WEBVTT - Letter of Extenuating Circumstances 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:02.759 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:04.000 --> 0:00:08.080 This episode contains discussion of suicide and self harm. Listener 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:09.320 discretion is advised. 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.240 I wanted to forget all the places I had slept, 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.720 no one knowing where I was, always one step away 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:22.040 from tragedy. All I'd wanted growing up was to read 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.759 books and study, but instead I learned how few acceptable 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.760 ways there were to need help. You had to be perfect, deserving, 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.479 hurt in just the right way. Even then, adults were 0:00:33.479 --> 0:00:37.120 so constrained in what they could offer. Everyone who dealt 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:41.800 with disadvantaged kids, from therapists to college admissions officers, treated 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:44.919 us as if we could overcome any abuse or neglect 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:46.360 with sheer force of will. 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:49.920 In the present tense, I was sick of pretending to 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.240 be so resilient, so I preferred to keep my mouth shut. 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:59.520 That's Emmy Neatfeld, software engineer and author of the recent 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:03.960 memoir Acceptance, and Emmy's is, in fact a story of 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:08.640 profound resilience, not the kind that is pretend or performed, 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.080 but the real, true kind of inner compass that points 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:25.399 again and again toward belief and hope and home. I'm 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:29.280 Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets that 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:31.880 are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:38.480 and the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.600 I was born in Minneapolis, and I lived in the. 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.160 City for the first five years of my life, and 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.520 then my parents and I moved to a suburb just 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:53.559 outside the city, where we lived basically through elementary school. 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.840 My mom was a crimecy photographer and my dad stayed 0:01:57.840 --> 0:01:58.360 at home with me. 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:00.000 We were pretty really. 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:06.160 I was a state Bible memorization champion, and I really 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:11.399 loved going to school and reading and learning. And I 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:13.880 didn't have that many friends. I was kind of a 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:19.040 nerd and was often on keemps with like on brush hair, 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:25.239 dirty sock. But I really loved school and studying and 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:30.280 had all these big dreams for my future, mostly dreams 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:34.320 that involved like glorifying God and disproving evolution. 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:38.160 What did religion mean to you in those early years? 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:41.399 It was a place where I felt like I could 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:46.440 be myself. I did not have good social skill. I 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:50.120 came from a very strict household, and so I feel 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:52.560 like I was not having as much fun as other 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:56.079 people my age were having. My dad had a pretty 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:00.360 bad temper, but I felt like in religion. I could 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.120 imagine this future in which I would be like the 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.640 most about, the most pious, and would be really rewarded 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.720 and seen by God for my devotion. I had an 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.240 older half brother, and he was the son of my 0:03:15.320 --> 0:03:18.880 mom's first marriage. He really loved me. He is a 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:22.200 great brother to me, but my dad felt a lot 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:23.440 of hostility towards. 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:26.040 Him, and starting around when I was. 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.640 Around three years old, I was really prevented from seeing him. 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.000 And you were described as an only child, right, I 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:33.520 mean they wanted you to think of yourself as. 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:34.840 An only child. Yeah. 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.920 Even my mom, who would never say that my brother 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.560 wasn't anything but kind and loving to me. She would say, like, 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:45.520 you know, you're the prototypical only child. She would describe 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:47.960 me that way in from other people, even though I 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:50.839 had a brother who I lived with for the first 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:51.640 years of my life. 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.600 Any excels in school. She's a bit socially awkward, a 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:03.080 self described nurse, very bookish. She loves to read and 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.680 she loves to learn. One day, when she's nine years old, 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:10.200 her dad picks her up from school and makes an announcement. 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.280 He tells her something she's supposed to keep secret. 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:16.680 When I was in fourth grade. 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:19.640 My dad picked me up from school one day and 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:24.160 told me I'm changing my name to Michelle. And I 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:28.720 was a little bit shocked, but mostly I just wanted clarification. 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:31.120 So I asked her, you know, does this mean you're 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:33.720 going to be a woman now? And she said yes, 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:38.200 and that I should you she her pronouns, but not 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:40.960 tell my mom. It was still a secret from her. 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:46.000 In Minnesota in two thousand and two, nobody around me 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:50.120 had ever even heard of somebody being tramped, Like there 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.839 was no kind of cultural touchstones. There was no like 0:04:53.920 --> 0:05:00.000 Caitlyn Jenner or Transparent or even Oprah featuring somebody trans. 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:04.800 This is pretty new and not something that I that 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:06.040 I really knew about. 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:08.880 Like my church was very. 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:13.480 Anti gay, and I had it ingrained in me that 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:16.200 being gay was a sin from a very young age, 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.320 but I didn't really know how being trans was related, 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.200 if it was being gay, and even if we were 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.240 going to stay in the church anymore. 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.880 And so in Michelle asking you to not tell your mother, 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.839 she was asking you to keep a secret. 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.560 When she asked me not to tell my mom, I 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:44.760 recognized it as Michelle will tell my mom. Eventually that 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:48.279 she's not ready yet, And it made a lot of 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:49.880 sense to me that it. 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:52.160 Would be something where you wanted to be really prepared. 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.960 But it did put me in an awkward position, especially 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:58.440 because I grew up with this really strong sense of morality. 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:02.400 And on one hand, I wasn't supposed to lie to 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:06.039 my parents, and keeping a secret can easily feel like lying. 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:08.159 And on the other hand, I was supposed to obey 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:12.440 my parents, especially my father, which is this role that 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:15.680 Michelle had been playing. And luckily I only had to 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.520 keep that secret for a couple months because Michelle did 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:20.320 come out to my mom. 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:22.720 In my head, I really imagined that. 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.480 Michelle was going to come out and then my parents 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:27.720 were going to stay together, and then it was going 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.600 to take some time for Michelle to lay this groundwork 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:36.479 so that we could continue being a family. And when 0:06:36.839 --> 0:06:40.800 Michelle did come out about two or three months after 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:46.479 telling me, I was completely unprepared that my mom was 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:51.719 not okay with it. My mom felt really betrayed, and 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.279 I remember being in my bedroom and listening to my 0:06:55.400 --> 0:07:00.920 parents downstairs at the kitchen table, and Michelle was crying 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:02.080 and telling. 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.320 My mom, you know, Jesus would accept me. 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:09.400 How I am, and my mom replied, I'm not Jesus 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:15.080 and called my dad by her dead name. You know, 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:17.320 I think I held out hope at that point that 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:19.120 my parents were. 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:20.600 Going to find a way to make it work and 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:24.160 they were going to stay together, especially because the church 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.960 we were in really thought of divorce as a sin, 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:30.520 and so I thought, you know, how could it be 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:32.480 worse for my parents to stay together than for them 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:36.160 to get divorced. But my mom told me a few 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:39.520 weeks later that she was going to move out and 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:43.360 once again told me not to tell Michelle. 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.000 After my parents separated. 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:49.360 I continued living with Michelle in the same house where 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:54.000 we'd been, and I really wanted to stay with her. 0:07:54.880 --> 0:08:00.480 My parents started going through this divorce process and they 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.160 were not going to agree on anything. They'd had a 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:08.080 very contentious relationship and it was going to be an 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:13.000 even more conscientious divorce. So I remember being taken into 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.520 all these offices with social workers who asked me what 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:19.480 I wanted, and I said, you know, I want. 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:22.360 To live with Michelle. She had been the person who 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:24.239 was home with me, you know, every. 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:28.040 Day after school. We had that relationship. She wasn't perfect, 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:33.160 but she was there and then the same social workers 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:35.600 would tell me that I was too young and it 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:38.200 didn't matter what I wanted, they were going to figure 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:44.920 it out. And I encountered again and again people would assume, like, oh, you. 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:49.600 Must be really traumatized by the transition. It must have really. 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:54.400 Screwed you up, and basically viewed Michelle as a bad 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:56.480 parent for transitioning, or as a bad. 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.160 Person or bad influence. And you know, it had been 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:04.240 kind of little shocking, but I was nine, Like, I got. 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:08.040 Used to it really quickly, and even though Michelle had 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:14.120 been really harsh at times and a strict disciplinarian, I 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.400 don't think that she was always a great parent to 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.040 me before that, but it all made a lot more 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:23.480 sense once she came out and she was, you know, 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.000 kinder to me and nicer to me. But nobody around 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:31.800 really seemed to recognize that, and instead I felt like 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:36.400 everybody was just listening to my mom, and everyone had 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:40.880 a lot of sympathy for my mom because her marriage 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:45.280 had dissolved in this way, and you know, I think 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.920 it is hard, but I think Michelle also deserves sympathy. 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:52.640 Q It became extremely frustrating to me to feel like 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.760 I was sharing what I wanted and it didn't matter. 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:04.160 My mom was this super charismatic woman. She was really 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:07.040 really smart. As a girl, she had dreamed about going 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:13.200 to Stanford and she had not gotten in and felt 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:16.560 like it was a really close call. And she told 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:19.920 everyone who would listen about her high IQ and her 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:23.720 SAT score. And this sounds like something that would be 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.840 really annoying, but she was just so personable and so 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:33.080 easy to talk to, very gregarious, so she could convince 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:37.560 people of almost anything. And meanwhile, she from the time 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:40.480 that I basically could remember. 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.559 She was a big clearance shopper. 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.679 I remember coming to her office at work and seeing 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:51.000 all of these bags from Target that were filled with 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:57.320 like dozens of watches Winnie the Pooh watches printed with 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:00.960 a tigger character with the little orange tags them that 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.559 showed the low price, and it was such a good 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:07.280 deal that she bought one hundred and my dad would 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:11.320 not have tolerated that, so instead she had these bags like. 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:14.680 In her office at work, in her car, and it 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:15.319 was something that. 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.480 I knew I was not supposed to talk about, otherwise 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:20.080 she'd get in trouble with my dad. 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:26.880 So there was this contrast between this charismatic, articulate woman, 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:32.000 very intelligent, you know, charming and seemingly together in some ways, 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:36.600 and you know sort of the chaos that was lurking 0:11:36.679 --> 0:11:37.880 just beneath the surface of that. 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:46.400 Absolutely, yeah, I think my mom's chaos and her charm. 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:50.960 Developed in pandem where the charm was a defense that 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:54.640 she could use. It's somebody disagree with her or they 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:58.600 tried to challenge her, she always had a respond and 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.200 she could always justify what she was doing. So I 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:06.800 don't remember her ever really admitting that she was wrong 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:10.760 or imperfect, or that there was something that could change 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:16.360 the weekend before I started sixth grade, Michelle came home 0:12:16.559 --> 0:12:18.679 from a hearing. 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:22.280 And told me that my mom had one custody and 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:22.880 that I. 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.320 Was moving in with her, and that she was going 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.280 to arrive any minute then. And then she went to 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:33.720 her room and slammed the door, and I was sitting 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:35.160 there just completely shocked. 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:36.600 I had been. 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:40.680 Prepared to start sixth grade at middle school with my 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.320 best friends, and now is going to be in a 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:47.280 different school district, living with my mom in a different 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:49.520 part of the Twin Cities. 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:52.480 And I went up to my room, you know, my 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:53.720 space covered in tears. 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:58.080 I packed all my stuff into these black plastic trash 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:02.320 bags before my mom arrived, and that night I moved 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:02.920 in with her. 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:07.360 Before the custody evaluators came to do a home visit. 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:12.680 She had cleaned out her apartment by moving all of 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:17.280 these boxes of stuff into an adjacent apartment. We lived 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:21.160 in a duplex, and during that time, the top floor, 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:25.240 which she normally rented out, became a storage facility for 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:29.240 her junk. But by the time that I moved in, 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:38.280 there were boxes of photo albums, receipts, packaging, empty water bottles, 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:42.600 already kind of encroaching on our living area, you know. 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:45.840 And I had hoped that my parents really split custody. 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:50.400 But a few weeks after my mom won custody, Michelle 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:54.680 came to see me at school and she was moving 0:13:54.800 --> 0:13:58.440 across the country. And that was the last time that 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.680 I ever saw her. And you were how old I 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:03.680 was ten, about the turn eleven. 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.640 Suddenly, Emmy is living a whole new life. She's in 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.920 a new place, in a new neighborhood, in an entirely 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:16.840 new family dynamic. She's alone with her mother, whose chaos 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:21.560 is tangible. Emmy's mom is hoarding amassing all sorts of 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:24.680 stuff that spills into every corner of Emmy's world. 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:31.560 At first, I was really lonely and sad, and I 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:35.840 did my best to move forward and to make new friends, 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:41.360 make new hobbies. But as the year went on, it 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.400 became increasingly difficult to live with. 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:46.120 My mom in her house. 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:49.920 Almost every night after school, she would pick me up 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:52.920 and we would go shopping, and we had a rotation 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:57.160 of the late local drug store, target, the grocery store, 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:01.880 home depot, and we would stay out at these places, 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:06.160 laid into the night. My mom had legal debt from 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:10.160 the divorce, and then pretty soon she had these big 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:16.400 credit card bills from shopping, and the piles of stuff 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:20.600 in our home were just closing in on me and 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:24.680 my mom. Maybe she saw that I was struggling, and 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.920 she took me to therapy. And I think a lot 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.800 of parents in her position they would take their kids 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:35.400 the therapy if they could, but it was not really 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:36.200 a place for me. 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.200 To talk about how I was feeling. 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:42.960 Instead, we went to the family therapy and my mom 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:47.760 told the therapist like, there's something wrong with Emmie, And 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:52.200 her first complaint was telling him I think Emmy has 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:59.280 add and my mom had attention deficit disorder, and she 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:03.880 thought maybe my brother had to and so she told 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:09.120 the doctor, you know, she's disheveled, she's chronically late, and 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:11.240 you know, I was ten, right, how can a ten 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.840 year old be chronically late? But he gave my mom 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:19.600 a questionnaire and my teacher a questionnaire, and after cube appointments, 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:20.960 I was diagnosed and. 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:22.240 Referred for medication. 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:26.760 I was perscribed concerta and my first week taking it, 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:29.640 I hit a kid over the head with a textbook. 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:34.120 And then I was given Vanak to help me deal 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:38.840 with the panife that I felt from the concerta, and 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.880 my mom gave me her leftover adderall and the doctor 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:45.040 prescribed me adderall on the condition that my mom would 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:45.960 stop giving me. 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:47.400 Medication that wasn't prescribed. 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.800 And it just went from like one medication to another, 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:57.000 and after a while I believed that I was really. 0:16:56.800 --> 0:17:01.720 Sick because I believe what the doctor. 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:04.320 Said, like, oh, this medication is going to fix me. 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:06.919 It's going to make me feel better, and that the 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:11.080 problems that I'm feeling are all in my head and 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:14.520 there's something wrong with me. And when the drugs weren't working, 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:19.240 it felt like it was just confirmation that I was 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:21.840 messed up and that nothing was going to help me, 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:23.560 and then I was never going to be happy. 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:41.639 We'll be right back. In addition to feeling unwell and unhappy, 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:45.840 Emmy is also feeling frustrated nobody is listening to her. 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:50.359 She wants the medical professionals to actually evaluate her. She 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.160 wants them to pay attention to her mom's disposition too, 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:55.920 to come see where and how they live. 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:00.399 In my house, there was one rule where which was 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:05.080 don't let people inside, especially not people from the government. 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:08.520 And even though we had that rule, when my mom 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:12.439 took me to the doctor, I told them, I said, 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:17.560 you need to come see our house, see how we're living. 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:22.479 For months, we didn't have hot water and we couldn't 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.640 take a shower. It was the winter Minnesota, and it 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:28.720 was all because the pilot light was off on the 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.919 water here, but we legitimately couldn't get access to it 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:36.800 for six months because that's how bad the boarding was. 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:43.639 And I told all of these professionals, therapists, doctors, social workers, 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:49.560 and nobody came or even treated it like there was 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:52.440 a possibility that something real was going on at home 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:56.440 that was responsible for the way that I was feeling, 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.080 and nobody flagged either that it was weird that my 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:04.040 mom was taking me to the doctor, first because she 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:09.840 thought I had add and then adding on other problems 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:14.040 that she thought I was having, like seizures or eating disorder. 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.399 Just one thing after another. She was taking me to 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:19.359 the doctor, sometimes two or three times a week. 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:22.840 And even though the doctors could be how many times 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.440 I've been in, nobody seems. 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:31.919 To pull the alarm or come to interview or even investigate. 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:37.080 This is all taking a serious toll on Emmy. The 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:40.679 myriad medications are basically fighting with each other in her system, 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:44.159 and she begins to exhibit a number of alarming symptoms, 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:46.440 both physical and psychological. 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:53.320 I did become really depressed, and I started hurting myself, 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:58.440 mostly scratching myself To say to him, I did start 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:04.640 making myself pro love and not eating and abusing adderall 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.840 that was left over from the medication and all this 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:13.080 stuff was expected of me, and I felt like I 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.679 was doing what people expected. And also it helped me 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:20.160 try to deal with the feeling of not having any 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:23.600 control over my life and just feeling so bad that 0:20:23.640 --> 0:20:26.359 I had to do something to make myself feel better. 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:32.280 And when I was thirteen, I was going off of 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:40.119 one medication and having really bad withdrawal, and I had 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.600 been suicidal for a while, just feeling like there was 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:47.639 really no way out and that the medication wasn't going 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:51.160 to help me, adults weren't going to help me, and. 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:53.800 I really thought it's going to be like this for 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.160 the rest of my life. So that summer I overdosed 0:20:57.960 --> 0:20:59.280 and tried to kill myself. 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:07.040 After Emmy's suicide attempt, she is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:12.200 There she encounters the first medical professional who truly listens 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:16.040 to her, who recognizes that perhaps Emmy isn't the troubled 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:20.000 one here, perhaps it's her mom. 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:25.000 When there was finally one psychiatrist who thought, Okay, my 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:25.600 mom is the. 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:30.000 Problem, my mom got really. 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.720 Suspicious of him, and she took me out of the 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:40.200 hospital against medical advice. He had contacted Hennepin County where 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:45.520 I lived, and I had then referred to a social worker. 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:51.119 And this wasn't like a Child Protective Services complaint. She 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:54.359 was a case for her who worked with teenage girls 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:56.000 who were deemed thick. 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:57.679 Enough to be their own problems. 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:03.080 But finally she wasbody who my Mom was not able 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.000 to shake, like she could not just make this woman 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:11.320 go away. Ingrid had been working as a social worker 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:16.639 for a number of years and she came to my 0:22:16.720 --> 0:22:20.800 house one afternoon. And I had been begging people for years, 0:22:21.320 --> 0:22:22.200 you know, come. 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:23.440 See how we live. 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:29.480 And then she was finally there. And it was a 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:34.040 summer afternoon when my mom was at work, and she 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:38.120 probably knew this, and she asked me, would you let 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:39.040 me inside? 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:40.119 Can I just come in? 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:45.880 I immediately recognized that, you know, it felt like a trap, right. 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:49.160 She didn't have a warrant to come in or anything 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:52.800 like that, and so if I let her in, it 0:22:52.880 --> 0:22:57.760 was going to be my choice. And even though I'd 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:02.639 wanted people to come, I could imagine what was going 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:06.879 to happen if Ingrid did come inside. And I just 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:10.639 I kept looking at her car, which was this white 0:23:10.880 --> 0:23:17.359 like government looking forward, and I knew that if I 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:21.359 opened the door, I would be taken away and I 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:24.920 would be placed in Child protectives and Services again involved, 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:28.720 I would be placed in the foster care system, and 0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:33.200 my mom's house would probably be condemned. And even though 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:35.080 my mom had so many. 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:38.240 Challenges and was doing things that really really hurt me. 0:23:38.960 --> 0:23:43.760 She was also my biggest advocate and I couldn't imagine 0:23:43.960 --> 0:23:46.840 hurting her like that. You know, when the social worker 0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:49.919 when Ingrid came to my house, I felt completely hopeless 0:23:49.920 --> 0:23:54.040 about my future. But I thought, at least if I 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:58.439 stay with my mom, I can kill myself, because she 0:23:58.600 --> 0:24:01.360 wasn't supervising me to twenty four to seven, and. 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:05.520 She opened doors that otherwise wouldn't be open. 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:10.480 She had just proven her power by signing me out 0:24:10.960 --> 0:24:15.719 of the hospital against medical advice, and that gave me 0:24:15.760 --> 0:24:20.520 the sense of there's certain things that parents can do 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:24.560 that nobody else in the world can do for me. 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:28.520 And at the time, it made me feel hopeless in 0:24:28.520 --> 0:24:30.679 a way because it's like this is the parent that 0:24:30.720 --> 0:24:37.120 I'm stuck with, right and she is my only hope. 0:24:37.320 --> 0:24:41.879 Shortly after that, I was hospitalized again, and from there 0:24:42.400 --> 0:24:46.360 I was sent to a residential treatment center. But when 0:24:46.359 --> 0:24:52.400 I was in the hospital, something unexpected happened, which is 0:24:52.440 --> 0:24:56.840 that I was sent to a even disorder unit in 0:24:56.880 --> 0:25:01.119 the suburbs. And before that, I I've been in psych 0:25:01.160 --> 0:25:05.479 words in the city filled with kids who were a 0:25:05.480 --> 0:25:08.560 lot like me, who were working class like I was, 0:25:09.280 --> 0:25:13.080 and there wasn't a lot of like talk about our future. 0:25:14.520 --> 0:25:19.920 But at this hospital eating disorder unit, the doctor asked 0:25:19.960 --> 0:25:23.240 me where do you want to go to college? And 0:25:23.440 --> 0:25:28.159 it was the first time anyone in a medical capacity 0:25:28.440 --> 0:25:33.400 had taken such a serious interest in my future. And 0:25:33.760 --> 0:25:37.399 even though I ended up being taken from that place 0:25:37.560 --> 0:25:41.240 in restraints in an ambulance and taken. 0:25:41.000 --> 0:25:44.000 To this locked facility, I had. 0:25:43.800 --> 0:25:48.119 This sense of purpose for my life that I wanted 0:25:48.160 --> 0:25:50.240 to go to college, and I wanted to go to college. 0:25:50.240 --> 0:25:56.960 Early I was living in this facility that was locked 0:25:57.560 --> 0:26:00.520