WEBVTT - Band of Men 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.360 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. The 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:09.400 following episode contains explicit details of sexual abuse. Listener discretion 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:17.400 is advised. It was the assistant headmaster. He was our 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:20.520 soccer coach, he was our lacrosse coach, um, and he 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:24.680 ran the boys acounts. This is Tim Erlick, a fifty 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:28.320 year old bariatric surgeon, looking back on his childhood. As 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.520 a ten eleven twelve year old boy, Tim was methodically, 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:36.000 relentlessly sexually abused, along with dozens of other boys, by 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.600 a middle school teacher named Sad Alton at the Pingree School, 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.200 an elite New Jersey day school. This is a story 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.199 about the worst sort of secret, the kind that festers 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:48.640 and grows over the course of a lifetime until it 0:00:48.680 --> 0:01:00.920 becomes unbearable, impossible to hold. I'm d Ni Shapiro, and 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:04.680 this is family secrets. The secrets that are kept from us, 0:01:05.120 --> 0:01:08.040 the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:17.000 keep from ourselves. In June, Tim, along with twenty other men, bankers, lawyers, 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:21.520 real estate developers, a social worker, a high school principal, psychologist, 0:01:22.400 --> 0:01:26.600 approached the Pingree School. They called themselves the Pingree Survivors, 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.319 and they were looking for some kind of justice, if 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:33.319 justice was even possible. On a fall afternoon, Tim and 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:36.320 I spent hours and hours on the phone, me hunched 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.920 over my recording equipment and my son's old playroom. My 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:42.679 son is now a college freshman, but during those hours, 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:45.839 I looked around the room at football posters, plastic bins 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:50.520 of legos, dented abandoned boxes of board games, scrabble, Monopoly, 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:53.360 shoots and ladders, and I thought about what it is 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:58.360 to be a boy ten twelve, all knobby knees, skinny 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:02.520 shoulder blades and downy cheeks, still a child just beginning 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:07.640 to stretch and yearn to be bigger, older. So my 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:12.960 mom is from Stylingtown. My grandmother family was all from Vienna, 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:17.720 and almost all of them except for her, her mom 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:20.680 and her three sisters and my great aunts and my 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:24.320 great grandmother immigrated to the United States, but the rest 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:26.800 of the family was all lost in the Holocaust. Tim 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:28.680 is the fourth out of six kids, part of a 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:31.440 Jewish family who moved to suburban New Jersey and were 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:33.200 fortunate enough to be able to send their kids to 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:36.600 private school, the Bucolic campus of Pingree's Lower School. In 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:38.800 short Hills is about as far away from his mom's 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.560 New York City Stuyvesant Town or his dad's Southwestern Georgia 0:02:42.600 --> 0:02:47.040 as you can imagine. It's a place that looks safe, 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:51.120 constted by manicured privilege, as if nothing bad could ever 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:54.160 happen there. I know this because I was also a 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:57.160 student at the Pingree School during that time. I knew 0:02:57.160 --> 0:02:59.280 many of these boys. I even dated one of them 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.799 when I was in seven grade. This is Tim's story, 0:03:02.960 --> 0:03:05.480 but imagine it amplified by so many boys in this 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.440 one school, and then again in schools all over America. 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.960 Just in the past two years, haras Man Rama's taft 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.200 Hot Guests, St. Paul's, and other institutions charged with the 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:19.400 education and protection of their students have been embroiled in 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:23.280 controversies as the truth tumbles out, as truth tends to do. 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:26.920 Tim entered Pingree in the fourth grade on the heels 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.519 of his older brother Andy. Andy at that time was 0:03:29.560 --> 0:03:33.440 in seventh grade, and Andy was the king of the Hill. 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:38.360 He was captain lacrosse team, buying for student body president. 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:40.920 So when I started at Pingery, my mom was like, 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:43.480 you know, you need to meet Teddalton, need to be 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.640 a boy Scout and automatically, you know, coming from a 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.160 big family like that, all the teachers know you. Everybody 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.200 at Pingrey knows you. You're little to me early, you know, 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.720 and that's how people still call me that. And it 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.800 was kind of nice because the older girls that you 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.520 know that Andy was friends with, you know, we're talking 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:03.800 to me, and the older guys are cool to me. 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.280 And he was great. Now. I started with the Boy 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.040 Scouts in fourth grade, when usually it was probably like 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:11.000 the fifth or sixth grade kind of thing that my mom, 0:04:11.240 --> 0:04:13.720 you introduced me to Ted Alton, gave me Tiddleton, I'm 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.680 a golden platter. One of the things that struck me 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:20.920 again and again in all of the descriptions of Ted 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:28.520 Alton was how charismatic and respected and how much he 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:33.640 was considered to be this kind of golden teacher, and 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:37.360 also that he was everywhere. That to me was one 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:39.640 of the most chilling aspects of this was that it's 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.200 almost as if he designed life, or not almost as 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:45.239 if he It seems like he did design a life 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:49.720 in which he would be present in every possible way 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.320 for the boys that he was going after. I didn't 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:56.960 have them to a teacher until sixth grade. He was 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.919 a sixth grade like social studies teacher um, but for 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:06.720 soccer and lacrosse and obviously both scouts. It was our 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.320 quote unquote tripping counselor, so he was in charge of 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:15.960 taking us on these amazing I mean, I dream about 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:20.960 these excursions through the woods and waters of Maine, and 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:26.159 we would go whitewater canoeing on the Penobscott and the 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:29.679 Allagash and the Saco River, and running down the bluffs 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:35.440 at the Socco and and see buried villages Black staff. Honestly, 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:42.960 that's what makes this all again so pray, is that 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:45.440 they were probably some of the best members of my life. 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:50.600 In the Pingree survivors approached the school in search of answers. 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:53.960 They wanted the school to take responsibility for the history 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:57.200 that had so traumatized them. Pingree's lawyers retained a private 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:01.359 security firm to conduct an independent investigation. The cover page 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.159 of the ensuing report carries a warning that the material 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:12.240 is sensitive, personal and graphic and not intended for children. Quote. 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:15.520 The evidence demonstrates that between nineteen seventy two and nineteen 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.400 seventy eight, while employed by Short Hills Country Day and 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:24.400 Pingree Thad Alton sexually assaulted at least twenty seven students. 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:28.719 Alton's behavior permeated multiple facets of the former students lives, 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:34.240 since some former students simultaneously attended Pingree, Camp Wacanaki and 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:37.279 were part of Boy Scout Troop number sixty four that 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:42.040 regularly met on school grounds in a number of different locations, 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:46.440 including his office at school during the school day, after 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.640 school in the evenings and on week ends, the school 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.200 gymnasium and the girls locker room, the home of his 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.960 in laws, his own school owned home at times when 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.919 his wife and children were present, the home of a 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.960 former student on Boy Scout camping trips, his summer home 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:07.400 in Martha's Vineyard, his truck and Camp Waganaki, including on 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:12.000 camping trips, and inside his own cabin. In particular, the 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:15.680 sexual contact that occurred inside Alton's office and elsewhere included 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:20.040 Alton's touching a student's naked penises with his hands, the 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.080 students touching of Alton's naked penis with their hands at 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:27.520 Alton's request, Alton's placement of student's hands on his naked 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.600 penis to masturbate him, Alton masturbating in front of students 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:36.240 while encouraging students to masturbate the mutual touching of students 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:40.800 naked penises. Alton often invited groups of boys into his 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.960 office as well, and had boys touched each other's penises 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.000 and then coaxed them to perform oral sex on him 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:52.600 and or each other. In addition, Alton used heterosexual pornographic 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:55.840 magazines and movies to entice the boys to touch their 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.440 own penises, those of each other, and that of Alton. 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.160 For my mom, here's my mom. You know these kids, 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:10.320 work aholic husband, We've never ever involved in my life, 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:15.080 never coached any of mine, little league or anything. Um, 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.840 I didn't really know him growing up. And so for me, 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:20.960 Ted Alton was sort of a savior because here's this masculine, 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:26.040 outdoorsy guy, lacrosse coach, soccer coach. My mom it was 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:29.520 he's a father figure, you know. And it was probably 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:31.800 about sixth grade, and she said to me, she said, 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.240 I know Ted Alton. He she had she knew that 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:37.440 something's going on. She's not a fucking idiot. She knew 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:40.520 that that Ted Alton, you know, I was doing something 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.000 with boys. But she said to me, she said, Ted 0:08:43.040 --> 0:08:46.400 Alton will never touch you because he doesn't like Jewish boys. 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.160 But it was more important for her to have him 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:51.600 in my life as a father figure, even though she 0:08:51.679 --> 0:08:55.440 knew that he was probably, you know, doing something sexual 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:58.920 with these boys. And it really didn't think into me, 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:03.920 like until last year, of how she sort of navigated 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:07.920 that situation. At the point when she said that to 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.800 you that he wouldn't touch Jewish boys, had he already 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.319 made an approach to you? Oh yes, I've already been 0:09:15.360 --> 0:09:18.560 two years as a boy scout. I was like, yeah, mom, 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:24.080 you know, Okay, No, he's already made his mark. We're 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.040 going to take a quick break. We'll be back in 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:34.120 a moment. This is a story at its core that 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.560 is about the failure of adults, or, in the words 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.840 of Edmund Burke, the only thing necessary for the triumph 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.560 of evil is for good men to do nothing. What 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.080 did Tim's mother know? What did other mothers or fathers suspect? 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.640 A question that emerges again and again. How could this 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:54.840 abuse have gone on right under the noses of so 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.360 many grown ups? Yeah it was. I mean, I'm a 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:03.000 short Jewish kid and this powering, six three big guy 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:06.040 who's in the military, but with a big smile, and 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:09.120 he was known for his bear hugs. That's how he 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.640 got the nickname Bear. But I remember the pants he wore. 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:16.640 He always worthy, sort of like polyester pants, which we 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.840 had laugh at nowadays, you know nowadays in blue shirts 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:24.560 and a black tie and a certain smell. When Tim 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:27.199 is in sixth grade, he runs away from home a 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.079 couple of times, and instead of getting on a train 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.960 or a bus and going to New York, he calls 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:37.520 Ted Alton, and Ted caused him his parents and talks 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.400 him into going back home. And then in wood Shock, 0:10:40.480 --> 0:10:43.520 I made him a plaque. I said thanks, and he 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:45.560 kept that in his office, you know, for all the 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.679 you know, probably for years, probably still has it for 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:52.880 all I know. And how fucked up is that? And 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:55.480 I guess in some ways he was kind of a 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.559 first love, maybe the father figure who crossed the line. 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.440 But we all felt loved by him. And that's why 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:04.080 no one said anything, because if we don't want him 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:06.080 to get hurt, and we also got something out of it. 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:08.679 It was there was a pleasure to it. What kind 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.720 of a crush in sixth grade. But on the flip side, 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:15.800 I would also being gratified by ten Alton and other 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.360 boys because the boy scouts and it was very confused, 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:24.400 extremely confusing. There's a psychological theory called imprinting, in which 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.160 a young animal learns the characteristics of a desirable meat. 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.760 Just think of ducklings following their mother. There are key moments, 0:11:32.120 --> 0:11:35.320 vulnerable moments, when his imprinting can occur, and when it does, 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:41.480 it can have lasting, even permanent consequences. Tim hates this theory, 0:11:41.760 --> 0:11:43.880 which was mentioned to him by a therapist. He quickly 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.439 fired and I get it. He doesn't want to think 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:50.040 of himself as permanently branded altered forever by the abuse 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.680 of Ted Alton. But what is the sexuality of a ten, eleven, 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:58.240 twelve year old boy? In many religious traditions, thirteen is 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.120 the age when manhood first begins. What does it do 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:05.280 to a psyche to have powerful sexual feelings triggered before 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:07.120 a boy is ready and in the hands of a 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.160 skilled predator who was an honor to be invited into 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.120 t and there would be other boys there, And it 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.160 all started out very tame is game truth or dare? 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.880 And then it was then it became you know, more 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.000 dares and less truths. And what happened is it sort 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:26.600 of spawns these relationships with these other boys, and for years, 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:31.680 these other boys do things without head around. I slept 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:34.120 with multiple sets of brothers, not at the same time, 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.360 but a brother my age, and you know, one kid 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:40.000 my age and his older brother want the brother who 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:44.760 slept at each other. So it's really really dark and dirty, 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.679 and it's it's the conversation that nobody wants to have. 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:56.960 So having all that be so knitted together with love 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.199 for this, you know, seemingly loving a father figure year 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.240 and then everybody else who's in this kind of chosen 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.600 band of boys, I mean, it would be impossible to 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:14.520 be anything other than just horrendously confused. One of the 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:18.800 things that I found in in digging into the material 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.280 was the way in which Ted said to many of 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:25.480 the boys, this is our secret. And there was some 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:29.880 combination both of loyalty to him and of almost a 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:33.680 kind of implicit threat of no one can know about this, 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:39.000 but also the potent combination of I've got the report 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:43.160 in front of me, um language like reasons for the 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:47.160 lack of reporting by former students, right, you had in 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:50.840 the in the mix of UM for me and some 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.280 of the guys, I know you know, the really deep 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:56.560 doing to loneliness, because again what leads us into Ted's hand. 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:58.680 But you know, an absent father, you know, I mean, 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:01.600 I mean I came from a large family and who 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:04.720 had time for me. I mean, thank God for my grandparents. Um, 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:07.199 but I never felt loved in my house, you know, 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:09.240 I think my parents ever said that to me. And 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:11.840 that's that's what he gave you. He showed us love. 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.240 Here's another quote from the report. It is a well 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.720 known and well documented fact that child victims of abuse, 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:24.560 especially sexual abuse, rarely report that abuse while they're still children. 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.760 In other words, even if they are able to hold 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:29.880 on to it or remember it, it seems like there's 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:33.320 just this feeling of responsibility and shame and so many 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.080 complex feelings that are all tied up in it. I 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.480 think I spent thirty plus years of my life, h 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:43.000 thirty five plus years really thinking that it was my 0:14:43.040 --> 0:14:46.960 own fault, that I thought this out, that I needed 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.320 a father figure, that I enjoyed it, that I wanted it. 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.280 And then there's also to be honest with your boys. 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.920 There's two reasons why you know, boys never talked about this, 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.680 and it's because number one, you're going be accused of 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:05.240 being gay, and number two, you know you're gonna they're 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:07.280 gonna think you're gonna be a child molester one day. 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:12.240 And in nineteen seventy four, seventy five or seventy six 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.840 or whatever, this is being gay is essentially you know 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:18.560 your death tennis, So that is just not gonna happen. 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:21.480 And you get near forties and your fifties and Eve 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.880 internalize all this stuff. And for me, if I didn't 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:26.600 deal with it, I probably wouldn't be alive right now. 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:30.480 When Tim finishes the eighth grade, his family falls on 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:34.560 hard financial times, which precipitates a move to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.240 But Ted Alton had already done all the damage you 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.760 would ever do by the time the boys hit puberty. 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:44.960 He was kind of done with them. By eighth grade, 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:50.360 Tim had aged out. Everybody deals with trauma in a 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.600 different way. Some people turn to sports, some to drugs 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:56.840 and alcohol. Tim just kept himself busy with his studies. 0:15:57.600 --> 0:15:59.840 He graduated at the top of his class in high school, 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.440 got into a great university. He kept busy with front life, 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:07.280 government bita Kappa. He eventually went to medical school and 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:10.480 shose surgery one of the most difficult of all residencies. 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:15.000 He was involved in everything because if he had free time, 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.840 if he was alone with his thoughts, he would go 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:21.120 to a very dark place. There's moments when there was 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:25.240 a holiday or vacation, I'd have a hard time because 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.720 I would just think too much. And I even to 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.840 this day, I don't do well by myself. So that's 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:34.640 how I sort of coped, which you know, I think 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:36.240 it's better than most when I look at some of 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.680 the very high achieving guys. But then there's then there's 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.920 also a group of guys. There's two guys who were 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:47.359 teenagers who killed themselves. They killed themselves when they were teenagers. 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:50.000 Or you mean they killed themselves later, No, they killed 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:58.920 themselves when they were teenagers. Correct. Tim embarks on his 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:02.680 life as a quote on successful adult. At least on 0:17:02.720 --> 0:17:07.679 the outside. He has girlfriends, dates women, enjoy sex with women. 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:11.320 Eventually he gets married and has three children, but there 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.400 are instances in which he finds himself attracted to men. 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:20.000 Because here's the thing, Tim is gay. You know, I 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:24.879 always had attraction to women. I always had long term girlfriends. 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:27.639 You know, there was a part of me that was 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:32.159 attracted two men after I moved. I never acted on 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:35.240 it all through college. I wasn't still he in the 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:39.200 medical school. I had one incident and then had such 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:42.280 negative feelings about it afterwards, felt so much guilt and 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:45.360 shame and nausea. To be honest with you, I don't 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.879 think I vomited, but I just felt so shitty that 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.560 I didn't do anything again for years. Tim, did you 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:58.080 at the time recognize that you're really negative? Almost visceral 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:05.119 physical response was directly tied to that childhood abuse? Not 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:08.240 at all, Not at all. I still think you know 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:10.840 my brain when I thought about Ted and the boy, 0:18:10.840 --> 0:18:14.520 I thought about that man. I was lonely, I was 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.800 looking for a father figure. I enjoyed the sexual gratification. 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.439 And that was the script that I told myself. But 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.040 I still probably tell myself, but maybe that was a better, 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.320 a safer place, that narrative and the reality you know 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.920 in nineteen four that I'm gay and that I was 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.360 sexually abused and my family fucking sucks. So for me, 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:37.320 I think that narrative for me was very self protective 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.359 and un't I don't mean to laugh, but no, I 0:18:40.400 --> 0:18:44.120 think that that's true. And and there's something really powerful 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:47.160 and interesting about adaptation, you know, being able to be 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:54.360 adaptive under even really really extreme circumstances. Tim goes through 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.919 the motions he digs into his bariatric practice. He and 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:00.520 his wife welcomed two girls into the world, and then 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:02.840 his son is born. But there's something about having a 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:07.359 boy that really, um kind of rocked my world, remember 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:12.480 when he was born, and that really led to more 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.399 feelings of my life, of thoughts about me as a 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.080 boy and Pitt and the Voice Scouts and my adventures 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:21.800 and you know what happened to me. And I mean, look, 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.160 I always, I always knew what happened. You know, I didn't. 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:26.159 I'm not one of these people who said, you know, 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:28.040 I never thought about it, and boom, you know, I 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:29.480 read about it and all put it back to me. 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:32.720 Yet I knew every day it happened. I probably thought 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:35.840 about it every single day in my life. But when 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:40.639 he was born, it really became pervasive. At the time, 0:19:40.840 --> 0:19:44.400 Tim lived in Westport, Connecticut. Westport is not too far 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.320 from me, I know it well. If you look up 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:51.480 effluent suburb in the dictionary, Westport's picture would appear, well, 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.199 not really, but you know what I mean. It's a 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:57.720 place where mom's in Lulu lemon yoga pants, push strollers 0:19:57.760 --> 0:20:01.000 down Main Street and tanned fit dad's take their kids 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:05.080 to jiu jitsu and tennis lessons on weekends. A place 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:07.240 where if there is some aspect of your world that 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.679 is secret or painful, you might feel like you're the 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:14.200 only one. Everybody looks like they're living their best life. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.119 My point is Tim tried really hard to wrap up 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:23.560 his secrets and put them away. I've gotten the therapy 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:31.440 in two eight, right around Thanksgiving, really triggered by marital problems, 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.120 work problems. Everything is sort of coming to a head, 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.080 and I was sort of a taking time bomb. I 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:42.240 couldn't keep this sort of house of cards I built. 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.320 I couldn't keep it together any longer. I was really 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:51.320 really struggling. If I hadn't of gotten into therapy and 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.560 really done the work that I need to do, um, 0:20:54.600 --> 0:20:57.000 I probably would not be alive today. And I know that. 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:00.080 I know that. But either I was going to know 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:03.760 myself or I was going to run off the road 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:05.879 driving to New York at three o'clock in the morning 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:10.600 to meet somebody asleep with them after working a twelve 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:15.280 hour day and putting my kids to bed. We're going 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:24.160 to pause for a moment. Even though Tim felt comfortable 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:26.879 with his therapist, he didn't talk about the sexual abuse. 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:29.840 By that Alton, he was trying to keep it all going, 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:34.160 his marriage, his family, his practice, his attraction to men. 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:36.840 And I was in a lot of denial. And I 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:38.879 didn't and I didn't want to talk about it. I 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:40.879 wanted to deal with the problems at hand. I didn't 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.000 really see this that you were that they were all related, 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:46.560 but obviously they were just really hard to admit that. 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:50.720 It really wasn't so much much later that I realized 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:52.800 that I liked being with men because I liked being 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:54.560 with men and had nothing to do with the fact 0:21:54.600 --> 0:22:02.960 that that I was molested as a child. Tim's therapist 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:05.560 asked him to create a timeline of the abuse. The 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:08.800 writing unleashes his memory and also begins to give him 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:12.600 a sense of purpose. So every Friday I started taking 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.399 off and I would sit at the Westport Library and 0:22:15.440 --> 0:22:18.640 I was basically writing for therapy, and it would lead 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:23.040 me to sort of finding people. Well, let me think, well, man, 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:24.639 that kid was next to me in the tent, and 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.320 this guy went to camp with and you know, Wow, 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:32.080 where where are they all now? And so I accumulated 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:36.160 a list of fifty or sixty names. Half were other 0:22:36.280 --> 0:22:39.720 children that I knew for a fact were abused, noe, 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:43.520 more kids I suspected the restaurant or parents who I 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:47.359 felt probably knew. And then there were teachers who was 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:50.359 extremely cathartic to put it on paper. And I started 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:52.840 reaching out to people. I traveled, and I went to 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:54.560 visit some of these guys that I grew up with 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:58.800 to connect, to bond with him, to talk about this, 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:03.600 because I've been thinking about this in my brain for still. 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:07.320 It was like a like a tape cassette's on a loop. Finally, 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:09.639 I just wanted to be able to talk to somebody 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:11.480 about who was there to validate because I thought I 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:14.240 was going crazy. So I was starting to really be 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:22.520 aware and read about stories. I'm somebody who hates picking 0:23:22.600 --> 0:23:24.119 up the phone to call a person who may not 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:27.040 want to hear from me, which is why I'm a novelist, 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:31.080 a memoirist, and now a podcaster and not say an 0:23:31.080 --> 0:23:35.000 investigative journalist. So when I think about what Tim did next, 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:37.800 I'm pretty blown away by the courage it took. I 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:39.760 think you will be too. But that's what sort of 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:41.720 led me on the path. And I did talk to 0:23:41.920 --> 0:23:44.200 a few of these guys, some of them who told 0:23:44.200 --> 0:23:47.280 me to funk off. Who is my number. One of 0:23:47.280 --> 0:23:49.439 the guys have become like a brother to me, like 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:53.120 one of my dearest friends in my life, who when 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:56.480 I actually ended up hiring this law firm, this one 0:23:56.840 --> 0:24:00.240 friend basically told me, he said, look, I'm I'm proud 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:02.800 of you, but I can't talk to you anymore. I 0:24:02.840 --> 0:24:04.959 don't want this in my life. Good luck to you, 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:08.000 but do not ever call me. And it was hurtful, 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:10.320 but I also knew that I needed to go forward 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:13.240 and do this. And fast forward a year later and 0:24:13.600 --> 0:24:16.679 being his brother, both point us and it has been 0:24:16.760 --> 0:24:18.960 the best thing that he has ever done in his life. 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:23.000