wants to do it, it's.
Speaker 3: In my body.
Speaker 2: Even if I don't want to do it or I
Speaker 2: don't feel up to it, I do it. It's like
Speaker 2: all part of this same stuff that happened in the divorce,
Speaker 2: with like wanting to be with her every second, Like
Speaker 2: it's all this like sort of internal trauma. So now
Speaker 2: I started thinking about the volleyball tournament and how I
Speaker 2: wanted to go and I wanted to be there. Mollanda
Speaker 2: was like okay, and I was gonna stay with a
Speaker 2: friend at a hotel. Mona was like, okay, is there
Speaker 2: like a world where you go? And you know, I'm
Speaker 2: sure she was following my lead. I was being logical,
Speaker 2: and then I realized I was not going to go,
Speaker 2: and the fact, now knowing what I've been through the
Speaker 2: last several days, the fact that I even contemplated going
Speaker 2: is insane. And it was in a convention center, and so,
Speaker 2: like long story short, I didn't go, and I wanted
Speaker 2: Brinn to go and to be happy. And Melinda was like,
Speaker 2: are you going to show up at school now and
Speaker 2: tell Brynn. I'm like, I don't want to go and
Speaker 2: make this big drama at her school, and I don't
Speaker 2: want to disrupt that. I want her to go and
Speaker 2: I want her to enjoy her weekend. At her tournament. Incidentally,
Speaker 2: she won her first medal ever, so I know many
Speaker 2: of you will see symbolism in that. So when she
Speaker 2: was on her way home, I kind of told her
Speaker 2: about a bunch of things and I'm going to tell
Speaker 2: you like that she had left everything to Brinn and
Speaker 2: the Brinn was the one who really gave her happiness
Speaker 2: in the end of her life. And Brin was like, Mom,
Speaker 2: I should have called. I didn't speak to her recently.
Speaker 2: I should have called. I didn't speak to her recently
Speaker 2: because recently my daughter heard the that my mother spoke
Speaker 2: to me on one unfortunate call, and I think she
Speaker 2: got a glimpse into the childhood that I had, and
Speaker 2: I think that she never said it, and I just
Speaker 2: said to her, she loves you, and it's nothing to
Speaker 2: do with you, and I didn't Mommy didn't have the
Speaker 2: kind of life that you had, and she started feeling guilty,
Speaker 2: and I was like, you gave her so much happiness.
Speaker 2: And so my mother passed away two days ago Friday morning.
Speaker 2: She had one friend who was friends with her for
Speaker 2: eleven years old. Eleven years she called me. I soon realized,
Speaker 2: first of all, I was so happy that she had
Speaker 2: a friend, and I soon realized that this friend didn't
Speaker 2: really understand anything about the fractures in our relationship. And
Speaker 2: I realized that my mother never really was accountable to
Speaker 2: anything that happened, which I don't I don't know if
Speaker 2: I had gone there towards the end and sat next
Speaker 2: to her and talked to her and old music and
Speaker 2: things like that. And that's leave me a lot of
Speaker 2: what's going through my head right now. But I am
Speaker 2: If you read my Instagram post I'm sure you did,
Speaker 2: or my TikTok post, you kind of get some of it.
Speaker 2: And a lot of you are relieving and reliving your
Speaker 2: own traumas. And Mother's Day is coming up, and so
Speaker 2: I am going to share just a bit of what
Speaker 2: I went through, because what's crazy is that that you
Speaker 2: would never the way the experience that I've had, the
Speaker 2: emotional accident that I feel like I've been in since
Speaker 2: this news Friday is nothing like I would have ever expected.
Speaker 2: And I really do tell you, even if you hate
Speaker 2: someone who's been connected to you in a way that
Speaker 2: is supposed to be perceived or received as love, or
Speaker 2: they hate you or you think they hate you based
Speaker 2: on whatever their traumas are, you should connect with them
Speaker 2: on some way, on some left, because I will tell
Speaker 2: you that this has been I thought the divorce was
Speaker 2: the most traumatic experience. This on the heels of that
Speaker 2: is almost debilitating, But this has been the most extraordinary,
Speaker 2: unexpected release that I've ever had in my life. Because
Speaker 2: in all of these years of going to therapy or
Speaker 2: failed relationships or Ramona telling me I'm going to be
Speaker 2: alone on a bridge, or beating myself up or feeling
Speaker 2: like something was missing, and I've been cheating myself in
Speaker 2: therapy and not really going deep. Or when I was
Speaker 2: married to Peter and I went to therapy and couldn't
Speaker 2: go there, just couldn't go there in all of that time,
Speaker 2: there's no therapist that could bring out what's come out,
Speaker 2: And what's happening is something very unique, and it's I'm
Speaker 2: literally in my childhood. It's like someone they do this
Speaker 2: with them with the like mushrooms and like ketymine or
Speaker 2: like things like that where they like, I guess, bring
Speaker 2: you back in some way. So this death has put
Speaker 2: me in my childhood a place that I've never wanted
Speaker 2: to go back to in my life, but need to
Speaker 2: to like give myself some grace and compassion. And so
Speaker 2: when I wrote that, I was mourning her loss and
Speaker 2: mourning her loss because what a poor soul and spirit
Speaker 2: and life.
Speaker 3: Like my mother was so breathtakingly beautiful.
Speaker 2: When I tell you that, I like, look, I wanted
Speaker 2: so much from her, Like I got tiny glimpses and
Speaker 2: like wanted.
Speaker 3: So much more.
Speaker 2: If you ever saw the show Firefly Lane, my friend
Speaker 2: Terry so mad, she's like they stole your life for
Speaker 2: that show, not every bit of it, but like it's
Speaker 2: very much. It's like shockingly triggering because it's like that
Speaker 2: that's that vibe that seventies vibe and that mother who
Speaker 2: was like gorgeous and making every wrong choice. My mother
Speaker 2: and I bring up their beauty for a very specific reason,
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna get there. My mother was spectacular, like
Speaker 2: so gorgeous that it was like frightening to people, and
Speaker 2: everyone was in love with her. And she later when
Speaker 2: it was like in the you know, the the years
Speaker 2: of like maybe her late twenties and thirties looked like
Speaker 2: Michelle Pfeiffer, And when she was young, she looked like
Speaker 2: Sharon Tate. And people are now saying brain looks like her,
Speaker 2: which is like, just it's been the most beautiful result
Speaker 2: of this because I saw it the second I pulled
Speaker 2: out her pictures, and I've never thought of it before.
Speaker 2: I don't think of her that much. So she was
Speaker 2: stunningly beautiful, and it was actually her curse in a way,
Speaker 2: Like she left her house. She left her very abusive house,
Speaker 2: very abusive father, very scathing biting. So you guys know,
Speaker 2: I'm I can be biting, and my mother was way
Speaker 2: more biting, and her mother was so scathingly biting. My
Speaker 2: mother sister died. My mother's sister, I think she punched
Speaker 2: her a parent. No, she punched my mother and knocked
Speaker 2: her down the stairs I think, or something her sister.
Speaker 2: Her sister died too, and her sister's children they reached
Speaker 2: out Kelly Christy Ryant. They all had a similar experience,
Speaker 2: except that they had a grounded father. I had a
Speaker 2: stepfather and a father that were as horrific, if not
Speaker 2: no worse than the experiences I've had with my mother.
Speaker 2: So I hit the trifacta trifecta of parents. But her
Speaker 2: her beauty was like debilitating, I think, because and all
Speaker 2: she wanted to do was be a model, but she
Speaker 2: was too short. And all her sister wanted to do
Speaker 2: was be a jockey, but she was too tall. Literally,
Speaker 2: she was in the horse business like my grandfather and
Speaker 2: my father and my stepfather. My mother's father was a
Speaker 2: horse trainer. Also, No one wouldever realize that that's how
Speaker 2: my mother found her way into these degenerate men's lives,
Speaker 2: because the racetrack is no place for a woman, and
Speaker 2: she found it because of her father, which is why
Speaker 2: the one thing that she imparted to me is never
Speaker 2: ever marry someone from the racetra Never ever marry someone
Speaker 2: from the racetrack like from a small child and as
Speaker 2: an adult. And if you know anything about the racetrack,
Speaker 2: it's I know why she said it.
Speaker 3: It ruined her life.
Speaker 2: Her father, so her family was very abusive, and she
Speaker 2: left her abusive household and she just went on a
Speaker 2: journey as a result. I'm sure of her abusive household
Speaker 2: of not only choosing the wrong men, like folding into
Speaker 2: the wrong men for how much they worshiped and adored her.
Speaker 2: They were all abusive, they were all exploitative, And the
Speaker 2: big characters in her life were vanity, which is why
Speaker 2: I mention her beauty, vanity and a lifelong eating disorder
Speaker 2: that was ultimately her child. Vanity with an eating disorder,
Speaker 2: addiction and substance abuse and money. Money was such a
Speaker 2: main character in her life. And the one thing I
Speaker 2: will say is her saying to me, never marry someone
Speaker 2: from the racetrack, and her always always having issues with money,
Speaker 2: or telling me that she stayed with men for money,
Speaker 2: or that she gave up her life for me, or
Speaker 2: that she stayed with these men because of me. Money
Speaker 2: was a recurring factor in this entire lifetime. My mother's
Speaker 2: reliance on abusive men and her staying with them for
Speaker 2: financial support. Is probably why I made it my life's
Speaker 2: intention to never have to rely on a man for
Speaker 2: financial support, and something that I also impart my daughter
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 3: It's the ultimate freedom.
Speaker 2: And my childhood was there were a lot of There
Speaker 2: were some I lived went to like thirteen different schools.
Speaker 2: And as I've been reliving this, I've been like back
Speaker 2: in my houses and there were different houses and different
Speaker 2: eras with different friends. You know, the hell whole era
Speaker 2: was like in Forest Hills and Long Island and this
Speaker 2: is where, you know, this is where the suicide attempts
Speaker 2: and the physical abuse, and you know, she would go
Speaker 2: out till all hours of the night and come home
Speaker 2: and smash the window in when she wasn't my stepfather
Speaker 2: was the one watching me. She really wasn't around much,
Speaker 2: and then they would get into a very terrible fight
Speaker 2: and he would smash and beat her with the phone,
Speaker 2: one of those like old little half moon looking phones
Speaker 2: and has that coiled cord, and he would beat her
Speaker 2: and come in and scream to me. And it's the
Speaker 2: first time I ever heard the word see the sea word.
Speaker 2: I remember it like it was yesterday, him saying that
Speaker 2: she's a sea and that look what she does to me,
Speaker 2: and we would the cops would come. I think it
Speaker 2: was sometimes the neighbors, sometimes it was me, but the
Speaker 2: cops would come. The neighbors would call the cops. And
Speaker 2: its funny because my girlfriend yesterday said that Craig Siegel,
Speaker 2: who is my neighbor, that as an adult, he said,
Speaker 2: we used to be we used to, you.
Speaker 3: Know, worry about her.
Speaker 2: And Jennifer Caine lived across the street in Long Island
Speaker 2: and it was a it was a hell hole. I
Speaker 2: remember once I set like paper on tissue on fire
Speaker 2: in this small room, like probably wanted to set the
Speaker 2: house on fire. And what was crazy was that my
Speaker 2: room was always immaculate. My mother was an interior designer,
Speaker 2: and my room was immaculate, like perfectly designed, and the
Speaker 2: rest of the house, every other room in the house
Speaker 2: was completely empty. We ate off a card table. We
Speaker 2: had a parakeet. I don't know why I remember that,
Speaker 2: but we didn't. I think we had we had like
Speaker 2: kittens and cats. And I remember my getting a week
Speaker 2: with my mother alone, like I think John left and
Speaker 2: I think she wanted him to leave because I think
Speaker 2: she was really with him for money. I was four
Speaker 2: on East fifty second Street, and he came and scooped
Speaker 2: her up. She had been with my real father, another
Speaker 2: horse trainer, and I guess he used to run with
Speaker 2: my stepfather, and that's how she ended up with John,
Speaker 2: who kind of rescued her. And my real father was
Speaker 2: also another real piece of shit that people idolized because
Speaker 2: he was a Hall of fame horse trainer, but as
Speaker 2: a man and a father, he was a bad person.
Speaker 2: And that's just the way that it was. She could
Speaker 2: provoke anyone to physically abuse them, but he was part
Speaker 2: of it too. And he used to leave me with
Speaker 2: like young prostitute girlfriends, Like he would just leave me
Speaker 2: with them, and he was like hanging out with people
Speaker 2: who did cocaine and like the full seventies, like the
Speaker 2: way the seventies won, and if you grew up was
Speaker 2: and if you grew up in the seventies, you know.
Speaker 2: And there was a time that I had to live
Speaker 2: with him, and she positioned it as and it was
Speaker 2: this he wouldn't pay for me. This is how money
Speaker 2: became a role early. He wouldn't support me unless I
Speaker 2: was with him, So they were battling over me, and
Speaker 2: it's why I bring up in the divorce trauma, the
Speaker 2: custody battle of pulling at kids. Don't you would never
Speaker 2: know this until you're fifty three years old. You would
Speaker 2: never understand this emotionally. So I ended up we ended
Speaker 2: up with John another person, because I wanted to get home,
Speaker 2: Like I didn't want to be in California with him.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to be with my mommy. And then
Speaker 2: I went with her and she fell into this guy's
Speaker 2: arms and he became my stepfather. And she was gone
Speaker 2: a lot, and I was with him a lot, but
Speaker 2: like one week he was gone and I was with her,
Speaker 2: and I was so happy. I remember we used to
Speaker 2: go to Hearty's, this like other version of Arby's, and
Speaker 2: like I remember the roast beef sandwitchariessed to get at
Speaker 2: the drive through, and I remember us driving up to
Speaker 2: Saratoga where we had a place, and like good memories,
Speaker 2: good memories of like food, and she loved Alaska king
Speaker 2: crab legs, and like all these memories are good, but like,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of abuse in my house, a
Speaker 2: lot of abuse. And Karen Moody, a girl who reached
Speaker 2: out to me, recently told me that like we would
Speaker 2: have sleepovers and then like my family would get into
Speaker 2: a horrific argument my parents, and then the police would
Speaker 2: come and everybody would have to go home. So I'm
Speaker 2: remembering these things. And my mother was a mixed bag
Speaker 2: because like she took me to to Greece, Turkey, Rome, Paris, London,
Speaker 2: Egypt on this trip, and I remember not wanting to go.
Speaker 2: And I do remember being an experience, like I saw things,
Speaker 2: I learned thing she I don't know how she knew
Speaker 2: everything about food, language, international, All these men were so
Speaker 2: attracted her because she cultured them like she was this
Speaker 2: she could have been like a wrothchild, like really she
Speaker 2: was so elegant, like she just like went down the
Speaker 2: trash lane, and she could have easily been this like elite,
Speaker 2: you know, just elegant princess, and she went down this
Speaker 2: road of tragedy. And when I was seven, I realized
Speaker 2: that she was throwing up. And she used to tell
Speaker 2: me not to tell my stepfather because he would be
Speaker 2: worried about it. And it was like in my mind,
Speaker 2: but that's too young to process that. And I always
Speaker 2: and I remember too the trolley, the plastic trolley of laxatives,
Speaker 2: like the in her bathroom, the caddy and her always
Speaker 2: having to like go to the bathroom when we were
Speaker 2: driving somewhere and say that it was the coffee, and like,
Speaker 2: this is stuff that you don't process yet. You're a kid,
Speaker 2: you're in your formative years. You haven't put the puzzle together.
Speaker 2: But by the time I was fourteen, I was a cop.
Speaker 2: I was a Bolimia cop, and we went on that
Speaker 2: trip to Europe. I was a police officer. Like because
Speaker 2: I finally had her trapped on a boat. It couldn't
Speaker 2: be home where after you know, she'd eat, she'd go
Speaker 2: for for an hour and be in the bathroom and
Speaker 2: then it would smell and I would just know. And
Speaker 2: then every time we went to a meal out at
Speaker 2: the at a restaurant, it was when she cooked at home.
Speaker 2: The food was so spectacular. But there would invariably be
Speaker 2: some something that goes wrong at a party and she
Speaker 2: would smash the whole house. Something would go crazier, they'd
Speaker 2: get into a fight, and she would smash the whole house.
Speaker 2: And when we went to a restaurant, I can never
Speaker 2: eat eggs benedict as long as I live, even though
Speaker 2: it's such a great dish, because she would water egg's
Speaker 2: benedict and if the eggs weren't like the softest of soft,
Speaker 2: like if they poke and ooze, they couldn't have any
Speaker 2: of that like pastiness. She would abuse the way the server.
Speaker 2: You walk down eggshells at home, you walk down eggshells
Speaker 2: at restaurants, and like the bolima became a main character,
Speaker 2: as did the money, because it was you can never
Speaker 2: get away from food. You can leave, you can put
Speaker 2: alcohol and.
Speaker 3: Get rid of it.
Speaker 2: You can't not have a relationship with food. And anyone
Speaker 2: who has an eating disorder, or anyone who is beliemic
Speaker 2: or knows someone beliemic, like understand.
Speaker 3: It destroys, it lives.
Speaker 2: It destroyed my entire life, and it destroyed It was
Speaker 2: my mother's child. It was my mother's most sacred relationship.
Speaker 2: It was something I wanted to like kill and capture.
Speaker 2: She's never ever to the day she died, admitted it.
Speaker 3: It happened.
Speaker 2: She never gave it up. Years later, my twenties, she
Speaker 2: gave up alcohol for a time, which is but she
Speaker 2: never gave up the bolimia, the smoking that you know.
Speaker 2: She was a French type alcoholic. She would drink all
Speaker 2: the time. They call it I learned in college in
Speaker 2: a class called alcoholism B type, like you drink but
Speaker 2: all the time and then yes at night in the mornings,
Speaker 2: I would wake up and there'd be bottles and bottles
Speaker 2: in the sink.
Speaker 3: But it's not a.
Speaker 2: Person that's like you see like sitting in the corner
Speaker 2: and they're hiding giant bottles of vocket in the bat.
Speaker 2: You know, she's just like a tab drinking seventies smoking
Speaker 2: while pregnant, like that type.
Speaker 3: And she was very mean.
Speaker 2: She loved me and when I was little, she really
Speaker 2: really I feel a lot.
Speaker 3: Of the love I do. But she was extremely mean
Speaker 3: and extremely jealous of me.
Speaker 2: And I can't even imagine why, because she was so
Speaker 2: stunning and so vain in the leads to the blieme me.
Speaker 2: But she blamed everything on me, and she was just
Speaker 2: she was so like she used to say, I want
Speaker 2: to switch places with you.
Speaker 3: I want to be you know, she wanted to be me.
Speaker 3: But and.
Speaker 2: Thank God for the roller rink, thank God for hot skates,
Speaker 2: Hot skates and Limbrook. The owners like literally they closed,
Speaker 2: they reached out to me. They've sent me pictures like
Speaker 2: they know I spent my entire childhood a Hot Skates
Speaker 2: in Limbrooke. I would be dropped my mother would drop
Speaker 2: me up at nine o'clock in the morning because it
Speaker 2: was a nine I think it was like a ten
Speaker 2: to twelve thirty, a two to five thirty or something
Speaker 2: like that, and a seven to nine thirty and I
Speaker 2: would be there in the morning until night. I had
Speaker 2: a whole life there. I had relationships there because when
Speaker 2: people talk about roller Girl like it was my like
Speaker 2: it's saved roller skating saved my life.
Speaker 3: And the thing about it is that.
Speaker 2: You can you can abuse someone and also you know,
Speaker 2: love them like it's possible. And so I've been going
Speaker 2: through these journeys in my mind. Then I took It's
Speaker 2: like I'm doing the movie, but in my mind with music,
Speaker 2: I'm playing all the seventies music. It's helpful to bring
Speaker 2: things out because I have never gone there in therapy.
Speaker 2: I've never been back to my childhood until this weekend.
Speaker 2: I've never visited there. I left, I shut the door,
Speaker 2: I never went back. And then I was in my
Speaker 2: high school, which I've explained to you, was like.
Speaker 3: This is where it seemed sort of cool.
Speaker 2: You know. I was the one who at thirteen in
Speaker 2: Saratoga before high school, was going to night clubs and
Speaker 2: I was not like reckless, believe it or not. Yes,
Speaker 2: I was getting myself into and out of the city
Speaker 2: and taking the train by myself. But I was an
Speaker 2: adult already. It's very hard for you, don't understand. I
Speaker 2: was in Vegas at thirteen at the craps tables with
Speaker 2: my parents gambling. We'd stayed there for three weeks. Like
Speaker 2: I was already an adult. It's not right, but it's
Speaker 2: like my daughter can't even process this death. She's so young,
Speaker 2: she's younger than most girls her age, you know, and
Speaker 2: like that's great. Like I just was an adult as
Speaker 2: a child, So I would go to nightclubs and I was,
Speaker 2: you know, in this place Old Westbury, Long Island, that
Speaker 2: was like fast cash.
Speaker 3: New money. And this was when we made it.
Speaker 2: And you know, I I've been speaking to some friends
Speaker 2: from this era, from these different eras. This is the
Speaker 2: era where I needed some clarity because we then got
Speaker 2: past high school. I've asked to go to boarding school,
Speaker 2: thank god, you know, I asked to go to boarding school.
Speaker 2: I wanted to get out of my house. And that
Speaker 2: was the last time, you know, when I left for
Speaker 2: boarding school at fifteen, That's the last time I was
Speaker 2: really in my house. Sir had any semblance of a
Speaker 2: parental structure. It's affected every area of my life. It's
Speaker 2: affected my obviously, my relationships. I mean there he would visit,
Speaker 2: he would abuse her, and I would beg her the
Speaker 2: next day, beg her. After we were in the hospital,
Speaker 2: I would I would take the paper out and like
Speaker 2: look through for apartments and be like, can't we leave?
Speaker 2: But I didn't realize it was because of money, Like
Speaker 2: you don't think of money as a kid, like please.
Speaker 3: I thought this was hope.
Speaker 2: Every time she would go to the hospital, I'd be like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this time she'd have a black eye. I'd be like,
Speaker 2: this time, we're getting out of here. And I would
Speaker 2: be dropped. I always was with somebody, this horse groom.
Speaker 2: He had like a horse groom Wilson, and I was
Speaker 2: dropped off at his mom's house. Pat Wilson, her husband
Speaker 2: was an alcoholic. Her son touched me, my stepfather's friends.
Speaker 2: He always said, all these degenerates around, bookies, sneakers, larry
Speaker 2: all these people. One of them, you know, was inappropriate
Speaker 2: with me. His partner, his horse owner also.
Speaker 3: Sexually abused.
Speaker 2: You know, there was just a lot of stuff that
Speaker 2: happened and it affected it.
Speaker 3: It like hid every tree of the dysfunction.
Speaker 2: And I just didn't allow my I don't I'm like
Speaker 2: so tough that I don't allow myself to go there.
Speaker 2: And so I'm mourning this poor girl. I'm not mourning
Speaker 2: I'm mourning my mother in her poor life. And I'm
Speaker 2: mourning this poor girl because I can't imagine a child
Speaker 2: going through that. But I just didn't accept it as
Speaker 2: my own. I just make it like that's why I'm tough.
Speaker 2: And then I've pretended that it didn't happen. I like think,
Speaker 2: I think I'm making it up, you know, you stuff things.
Speaker 2: So when I went to college, I just didn't want
Speaker 2: anything to do with this anymore. But like my mother
Speaker 2: did love me in her way, and so I felt
Speaker 2: like I had to be can to her and not
Speaker 2: had to want it to She started to get like meaner.
Speaker 2: It just there was just a there was just a
Speaker 2: change in her face and in her life. Even when
Speaker 2: she was younger and when she was drinking and she
Speaker 2: was a bleaemic, it was like she still had that
Speaker 2: beauty and that freshness about her that like, you know,
Speaker 2: everybody was scared of her, the Virginia slims and the
Speaker 2: tab and it was still sexy. It looked like some
Speaker 2: seventies ad and and and and then she started to
Speaker 2: like look it starting now, I realize you can still
Speaker 2: look beautiful at forty, you know, and fifty. But like
Speaker 2: this is when it started. You started to see it
Speaker 2: like it was destroying her whatever it was, all of
Speaker 2: the toxins and self destruction was destroying her.
Speaker 3: And like eating her alive. But you can't see it.
Speaker 2: You can't intervene in your own life, like it's just
Speaker 2: and I saw her differently, and her meanness was just different.
Speaker 2: And she did yet she did nice things. She I
Speaker 2: She found me an apartment while I was in France
Speaker 2: to get a studio apartment in New York City, and
Speaker 2: she wrote me letters and she was so that I
Speaker 2: was coming back and we were gonna have holidays together.
Speaker 2: And she took a couch and my friend Melissa Levine,
Speaker 2: who I spoke to yesterday, remembers that she like staple
Speaker 2: gone fabric to this couch that she had had in
Speaker 2: our days of having like beautifully designed things, and it
Speaker 2: was in my apartment. I don't want to make it
Speaker 2: like she didn't love me.
Speaker 3: And she didn't.
Speaker 2: And she was so hilarious and so brilliant and so
Speaker 2: wild and so electric. And I understand. I understand why
Speaker 2: men have fallen in love with her. I understand why
Speaker 2: so many men have fallen in love with me. I
Speaker 2: have a part of her that is that, and and
Speaker 2: you know, there's a lot of me and her. And
Speaker 2: sometimes I look at my face in the mirror and
Speaker 2: I see her, and sometimes it's good, and sometimes it
Speaker 2: scares me. And I've been going through all of this
Speaker 2: in her death, and I have no anger. I wish
Speaker 2: I could have found a way to connect to her
Speaker 2: later in life. Brynn begged me, I want to meet
Speaker 2: your mama. I want to meet your mama. And I
Speaker 2: didn't want to do it. I kept saying it was
Speaker 2: in a drawer, and I thought one day she would
Speaker 2: pass and it would just be like nothing happened.
Speaker 3: I really really thought that.
Speaker 2: I really thought that there's nothing and I'm sorry, no
Speaker 2: disrespect to men or sons. There's nothing like a mother
Speaker 2: and a daughter bond. There's there's just nothing like what
Speaker 2: it represents and what it's supposed to be and and
Speaker 2: so so I didn't think it was gonna be this
Speaker 2: kind of experience, like this emotional accident, like a trauma,
Speaker 2: like bringing all this together, and I realized why I've
Speaker 2: had such a challenge with relationships because I've never like
Speaker 2: addressed this and I've been years ago there was a
Speaker 2: People magazine oracle saying my baby saved me and then
Speaker 2: I was unlovable, and part of me feels that's true.
Speaker 2: I have. You know, I've always felt flawed and damaged,
Speaker 2: and like every time I meet someone, it's like they're
Speaker 2: gonna judge my childhood and like why doesn't she have
Speaker 2: parents and why doesn't she speak to her family? And
Speaker 2: I had no brothers and sisters either. Story I really was,
Speaker 2: and it's like self conscious, and I'm self conscious with
Speaker 2: Britain who.
Speaker 3: I want her to have a family. I want her
Speaker 3: to have people around her.
Speaker 2: I love that she gets to go do the barbecues
Speaker 2: and the family reunions with her father and his parents,
Speaker 2: Like I want that far as she deserves that. I
Speaker 2: have that from my friends, but you know, I don't
Speaker 2: really have that for myself. And this has brought up
Speaker 2: not only everything and so I was looking through pictures.
Speaker 2: I was looking through pictures. I wanted to get pictures.
Speaker 2: I want to represent her as the beautiful woman that
Speaker 2: she was, because she that was important to her and
Speaker 2: it was true people worshiped her. And so I was
Speaker 2: looking through pictures and then I couldn't find I still
Speaker 2: can't find the one there's a picture of like the
Speaker 2: day when I was a little kid that I remember
Speaker 2: being happy, like I remember a nature day and I
Speaker 2: just remember it.
Speaker 3: I don't know why you remember.
Speaker 2: I remember this day, and I can't find the picture
Speaker 2: representing that day. And I remember a picture of her
Speaker 2: when she looked like Michelle Pfeiffer at the racetrack, and
Speaker 2: I couldn't find that. So I had gone through all
Speaker 2: the pictures, and then yesterday I woke up and I
Speaker 2: was just like listening to songs and normal grief and
Speaker 2: kind of fine and whatever. And I don't know why
Speaker 2: this happened. I went into this other areas doesn't have photographs,
Speaker 2: just like another cabinet, and there's this plastic, clear container
Speaker 2: and it has different things from like my life, like
Speaker 2: just different pieces of paper, my high school diploma, things
Speaker 2: like that, an article I wrote in college, like and
Speaker 2: I just and I found this zip block and it said.
Speaker 3: Mom letters.
Speaker 2: Now. I don't know why they're all from this one
Speaker 2: era which is now make me wonder where my other
Speaker 2: letters are. But and it was like it was funny
Speaker 2: because it was Hello Kitty stationary, which I was. This
Speaker 2: is when I was twenty years old. It was nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: But she had found on my stationary and I used to,
Speaker 2: I guess, love Hello Kitty, and I make fun of
Speaker 2: Hello Kitty now and talk about her, but I loved her,
Speaker 2: and I loved Ziggy and little Miss twin Star, And
Speaker 2: so she started writing me these letters in this from
Speaker 2: my childhood stationary, like when I was like twenty This
Speaker 2: is long before my wedding where she really she really
Speaker 2: was very very mean and me talking bad about me
Speaker 2: at my wedding and my rehearsal dinner and criticizing it
Speaker 2: and got really drunk at my wedding and didn't want
Speaker 2: to come. And my wedding was the time that I
Speaker 2: found her in the supermarket with a cartload of alcohol
Speaker 2: when I thought she was recovering, and she said she
Speaker 2: wasn't going to come, and she danced all night and
Speaker 2: flirted with someone's husband and it was like and then
Speaker 2: later said she should have brought John to my wedding,
Speaker 2: like to be mean and criticized my ring and just
Speaker 2: like mean, and she was mean at my bridal shower
Speaker 2: and my friends remember she came and a bunch of
Speaker 2: traffic and she walked in and she said never again.
Speaker 3: Never.
Speaker 2: I just sat in traffic and like she was just
Speaker 2: pretty pretty terrible.
Speaker 3: But I don't want to remember that. And so.
Speaker 2: I look yesterday in this clear bin, and I see
Speaker 2: these mom letters and I start reading them and and
Speaker 2: I recognize her writing so well.
Speaker 3: And she's writing you know.
Speaker 2: Sometimes like you're like the mother and I'm the daughter,
Speaker 2: and you're probably a better role model, and you didn't
Speaker 2: have it easy. Like for her to say that is
Speaker 2: like big because she doesn't have any accountability. She won't
Speaker 2: she wouldn't allow herself to go there about what happened.
Speaker 2: She's just the victim that like chose these men for
Speaker 2: me and they beat her and she ruined her life.
Speaker 2: She has no capability of like realizing that I was
Speaker 2: the child and she was the mother, so much so
Speaker 2: that she never even reached out to speak to Britain
Speaker 2: like she doesn't realize the difference between the mother and
Speaker 2: the daughter. But there were these sentences and these letters
Speaker 2: that were saying like.
Speaker 3: You are the light of my life. You are the
Speaker 3: love of my life. You're the only one who really
Speaker 3: knows me.
Speaker 2: She was talking about all these this money in these letters,
Speaker 2: like all this, all this these money is hues and
Speaker 2: John fucked me over and didn't sign this and Bill
Speaker 2: is destitute and filing bankruptcy and like I know it's
Speaker 2: twenty and you're an adult, but like it was just
Speaker 2: all this stuff on me.
Speaker 3: At all times.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what to do for her. I didn't
Speaker 2: know how to support her. I didn't know how to
Speaker 2: like take care of her. I didn't know how to
Speaker 2: do it. She was forty and I was twenty, and
Speaker 2: I mean that's not a kid, but like I was
Speaker 2: the age when she had me. It was just a
Speaker 2: lot to dump on me, I felt. But yesterday I
Speaker 2: started to read these sentences, I was.
Speaker 3: Like, you were the light, You're the life of love
Speaker 3: of my life. I mean I was dying and I
Speaker 3: just I just and.
Speaker 2: I just started to scream in my house, like I'm
Speaker 2: a bad daughter. I have a bad daughter. Why didn't
Speaker 2: I read these last month? And I would have gone there?
Speaker 2: And I was like freaking out. I mean, I was
Speaker 2: freaking out. I couldn't No one could help me, know.
Speaker 2: One I called, no one could say anything to me,
Speaker 2: and none of my friends nothing. And I started to
Speaker 2: call my high school friends that I haven't spoken to
Speaker 2: in years, and I was like, because they had been
Speaker 2: Some of them had messaged and said, like, your mom,
Speaker 2: you know it was beautiful, you know, trying to make
Speaker 2: light of it. And I was like, no, I don't
Speaker 2: want to hear that. I need to hear that it
Speaker 2: was real what I said. I need to know that.
Speaker 2: I need to know that what I'm feeling is real.
Speaker 2: I need to hear what happened in that house. I
Speaker 2: need to know why I disconnected from her because I'm
Speaker 2: a bad daughter, Like why did I disconnect? Tell me
Speaker 2: what happened, you know, like why? And I spoke to
Speaker 2: my friend Melissa, who had her own horrendous challenges, and
Speaker 2: she was like, those are words about thatany those are
Speaker 2: words letters. She's like, because she had an extraordinary experience too,
Speaker 2: and she said, I have letters like that from my
Speaker 2: mother too, but those are not She didn't give you
Speaker 2: what you needed as a child, like she was the mother,
Speaker 2: you were the daughter.
Speaker 3: There are things that no child needs, like you were
Speaker 3: the deed of the adult.
Speaker 2: And she was really, you know, helping me because I
Speaker 2: needed I needed some information from that house. And my
Speaker 2: friend that said, as someone that cares a lot about you,
Speaker 2: I would compare you to a relative that I just
Speaker 2: don't get to see much.
Speaker 3: You can take this one off your plate. In terms
Speaker 3: of blame.
Speaker 2: Your mother had some serious issues in John Paracella was
Speaker 2: her spouse and abusive to you. I don't recall your
Speaker 2: mother being any type of positive force, and I do
Speaker 2: not want to get to specifics unless you want me to.
Speaker 2: You a delta hand that no one should ever have
Speaker 2: been dealt no one. Your house was criminally chaotic, abusive,
Speaker 2: and detrimental to providing stability and any kind of self
Speaker 2: esteem for you.
Speaker 3: What you can do is what you are doing.
Speaker 2: Take those negatives, raise a daughter with the acknowledgment that
Speaker 2: you were a child put in a horrible circumstance and
Speaker 2: you learned from it. And I've never heard of someone
Speaker 2: wanting to hear the bad not because I want to
Speaker 2: disrespect our memory, but because I want to put this somewhere.
Speaker 2: I want to like walk through this and like be
Speaker 2: able to have a life and a good relationship and
Speaker 2: like be the full person that I could be. And
Speaker 2: and I've had friends tell me. My other friend said
Speaker 2: this was trauma to the bringhard because you were her
Speaker 2: same gender, her only child, a beauty like her, and
Speaker 2: she was fiercely proud of you. You craved the connection
Speaker 2: any daughter wants. And not only did she not allow
Speaker 2: you to securely attached to her, she also it's not
Speaker 2: the right phrase, but almost like strung you along by
Speaker 2: sometimes allowing you to feel the connection. If the story
Speaker 2: is just she's a bad guy that hurts, but it's
Speaker 2: not multifaceted. What makes it harder is the contradiction and
Speaker 2: duality because it's true I loved her and I worshiped her,
Speaker 2: and I'm mourning now the loss of like getting that
Speaker 2: once I got a little bit as a child. So
Speaker 2: these friends have really helped me to release this, because
Speaker 2: to release myself of the guilt. You know one girl,
Speaker 2: me and Russo who's always messaging me on Instagram.
Speaker 3: She's such a supporter.
Speaker 2: She's a very rare person that I knew as a
Speaker 2: child who's a big fan. She said, we dropped my
Speaker 2: family dropped ourselves off first after a concert in the city,
Speaker 2: way too young, and that she was then left alone
Speaker 2: with the limo driver and there was before a cell phone,
Speaker 2: so she was lost in crying and called her parents.
Speaker 2: She's like, it was not what should happen with a
Speaker 2: thirteen year old to be in a car alone with
Speaker 2: a man driving her. And Laura, who texted me that
Speaker 2: other really smart text, said that my mother dropped the
Speaker 2: two of us off on the Meadowbrook Highway. We had
Speaker 2: to get out of the car because I got into
Speaker 2: a fight with her. It just wasn't really what it
Speaker 2: should be. And I need to now make this something
Speaker 2: meaningful for you. What I need to make this meaningful
Speaker 2: for you is Mother's Days coming up in Mother's Days
Speaker 2: and about perfection and making people feel bad if they're
Speaker 2: not a mother, And it's not about making everything about
Speaker 2: flowers and think Mother's Day is about if you think
Speaker 2: you're doing a good job, or if you feel like
Speaker 2: you're a good mother, to reflect, to applaud yourself, to
Speaker 2: celebrate that. But if you feel like you're failing and
Speaker 2: you feel like you're not you're flawed and you're not
Speaker 2: doing the best job, but there's always a way to
Speaker 2: change and intervene. And that if you're thinking about being
Speaker 2: a mother, the responsibility that it ultimately is to be
Speaker 2: a mother. And if you have a mother, thinking about
Speaker 2: the fact that they themselves have been going through tremendous
Speaker 2: trauma in their life too, and they have their own
Speaker 2: story that's hard for you to understand that is part
Speaker 2: of the fabric of who they are, and you know,
Speaker 2: and that I don't know what kind of event could
Speaker 2: happen for you to get in touch with this, but
Speaker 2: I do wish I got in touch with this so
Speaker 2: many years ago. I literally couldn't. I literally couldn't. And
Speaker 2: I do feel like I have been cheating because I
Speaker 2: haven't been able to really like access this. And I
Speaker 2: think that I think that that I'm lucky to you know,
Speaker 2: I've had great loves in.
Speaker 3: My life, people to love me.
Speaker 2: Just might be being unlovable, people like Larry, people like Peter,
Speaker 2: people like Paul, because there's a lot of work I
Speaker 2: have to do on myself, and I think this is
Speaker 2: unlocking it. And I think this is just this divorce
Speaker 2: trauma and this and I'm sure it's related. I'm sure
Speaker 2: there's a reason I've chosen some of the people that
Speaker 2: I've chosen. So as Mother's Day approaches in the next month,
Speaker 2: give yourself grace and you can always change. And please,
Speaker 2: I beg that you connect with somebody who's entirely impossible
Speaker 2: to connect with, because it will heal some lifelong wounds
Speaker 2: that have been bothering you. In time just passes, like
Speaker 2: I don't really think there's anything that I could have
Speaker 2: done differently because there was such a meanness. That's why
Speaker 2: I'm struggling up to the end, up to when my
Speaker 2: daughter was with my mother, and my mother was on
Speaker 2: the phone with her a couple of months ago, and I.
Speaker 3: Barely even believe that she was sick.
Speaker 2: She always was every time we were on the phone,
Speaker 2: from when I was twenty to now.
Speaker 3: It was just always everything was.
Speaker 2: Just a complaint and what she and being mean to
Speaker 2: me and what she did for me, and when she
Speaker 2: was only talking about ailments all day long, I almost
Speaker 2: didn't believe it. And one day she said to my daughter,
Speaker 2: who I think at the time was twelve, no thin
Speaker 2: she was thirteen, like, I don't know, I might die
Speaker 2: or something and I was like, I said no, no, no,
Speaker 2: you can't. You can't say that to my daughter. And
Speaker 2: she said, oh, I can't stand you. And Brinn heard it,
Speaker 2: and Brin's ever heard anything like that, like in a
Speaker 2: relations in a relationship where it's supposed to be so loving,
Speaker 2: and I think it shocked her. And I was like,
Speaker 2: it's okay. Her relationship with you has nothing to do
Speaker 2: with that. She had a hard life and she just
Speaker 2: wasn't the mommy that I was to you, you know.
Speaker 2: And and we were on the phone recently and it
Speaker 2: was all these years later.
Speaker 3: She's sick.
Speaker 2: She's cancer, colon cancer to lung cancer, like really sick,
Speaker 2: colossy bag, the whole thing. And I saw her and
Speaker 2: she's like, you know, gotta beat eighty eight pounds. And
Speaker 2: we were on the phone. She's like, I gained ten pounds.
Speaker 2: And I was right back there to like my whole
Speaker 2: childhood of every week, Oh no, I gained ten pounds.
Speaker 3: And then the mood she'd be in the mood swings.
Speaker 2: And I was like, and you just you roll your
Speaker 2: eyes and you're just like, I'm sure you look great.
Speaker 2: Like the things that you have to say to people
Speaker 2: like this, and I'm like, and I doubt you did.
Speaker 2: You're very thin, you know, like thousands of times I've
Speaker 2: said this, and then she goes, no, really no, I
Speaker 2: gain and I said, okay, I said, but we don't
Speaker 2: talk like that in front of Brin, Like that's not
Speaker 2: something that I that goes on in this house. Like
Speaker 2: because I thought of I was like impatient with her
Speaker 2: because the one thing that was in the way of
Speaker 2: my entire relationship with my mother was the eating disorder.
Speaker 2: It was the one biggest thing because I couldn't stomach
Speaker 2: being at a meal with her. I was embarrassed to
Speaker 2: have her come to anyone's house because I thought she
Speaker 2: was I knew she was gonna throw up all over
Speaker 2: their bathroom and then it was gonna smell and everyone
Speaker 2: would know. I never wanted to be I didn't want
Speaker 2: meals are part of life. I didn't want to go
Speaker 2: to dinner with her, have dinner at home, have her cook,
Speaker 2: have her talk about food, have it.
Speaker 3: I just.
Speaker 2: It just was like a big pediment. Impediment. So addiction,
Speaker 2: you know, when they say addiction is Steve Madden, I
Speaker 2: always bring him back. He said, addiction is your number one,
Speaker 2: Like it's your safety, your control, your your best friend,
Speaker 2: your lover, your your and you are incapable of being
Speaker 2: on a with anybody else. And you are incapable of
Speaker 2: true human connection if you're an addict, because you are
Speaker 2: already completely committed to something else, and it's impossible to
Speaker 2: be a full parent. So many of you have, you know,
Speaker 2: addiction issues in your family too, And I feel you.
Speaker 2: I feel all of it, and so I'm hoping and
Speaker 2: I just want you to know that this is a lot,
Speaker 2: and I know that it's a lot, and I really
Speaker 2: haven't had any place to put it. And I've been writing,
Speaker 2: and I've been thinking, and I've been listening to a
Speaker 2: lot of music and walking walking if you're going through something,
Speaker 2: walking is so helpful. I just walk outside my house water,
Speaker 2: hot bath, cold, shower, like Water's helpful. And I do
Speaker 2: believe that you have to go through it. And I
Speaker 2: just hope that my healing process will help yours, because
Speaker 2: it's been all this toxins stuck inside of me.
Speaker 3: And this woman.
Speaker 2: I was reading this article that this woman, Barbie Adler,
Speaker 2: she was quoted and she was saying that until you
Speaker 2: to get it to a relationship, you have to be
Speaker 2: a person that you'd want to be in a relationship with,
Speaker 2: like yourself, your full self. And I was thinking about
Speaker 2: how I haven't been my full self.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know how I could have been my full
Speaker 2: self with all this stuff. And it's weird the things
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about. It's weird thinking about Ramona on the
Speaker 2: bridge saying to me, you're gonna you know, you can't,
Speaker 2: you won't be loved, or you have no friends, or
Speaker 2: things like that, because those kind of things hurt, but
Speaker 2: they're also why I have very few friends, why why
Speaker 2: I have close, close, close friends. I don't trust anybody,
Speaker 2: and I keep my circle very tight because the defining,
Speaker 2: original trusting relationships that that mold you and give you
Speaker 2: the foundation to have future trusting relationships I didn't have.
Speaker 2: I did not that, I didn't even have role models.
Speaker 2: I didn't have that like attachment feeling.
Speaker 3: I was alone. I've been alone my.
Speaker 2: Entire life, So that's why I'm alone a lot now.
Speaker 2: So thank you guys for listening. And I hope on
Speaker 2: some level this helps you to heal and to forgive
Speaker 2: and to forgive yourself and to be loving and graceful
Speaker 2: to yourself, thank you