WEBVTT - I Was 758 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.240 Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:08.200 You might think that if you were a research subject, 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:10.800 it would change your life, That being in a study 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:13.960 would shape who you were, That because you are being observed, 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:16.479 you would be compelled to become a better version of 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.960 yourself then you might have otherwise. And all of that 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:22.960 might be true. But at the same time, it might 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:25.440 cause you to feel a great deal of internal pressure 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:28.400 to be exceptional, to be more than who you were, 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.680 to perform well inside the bell jar under which you 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.800 were trapped. Or perhaps both of these things could be 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:39.199 true simultaneously, an increased sense of your potential and the 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.960 simmering terror that you might fail to fulfill it. 0:00:46.240 --> 0:00:51.159 That's Susannah Breslin, journalist and author of the memoir Data Baby, 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:56.400 My life in a psychological experiment. Susanna's is a story 0:00:56.440 --> 0:01:01.360 about a childhood spent being studied, watched, in examined, and 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:16.640 yet somehow not ever really seen. I'm Danny Shapiro, and 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:20.000 this is family Secrets. The secrets that are kept from us, 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.760 the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:33.280 keep from ourselves. Tell me about the landscape of your childhood, 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.000 the world that you were born into, and you know 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:38.080 what kind of place that was. 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:45.280 I was raised in Berkeley, California, in the late sixties 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:50.360 and seventies. My parents were intellectuals. My father taught at 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:55.120 the University of California, Berkeley. Both my parents were English professors, 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:58.559 and so there were a lot of books in our house. 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:03.640 There was a lot of encouragement of independent thinking, and 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.040 there was also a sense at that time, I think 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:11.480 that Berkeley was special, that the university was special, and 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.839 that my two bright parents, who had found each other, 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:19.200 were sort of special themselves and creating this special family, 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:23.200 I think, is how they originally envisioned it. The house 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.440 I grew up in was on a single block street 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:31.160 in the lower tiers of the North Berkeley Hills. So 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.400 it was stucco. Initially it was pink. Later my mother 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.640 painted it orange, and it was kind of a funny house. 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:42.800 It had a lot of French doors on the first floor, 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:44.760 so it got a lot of light. It had a 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:49.040 lot of sort of ornate wood carving, and then from 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:54.320 my parents' bedroom upstairs, you got this expansive view of 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:57.760 the San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gay Bridge and 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:02.320 the Bay Bridge, and we also had an enclosed porch 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:05.400 on the second floor that we referred to as the study, 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.840 which was where my father wrote his books, so he 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:12.560 could often be found in there. He only ever learned 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:15.880 you had a type with two fingers, so he would 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:18.960 sit there and poke on the manual typewriter like a 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.680 chicken pecking, and he would close the French doors that 0:03:22.800 --> 0:03:26.000 had these last panes on it. And so I would 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.679 come in sometimes and see my father writing in the 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.160 study and press my head against the glass, wishing I 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:36.000 could be with him. I think when my parents met 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:41.120 when they were getting their PhDs in Minnesota, there was 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:44.960 very much a sense that they were equals, and that's 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:47.160 part of why they liked each other. They were also 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.080 both incredibly tall. My father was almost sixty four and 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:52.320 my mother was five eleven, So I think they were 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.200 they had these big brains, and they were these tall people, 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:59.320 and I think they spelt well suited in that regard. 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:04.240 And my father got an opportunity to teach English at 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:08.720 UC Berkeley, so they came west. When my mother, once 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.240 they were in Berkeley, accidentally got pregnant with my older sister. 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.520 I think that the way she envisioned her life going 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:19.320 and the way it actually went split into two different directions. 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:23.280 Despite the fact that, you know, the feminist movement is 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:26.359 in full gear at that time, and my mother was 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:30.640 very much a feminist. The reality is she, you know, 0:04:30.800 --> 0:04:35.200 was also a mother to first my sister and then myself. 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.799 I came along about three and a half years later, 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.239 and it was consuming, and it meant that my father 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:46.800 was able to pursue an intellectual and academic life the 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.160 way that he dreamed. He was at this fantastic university. 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:54.440 He was writing books, he was producing scholarly work and teaching, 0:04:55.080 --> 0:05:01.560 and my mother was changing diapers and dealing with screaming 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.159 children and maintaining the house and shopping. I think she 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:06.760 sed us on our budget at thirty five dollars a week, 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:12.840 So her intellectual life suffered in support of his, which 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:17.400 was in part more helpings were then, But I think 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.200 she went along with it. But I think she was 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:25.760 in a lot of ways bored by her domestic life 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.240 and by her maternal life. 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.680 When Susannah's four years old, while her sister attends a 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:37.680 different school, she begins preschool at the Harold F. Jones 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:42.680 Child Study Center located at UC Berkeley. This is a 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:45.880 very special school, and it's thrilling to her parents that 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:47.159 she's selected to attend. 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.960 To me, it was just a preschool. It was an 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:57.279 incredible complex, and I remember walking up this funny zigzagging 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:02.200 ramp that takes you to this mess of concrete walkways. 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:07.640 It was designed by this barrier architect named Joseph Esherich, 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.400 and it had mid centry modern building. It had these 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:18.440 soaring stealings and the south facing wall was these big 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:21.400 glass doors that you could slide, so there was a 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:25.240 lot of ability to do what they encouraged, which was 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.960 self guided play, so you could play indoors, you could 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:32.400 go outside, and it was just this bright and wonderful place. 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:36.200 There was a lot of things to do. They understood that, 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:42.080 you know, children could guide themselves and learn autonomously, so 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.440 there was just a lot of freedom and I remember 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.920 just being really happy there. What I didn't know at 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:52.080 the time was that the preschool had been designed for 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:58.720 studying children, So there was a hidden observation gallery tucked 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:03.960 between these two bare classrooms, and researchers could go into 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:10.600 this gallery undetected and observe the students through this mesh 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.320 that had kind of an opaque screen over it. They 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:15.600 could hear what we were saying, and they could see 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.520 us playing, but we had no idea that they were there. 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.840 So there was this long sort of expanse. 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:28.480 On the east wall where unbeknownst to me, there were 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:33.160 researchers who were studying me and the other children who 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:34.400 were in the same studies. 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:38.560 So there's a long history at the university of the 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:43.640 children of the university's faculty and staff being studied by 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:48.240 researchers and graduate students. Initially, this was done at this 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.680 big house on one side of the campus, and so 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:59.160 preschoolers would be studied by, say a professor who was 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:03.920 studying early childhood development. He could go into this little 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:09.680 shed and study the children playing in the yard. The 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:14.360 same way another researcher in another building was studying rats 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:18.480 in amaze. So the studying of children at the university 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.920 dates back to the late twenties. Over time, you know, 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.559 they sort of professionalized it, and the idea was, let's 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:32.280 create this preschool dedicated to this that serves both our 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:36.679 faculty and staff who need you know, convenient quality childcare 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:42.160 that was you know, affordable, and that also supplies us 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:47.040 with a sort of endless stream of children who researchers 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:49.960 can actually come in and study them. So there's been 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:55.800 many studies, and many researchers have studied various groups of 0:08:55.880 --> 0:09:00.720 children at the university. And it just so happened that 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:04.200 by the time I showed up, they had created this 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.920 beautiful preschool that had been outfitted just for studying kids. 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:12.200 We would I also remember being taken out of the 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:17.120 classroom periodically. An adult would guide me across the concrete 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:19.839 walkway and we would go into what they called a 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.920 game room. At the time, I thought we were just 0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:24.080 playing games in a room. 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:30.080 Susanna's parents have signed the dotted Line, which permits her 0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:35.720 to be available as a research subject at ages three, four, five, seven, eleven, 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:40.880 and into adulthood. When Susannah is four, this place is magical. 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.920 It's just playing games in a room. But at around 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.120 age six, there's a home visit, which seems a little 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:52.560 odd to Susannah, but as many children do, she accepts 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.360 the reality of the world with which she's presented a 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.600 quote from the wonderful film The Truman Show, which is 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:03.079 also the epigraph in Susanna's memoir. The next year, however, 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:07.360 her acceptance of this reality begins to shift. She starts 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:09.720 to into it that there's something more going on here. 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:15.280 There's something she's sensing but not quite seeing. 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:20.600 So when I was maybe seven years old, I was 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:25.360 in one of the experiment rooms at Tolbenhall and sitting 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.240 across from a table from a man who was asking 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.640 me questions. I think one of the other researchers had 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:34.960 picked me up from school and brought me there. It 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:41.880 was right afternoon, and he was talking to me about myself. 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:44.000 I just knew that this was a place that I 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:48.000 was occasionally brought to. These people were very interested in me, 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:52.200 and I think I didn't fully understand why. At a 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:56.480 certain point, she said, do you want some candy? And 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:59.640 there was a bowl of Eminem's between us on the table, 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.760 and I in fact was starving because it was, you know, 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:09.079 some hours after school. But I hesitated in my response 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:12.360 to him. I sensed at the time that maybe this 0:11:12.600 --> 0:11:16.559 was some sort of a test. I said I didn't 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:21.880 want any candy, even though I was hungry, because I 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:24.840 think I wanted him to think I was like a 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:27.280 big girl. I wasn't like a little kid, you know, 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.280 who is candy? So I declined, He you know, went 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:34.599 back to asking me these other questions, and then a 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:36.840 few minutes later said, oh, I have to go take 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:38.920 care of something. Do you mind waiting here while I 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:42.040 go do that? So he left the room as soon 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:44.320 as the door closed behind him. I leapt out of 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:47.040 my chair and sort of dove across the table for 0:11:47.200 --> 0:11:51.959 the candy, and inadvertently knocked the bowl over in the process, which, 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:57.120 to my horror, sent Eminem's bouncing across the tabletop. Not 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.559 wanting to be caught making a mess, I grabbed candy 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:04.840 and stucked it into my mouth. Then suddenly I froze 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.840 and I could steel my cheeks getting hot, and I 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:12.000 looked into this mirror on the opposite wall, and I 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.760 could see my cheeks were pink, and I just had 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:19.200 this scent that there was somebody on the other side 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:23.240 of the mirror who was watching me. And I think 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.600 that was the moment where I sort of started to 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:32.480 understand there's more layers to this than I thought. 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.400 That's amazing. I mean, the idea that there would be 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.720 somebody on the other side of the mirror must have 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:45.480 been building somewhere, you know, in your very bright little 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:50.480 mind to then have that thought, because why would that 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:52.920 enter the mind of a seven year old child, there's 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.520 somebody watching me. It's just really interesting that, in terms 0:12:56.559 --> 0:12:59.600 of that feeling that you had that's so so powerful, 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:01.800 that you saw your face, you saw your red cheeks, 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:04.720 you flushed because you were mortified and embarrassed. But you 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:07.120 were mortified, and we don't get mortified and embarrassed when 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:08.000 we're alone in a room. 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:13.680 That's right. I don't know what figured me two sense 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.360 that somebody was on the other side of the mirror. 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:22.800 I was very sensitive. I was very aware of the 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:27.960 beneath of the adults around me, sort of as a child, 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.960 and so I don't know if it was just some 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:37.520 sort of intuitive sense, or if as happened, sometimes the 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.560 person on the other side of the mirror cocked or sneezed, 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.679 or you know, the one way mirror malfunctioned a little, 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.200 and I actually, you know, could see some kind of 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:52.080 a shadow. There are these sort of profound scenes in 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:55.679 which all I have is the point of view of 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.920 the seven year old, and I wish I knew more, 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:04.720 but I am limited to what she knew. 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:23.200 We'll be right back when Susanna's mother first drops her 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.640 off as a four year old at the child's study center, 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:29.320 she says something she repeats often over the course of 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:33.880 their lives together. I don't want to be a mother anymore. 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.160 This is, of course, a stunning thing to say and 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:42.640 a stunning thing to hear. It's also impossible, whether one 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.360 wants to be a parent anymore or not. Once one 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.360 has a child, they're a parent no matter what happens. 0:14:49.440 --> 0:14:53.320 So Susanna's childhood is marked by two extremes, being raised 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:54.960 by a mother who doesn't want to be a mother, 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.160 and being observed and studied in a secret, special club 0:14:59.280 --> 0:14:59.960 for special care. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:05.800 It's the home life that I had was very austere. 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:11.080 My parents were not warm, they were not touchy feely, 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:21.000 They were often sort of avoidant of emotional expression. I 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:27.240 was a creative, sensitive, emotional child who I think wanted 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:33.200 to have physical affection and a warm family environment. But 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.480 that's not what I got. So I spent a lot 0:15:36.480 --> 0:15:41.480 of time in my room by myself, engaged in imaginative play, 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:44.480 you know, playing with my dollhouse, playing with my stuffed animals, 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:50.400 and making up stories. My mother at a certain point 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:55.000 started verbalizing that she didn't want to be a mother anymore, 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:59.120 but I think long before that I sent that of her. 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.960 I think when she said out loud, I don't want 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:06.040 to be a mother anymore, what she was really saying 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:09.400 was I don't want to be this person anymore. I 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.920 don't want to be in this situation anymore. And I 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:18.840 think in her mind that's reasonable. Her life had not 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.600 gone the way she had wanted, and why couldn't she 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:26.080 want things to be another way? She wasn't the type 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.400 of person who was going to sit there and think 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:32.120 by saying I don't want to be a mother anymore, 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:36.480 how is my child going to hear that? Because the 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:42.160 child is going to hear my mother wishes I didn't exist. 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.880 And that was in a way I tried to conform 0:16:47.000 --> 0:16:51.320 to that. Okay, I'll make myself invisible, I'll make myself scarce, 0:16:51.480 --> 0:16:57.040 but it was impossible for me to make myself completely invisible. 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:05.639 When Susanna's around eleven, her parents divorce. Naturally, this big 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:09.320 life event becomes part of the study. Susannah's called in 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.879 for meetings with researchers who perform a Rorschach test to 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.359 try to understand how she's feeling about this new development 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.680 in her family dynamic and if they could understand that, 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:23.640 then maybe they could understand larger parts of Susanna's psychology 0:17:23.680 --> 0:17:25.160 and personality as a whole. 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.879 When Jack and Jean Block conceived of the study in 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.840 the late sixties, there was this paradigm crisis in personality 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:38.600 psychology and there were these questions around whether or not 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:43.439 personality traits were real. Did people have these traits that 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:48.760 shaped their behavior or was people's behavior largely informed by 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:53.200 the situation in which they found themselves. The Blocks believed 0:17:53.920 --> 0:18:00.800 that personalities shaped human behavior and remained relatively over the 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.760 course of one's life. But that was a theory, and 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.520 the only way to prove it is to study a 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:13.560 cohort of children from childhood into adulthood. This is a 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:18.080 herculean task, right, This is a thirty year project. It's 0:18:18.080 --> 0:18:22.400 a longitudinal study, by which its nature is that it's 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.160 prone to failure. It's costly, you know, can you even 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:28.520 make it to the finish line? And what have you 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:32.600 found when you get there? And so that was the 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:36.000 intention was to have this group of kids, of which 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:40.280 I was wanted to demonstrate that when you study the 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:45.600 personality traits of a preschooler, you will actually have a 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.320 strong sense of who that child is going to be 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.240 as an adult when you come back to them twenty 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:55.720 years later, you'll see those same personality traits over the 0:18:55.840 --> 0:19:00.000 course of my growing up life. I was, in many ways, 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:04.600 is an ideal labrat for their experiment. They were also 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:09.800 interested in depression. So a teenager becomes depressed, can you 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:13.159 if you look back at them in preschool, can you 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:17.159 actually see signs of that depression coming? And it turns 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:21.960 out the answer was yes. When they were studying us 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.120 and our parents were getting divorced in like the late 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:28.600 seventies and early eighties, this is coinciding with this big 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.640 divorce boom. The study has already been you know, following 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:35.240 us for over a decade, so it really, for the 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:38.560 first time, gave them as researchers, a front row seat 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:43.159 to how does divorce actually affect a child? Is it, 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.879 you know, is a divorce fundamentally problematic to a child? 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.320 Or is it the ways in which the parents navigate 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:52.320 the force and their own independent relationships with the children 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:57.080 and actually shape how the child responds to it. And 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:01.119 another thing that they were interested in that was a 0:20:01.160 --> 0:20:04.600 fit for me when I became an adolescent was they 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:09.800 were also interested in adolescent drug use and what the 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:14.679 relationship was between our you know, experimenting with drugs and 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:18.160 our mental well being. So there were a lot of ways. 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.720 In which, you know, my parents divorced, my own struggles 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:27.200 with depression, and then the you know, experimenting with drugs 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.920 and sex, sort of out of control behavior as a teenager. 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:33.000 It's not great for me, but for a research and 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:36.160 there was like kids the gold mine. I really struggled 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:39.520 a lot as a teen Once my parents got divorced, 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.199 I think my world kind of imploded. My father started 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:47.719 a new family, and my mother became terribly depressed and 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:52.280 really didn't emerge from that depression about a decade. So 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:54.359 I felt very much on my own. 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:55.040 You know. 0:20:55.080 --> 0:20:57.400 I would go as like a fifteen year old up 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:00.919 to UC Berkeley sprat Row and allow myself to be 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.240 led off into dark rooms by frat boys who had 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:09.560 no idea how old I was, and I was running 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:14.679 away from home and really got myself in quite a 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:19.320 bit of trouble. I think that there was this kind 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:25.280 of sea sawing or push pull because periodically I would 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:30.520 be called by the Block study to be a set 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:35.119 where they would occasionally send us birthday cards, or you 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:37.200 would just get a call from them, or your parents 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:38.840 would get a call from them, and they were just 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:41.399 checking in to see if you're still living in the 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:46.240 same place. They were checking their contact information. So the study, 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:50.280 you know, was periodically a part of my life, but 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:53.879 it was always sort of in my head. You know, 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:58.879 I have these sort of absent minded professor parents, but 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.480 I also have this kind of third parent, which was 0:22:02.560 --> 0:22:06.320 the study that I knew was following my life and 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:09.679 had been for over a decade at that point, that 0:22:09.920 --> 0:22:12.720 was interested in who I was, that was keeping track 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:16.760 of who I was, and that gave me a sense 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:22.080 of myself as special. I am part of something bigger 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:24.359 than myself. At that time, you know, I sort of 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:26.560 know that I'm in a study. There's these other kids 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:28.399 in the study. I don't know who they are, but 0:22:28.840 --> 0:22:32.040 we're all part of this research that's somehow going to 0:22:32.720 --> 0:22:37.800 you know, benefit humanity in terms of understanding how people 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:40.800 become who they are, and that was meaningful to. 0:22:40.720 --> 0:22:50.160 Me years past. And the study continues. Susanna navigates adolescence 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:55.760 under the watch of what feels like three very complicated parents, Mom, dad, 0:22:56.200 --> 0:23:00.000 and the study. But sometimes it seems like the study 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:04.240 is the only one really watching where her parents, especially 0:23:04.280 --> 0:23:08.360 her mother, are less involved in her life. Her teenage 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:12.640 years are fraught and reckless, but during college she develops 0:23:12.680 --> 0:23:16.119 an interest in writing. This bullies her and connects her 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:19.160 to her parents in a way intellectuals that they are 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:23.600 perhaps pursuing a career in writing and journalism is a 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:26.320 way to get her parents approval or at the very least, 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:32.560 their attention. In nineteen ninety six, Susanna's father suddenly dies. 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:37.040 Susannah is twenty seven, embarking on her life as a writer. 0:23:37.440 --> 0:23:42.080 When this asteroid hits, she seeks a distraction, a vocation, 0:23:42.960 --> 0:23:45.440 something besides grief to fill her up. 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:52.040 When my father died, I was really devastated. We have 0:23:52.240 --> 0:23:58.639 had a complicated relationship, but I felt like I knew 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:02.840 my father at least liked me, which was not really 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:05.920 the sense that I got from my mother. So when 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:09.040 my father died suddenly of a heart attack, it just 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:15.040 exploded my brain and I struggled a lot mentally. I 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:20.800 had anxiety attacks, and at the same time, I think 0:24:20.840 --> 0:24:23.520 I had felt intimidated by the fact that my father 0:24:24.840 --> 0:24:28.879 was an English professor and a writer of books. And 0:24:29.040 --> 0:24:32.560 when he died it kind of opened up place for 0:24:32.680 --> 0:24:37.359 me to step into my own as a writer, having 0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:41.760 just graduated from a writing program where I'd gotten a 0:24:41.800 --> 0:24:47.840 master's and you know, I was looking for something to 0:24:47.920 --> 0:24:51.439 write about that was interesting and that it also on 0:24:51.480 --> 0:24:54.159 an emotional level, would allow me to escape from the 0:24:54.359 --> 0:24:57.600 unhappiness I felt in the wake of my father's death. 0:24:58.280 --> 0:25:02.159 I didn't want to think about hand lying dead on 0:25:02.200 --> 0:25:05.040 the floor. I wanted to think about anything but that. 0:25:05.760 --> 0:25:08.359 And within about a year of him dying, I ended 0:25:08.440 --> 0:25:11.399 up going to San Francisco with a girlfriend and we 0:25:11.440 --> 0:25:15.199 went into a strip club on Broadway, and it was 0:25:15.600 --> 0:25:19.240 totally fascinating to me to see this group of men 0:25:19.359 --> 0:25:22.920 that focused on this woman dancing on the stage. It 0:25:23.119 --> 0:25:29.680 was very voyeuristic, and it was all about people who 0:25:29.680 --> 0:25:35.160 were seeing and people were being seen. And I think 0:25:35.200 --> 0:25:38.480 there's a way in which that resonated for me as 0:25:38.560 --> 0:25:42.960 somebody who grew up being studied, being looked at. I was, 0:25:43.240 --> 0:25:45.800 you know, the child and the teenager and the young 0:25:45.840 --> 0:25:50.000 adult who people were looking at and considering. I was 0:25:50.080 --> 0:25:53.640 always the thing, the subject. I wasn't the one asking 0:25:53.680 --> 0:25:57.080 the questions, I was the one answering them. And when 0:25:57.119 --> 0:26:01.359 I found this sort of subterraine in sex world, in 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:06.160 all its complexity, that I could write about and go 0:26:06.320 --> 0:26:10.600 through and be distracted from all the bad things in life. 0:26:11.080 --> 0:26:14.439 It was just a kind of revelation. And I was 0:26:14.480 --> 0:26:17.520 the one who was doing the looking, and I was 0:26:17.560 --> 0:26:19.760 the one who was asking the questions. So it was 0:26:19.800 --> 0:26:23.639 a way for me to sort of invert that paradigm 0:26:23.960 --> 0:26:27.080 from a passive position into an active position. 0:26:31.119 --> 0:26:35.320 This world becomes Susanna's beat as a journalist. One night, 0:26:35.400 --> 0:26:38.399 she goes to see the porn star Jenna Jamison dance 0:26:38.480 --> 0:26:41.160 at the Legendary of Pharaoh Theater in the Bay Area. 0:26:42.280 --> 0:26:45.159 Jenna's publicist invites Susanna to come visit one of the 0:26:45.160 --> 0:26:47.560 porn movie sets if she ever finds herself in La. 0:26:48.600 --> 0:26:52.200 Susanna does just that and falls in love with La. 0:26:52.680 --> 0:26:56.040 She stays for several years and becomes fascinated by the 0:26:56.080 --> 0:27:00.280 porn world. She dedicates herself to the porn beat, writes 0:27:00.480 --> 0:27:04.400 hundreds of compelling pieces about sex and the adult movie industry. 0:27:07.960 --> 0:27:12.200 The author Martin Amos once referred to the porn industry 0:27:12.240 --> 0:27:17.000 as a rough trade, and I think it is. It's 0:27:17.200 --> 0:27:21.600 a complicated place, but it's it's like there's a difference 0:27:21.640 --> 0:27:25.639 between having a chicken on your plate and going to 0:27:25.800 --> 0:27:29.560 the slaughterhouse where they kill the chickens. And I think 0:27:29.720 --> 0:27:34.240