WEBVTT - Defensive Wounds 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.840 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:08.760 This episode contains descriptions of violence. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.560 Even after all these years, I'm too aware of the 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:19.799 chef's knife. When my husband and I cook dinner. It 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:23.159 might as well glow neon if I take it to 0:00:23.200 --> 0:00:25.800 the sync to rents, I say knife behind, as if 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.800 we were still working in a restaurant together, because somewhere 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.840 inside me, a video is constantly playing handle in hand, 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.320 Blade in flesh. 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:45.159 That's Aaron Mcreynold's essayist editor, self described problem solver. Erin's 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:48.879 is a story on the one hand, of violence, trauma, 0:00:49.040 --> 0:00:53.239 and the complicated legacy of rage. It is, on the 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:59.880 other hand, an extraordinary tale of compassion, strength, forgiveness, embassy 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:16.000 and the resilience of one woman's spirit. I'm Danny Shapiro, 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.039 and this is family Secrets. The secrets that are kept 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:21.600 from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:30.040 secrets we keep from ourselves. Tell me about the landscape 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:32.720 of your childhood, where you grew up, what it looked like, 0:01:32.880 --> 0:01:33.520 what it was like. 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:38.440 I was born in Orange County, California, in nineteen seventy six. 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:42.280 I always think of Orange County, California in the seventies 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:44.600 as being very amber. And I don't know if it's 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:47.920 just because all my pictures are amber, but everything was 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:53.280 so beautiful, peaceful, hippyish, like a very fleetwood max feeling. 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.160 Even the waves in California if you grew up there 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.720 saying ssh all the time, and it was like an 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:06.080 idyllic childhood for the first several years. Mom met dad 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.520 when she was maybe nineteen and he was twenty five 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.760 at a party where he was playing guitar. He was 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:17.760 very handsome, very charismatic, and this incredibly talented singer and songwriter, 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.800 and he had these ambitions of success in music. She 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:25.360 got pregnant when she was about twenty one with me. 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:28.760 They got married right away, and he was from a big, 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:34.280 tight knit evangelical family. But my mom's family, grandma, got 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:37.640 pregnant when she was seventeen, thought of high school, and 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:41.360 she was an utter romantic who just bought the whole 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.720 idea of a loving husband and fulfillment through motherhood. Bought 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:48.600 the whole thing. And my grandpa was also seventeen and 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:53.000 promised her the sun, moon and the stars. And then 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.520 after she dropped out and they had the baby and 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:59.000 had been married. He enlisted in the army and just disappeared. 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:02.920 It was an excuse to party for two years. He 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:08.000 didn't leave America. He was somewhere like Oklahoma, Tennessee, and 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:11.680 only came home once in a while, and when he 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:14.400 did he was just in a terrible frame of mind, 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:18.239 terrible mood. My grandmother later told me that she felt 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.400 like he was jealous of my mom and real bitter. 0:03:21.919 --> 0:03:24.639 And she once told me that on her wedding day 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.480 in January nineteen fifty four, there was both an earthquake 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:30.840 and snow in Los Angeles, and she always wondered if 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.959 that was a bad omen, and it really did set 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.360 the stage for the childhood my mom would have with them. 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:43.000 Grandpa came home and became an alcoholic very quickly, was 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:47.320 a chronic philander, and in spite of that, they had 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:51.840 two more kids. So my aunt, my mom's sister, was 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.400 a couple years younger, but she was much bigger and stronger, 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.440 and she would beat my mom up a lot when 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.480 they were kids. So I think the instant my mom 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:05.520 graduated from high school, she was out of there. She 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:07.960 went to live with friends by the beach, and this 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:10.960 is around the time she met my dad. So, as 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.280 the family lore has it, my grandfather never told my 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:18.320 mom that he loved her. My dad would deride my 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:23.520 mom's family as being crazy, as being violent, hostile, alcoholics. 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:28.440 This became how I understood that family. I was around 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.160 them all the time, and I was steeped in this 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.279 low level violence. In fact, one of my earliest memories 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:38.440 is around the time I was seven or eight, my 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.640 aunt beat my mom up in a parking lot of 0:04:41.720 --> 0:04:44.640 a grocery store in front of all of us kids, 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.000 Me and my brother and my cousin. We were all 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:50.080 screaming and crying while she just beat the holy hell 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.120 out of my mom, and people were walking by and 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.479 they didn't know what to do. And that was just 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.839 the vibe of that family. Things could go from zero 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:00.560 to one hundred real quickly. 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:06.320 How did that feel to you as a kid, That 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.440 moment must have been terrifying. That was there, this feeling 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.920 running alongside your childhood of this can happen at any moment. 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:21.279 Yeah. Absolutely, I felt like everybody was volatile and brimming 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:27.200 beneath the surface was this rage and this violence. And 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:30.640 I've heard from other kids who grew up in families 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.200 like this, and you either become a clown or you 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.039 become an eggshell walker, or a little bit of both. 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.000 You can become a chameleon, you can become someone who 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:43.240 chronically pleases. I feel like I did all those things. 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.599 I grew up to be quite a ham. I was funny, 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.200 I sang for my supper. But I also developed this 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:57.400 extreme sensitivity and this radar for knowing the mood someone 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.240 was in. If I was at my grandparentarent's house, my 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:04.719 grandfather constantly had a drink tinkling in his hand. He 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:06.880 would refill from a giant jug of vodka on top 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:12.120 of the fridge, and he was cold and gruff, and 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:13.840 if you wanted to hang out with him, you'd find 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:16.760 him in the den watching any number of sports skins 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.440 on TV, and you could come in and have a 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:23.160 forward conversation with him. And I just thought it was 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.320 delightful in some way. I didn't know what a grandpa 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.159 was supposed to really be like, and I think I 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:35.160 found him funny. And my grandmother had this. She took 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:39.680 that utter heartbreak from believing in love and believing that 0:06:39.880 --> 0:06:42.520 having a family was going to be everything, and then 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:46.880 having a husband who was a distant, cheating, alcoholic. She 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.800 shoved all that grief and rage way deep down. And 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.080 this is another really equally important part of my family's 0:06:54.160 --> 0:07:00.479 legacy is she modeled shoving down rage and sorrow for 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:04.720 my mother, and my mother did the same, so that 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:07.240 when she and my father started to fight more and 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:11.120 more and they began to split up right around the 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.400 time I was nine or ten, her outbursts would be 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:19.440 so incredibly violent. They were just loud and not terribly physical. 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.240 Yet this would come later. But over the years she 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.040 I noticed she would drink more and more to what 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:31.000 I thought of as access that rage. When she wasn't drinking, 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:33.760 she was so quiet and shy, and she would pick 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:36.880 her lip and just look thoughtfully like she was trying 0:07:36.880 --> 0:07:39.640 to gather her thoughts or gather her courage to say something. 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:43.600 But when she drank, this other side of her came out, 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:48.560 a side that was funny and brassy and brave and bold. 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:51.560 We grow up in whatever family we grow up in. 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.080 And that's like you said, I didn't know what a 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:56.680 grandpa was supposed to be like, I describe it. 0:07:56.640 --> 0:07:59.120 As a seed. Not being able to describe the inside 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:04.040 of a tusk, you don't know any separation between yourself 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.560 and this world you're in. You just absorb. And what 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:14.600 I think I absorbed was grief. Don't show it, don't 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:19.240 feel it, don't express it. Rage. When you do express it, 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.280 it's going to be big and it's going to be scary. 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:24.680 So where do those things go? The kids have to 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:26.760 hold it, and where do the kids hold it? They 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:29.600 grow up to either drink it away shove it down 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.079 where it becomes anxiety and depression. I wanted to distance 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.160 myself from anger. Anger was dangerous and scary, and I 0:08:36.160 --> 0:08:39.240 don't think I ever saw anyone handle anger in a 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:41.240 healthy way. 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:43.680 If you felt anger, would you even know that you 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:44.360 were feeling it? 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:47.400 That's a good question. There's a couple of ways to 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:52.520 answer that. When I developed some interesting nervous ticks, I 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:56.040 compulsively cleaned, Like around the time my mom left us 0:08:56.120 --> 0:08:58.040 the first time, when I was nine or ten, right 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:00.800 before they sat me down the table and said we're 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:02.800 splitting up, who do you want to live with? She 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:04.920 had left and it was just my dad, and I 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:10.480 think he was probably a lot harder to live with 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.839 than I can remember. I'm pretty sure I was absorbing 0:09:14.280 --> 0:09:16.719 some pretty scary anger on his side, and this is 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:19.400 the guy that had been my best friend. And so 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:22.840 to deal with it, I polished the furniture, I cleaned 0:09:22.880 --> 0:09:25.040 the glass. The things I understood how to clean, I 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:29.520 would just clean them compulsively. I think I was trying 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.800 to make the atmosphere better and more peaceful. And then 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:36.800 sometimes I would just run away. And by run away, 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:38.840 I mean I'd rent to the next apartment building over 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:43.240 with my diary. And right, I hate them. I hate them. 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:47.440 They're crazy. I hate them. I also started in third grade. 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.880 I guess maybe fourth grade I started blacking out in class, 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.000 or I might have even gone semi catatonic. I used 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:58.920 to tense up my entire body, clench my eyes, my teeth, 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.959 my fists, and just releaf and do that over and over. 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.120 And it was so compulsive I couldn't stop myself doing that. 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:11.680 And a teacher must have noticed, because she took me 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:14.160 to lunch one day and said, I just went through 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:16.920 a divorce, and this is what divorce is. And this 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.160 is the early eighties, not a lot of people were 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:23.840 getting divorced, so her just acknowledging that this was a 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:28.120 thing that happens. I felt seen and safe in that moment, 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.240 and believe it or not, she was able to actually 0:10:30.280 --> 0:10:32.200 convince my parents to let me come to her house 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.520 for the weekend, which is such a thing I think 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.640 teachers used to be able to do with students that 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:41.720 they took a keen interest in in a really honest 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:45.439 and pure way that now we don't acknowledge so much anymore. 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.200 We just assume the worst intentions. But she wanted me 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:52.320 to come experience some normalcy and peace. I imagine she 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:54.720 knew my parents were fighting. I think it was the 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:59.880 first time an adult in my life, without saying these words, 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.800 sort of acknowledge that what I was going through was 0:11:02.840 --> 0:11:08.200 not normal or write or easy, that there could be 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:12.480 another way. That special treatment made me realize that maybe 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:18.920 my circumstances deserved a little extra sensitivity. I was too 0:11:18.960 --> 0:11:22.800 young to really cognitively understand any of that. When my 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.679 parents split up, they sat me down at the table 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:30.120 and said, Okay, mom's gonna leave this school district, So 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.520 if you stay with her in the area, you are 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:34.160 still going to have to leave your school and start 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:36.400 over somewhere else, and you're gonna live with her and 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.480 your brother, or you can live with your dad, your 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:45.360 fun friend in Reno, Nevada, where he's gonna pursue a 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.760 different business venture. And so I chose him like immediately, 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:53.080 and later it made me really sad for my mother 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:57.199 how fast I chose him. But I didn't really understand 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.440 the full weight of the decision I was making. 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:03.160 What about your brother Arin, Did he stay with your 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:04.640 mother or did he also go with your father? 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:07.560 He stayed with my mother because he was about three 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:10.600 years younger. They agreed that, you know, a younger child 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.959 does better with the mother. And also I was very 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:22.200 kind of independent. I had a strong personality. Later I'll 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.800 look back and think, of course, I would be the 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:30.760 easier one to move with my dad, because what I 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.560 didn't realize was that she was planning to just leave 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.640 me alone all the time. I got left alone constantly. 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:40.080 As soon as we moved to Reno. He left me 0:12:40.200 --> 0:12:44.320 with strangers, like a girl that worked reception at the 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:48.080 apartment building and her boyfriend, and then a woman that 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.520 he hired for the new office that they were working in, 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.240 and often just alone. I'd come home from school alone. 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:58.360 I wouldn't see him sometimes for days. I was only 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.520 with him for a few months Reno was just a blip. 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.400 It was the rest of fifth grade. And then he 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.160 sent me back to live with my mom and they 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.600 tricked me into it, and I was enraged, But I 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:15.839 had to live with my mom and my brother, and 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:17.839 I had to start a new school. In fact, I 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.600 would start a new school every year for five years, 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:23.720 bouncing back and forth between my mom and dad. My 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.000 dad would dangle living with him in front of me, 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.640 and I would go for it, and then he would 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:33.040 leave me alone all the time, and then I would 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.520 end up back with my mom. It was a lot 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.800 of instability. So I learned how to get along, find 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:42.960 my people, bring out the best parts of my personality, 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:47.800 hide everything that was inconvenient or scary, and I really 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:52.880 learned the value of seduction, seducing new groups of people 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:57.079 and friends to stay safe. When my mom left us, 0:13:57.600 --> 0:14:00.439 she went to go live with this new boy friend 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:02.880 and his family, and we would come visit her at 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:05.959 this place, and it was just foreign and a little 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:09.720 scary and weird, but also delightful in that way that 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:11.640 things are when you're a kid and you're just adapting. 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:13.760 I really liked their garden. I would go out and 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:16.480 water these people's garden. Oh oh, they have ho hose 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.200 in the fridge. I was excited about the ho hose 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:23.080 and the fridge. But we went to go see Aliens 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:27.200 opening night in the theater, me, my mom and all 0:14:27.240 --> 0:14:29.760 of her new friends, these adults I did not know 0:14:29.800 --> 0:14:33.120 who all represented this completely new part of my mom's wife, 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.760 and they were all probably drunk. We were late to 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:39.480 the theater, and the only seats we could get we're 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:41.920 in the front row. And so there I am, ten 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.400 years old in the front row of Aliens, a very 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.400 scary movie, which is to this day my favorite movie. 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:53.080 I'm completely obsessed with it. But we're watching Aliens, and 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:58.560 I think I absorbed that everything that was happening, with 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:02.120 the splitting up of my family and my mom becoming 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.120 this different person and these people around her different and 0:15:05.200 --> 0:15:09.960 all this sudden certainty. And I started to have nightmares 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:14.000 that night about Aliens, and I would have them, no joke, 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:17.480 every night for the next ten years. It became a 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:22.000 recurring nightmare for years, and I doped. A very strong 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:27.240 sort of personal relationship with the Aliens franchise that continues 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.680 to this day. Came up in therapy a lot, and 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.160 my therapist was a union, and he pointed out that 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:39.160 there's hr Geiger and Young have a lot of archetypal 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.400 crossover in their work. And I used to think that 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:46.160 Alien represented the anxiety of what was happening in my family, 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:52.000 But I now understand it's where my ten year old 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:56.120 rage went. That rage that I couldn't show anybody because 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.440 my parents would be angry. They would already leave. They 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:02.400 were threatening, believe all the time. And now if I 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:06.320 was angry, all that rage I saw, not modeled well, 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:09.040 would drive them even further away and really put me 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:12.240 in danger. So I think I absorbed the rage and 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:18.080 I expressed it in my dreams through this horrifying, hateful 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.520 monster was just total bloodlust. 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:27.880 So fascinating the way that that particular exposition of that 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:32.920 film front row these people, these strangers in this strange 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:37.000 place all conspired to be the perfect storm that had 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.360 that happened, which is also an adaptation. That was you 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:45.560 adapting in a way. Yeah, Did you tend to let 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:47.920 people in and let them know what was going on 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.120 at home or was that something that you kept very 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:52.320 much to yourself at first? 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:57.720 I really kept it to myself. I think around ninth 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:02.000 or tenth grade, I got involved in theater, and theater 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:06.000 is such a great place for people to go and 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:12.920 share the most dramatic and horrible parts of their personal lives. 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:18.679 For Cachet, like, yes, it was other kids, but it 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:26.480 was theater, and theater really rewarded big stories, big outrageous personalities. 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:31.600 So I didn't really let anybody know that I had 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:37.359 this scary life at home because kids tend to push 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.960 away from them to reject things that are not familiar. 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:43.560 But when you get a little older, I really found 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.080 my people around tenth grade in high school, when I 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:48.960 was in theater and I started to let more of 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:51.600 my story come out. And around this time, we were 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:56.240 living with my mom's boyfriend and she was drinking more 0:17:56.440 --> 0:18:01.239 he drank. They had friends over, they all drank. I 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:05.440 hated our life. We lived in a hovel full of 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:09.200 like roaches and spiders, and I knew it wasn't normal 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:12.960 to have your parents' friends over drinking all the time 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:15.280 on school nights, and I lived across an alley from 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:18.439 a liquor store. I couldn't bring my friends home. What 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:20.840 teenage girl wants to bring her friends home to something 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:25.719 like that? She was really showing her anger a lot more. 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.840 I think she had all this really unprocessed rage at 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:32.720 my father, and I found out later as I grew 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.240 up with him too, that my dad could be kind 0:18:35.240 --> 0:18:38.400 of a shit. He could be emotionally abusive, verbally abusive 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.520 in that way that really smart people who understand psychology 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:46.159 can be, and it cut her in ways that re 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:50.800 traumatized her father. Wound than never feeling loved by the 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:54.240 male figure in her life and having no mother who 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:59.520 could mirror that kind of self esteem to her, she 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:01.840 would have to access it by drinking, and then when 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:03.879 she drank, all that rage would come out, all that 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.680 pent up rage. And this boyfriend, I think was starting 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:09.840 to after a couple of years, feel the effects of 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.159 having two teenage kids in his small home, and he 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:18.480 would start staying out later and they would fight. And 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.040 there was a couple of times where she threw something 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:24.720 at his head and it went past him out the window. 0:19:24.760 --> 0:19:27.840 It broke the window and there was broken glass on 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:30.000 the floor. And there was another time, maybe it was 0:19:30.040 --> 0:19:32.280 the same fight, where he had to grab her and 0:19:32.400 --> 0:19:36.000 hold her arms, and I, just fifteen years old, jumped 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:38.680 on him and started punching him in the back, and 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:44.399 one day he was telling me off in a pretty 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:48.440 typical step dad to a brady teenager way. He got 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:52.879 really in my face and he never laid a finger 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:55.679 on me, but I wanted him to, because I needed 0:19:55.960 --> 0:20:00.359 all of this tension to just culminate and break into 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:03.119 something I could point to. I felt like nothing that 0:20:03.160 --> 0:20:04.760 was happening to me was something I could point to 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.119 and say, this is really bad, so I was waiting 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:13.159 for something more universally recognizable to happen. And so he 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:15.280 just looked at me in my face and said, you 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:17.320 were a little brat, And I said, why don't you 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:22.320 just beat it into me? And he just really, ever 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.399 so softly snacked me the littlest bit on the cheek, 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.720 not even enough to hurt. But I was already mad 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:33.359 as a hornet, and I decided he was going down 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.760 for that. And so the next morning I put on 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:40.679 I makeup really convincingly, like a black eye, and I 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:44.160 went to school and my idea was just to really 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:46.800 wear sunglasses. And my mom was going to drop me 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:48.959 off at school, and I thought, maybe she'll see it 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:51.520 before I get there, and then we'll have a conversation. 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:54.240 Maybe I'll get my mom's attention, but no, she dropped 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.119 me off without even noticing. Now I have to commit 0:20:57.160 --> 0:20:59.520 to this. I'm walking into school, I've got these sunglasses on. 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.080 My friend are going what is that? What's going on? 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:04.760 And I, oh, it got into a fight with mom's boyfriend. 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:08.600 Just very dramatic, theatrical. But when I get to a classroom, 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:11.560 that's when a teacher notices and pulls me out of 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:15.480 his class and says, who did this to you? And 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:17.600 I think, well, I'm not going to outright lie and 0:21:17.640 --> 0:21:20.520 say he did it, but I'm not gonna not say 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:23.960 he did it either. So the teacher went through a 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:25.919 list of possible people in my life it could have 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:27.439 hit me, and I said no to all of them 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:32.479 until he said mom's boyfriend, and I just shrugged. And 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:36.520 that night child Protective Services came to the house, and 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:41.280 it was horrible. I had to admit that I had 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.840 done this thing. I was so ashamed, and I was 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.439 so angry that they were there, and I was so 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:49.679 self conscious that they were there, and seeing like the 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.879 hole in the window, the dog dying on a mattress 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:57.280 in the front yard, is drinking parents, and now there's 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:02.359 a witness to it, and not only that, but my 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:06.720 mom's boyfriend was accused basically of Even though I said 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:09.280 it was a hoax or that I made the whole 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:11.959 thing up, it was a misunderstanding, it still gave him 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:15.840 a record. And my mom was livid, and she said, 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:18.560 you know, you gave this guy a record. This is 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:20.879 going to be hit with him forever. And I was 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:23.119 crying my eyes out and she was like, good you cry. 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:28.159 And all I wanted was for somebody to just acknowledge 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.000 that things were hard for me and that they were bad, 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:33.320 and that I was growing up in violence and I 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:36.960 didn't know how to get that attention any other way. 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:39.320 And then I did this, and I went too far. 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:44.239 It's interesting because in a way, I'm struck by that 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:48.359 you didn't turn it, at least at that point in 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:52.720 your life on yourself. This is where a lot of 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:55.879 people end up turning the punishment inward. 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:00.720 It is interesting. You know how I actually coped. I 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:04.359 went into my fantasies of my future, my dreams, and 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:07.560 I had these strong dreams about being an actress and 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:11.399 being loved by the whole world and being successful and 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:13.800 being in charge of my life. And I was going 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:17.679 to flee this scene the minute I got a chance to, 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:20.439 and by this scene, I meet the whole family, the 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:23.879 whole sad family legacy. I was going to survive it, 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:27.320 whatever that meant, and so I couldn't do any of 0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:29.760 the things they did. I wasn't going to drink or 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:32.280 use drugs. I was going to go all the way 0:23:32.280 --> 0:23:34.480 through college, be the first person in my mom's family 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:37.919 to go to college. I was going to just be 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:42.160 a great success and have my shit together. That's how 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:44.360 I was going to rebel. 0:23:47.240 --> 0:23:50.960 Rebelling by getting her shit together, by doing well on 0:23:51.000 --> 0:23:54.720 the essats, by getting into college at San Francisco State. 0:23:55.840 --> 0:23:59.960 Nobody helps Erin to accomplish all this. It's a rebellion, 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:03.720 after all. She takes herself to school, drives up with 0:24:03.760 --> 0:24:08.720 a boyfriend. In her third semester, Erin finds out she's pregnant. 0:24:09.440 --> 0:24:14.040 She feels sick, immediately violently ill. She has to wait 0:24:14.080 --> 0:24:16.080 a couple of weeks before she can get an abortion. 0:24:17.160 --> 0:24:21.600 During this cascade of unfortunate circumstances, she ends up dropping 0:24:21.600 --> 0:24:25.200