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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Warning.

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Speaker 1: This episode contains discussion of self harm, grooming, and sexual abuse.

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Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised that summer was full of presents.

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Speaker 1: It seems like every time I saw him was a

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Speaker 1: celebration of me, of us. There were always drinks, There

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Speaker 1: were always boxes, typed with bakery string, sometimes with candy

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Speaker 1: or a pair of panties. He thought I would like

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Speaker 1: or look gloss or grown up perfume. He said, I

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Speaker 1: shouldn't smell like a schoolgirl anymore. One night he sat

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Speaker 1: me on his couch and gave me a thin package,

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Speaker 1: wrapped in newsprint, red and white bakery string. What's this?

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Speaker 1: The gift was light like paper. Open it. I untied

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Speaker 1: the string, peeled back the tape. It was a book,

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Speaker 1: almost a brown folder, half the size of a piece

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Speaker 1: of notebook paper. Open it the right way. I had

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Speaker 1: had it upside down. Oh. It had a title, Revised

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Speaker 1: Evidence Vladimir Novakov's Collection of Inscriptions, Annotations, Corrections and Butterfly Descriptions.

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Speaker 1: I hugged it against my chest, thanking him with a kiss,

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Speaker 1: his cats leaping on the other side of the couch.

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Speaker 1: I knew you'd love it, he said, smiling at me,

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Speaker 1: inches away from my mouth. Of course, I kissed him again.

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Speaker 1: You know I love the book as much as you.

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Speaker 1: You're my Lolita, he said. That's Alison Wood, writer, professor,

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Speaker 1: author of the memoir being Lolita. Alison's is a story

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Speaker 1: as old as time, a story of an older man

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Speaker 1: in a position of power and a girl who is

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Speaker 1: his prey, and the ripple effect of that story once

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Speaker 1: that girl escapes his clutches and grows up. It's also

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Speaker 1: a story about the peep on the sidelines of the

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Speaker 1: secret who may notice, who may see, but avert their

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Speaker 1: eyes and mind their own business. I'm Danny Shapiro, and

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Speaker 1: this is family secrets, the secrets that are kept from us,

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Speaker 1: the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we

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Speaker 1: keep from ourselves. Tell me about the landscape of your childhood.

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Speaker 1: I hate to use the word idyllic, but you know,

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Speaker 1: my childhood was pretty great. I was a voracious reader

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Speaker 1: from the time when I was very little. Um. I

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Speaker 1: was always way ahead of my reading and my writing,

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Speaker 1: and my parents were very enthusiastic and proud of me

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Speaker 1: most of the time. My teachers, we're also very encouraging

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Speaker 1: I remember my first grade teacher, Mrs Tesla, would give

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Speaker 1: me like extra spelling quizzes and give me extra assignments

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Speaker 1: to keep me busy. But then, of course, when I

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Speaker 1: was in the fourth grade, I had this one teacher

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Speaker 1: named Mrs gross Um that was that was literally her name,

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Speaker 1: and she was very frustrated that I was so ahead

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Speaker 1: in sort of spelling and reading and writing, and so

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Speaker 1: she began to for half of the day send me

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Speaker 1: to the school library. So I would spend half of

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Speaker 1: my day alone in the library with no other no

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Speaker 1: other kids, just with the librarians. And that was probably

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Speaker 1: very impactful to my childhood. Looking back, the librarians adored me.

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Speaker 1: They doated on me. They thought it was so great

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Speaker 1: that somebody wanted to read. As I continued growing up

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Speaker 1: the library in town, I was there every week checking

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Speaker 1: out a huge old books. When I was in middle school,

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Speaker 1: my librarian was one of my closest confidence and I

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Speaker 1: just I always loved reading and writing. But at the

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Speaker 1: same time, looking back, there was also I always dealt

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Speaker 1: with some sort of depression, even from when I was

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Speaker 1: very young. Um recently, I was home over the holidays

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Speaker 1: and helping my mother clean out an attic and we

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Speaker 1: found all of this, you know, ephemera from my childhood,

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Speaker 1: and it included a book that I had written when

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Speaker 1: I was ten. So but it says Allison's book on it.

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Speaker 1: You know. It has all these stories and poems in there,

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Speaker 1: and some drawings and it has this one poem about death,

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Speaker 1: like I Wonder what it's like to be dead? And

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Speaker 1: drawings of this cemetery and I'm like, what what is

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Speaker 1: going on with this tenure old? Those are really amazing

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Speaker 1: moments when we when we discover something, stumble across something

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Speaker 1: that is ours, something that we did or wrote, or

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Speaker 1: or a maide as a child, and you know, the

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Speaker 1: feeling is sort of like, who did that? Was that me?

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Speaker 1: Who did? Like? What was what was the experience of

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Speaker 1: did you have any memory of you know, that little

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Speaker 1: girl who was uh, you know, sort of obsessed with

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Speaker 1: ideas of of death. I had no memory of writing

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Speaker 1: this book or this particular poem. The poem was rhyming,

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Speaker 1: but you know it was it was pretty long. It

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Speaker 1: was decent I think for a ten year old. Looking back,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, Alison was trying her best. And

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Speaker 1: also inside the same book there was of course a

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Speaker 1: short story about cats, which is very on brand about

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Speaker 1: me still, But I think what it reminded me was

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Speaker 1: about that same time, when I was in fourth grade,

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Speaker 1: my mother became concerned that I was depressed. This was

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Speaker 1: also the same year that I had that terrible teacher

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Speaker 1: who was sending me half the day to the library

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Speaker 1: and you know, isolating me from the other students. So

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Speaker 1: my mother began having me see a therapist, a child therapist,

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Speaker 1: And all I really remember is that we talked a lot.

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Speaker 1: He had me like right things, like right stories or whatnot.

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Speaker 1: I got to have you who, which was a very

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Speaker 1: deal because it was I had a very like you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of um. I wouldn't say there was like no

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Speaker 1: sugar lab, but you know, no sugary seniors, like none

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Speaker 1: of that, no cookies, no candy kind of home. And

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Speaker 1: I don't remember feeling depressed. I don't remember. I don't

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Speaker 1: look back at myself and think, oh, I was really depressed.

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Speaker 1: I've been told this and I was sort of like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I guess, But then I find that poem and I'm like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I guess. Ten year old Allison was kind of dark

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Speaker 1: for a ten year old, did you experience Mrs Gross

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Speaker 1: sending new to the library for half the day as punishment.

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Speaker 1: I knew it was to get me out of her hair.

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Speaker 1: I knew that was why she was sending me away.

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Speaker 1: And of course, as a as a teacher, as a

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Speaker 1: professor myself, I fully understand that now, But at the

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Speaker 1: time I took it all very personally, and you know,

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Speaker 1: it was like what I you know, I'd get frustrated.

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Speaker 1: I'd get grumpy about it, um be partially because um

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Speaker 1: that teacher was not I was not putting any effort

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Speaker 1: into trying to support me more as other teachers had.

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Speaker 1: Um they you know, she didn't see my what I

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Speaker 1: looked back now and see, she didn't see my intelligence

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Speaker 1: or my being sort of ahead of the curve as

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Speaker 1: something positive. So well, I loved the library. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: that the isolation and the sort of being made to

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Speaker 1: feel different, not in a good way. I'm sure that

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Speaker 1: that was impactful to how I understood myself as a child.

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Speaker 1: And you know, I'm sure that it's not a coincidence

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Speaker 1: that that was when I was writing all these times

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Speaker 1: about death. Describe your mother for me a little bit.

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Speaker 1: My mother is someone who i've always very much looked

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Speaker 1: up to, and I've always very much wanted to be

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Speaker 1: like because she is very resilient and she's very tough.

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Speaker 1: She's a deputy director or a nonprofit in Connecticut. Her

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Speaker 1: job for a long time has always been the person

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Speaker 1: who fires people. My mother has has no problem with conflict.

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Speaker 1: She's not afraid of being direct. She's someone who had

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Speaker 1: worked I worked out the same nonprofit at her, and

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Speaker 1: I just didn't understand how intimidating she was to other

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Speaker 1: people because to me, she was just mom. But she

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Speaker 1: was very intimidating to other people at times, and I

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Speaker 1: sort of admired that about her. Um. But then on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, at my home growing up, there were

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Speaker 1: always other kids there, in particular my little sister's friends.

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Speaker 1: There would always be other teenagers hanging around who would

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Speaker 1: call her mom. I sometimes describe my mother as someone

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Speaker 1: who takes in strays, because since I left home to

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Speaker 1: go to college, there's always been somebody staying in my room.

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Speaker 1: So there's very There's this very interesting dichotomy there between

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Speaker 1: who she is I think, and I think the ability

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Speaker 1: to be sort of tough and strong and resilient but

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Speaker 1: also have this nurturing this very big mom energy. What

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Speaker 1: about your father? What your father like? My father as well,

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Speaker 1: has done nonprofit work his entire life. He was a

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Speaker 1: concert pianist when he was younger, and he's really warm

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Speaker 1: and kind and supportive. He was always the person when

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Speaker 1: whatever I did, if I did a school play, if

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Speaker 1: I you know, it was working on a project, whatever

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Speaker 1: it was, he was always there, right in the front

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Speaker 1: row um being so supportive of me. Which is funny

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Speaker 1: because on the other hand, my mother was someone who,

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Speaker 1: so I did community theater for a long time, and

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Speaker 1: she was famous within community theater circles for walking out

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Speaker 1: if she did not like a play, including if her

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Speaker 1: daughter was in it. Yes, she was known for doing that,

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Speaker 1: and you know, people were either deeply offended or sort

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Speaker 1: of thought it was funny. I I chose to think

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Speaker 1: it was funny. But what that told me then was

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Speaker 1: when she stayed for a show, she really liked it.

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Speaker 1: That meant that when she was staying, I was like, Wow,

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Speaker 1: my mother really likes this. Whereas my father was someone

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Speaker 1: who would always be at the show, always telling me

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Speaker 1: how great it was and how amazing I was. So

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Speaker 1: it's this, it's this funny difference in the two of them.

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Speaker 1: My father was not quite as present in my life

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Speaker 1: growing up. He was, you know, in sort of that

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Speaker 1: typical way. He was the one who would work late

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Speaker 1: and who wouldn't always be home for dinner. My mother

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Speaker 1: took on much more of those sort of caregiving role,

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Speaker 1: the typical role for me and my little sister. Um.

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Speaker 1: She was. She worked part time at certain points to

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Speaker 1: support me and Lauren. Where is My father never did that.

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Speaker 1: My mother never made any of those choices growing up,

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Speaker 1: None of them. Laura and I were her number one

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Speaker 1: priority all the time. Allison's childhood may have been idyllic,

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Speaker 1: but as she becomes a teenager, she begins to get

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Speaker 1: into deeper and deeper trouble. She develops serious issues with

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Speaker 1: depression and begins to self harm. People found out because

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Speaker 1: in gym class in middle school. You know, you've got

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Speaker 1: the lockers you have to change to like your gym

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Speaker 1: outfit and whatnot. Two friends of mine had saw my

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Speaker 1: arms and brought me to the school social worker. When

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Speaker 1: I got home that your school that day, my mother

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Speaker 1: had already been notified. Obviously, I think that they sent

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Speaker 1: me home early. Um, and that is actually One of

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Speaker 1: the only times I remember seeing my mother crying was

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Speaker 1: she got on the phone to someone trying to get

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Speaker 1: me some sort of services. I'm sure because she was

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Speaker 1: always very much a kind of person who when there's

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Speaker 1: a problem, she's going to solve it. She was very

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Speaker 1: active and proactive in that way, in particular about me

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Speaker 1: and my little sister. If there's something wrong, how can

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Speaker 1: we make it better, Let's do things. She was all

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Speaker 1: about action. That continued throughout high school. It did not

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Speaker 1: get better. Um the cutting did, but I continued being

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Speaker 1: incredibly depressed. I stopped going to school at certain points.

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Speaker 1: I switched my nights and days. I was mismedicated at

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Speaker 1: one point and became manic, but was only manic because

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Speaker 1: of the medication. Like I had racing thoughts, I was

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Speaker 1: hearing voices the whole thing. At one point I was

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Speaker 1: having electro convulsive therapy because it was sort of that years.

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Speaker 1: It didn't make everything better, but it got me out

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Speaker 1: of bed. I was going back to school. I wasn't

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Speaker 1: thinking about killing myself anymore. So it really it really

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Speaker 1: did make a difference, a big difference. But nonetheless, streshment

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Speaker 1: and sophomore year of high school. I wasn't consistently getting

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Speaker 1: to school, getting too classes. I was failing. At the

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Speaker 1: end of sophomore year, they told me, the school told

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Speaker 1: me that they thought I should not come back and

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Speaker 1: that I should get my diploma through night school. And

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Speaker 1: my mother was like, I don't think so, because I,

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Speaker 1: of course already had of the had all of those

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Speaker 1: I p s and disability status, and they were supposed

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Speaker 1: to be making all these accommodations and whatnot. So my

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Speaker 1: mother fought like hell to get me into a therapeutic

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Speaker 1: day school for my junior year. It was great. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I felt supported in ways that I hadn't been in years.

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Speaker 1: Because one of the bad things that happens, for one

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Speaker 1: of the sort of side effects I guess of not

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Speaker 1: being in school is that your teachers don't think much

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Speaker 1: of you anymore, even if you're smart, even if you

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Speaker 1: know the answers in class, even if you you know

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Speaker 1: hadn't done the homework just because you know or because

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Speaker 1: you read the book already, there's this wariness and the

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Speaker 1: classroom and school had always been a place where I

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Speaker 1: felt almost always except for that fourth grade teacher, where

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Speaker 1: I usually felt very very welcome. It was a place

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Speaker 1: where I took a lot of pride, where I knew

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Speaker 1: I could succeed, and teachers were really important to me.

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Speaker 1: I always loved my teachers very much, and I loved

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Speaker 1: going to the library, and I would spend time after school.

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Speaker 1: You know, I was all I was always that kid.

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Speaker 1: So when that sort of larger institutional relationship fractured so

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Speaker 1: severely for me and freshman and sophomore year, looking back,

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Speaker 1: that was really impactful and negatively impactful in ways that

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Speaker 1: I did not understand at the time but are pretty

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Speaker 1: clear to me now. We'll be right back in her

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Speaker 1: new small school, Allison feels accepted and valued. She's reminded

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Speaker 1: that she's a smart kid and can do really well.

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Speaker 1: She goes to group therapy in the afternoons, takes French,

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Speaker 1: catches up on all the classes she'd missed the previous year.

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Speaker 1: She gets back on track. Nobody at the therapytic day

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Speaker 1: school called me crazy. Nobody thought I was nuts. No

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Speaker 1: one thought that because we were all very much in

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Speaker 1: similar boats, and school was a place where I could

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Speaker 1: succeed again because the teachers weren't constantly giving me a side.

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Speaker 1: I you know, if I missed a day. Um, I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't come back and get sort of glares, would be ignored.

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Speaker 1: The next day, it was like, okay, great, Alison, you're here,

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Speaker 1: let's catch you up. So at the end of that year,

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Speaker 1: you know you've done well academically, and you're given a choice,

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Speaker 1: right to go back to the school that you would

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Speaker 1: begun at the public high school or to stay at

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Speaker 1: the therapeutic day school. Right. I have the choice to

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Speaker 1: go back to my public high school, and all I

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Speaker 1: wanted was to be normal, So I chose to go back.

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Speaker 1: And obviously, you you can't change the past. And I

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Speaker 1: don't know if it's necessarily a terrible thing that I

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Speaker 1: went back, but it is definitely a choice that changed

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Speaker 1: them the journey of my life in some ways. So

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Speaker 1: tell me about the reception that you received when you

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Speaker 1: first went back. I remember that first day back in

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Speaker 1: high school, back in my in my high school, I

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Speaker 1: remember hearing other students say I thought she died as

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Speaker 1: I walked by, because we know how cruel teenagers can be,

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Speaker 1: how sort of off handedly, backhandedly cruel. And people thought

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Speaker 1: I was in a mental institution, which I had never been.

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Speaker 1: I've never been hospitalized. Um, people thought that I had disappeared.

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Speaker 1: People thought that I was this crazy girl. People thought

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Speaker 1: that I was this slut because I had always I

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Speaker 1: don't even even when I wasn't going to school regularly,

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Speaker 1: I always had a boyfriend. I felt more alone than

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Speaker 1: I think I ever had at that point. And not

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Speaker 1: only did I feel completely ostracized from the other students

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Speaker 1: and misunderstood and very much judged, but I also felt

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Speaker 1: like that from the teachers at school, from the administration,

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Speaker 1: from the ladies at the front desk, and to my

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Speaker 1: individual teachers. I remember on that first day there was

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Speaker 1: one teacher in particular who I felt particularly sort of

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Speaker 1: upset about how I was treated, and it was my

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Speaker 1: Latin teacher. And I had loved Latin and been really

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Speaker 1: good at Latin, and my Latin teacher had always sort

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Speaker 1: of adored me. And then that first day of my

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Speaker 1: senior year, I got into his class and he basically

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Speaker 1: ignored me. And he when he was assigning seats, you know,

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Speaker 1: going through role call, saying everyone's name and telling them

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Speaker 1: where they had to sit, he did not give me

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Speaker 1: a seat, and he told me to just sit in

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Speaker 1: the back, and he said, let's just see how this

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Speaker 1: goes because he didn't think I was going to be

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Speaker 1: showing up to class, so why bother getting me a seat?

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Speaker 1: And that made me so sad, and I remember mostly

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Speaker 1: being pissed and being like what the fuck? You know,

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Speaker 1: like I I didn't say that in the class, but

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Speaker 1: like in my head, but now I look back and

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Speaker 1: I that's just so sad. Well it's it's sad, and

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Speaker 1: it's also I mean, um, to to write off someone

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Speaker 1: of that age is not just cruel, but it's pedagogically

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Speaker 1: like so messed up. That is something that as I,

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Speaker 1: as I teach now to undergraduate students and just my

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Speaker 1: students in general, I will never do that to a

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Speaker 1: student again, because it's so obvious to me when a

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Speaker 1: student is in trouble, when a student is having a

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Speaker 1: hard time. So I never question when students say I

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Speaker 1: need an extension. I know I've missed class, I'm trying

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Speaker 1: to get there. I never give my students a hard

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Speaker 1: time about that. Ever, I will never fall to student

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Speaker 1: for being in a in a tough place. And you know,

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Speaker 1: of course in my syllabus I say no extensions, you know,

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Speaker 1: you've got to come to class. But then an actuality

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Speaker 1: I'm a total softie. So within this hostile environment where

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Speaker 1: both students and teachers shame and ostracized Allison, her English teacher,

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Speaker 1: who's new to the school, recognizes her talent and suggests

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Speaker 1: that one of her colleagues, a teacher Alison calls Nick Norris,

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Speaker 1: work with Allison outside of school hours to further her

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Speaker 1: writing and become a mentor. I came into her class

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Speaker 1: and I was really excited about taking her creative writing class.

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Speaker 1: And she did not come with any sort of baggage

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Speaker 1: or expectations or judgment. I was just a student who

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Speaker 1: was doing well and was happy to be there, which

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Speaker 1: was obviously, of course looking back, which was something great,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure, I'm sure she was excited. It

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Speaker 1: was her first year teaching, and she thought that I

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Speaker 1: had talent and some you know, possibilities of doing better.

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Speaker 1: So she introduced me to Mr North, who was a

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Speaker 1: also first year teacher, and she introduced him as my

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Speaker 1: potential mentor and said, why don't you two start meeting

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Speaker 1: after school and it'll be great because I just I

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Speaker 1: just tront of the capacity to do that, but I

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Speaker 1: think Mr North would be a great fit. And I

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Speaker 1: was over the Moon. I was so excited. The idea

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Speaker 1: of having someone a teacher again sort of take interest

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Speaker 1: in me and want to support me was just so

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Speaker 1: I don't even think I can possibly I can properly

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Speaker 1: describe how much it gave me hope that I could

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Speaker 1: still be the kind of student, the kind of person

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Speaker 1: that I wanted to be and that I used to be.

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Speaker 1: It sort of seemed like, here's an opportunity for me

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Speaker 1: to prove everybody wrong. Here's an opportunity for me to

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Speaker 1: get some support and to do better not just with

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Speaker 1: showing up to class, but with my grades and with

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Speaker 1: what I was writing, and to really kind of bed

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Speaker 1: Allison I wanted to be, and which just so happens

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Speaker 1: as well. Mr North was young, and he was very handsome,

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Speaker 1: and all the girls thought he was like so cute,

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Speaker 1: and he played guitar and would play guitar at the

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Speaker 1: coffee shops downtown where all the all the high school

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Speaker 1: kids also would play guitar and like you know, do

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Speaker 1: their little cover bands and things he did that he wore.

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Speaker 1: This was nearly two thousands, so Abercrombie and Fitch was

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Speaker 1: a very big deal, so you would wear Abercrombie and

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Speaker 1: Fitch and those leather bracelets and those button ups with

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Speaker 1: a little moose pocket, and very much had this sort

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Speaker 1: of dual energy of both a grown up because you know,

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Speaker 1: we had to call him Mr North. He was is

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Speaker 1: our teacher, but he also had these very strong, like

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Speaker 1: boy kind of vibes coming off of him. It just

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Speaker 1: sort of radiated off of him who he was, this

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00:23:10,359 --> 00:23:14,520
Speaker 1: complicated figure, and so the idea that I was getting

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Speaker 1: his attention for, you know, an hour after school every

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Speaker 1: day was just, Oh, my god, I'm the luckiest girl

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Speaker 1: in the world. Mr North is twenty six, a teacher

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Speaker 1: charged with protecting and educating his students. This could be

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Speaker 1: a great thing for Allison, right, a real game changer,

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Speaker 1: a popular and admired teacher taking an interest in her writing,

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Speaker 1: except that it becomes really clear, really quickly that Mr

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Speaker 1: North has other interests. The first time that I really

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Speaker 1: understood that my relationship with Mr North was not any

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Speaker 1: other relationship with the teacher I had experienced before was

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Speaker 1: right before Thanksgiving. So we had been meeting after school

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Speaker 1: for about two maybe close to three months, and in

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Speaker 1: the shop class where he was watching study hall, I

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Speaker 1: was supposed to be in some class I don't remember

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Speaker 1: what class. He would constantly write me hall passes to

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Speaker 1: get me into, to get me to meet him in

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Speaker 1: his study room, to be in his classroom when he's teaching,

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Speaker 1: And looking back, I don't know how that went on

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Speaker 1: as it did, because it's just perplexing how sort of

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Speaker 1: other teachers would just be like, oh, she has a

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Speaker 1: pass from Mr North. It's fine. Looking back, that's very

385
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 1: perplexing to me. But we were in a shop classroom

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Speaker 1: and he wrote me this note, like we had been

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Speaker 1: doing for the past few months. He began writing me

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Speaker 1: notes in classes, but we were passing notes like we

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00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:51,239
Speaker 1: were two students, but he was a teacher. And he

390
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 1: asked me what my brass eyes was and I sort

391
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Speaker 1: of demurred and played coy and in he told me

392
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:04,680
Speaker 1: that he would trade my BRA's eyes for how big

393
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Speaker 1: his penis was. And that really was the first moment

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Speaker 1: where I was like, oh, this really is something else,

395
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:25,639
Speaker 1: which looking back, I mean, that is shockingly obvious, But

396
00:25:26,200 --> 00:25:29,120
Speaker 1: there had been a lot of more subtle signs. I mean,

397
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:31,200
Speaker 1: looking back, there not even subtle. But at the time,

398
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Speaker 1: I really, I mean I was seventeen, I thought I

399
00:25:34,520 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 1: was in love, as in love as any seventeen year

400
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:39,640
Speaker 1: old could be. I had the biggest crush on him,

401
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 1: and I thought that it was maybe just this like

402
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:46,399
Speaker 1: light flirtation, or that I was maybe like making it

403
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:49,159
Speaker 1: up a little bit in my head. What were some

404
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 1: of the subtle quote unquote subtle signs, Because I think

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00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 1: that that whole idea of making it up in your

406
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 1: head is something that is so resonant and familiar, and

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00:25:59,760 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 1: I'm mean I relate to it myself, and I know

408
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 1: so many young women who have that feeling of maybe

409
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:10,960
Speaker 1: this isn't really happening. Yeah, I mean the relationship started

410
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: with and I don't think this could have happened with

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00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:15,119
Speaker 1: the match teacher. I think this is the kind of

412
00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: thing that can only happen with with an English teacher

413
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 1: or a creative writing teacher. He began reading my journals,

414
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Speaker 1: he began having me he assigning me writing exercises, prompts,

415
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 1: and then he began reading me his own writing. And

416
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,920
Speaker 1: then he began having me write things directly to him,

417
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:40,320
Speaker 1: to Mr North. So things escalated, this sort of intimacy

418
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: that happens when you're sharing writing, when you're sharing sort

419
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 1: of your innermost thoughts and ideas and things like that,

420
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 1: and being vulnerable, not just emotionally, but also on the page.

421
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:55,719
Speaker 1: There's this intimacy that happens really quickly. And he would

422
00:26:55,760 --> 00:27:00,639
Speaker 1: comment on me being pretty and sort of on you know,

423
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 1: my hour glass shape and um, he would make comments about,

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00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:09,879
Speaker 1: you know, oh, you're really sexy. But I still I

425
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:12,199
Speaker 1: kept sort of brushing it off in some ways. I

426
00:27:12,240 --> 00:27:14,760
Speaker 1: still sort of thought like, oh, he's just you know,

427
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: he's just sort of flirting with me. And we began

428
00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,879
Speaker 1: meeting outside of the classroom. We began meeting at coffee shops,

429
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:23,840
Speaker 1: who began meeting late at night at diners across town

430
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 1: in the next town over. And these are all things

431
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: that as a thirty seven year old woman looking back

432
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: on like alarm bells, you know, get out of there.

433
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:38,959
Speaker 1: But at the time I did not take it all

434
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 1: as seriously as I should have. I thought that I

435
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:45,000
Speaker 1: was still kind of in control, like, well, I'm flirting back,

436
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,520
Speaker 1: or I'm the one who's starting the flirtation today. You know,

437
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: I had this idea that, well, I can handle this

438
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: when you were meeting him late nights and across town

439
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 1: and you know, sort of at all hours you were

440
00:28:01,240 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 1: living at home, you were senior in high school. Did

441
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:11,119
Speaker 1: this raise any questions or eyebrows with either of your parents. No,

442
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 1: And I've asked my parents about this, and they, for

443
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 1: the most part, say that they don't really remember what

444
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: their thought process was what I was saying. I mean,

445
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 1: I'm sure that I was saying things like, oh, I'm

446
00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:35,359
Speaker 1: just hanging out with a friend, I'm just working on

447
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 1: my homework. I don't know what I was saying, but

448
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: I think within the context of how serious my depression

449
00:28:44,240 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 1: had been for so long, you know, I mean, I

450
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 1: had gone sometimes I went weeks without wanting to leave

451
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 1: my room, without seeing anybody, without being awake during the daytime.

452
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: I switched my nights and days at times for long

453
00:28:57,240 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: periods of time, which was very difficult. So I think

454
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 1: and that sort of as the perspective, I think that

455
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:08,800
Speaker 1: they thought, well, she's getting to school, she's not suicidal,

456
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: she's doing okay. Let's just let her be, probably with

457
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: some relief that you were, you know, living a quote

458
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 1: unquote normal you know, sort of senior year of high

459
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: school kind of experience, or so it seemed to them.

460
00:29:22,680 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: I'm sure that, I mean, looking back, I'm sure that

461
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: from the outside that's what they thought, Oh she's breaking curfew.

462
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:31,320
Speaker 1: Sometimes you know that that's that's a normal teenager thing.

463
00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: And this was before cell phones, you know, this was

464
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 1: the nearly two thousands. I mean, cellphones existed, but you know,

465
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 1: I was a kid in Suberbia. I didn't have a cellphone.

466
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,239
Speaker 1: So something looking back that is very scary to me

467
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 1: is how this secret put me in so much danger

468
00:29:47,520 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: and I did not understand or comprehend or acknowledge at

469
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 1: all at the time. But the fact that nobody knew

470
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: where I was for so much time is frankly very scary.

471
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 1: Out It occurs to me from time to time when

472
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: I hear certain kinds of stories that these stories would

473
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 1: not have unfolded the way they did if they had

474
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: taken place now, when everyone's connected by technology. The kinds

475
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:18,320
Speaker 1: of lies and secrets that happened even twenty years ago

476
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:22,719
Speaker 1: would never have happened in the same way today. Alison's

477
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 1: parents didn't have the ability to track her on Find

478
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: my Friends, or a call to check in with her,

479
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 1: even if it had occurred to them. The other question

480
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: that occurred to me before we move forward, is um,

481
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:36,640
Speaker 1: it's kind of a It's a tricky question in a way, um,

482
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: but did you know that you were very pretty? I

483
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:43,680
Speaker 1: don't mean looking back now in that way of you know,

484
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 1: sort of looking at pictures and realizing, oh my god,

485
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 1: I was really pretty, But did you did you know

486
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: it as a as a sixteen year old, seventeen year old, No,

487
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 1: I was wildly insecure. I thought that with enough efforts

488
00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:04,280
Speaker 1: and with sort of that kind of sexy, sedectorus flirtatious

489
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 1: attitude that we saw all over media, all over TV shows.

490
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 1: You know, this was back in the era of Britney Spears,

491
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: of Dawson's Creek, of sort of all that pop culture

492
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: that's so much about sexualizing young women and teenagers. I mean,

493
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:23,320
Speaker 1: I think that air of the pop star is just

494
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 1: something so specific and disturbing, um in a way that

495
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:31,040
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, of course, like the sexualization of

496
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 1: young women is always disturbing, but I think that was

497
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:35,400
Speaker 1: really an apex of this sort of specific kind of

498
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:45,160
Speaker 1: perspective that society had on young women. And I thought that, well,

499
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 1: I'm not pretty, but if I put on enough makeup

500
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 1: and I wear low cut shirts and you know, low

501
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:54,120
Speaker 1: rise pants, which was of course all that was being

502
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 1: sold at Abercombian Fitch and like all those mall stores.

503
00:31:57,320 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 1: And if I could do that, then I could look

504
00:32:00,840 --> 00:32:03,600
Speaker 1: pretty enough. And I saw that as a way to

505
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: be powerful, because, of course, there are so many signals

506
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 1: in media, in our society and in our language that

507
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 1: young women, in particulars power is through sex, is through

508
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:22,719
Speaker 1: their body. I think part of what made me so

509
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: attracted to him was how overt he was about his

510
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: attraction to me, and that sort of experience of being

511
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 1: seen as sexy, not just as sexy. He thought I

512
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 1: was smart, He thought I was a good writer. He

513
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:43,880
Speaker 1: thought that I was a good person. He thought that

514
00:32:43,960 --> 00:32:46,440
Speaker 1: I had just had a rough couple of years and

515
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 1: that's normal. And he would sometimes say things like I

516
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: don't know why you were so sad, because you're so smart,

517
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 1: and you're so beautiful, and you are only potential, and

518
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:57,320
Speaker 1: those are things that no one had ever said to

519
00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 1: me at that point. I just ate that up. I mean,

520
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 1: I think anyone would have but me at that point

521
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: in my life. He was just under ten years older

522
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 1: than me. He was the cute teacher in my school.

523
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: All the girls thought he was like the hot one,

524
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: so just that sort of attention from him was just overwhelming.

525
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 1: So the fact that the asking me for my braw

526
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:25,960
Speaker 1: s eyes in return for the size of his penis

527
00:33:26,040 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: was happening before Thanksgiving, I think so, not even three

528
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: months later. I think that says something about how quickly

529
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 1: there was the relationship escalated too deeply inappropriate, and it

530
00:33:39,640 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: mostly continued on like that for the rest of the year.

531
00:33:43,360 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 1: At one point he felt like people were suspecting things,

532
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 1: so he he had me start dating somebody and was

533
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 1: getting these sort of these very specific instructions. At the

534
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: same time, got very jealous of the fact that I

535
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: was spending time with this other guy, this teenager, the

536
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: guy who was only who was nineteen, who was you know,

537
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:05,240
Speaker 1: my age. Basically he was a friend of a friend.

538
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:09,360
Speaker 1: And Mr North got very jealous about that and very angry.

539
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:12,720
Speaker 1: And I was full of guilt because there's other teenage

540
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: boy really liked me, and he said he was in

541
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 1: love with me, and I was like, I'm just doing

542
00:34:16,560 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 1: this because Mr and North he was telling you too well,

543
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:23,320
Speaker 1: the point should be made to write that you were seventeen.

544
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:26,839
Speaker 1: So aside from the fact the that he was your

545
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:30,240
Speaker 1: teacher and that and that he could lose his job,

546
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:32,840
Speaker 1: and you know that that would be you know, a

547
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: huge deal if if this all was discovered you were

548
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 1: legally underage. Yes, I was legally under age. And he

549
00:34:41,160 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 1: began to bring that up a lot in our time together,

550
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 1: especially at the diner. I mean once he wrote, at

551
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:52,479
Speaker 1: the dinner, we would pass pieces of the paper place

552
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:56,600
Speaker 1: mats or napkins or these pieces of paper from school

553
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 1: back and forth, you know, writing the sort of very sexy,

554
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 1: intense things back and forth to each other. And I

555
00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:11,319
Speaker 1: remember once he wrote something about how playmates are only

556
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 1: eighteen and we are we being society are told to

557
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 1: look and yet I'm supposed to cast my eyes away

558
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 1: from you. He's sort of very romantic, but now I

559
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: see it is also very deeply manipulative and kind of

560
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:30,800
Speaker 1: icky ideas um. But at the time it seems like, Wow,

561
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:39,359
Speaker 1: she's just so smart and deep and right. We'll be

562
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:55,920
Speaker 1: back in a moment with more family secrets. Mr North

563
00:35:56,160 --> 00:36:01,480
Speaker 1: introduces Allison to his favorite novel, Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov.

564
00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:05,360
Speaker 1: He tells her it's the greatest love story ever told.

565
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:10,200
Speaker 1: Alison later way later learns to her horror and shame

566
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:14,320
Speaker 1: that Mr North has been mispronouncing the surname of the

567
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: Russian novelist. It's not Nabakov, It's Nabakov. Even in this

568
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:23,680
Speaker 1: he was a posure, a fake, a charlatan. She couldn't

569
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 1: see through. He gave me Lolita pretty early on. He

570
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:31,840
Speaker 1: gave it to me that fall one night at the

571
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,120
Speaker 1: diner in the parking lot, and he had read to

572
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:38,320
Speaker 1: me the opening already, and he gave me his copy

573
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:42,120
Speaker 1: and had inscribed it to me. This book is Love, Lust,

574
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: and Lightning, and I just thought it was the most

575
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:49,359
Speaker 1: romantic thing ever ever. I could not even my mind

576
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 1: practically exploded at the romance he was offering me. He

577
00:36:54,400 --> 00:36:56,759
Speaker 1: told me that it was this beautiful story about love,

578
00:36:56,880 --> 00:36:58,680
Speaker 1: and that this was a story about us, and it

579
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 1: was the star crossed loves, and it was this seduction

580
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 1: by this young woman, and nobody could understand their love,

581
00:37:05,200 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: so it would had to be a secret, and I

582
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: I lapped it up. I didn't know any better. I

583
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 1: literally did not even know what an unreliable narrator was

584
00:37:14,600 --> 00:37:19,120
Speaker 1: at that point in my life. So I thought that

585
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:23,919
Speaker 1: this book was what I was supposed to be aspiring

586
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 1: to be. I thought that Lolita Dolores Hayes was sort

587
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:34,279
Speaker 1: of my model, and that by being like her, I

588
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: was being powerful. I was being this sexy Jezebel. And

589
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:43,760
Speaker 1: I was given the impression because he told me that

590
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 1: that was the height of sex and love and lust. Well,

591
00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 1: and it was the perfect vehicle for his grooming of

592
00:37:54,800 --> 00:38:02,920
Speaker 1: you because of this combination of what the novel entails,

593
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: and also it's literary, you know, greatness. So he's presenting

594
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:13,400
Speaker 1: it to as an English teacher and as a fellow writer.

595
00:38:13,880 --> 00:38:15,919
Speaker 1: I imagine when he first presented it too, it must

596
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 1: have been like sort of the perfect key, you know,

597
00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 1: like the perfect you know key for the lock. However,

598
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 1: the you know, the open lock. Really that was you

599
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 1: at that time, very much, I mean even now, I

600
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:34,360
Speaker 1: mean people still talk about Nabakov being one of the

601
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 1: greatest writers. There are graduate school classes just devoted to Nabakov.

602
00:38:39,680 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 1: And so he put Nabakov on this incredibly high pedestal

603
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:48,840
Speaker 1: for me and very much introduced it as this is

604
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: the greatest love story of our century. And looking back,

605
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 1: it was it was the perfect tool for grooming. But

606
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:57,880
Speaker 1: I never thought of it like that. I thought I

607
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 1: was so special for him sharing this with me, And

608
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: I also knew it was sort of like a scandalous book.

609
00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 1: I knew that too, because he told me, you know,

610
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:10,680
Speaker 1: don't let people know that I gave it to you,

611
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:12,840
Speaker 1: don't you know. It's it's a secret. It's a secret

612
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:16,400
Speaker 1: between us, like everything was. And so I thought that

613
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:19,319
Speaker 1: made me special, and that that made it's special, like

614
00:39:19,400 --> 00:39:22,400
Speaker 1: he was risking something to give this to me, and

615
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:25,040
Speaker 1: that of course made me just want it more like

616
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: any teenager. Looking back, it makes me very sad that

617
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:34,000
Speaker 1: a piece of literature was used in that way. But

618
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:38,520
Speaker 1: I also have very complicated feelings about a Bokov and

619
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: Lolita now in that I think it is a beautiful book.

620
00:39:44,280 --> 00:39:46,360
Speaker 1: I think it is a beautifully written book that opening

621
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:48,399
Speaker 1: light of my life are of my loins, my sin,

622
00:39:48,520 --> 00:39:51,399
Speaker 1: my soul. I mean, my god, it's a There are

623
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 1: just some beautiful, beautiful parts in that book, staggeringly beautiful

624
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 1: that I teach in class because they're just such powerful

625
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: examples of the tools of literature, the tools of language,

626
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:07,280
Speaker 1: and there's all that wonderful stuff. But it is also

627
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:15,799
Speaker 1: problematic as fun, and it can be both. It can

628
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: be beautiful, and it is also a story about rape

629
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 1: and kidnapping, and grooming, and we have to be able

630
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 1: to acknowledge both and pedophilia. Yeah, and pedophilia, yes, yeah,

631
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:35,440
Speaker 1: that little thing. Just that. The direction of Allison's life

632
00:40:35,520 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 1: is now firmly being controlled by Mr North's. He starts

633
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 1: talking to her about their future, the two of them.

634
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:45,720
Speaker 1: He pushes her toward Ithaca College because he has plans

635
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:50,040
Speaker 1: to attend graduate school nearby at Cornell. This too, is

636
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:55,320
Speaker 1: about as genuine as his pronunciation of the author of Lolita. Anyway,

637
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,919
Speaker 1: Ithaca College isn't Allison's first choice, but that's where she goes.

638
00:40:59,560 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 1: Mr is the master of her destiny and her parents.

639
00:41:03,719 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: Her parents still have no idea what's going on. And

640
00:41:06,719 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 1: the night after she graduates from high school, literally the

641
00:41:09,520 --> 00:41:14,280
Speaker 1: next night, she and Mr North what to say, consummate

642
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:17,960
Speaker 1: their relationship, begin their affair. None of the words are

643
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 1: quite right. Let's just call it what it is. They

644
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:26,879
Speaker 1: have sex. Mr North, or Nick as I began calling him,

645
00:41:26,960 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 1: made it really clear that spring that we were going

646
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,239
Speaker 1: to be together, that he was in love with me,

647
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:37,400
Speaker 1: that by going to Ithaca College, he was going to

648
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: go back to Cornell and get his PhD in another year,

649
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:43,959
Speaker 1: and then we could just be together. As like two

650
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,279
Speaker 1: co eds in town, and we don't have to be

651
00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:52,680
Speaker 1: a secret anymore. So when I graduated, I knew, okay,

652
00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:56,600
Speaker 1: this is this is this line that we are going

653
00:41:56,640 --> 00:42:01,400
Speaker 1: to cross up. Until then, it had never been physical,

654
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 1: with the exception of this one time he kissed my ankle,

655
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: and that was the line. And he told me that

656
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:11,399
Speaker 1: it was because he could get fired, and I did

657
00:42:11,400 --> 00:42:14,280
Speaker 1: not want him to get fired. And I was adamant

658
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:15,879
Speaker 1: that I would never tell that, I would never let

659
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 1: that happen to him. But then the night of my graduation,

660
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:24,359
Speaker 1: at my graduation party, our graduation ceremony afterwards, he gave

661
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 1: me whenever he told me to call him, and I

662
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: went to his apartment the following night and I got

663
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 1: very drunk. He got me very drunk. You know, I

664
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: was eighteen at this point. Um, I'd really only had

665
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 1: like bears at some sort of party on someone's back porch.

666
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 1: You know, I had had very very little um interactings

667
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:53,879
Speaker 1: with alcohol. I had never done drugs. And he got

668
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 1: me drunk on Cosmopolitans because sex in the city was

669
00:42:57,280 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: cool then, so I was like, yeah, I'll have a

670
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: cost smell. I didn't know what I wanted to drink

671
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:04,960
Speaker 1: because I didn't know what I liked to drink. But

672
00:43:05,040 --> 00:43:08,040
Speaker 1: I got really drunk and we had sex for the

673
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 1: first time. And I don't remember all of it, but

674
00:43:14,239 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 1: I do remember it was very uncomfortable and it was

675
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: not at all romantic or anything like the fantasy that

676
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:28,799
Speaker 1: I had sort of put upon what our relationship was

677
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 1: going to be like. And what are you know, quote

678
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:36,319
Speaker 1: unquote love was. And I remember thinking that it was me,

679
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 1: that I had done something wrong, and that I wasn't

680
00:43:40,360 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: good enough, that I didn't know how to have fact,

681
00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 1: you know, that I was doing things wrong. Um, And

682
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 1: I very very much blamed myself, and the relationship very

683
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:58,960
Speaker 1: quickly became even more controlling and very emotionally and verbally abusive.

684
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:05,319
Speaker 1: And over the next six nine months when we were together, um,

685
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 1: as you said, having the affair. You know, I really

686
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:12,200
Speaker 1: hate the word affair. But the problem is there's no

687
00:44:12,320 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 1: word for what was happening. It's not a relationship because

688
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:20,400
Speaker 1: that sort of suggested in a equality, and there was

689
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 1: no equality in our relationship. Um. He was far more

690
00:44:25,120 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 1: the person in power than I ever was, even for

691
00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:31,680
Speaker 1: a moment, and we weren't dating because that sort of

692
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:34,600
Speaker 1: seems too casual and sort of like, you know, you're

693
00:44:34,680 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 1: dating in high school. But he wasn't in high school.

694
00:44:36,520 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 1: He was almost ten years older than me. He wasn't

695
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: my boyfriend because he was a secret. Nobody knew. And

696
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 1: something that I think is really interesting and frustrating is

697
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: that we don't have a word for this, which I

698
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:51,279
Speaker 1: think tells us a lot about what our language and

699
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:54,720
Speaker 1: what our culture thinks about these relationships, or it doesn't.

700
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 1: So the relationship continued, and it continued to be a secret,

701
00:44:59,239 --> 00:45:03,839
Speaker 1: and I began to get really frustrated by that. Um

702
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:07,359
Speaker 1: so it was exhausting to keep this secret because by

703
00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: then I had made friends, I had sort of found

704
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:14,759
Speaker 1: my place as a teenager in my high school. I

705
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 1: had sort of made more social connections, and I was

706
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:21,799
Speaker 1: constantly lying, why did it have to continue to be

707
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 1: a secret at that point when you were eighteen and

708
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:30,400
Speaker 1: had graduated. He said he would get fired if anybody

709
00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: found out, So we had to get a new being

710
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:35,600
Speaker 1: a secret, and I did not understand that. I was like,

711
00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: I'm eighteen, it's fine, what's the big deal? But he

712
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 1: insisted that it continue being a secret, and who was

713
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 1: I to argue? So it seems like he continued to

714
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:52,560
Speaker 1: become more and more sort of emotionally and verbally abusive,

715
00:45:52,680 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: something that he hadn't really overtly been when he was

716
00:45:57,760 --> 00:46:01,319
Speaker 1: grooming you, when he was like a actively courting you

717
00:46:01,440 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 1: by grooming you. When I went off to college, that

718
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:09,360
Speaker 1: was really when things took a turn to the even worse.

719
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 1: The relationship was nothing like I had imagined. The relationship

720
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:19,280
Speaker 1: was absolutely not the fantasy and this wonderful, romantic, beautiful

721
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:23,239
Speaker 1: love story that he had promised me. It was really

722
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:27,960
Speaker 1: ugly at times. It was full of him humiliating me

723
00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:31,759
Speaker 1: at times. Once he made me key in front of

724
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 1: him because he said that this was what real relationships

725
00:46:35,120 --> 00:46:40,200
Speaker 1: are about, which just horrified me and I, you know,

726
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 1: and he forced me to. He put me in the

727
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:45,959
Speaker 1: bathroom and he would not let me leave. There would

728
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 1: just be these very humiliating and these deeply imbalanced power

729
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:58,360
Speaker 1: moves that he would make, and those just began to increase.

730
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 1: And when I went off to college, he would come

731
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 1: up and visit me sometimes, but it got really ugly

732
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:10,280
Speaker 1: really fast. Probably the worst one of the worst facts

733
00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:14,200
Speaker 1: that we had was when was that semester I was

734
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 1: taking a literature course, and we were talking about short

735
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:22,560
Speaker 1: stories and PO and my professor had, you know, talked

736
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:24,800
Speaker 1: about how PO was the father of the short story.

737
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:28,080
Speaker 1: So I was with him and I and he was

738
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:29,840
Speaker 1: like house classes and I was like, oh my god,

739
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:32,120
Speaker 1: we're talking, you know, we're learning about these things and

740
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:34,960
Speaker 1: I'm so excited and Poe and I was saying all

741
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 1: of that, and he laughed at me and said, you know,

742
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:42,600
Speaker 1: your your professor is wrong. You're not learning anything there.

743
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:47,360
Speaker 1: And I got, you know, upset, and he began arguing

744
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:51,040
Speaker 1: with me that another writer I think, I think he

745
00:47:51,080 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 1: said Nathaniel Hawthorne was the father of the short story.

746
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:58,239
Speaker 1: And we got into a screaming match about it, and

747
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 1: we were both drunk, because it did take me much

748
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:03,239
Speaker 1: to get drunk, and he threw a glass across the

749
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 1: room and it shattered on the wall and I broke

750
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:10,720
Speaker 1: down crying. And I mean, these sort of fights happened

751
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:13,759
Speaker 1: more and more. The more that I began to sort

752
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:16,799
Speaker 1: of get my own opinions about things and began to

753
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: not see him as this all knowing, all controlling figure,

754
00:48:22,320 --> 00:48:28,759
Speaker 1: the more tension we had, and eventually it became very

755
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:36,359
Speaker 1: sexually abusive. And there are definitely times in that relationship

756
00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:39,799
Speaker 1: when looking back twenty years later, I would call that

757
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:44,240
Speaker 1: rape what happened. I would never say that at the time.

758
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:47,640
Speaker 1: At the time, again, I just thought he'd gotten mad

759
00:48:47,680 --> 00:48:51,880
Speaker 1: at me. I was doing something wrong. It was my fault,

760
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 1: and I never ever would have used that word. But

761
00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:59,520
Speaker 1: now he definitely raped me at least twice. Yeah, there

762
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:02,000
Speaker 1: were definite moments when our sex was non consensual. On

763
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:09,440
Speaker 1: my heart, what do you think allowed you to ultimately

764
00:49:09,480 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: get out? Because not everyone gets out. I think that's

765
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:24,480
Speaker 1: very very luckily. I saw that because of keeping him

766
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:29,400
Speaker 1: Nick the teacher, a secret. And while I was in college,

767
00:49:29,680 --> 00:49:35,239
Speaker 1: I was putting myself back into that same isolated, not

768
00:49:35,440 --> 00:49:38,239
Speaker 1: connecting with people place that I had been in high

769
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:42,040
Speaker 1: school in my senior year when I first returned, because

770
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:44,640
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to go out with my friends, I

771
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:47,560
Speaker 1: wasn't really making friends because it's weird when you know

772
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:49,880
Speaker 1: you can't go out with them that night. You have

773
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:53,160
Speaker 1: to stay home in your dorm room waiting for the

774
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 1: teacher to call you, and you can't tell anybody that

775
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:58,319
Speaker 1: that's why you're waiting in your dorm room. There was

776
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:03,319
Speaker 1: just this constant lying and I just somehow I was

777
00:50:03,360 --> 00:50:07,240
Speaker 1: able to see dot that he made me feel shitty,

778
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:11,560
Speaker 1: that I was crying way too much, that it became

779
00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:13,520
Speaker 1: clear that he probably was not going to be getting

780
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 1: into any PhD program, much less Cornell's, so we were

781
00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:21,240
Speaker 1: not going to be able to be just two codes

782
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 1: like he had promised. And I somehow found the strength

783
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 1: to walk away and to want to have my own life.

784
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 1: And frankly, I don't know how I did that. I

785
00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 1: don't know, but I thankfully was able to. Allison graduates

786
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:44,640
Speaker 1: from Ithaca College and works at a nonprofit was at

787
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:48,279
Speaker 1: risk teenagers, perhaps a way of repairing some of her

788
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 1: own wounds. She eventually enrolls in a Master of Fine

789
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:56,239
Speaker 1: Arts program and becomes a professor of writing, herself a

790
00:50:56,360 --> 00:51:00,560
Speaker 1: wonderfully false circle moment. When she become as a teacher,

791
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:04,080
Speaker 1: it truly drives the point home to her. Even though

792
00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:05,880
Speaker 1: her parents should have been able to read some of

793
00:51:05,880 --> 00:51:08,880
Speaker 1: the signs that she was in trouble, it was really

794
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:12,919
Speaker 1: her teachers, the ones who witnessed what was happening, who

795
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:15,839
Speaker 1: had to see the way this teacher student relationship had

796
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 1: gone off the rails, and who said and did nothing

797
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:27,319
Speaker 1: The first time I walked into a classroom as a professor.

798
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:33,240
Speaker 1: It was a slap in the face. I mean, there's

799
00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 1: no other way to describe it. I had been working

800
00:51:37,480 --> 00:51:40,640
Speaker 1: with teenagers for quite a while at that point, which,

801
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:43,040
Speaker 1: of course, looking back, it all makes sense. It's like, ah,

802
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:46,160
Speaker 1: this is part of my processing um working with girls

803
00:51:46,200 --> 00:51:51,320
Speaker 1: doing empowerment stuff during workaround consent and dating violence and

804
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:55,280
Speaker 1: you know, reading programs and all and all the specific

805
00:51:55,320 --> 00:51:58,160
Speaker 1: work with girls. And at the time I did not

806
00:51:58,200 --> 00:51:59,839
Speaker 1: see any of those things. I just liked that work.

807
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:05,080
Speaker 1: But looking back, it's fall clearly part of my dealing

808
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:08,640
Speaker 1: with what it happened to me. But then becoming a

809
00:52:08,640 --> 00:52:17,200
Speaker 1: teacher myself was this whole new experience. And it is

810
00:52:17,280 --> 00:52:21,480
Speaker 1: just striking how when you are a professor, when you

811
00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:24,719
Speaker 1: are a teacher and you have a workshop, you have

812
00:52:24,760 --> 00:52:28,480
Speaker 1: a classroom full of students. It is just as someone

813
00:52:28,480 --> 00:52:30,879
Speaker 1: who is thirty seven now so literally twenty years later,

814
00:52:31,520 --> 00:52:35,880
Speaker 1: they're just so young, even even though they're eighteen nineteen,

815
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:41,400
Speaker 1: maybe they're even twenty, They're so young. I mean, there's

816
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 1: just no other way to put it. And this is

817
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: not to of course disavow their agency, their maturity, their strength,

818
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:52,360
Speaker 1: their intelligence, but they are still children too. You know,

819
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:55,400
Speaker 1: many of them have never lived on their own, they've

820
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:57,879
Speaker 1: never paid a bill, some of them don't know how

821
00:52:57,880 --> 00:53:01,680
Speaker 1: to do their own laundry or how to cook for themselves.

822
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:05,080
Speaker 1: I mean, in a lot of practical ways, there's still children,

823
00:53:05,120 --> 00:53:11,040
Speaker 1: but also just emotionally, you can tell in their bodies

824
00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:15,600
Speaker 1: that they're still children in their faces. And then it's

825
00:53:15,680 --> 00:53:21,560
Speaker 1: also so obvious when a girl is in trouble in particular,

826
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:25,360
Speaker 1: there's always at least one student, one girl. It's always

827
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:30,920
Speaker 1: a girl who is having a hard time and needs

828
00:53:31,040 --> 00:53:35,960
Speaker 1: some support and needs extra attention and care, and this

829
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:41,520
Speaker 1: need just radiates. It's so her vulnerability is just so obvious.

830
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:45,120
Speaker 1: And I remember that first day in the classroom, before

831
00:53:46,239 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 1: we were just introducing each other, you know, not even

832
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:51,880
Speaker 1: not even working on writing or doing anything like that,

833
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:53,680
Speaker 1: sort of starting to get to get to know each

834
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:57,600
Speaker 1: other in the classroom, and there she was right in

835
00:53:57,680 --> 00:54:01,560
Speaker 1: front of me, and it was me. I saw myself

836
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:06,839
Speaker 1: in this girl, and it just made me realize how

837
00:54:06,960 --> 00:54:13,040
Speaker 1: vulnerable I was, what an easy target I was, and

838
00:54:14,280 --> 00:54:20,640
Speaker 1: it made me so viscerally mad and angry about what

839
00:54:20,760 --> 00:54:23,760
Speaker 1: happened to me in this whole new way. At this point,

840
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 1: I had already been angry and I have been frustrated

841
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:28,400
Speaker 1: about what what had happened. You're like, this is really shitty,

842
00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:31,280
Speaker 1: This wasn't my fault, you know, all of those things.

843
00:54:31,320 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 1: But then becoming a teacher myself, and you know, my

844
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:37,040
Speaker 1: stuents are even a little bit older than I was.

845
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 1: But to go into a classroom and see your students

846
00:54:41,120 --> 00:54:45,279
Speaker 1: as anything but people that you need to protect and

847
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:48,920
Speaker 1: do take care of and provide for. To look at

848
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:51,400
Speaker 1: your students and think, wow, I want to try to

849
00:54:51,480 --> 00:54:56,360
Speaker 1: fuck that one. There is nothing more wrong to me.

850
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:59,279
Speaker 1: And I just got viscerally angry about what happened to

851
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:01,520
Speaker 1: me in this whole way. I mean, I think teaching

852
00:55:01,520 --> 00:55:07,640
Speaker 1: a secret, I really do so to understand in this

853
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:13,600
Speaker 1: new perspective what was done to me. It was illuminating

854
00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:18,680
Speaker 1: because I then better understood myself and what had been done,

855
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:23,960
Speaker 1: and it also sort of sharpened by anger and also, frankly,

856
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:27,759
Speaker 1: my resolve to not let this happen in my classroom

857
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:30,759
Speaker 1: or in any classroom that I had any part of.

858
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:34,920
Speaker 1: I'm just having an insight listening to you, which is

859
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:39,120
Speaker 1: that I don't think that shame and anger can occupy

860
00:55:39,200 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 1: the same space. When shame takes over, it's not possible

861
00:55:46,239 --> 00:55:50,000
Speaker 1: to feel the kind of white hot clarity, because shame

862
00:55:50,120 --> 00:55:56,080
Speaker 1: means the wrongness is us, and anger is taking that

863
00:55:56,200 --> 00:56:00,120
Speaker 1: wrongness and turning it around a d eighty degrees and saying, no,

864
00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:04,960
Speaker 1: I was a victim here, and you were the person

865
00:56:05,480 --> 00:56:08,080
Speaker 1: who was in power and was in was in charge,

866
00:56:08,200 --> 00:56:11,719
Speaker 1: and who did this. I didn't do this, You did this,

867
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:14,960
Speaker 1: And you can't get there when there's still are these

868
00:56:15,040 --> 00:56:16,880
Speaker 1: vestiges of shame. And I think it can take a

869
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:20,920
Speaker 1: really long time to have all of that really peel away.

870
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:26,680
Speaker 1: It took me a good fifteen years. I have spent

871
00:56:27,040 --> 00:56:30,640
Speaker 1: probably the first fifteen years after this had happened, thinking

872
00:56:30,640 --> 00:56:34,600
Speaker 1: it was my fault, you know, thinking I had seduced him,

873
00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:38,480
Speaker 1: that I was just as much of a participant in

874
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:43,760
Speaker 1: this relationship as he was, and being in a classroom

875
00:56:43,800 --> 00:56:46,919
Speaker 1: made it so clear that nope, that is not what

876
00:56:46,960 --> 00:56:50,160
Speaker 1: was happening. And I think you're right, this sort of

877
00:56:50,160 --> 00:56:54,759
Speaker 1: white hot clarity of anger of you know, sort of

878
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:57,560
Speaker 1: putting that blame outward for the first time really in

879
00:56:57,640 --> 00:57:01,840
Speaker 1: some ways. And I like the word victim. I know

880
00:57:01,960 --> 00:57:04,319
Speaker 1: some people don't, and Obviously this is a very personal thing,

881
00:57:04,760 --> 00:57:07,520
Speaker 1: but I actually like the word victim because to me,

882
00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:11,400
Speaker 1: it's sort of the nately suggests a victim of something,

883
00:57:12,120 --> 00:57:16,760
Speaker 1: a victim of someone, as opposed to, you know, a

884
00:57:16,800 --> 00:57:19,720
Speaker 1: word like survivor, which to me is kind of flattening.

885
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:22,480
Speaker 1: And I mean, you know, all all words can be flattening,

886
00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:28,120
Speaker 1: but I think it eliminates the part of acknowledging the harm.

887
00:57:28,160 --> 00:57:30,800
Speaker 1: And I think that moment in the classroom, and every

888
00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:33,640
Speaker 1: time I stepped foot into a classroom is part of

889
00:57:33,680 --> 00:57:37,760
Speaker 1: me acknowledging the harm that was done to me that

890
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: I did not bring upon myself. I was seventeen. I

891
00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:45,960
Speaker 1: was a kid. This man was an adult. He was

892
00:57:45,960 --> 00:57:48,720
Speaker 1: almost ten years older than me. He was a grown up.

893
00:57:48,760 --> 00:57:51,880
Speaker 1: There was there's no way to excuse his behavior. Maybe

894
00:57:51,920 --> 00:57:54,000
Speaker 1: I thought he was cute, and maybe I was flirting

895
00:57:54,040 --> 00:57:56,920
Speaker 1: with him, but the thing is that was completely developmentally appropriate.

896
00:57:56,960 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 1: First devon girl to have a crush on our teacher,

897
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:02,960
Speaker 1: to try to flirt with adults like that's fine, but

898
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:05,840
Speaker 1: he should have known better, and he did, and he

899
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 1: did it anyway. Family Secrets is a production of I

900
00:58:22,280 --> 00:58:27,240
Speaker 1: Heart Media, Dylan Fagin and Bethan Mcalouso are the executive producers.

901
00:58:27,720 --> 00:58:31,160
Speaker 1: Andrew Howard is our audio editor. If you have a

902
00:58:31,200 --> 00:58:34,160
Speaker 1: secret you'd like to share, leave us a voicemail and

903
00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:38,480
Speaker 1: your story could appear on an upcoming bonus episode. Our

904
00:58:38,680 --> 00:58:44,520
Speaker 1: number is one secret zero, that's secret and then the

905
00:58:44,600 --> 00:58:49,000
Speaker 1: number zero. You can also find us on Instagram at

906
00:58:49,200 --> 00:58:54,479
Speaker 1: Danny Writer, Facebook at facebook dot com slash Family Secrets Pod,

907
00:58:54,960 --> 00:58:57,960
Speaker 1: and Twitter at fami Secret Spot. And if you want

908
00:58:58,000 --> 00:59:01,160
Speaker 1: to know about my family's secret that in fired this podcast,

909
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:31,200
Speaker 1: check out my New York Times bestselling memoir Inheritance. For

910
00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:33,720
Speaker 1: more podcasts. For my heart Radio, visit the I Heart

911
00:59:33,800 --> 00:59:36,760
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your

912
00:59:36,760 --> 00:59:37,440
Speaker 1: favorite shows.