Speaker 1: It's a shocking and horrific story that began at the
Speaker 1: prestigious Sarah Lawrence College. Bright students manipulated and coerced into
Speaker 1: a sadistic cult led by Larry Ray, the evil father
Speaker 1: of one of their classmates. Ray's decade long reign of
Speaker 1: terror was finally exposed when New York magazine broke the
Speaker 1: outrageous story. The crimes were so heinous he was recently
Speaker 1: sentenced to sixty years in prison. Daniel Levin is a
Speaker 1: survivor of this brutal, abusive, dehumanizing cult that started when
Speaker 1: his roommate said her father was going to stay with
Speaker 1: them for a bit. Before he knew it, Daniel and
Speaker 1: his fellow students were being extorted, tortured, physically and sexually abused,
Speaker 1: and it was all on camera. In this powerful two
Speaker 1: part edition of Navigating Narcissism, we will hear untold stories
Speaker 1: when two brave survivors with very different experiences speak out,
Speaker 1: How on earth did this cult begin at a top
Speaker 1: ranked university, How was Ray able to trick and trap
Speaker 1: these smart young people, and most importantly, how did his
Speaker 1: vicious behavior impact their lives? From Red Table Talk podcasts
Speaker 1: and iHeartMedia. I'm doctor Rominy, and this is Navigating Narcissism.
Speaker 1: This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
Speaker 1: medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
Speaker 1: independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare
Speaker 1: professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
Speaker 1: or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This
Speaker 1: episode discusses abuse and suicide, which may be triggering to
Speaker 1: some people. The views and opinion expressed are solely those
Speaker 1: of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast,
Speaker 1: and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: or their employees. Daniel, I'm so happy you could join
Speaker 1: me here on Navigating Narcissism for so many reasons. There's
Speaker 1: been so much coverage about the Sarah Lawrence scandal and
Speaker 1: what happened with Larry Ray. There's salacious interest in the details.
Speaker 1: The other part of the story that I don't think
Speaker 1: anyone ever talks about, but which I believe is most compelling,
Speaker 1: is what happens to anyone who survives something like this.
Speaker 1: We tend to end the stories where the scandal ends,
Speaker 1: with little regard for what happens to the people who
Speaker 1: are harmed, like yourself. That's what today's about. So I
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming in and talking.
Speaker 2: Great. Yeah, thank you for having me. It's true that
Speaker 2: is a part of the story that usually goes untold,
Speaker 2: and I'm happy to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it always goes untold, and I think, especially when
Speaker 1: the story as big and captured the public's interest for
Speaker 1: the sort of lurid and frightening details, we lose that.
Speaker 1: So if we could start at the beginning, just so
Speaker 1: people listening understand how you came to meet Larry Ray
Speaker 1: and how this unfolded.
Speaker 2: Initially, So I went to Sarah Lawrence College from two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine to twenty thirteen, you know, like most
Speaker 2: college students. I was eighteen going into my freshman year,
Speaker 2: and my first roommate, Santos Rosario, started dating someone named Talia,
Speaker 2: and going into our sophomore year, we had sort of
Speaker 2: a group of friends who decided that we would all
Speaker 2: you could sort of pitch yourselves to live in a
Speaker 2: slightly better housing situation at Sarah Lawrence, which we did.
Speaker 2: So we ended up in sophomore year in this kind
Speaker 2: of nice house slunum nine. There were eight of us,
Speaker 2: and Talia was one of them. And part way through
Speaker 2: sophomore year, she said that her dad, who Talia had
Speaker 2: always talked about. Her whole life was dedicated to her
Speaker 2: dad and the injustices that he had gone through, and
Speaker 2: he was in prison wrongly. He was this former marine,
Speaker 2: he had worked in intelligence, all this stuff. So part
Speaker 2: way through sophomore year, we're all living together and she
Speaker 2: says that her dad's getting out of prison and he
Speaker 2: kind of needs a place to land, and would we
Speaker 2: be okay if he kind of comes and like stays
Speaker 2: for a bit, which I realized in retrospect sounds crazy,
Speaker 2: But living there at the time, no one wants to
Speaker 2: be the one to tell your friend she can't see
Speaker 2: her dad. And there's no way I could have really
Speaker 2: imagined what letting him live in our dorm would mean.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, I don't think you would. And I
Speaker 1: think that one of the real dangers when we see
Speaker 1: a story like this portrayed in the media is the
Speaker 1: first thought is, how could you have let this happen?
Speaker 1: And you should have said, I mean, it's so easy
Speaker 1: to tell these stories backwards. It's almost impossible to tell
Speaker 1: them forwards, because from a probability standpoint, Daniel, if somebody
Speaker 1: had said, my parent has gone through a rough patch,
Speaker 1: maybe even prison, but they've told you the story that, hey,
Speaker 1: there's all wrongful, this, that, and the other was a
Speaker 1: white collar crime. Can they crash for a minute? Most
Speaker 1: of the time that might have actually had an okay conclusion,
Speaker 1: like they then they find an apartment and they move out.
Speaker 1: So I do think that there's such a risk in
Speaker 1: how these stories are told in documentaries and all that.
Speaker 1: Like I would have known better. I'd always tell people
Speaker 1: slow your role. I'm not so sure that you would have.
Speaker 2: As far as the likelihood of you know, what happened
Speaker 2: with Larry, it seems to me like we always live
Speaker 2: in the balance between trust and boundaries, you know, and
Speaker 2: that's what Larry leveraged, and I think probably many people
Speaker 2: like him leverage trust, right and credibility. You know, I
Speaker 2: had no reason not to trust his daughter. The things
Speaker 2: that she said about him were out landish, but you know,
Speaker 2: didn't seem like they were going to impact my life
Speaker 2: all that much until they did.
Speaker 1: It's that leveraging of trust, the manipulation of trust, and
Speaker 1: then weaponizing it and using it against someone is again,
Speaker 1: and it's the ultimate manipulation, and it's very hard to
Speaker 1: live your life forever girded against manipulation, at least of
Speaker 1: all when you're eighteen nineteen years old. So what was
Speaker 1: your initial impression of Larry when you finally met him?
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question. The difference between how I saw him
Speaker 2: when I first encountered him versus what he became in
Speaker 2: my mind over the course of knowing him is so different,
Speaker 2: you know, so it's hard to go back to that
Speaker 2: initial impression. But this is like a relatively short, kind
Speaker 2: of rotund, bald shaved head guy who's kind of got
Speaker 2: this like tough guy Staaten Island demeanor. When he first
Speaker 2: came in, he seemed kind of silly, you know, and
Speaker 2: the way that he talked, he sort of he talked
Speaker 2: at this incredible pace, and it was incessant and there
Speaker 2: was never a pause. The way a regular conversation between
Speaker 2: two people, you know, there's a moment to breathe and
Speaker 2: maybe moments where people insert themselves and they're able to
Speaker 2: kind of go back and forth. You could never go
Speaker 2: back and forth with Larry ever, So he just generally
Speaker 2: was overwhelming. Was kind of my impression and also kind
Speaker 2: of boring and a little weird. He just would go
Speaker 2: on and on and on. So mostly I just tried
Speaker 2: to avoid him because I knew once you got within
Speaker 2: ten feet of his orbit, you were like stuck there
Speaker 2: for way longer than you had time.
Speaker 1: So first impression of him wasn't all that great, Like
Speaker 1: it was this person who had what we call pressured speech.
Speaker 1: You're talking, you can't get a word in edgewise, and
Speaker 1: so it's not like you were bold over which is
Speaker 1: interesting to me because this show is called Navigating Narcissism, Right,
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of stories, I have to be very careful,
Speaker 1: Like people are telling me stories of parents and people
Speaker 1: important to them, and then there's a betrayal or a
Speaker 1: spouse or something like that. Listen, in this case, he's
Speaker 1: in prison. This is more psychopathy. He's being a psychopath
Speaker 1: than narcissistic, okay, which a psychopathy is not a diagnosis.
Speaker 1: Narcissism is not a diagnosis. And the reason I'm bringing
Speaker 1: this point up is that when we look at these
Speaker 1: personality styles of psychopathy of narcissism, they what I call
Speaker 1: the three c's. They're charming, they're charismatic, they're confident. It
Speaker 1: did seem though, despite his appearance and his demeanor, there
Speaker 1: was still something that drew people in. Can you give
Speaker 1: some insight into that as somebody who was in his presence, he.
Speaker 2: Had this way of trapping you in a conversation, and
Speaker 2: you might be kind of resistant at first because it
Speaker 2: would feel like, you know, this guy is going on
Speaker 2: and on. But somehow, through the process of wearing you
Speaker 2: down and the kind of logic traps that he would
Speaker 2: get you in in a conversation, the authoritativeness with which
Speaker 2: he spoke about things, you would find yourself kind of
Speaker 2: confused and somehow a little vulnerable and trusting him a
Speaker 2: little more than you trusted yourself inside of that conversation,
Speaker 2: and he would build and build and build that And then,
Speaker 2: in combination with having your friends kind of vouch for
Speaker 2: him because they have fallen for it, it all compounds
Speaker 2: until suddenly you find yourself in a much way worse
Speaker 2: situation than you ever thought you would be in.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought up that idea about how
Speaker 1: he spoke authoritatively, because I do think that healthy people,
Speaker 1: people who are not narcissistic, psychopathic, we're circumspect. We hed say, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm an expert in this, but you know I don't
Speaker 1: know everything, and da da da, right, versus somebody who
Speaker 1: comes in and is just sort of this is it.
Speaker 1: That sort of authoritativeness in some ways, many people almost
Speaker 1: freeze and fawn in the face of that, and especially
Speaker 1: folks who are as young as you are. I do bring
Speaker 1: it back to your youth, because at the age you
Speaker 1: were at this person is older. Something about being a
Speaker 1: student already puts you sort of enthrall of people who
Speaker 1: are professors and teachers. There's something that dynamic is sort
Speaker 1: of how you're going through your days more than if
Speaker 1: you were working in a job where there was more
Speaker 1: of a ladder of people. And he comes in and
Speaker 1: he does that. But the other piece, you talk about
Speaker 1: this idea that other people are signing off, and whether
Speaker 1: we call it groupthink or conformity or I can't be
Speaker 1: the only one who's wrong, there are volumes of social
Speaker 1: psychology literature that would hold to the idea that for
Speaker 1: you to pull back and speak out and say no, no, no,
Speaker 1: when everyone's saying no, this is great, that actually would
Speaker 1: really go against a grain. It would be contrary to
Speaker 1: anything we would expect.
Speaker 2: What I found, you know, once I started being public
Speaker 2: about this story, is that generally what people want is
Speaker 2: to reduce something to the simplest possible conclusions so that
Speaker 2: they can sort of internalize it, process it, and move on.
Speaker 1: I also think though, that this idea that there was
Speaker 1: this vulnerability, so there's something wrong with you. Quite frankly,
Speaker 1: I think what renders someone anyone in the world vulnerable
Speaker 1: to the likes of a Larry Ray are actually the
Speaker 1: most human and pro social elements of us, including empathy, sympathy, compassion,
Speaker 1: wanting to be part of a group. Those are actually
Speaker 1: really healthy elements of a person. So trying to reduce
Speaker 1: someone there's something wrong with you and there's something wrong
Speaker 1: with someone else who lived at sloanem nine instead of
Speaker 1: they actually brought normal human qualities to this. By doing that,
Speaker 1: what we're able to do is convince ourselves I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have fallen for that that thing is not wrong with me.
Speaker 1: That to me is sort of an invalidating, abusive element
Speaker 1: that can happen in a lot of storytelling, which is
Speaker 1: like we're trying to clear up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love that, Yeah, I mean I moved by that, obviously,
Speaker 2: because it's nice to be human and to be humanized,
Speaker 2: and you know, kind of telling this story. When I
Speaker 2: was writing my book and when I was making the documentary,
Speaker 2: I had kind of a list in my mind where
Speaker 2: I was like, I know that people are going to
Speaker 2: want to say either that the victims were somehow especially
Speaker 2: vulnerable because of something that was wrong with them, the
Speaker 2: parents did something wrong, the school did something wrong, and
Speaker 2: so those were sort of the outs and pieces of
Speaker 2: all of those can be true, you know, fine, but
Speaker 2: I didn't want people to just sort of take the
Speaker 2: off ram of like, well, it's just because of the school,
Speaker 2: and so if the school hadn't done that, it wouldn't
Speaker 2: have happened, which isn't the whole story, you know.
Speaker 1: In order to make sure that the retelling of Daniel's
Speaker 1: experience was as authentic as possible, he wrote a memoir
Speaker 1: entitle slonum Woods nine and executive produced the Hulu docuseriies
Speaker 1: Stolen Youth.
Speaker 2: So trying to figure out how to just keep it
Speaker 2: complicated as much as I could.
Speaker 1: But that's really smart thing you just said, is I
Speaker 1: wanted to keep it complicated. When do we ever hear
Speaker 1: that in life that somebody wants to keep it complicated.
Speaker 1: I almost want to take a second with that, because
Speaker 1: I think you actually just put word to what I've
Speaker 1: been trying to do my entire career. And why it's
Speaker 1: so frustrating for me is that this is complicated in
Speaker 1: the sense that so wired into us and so baked
Speaker 1: into us of what did the institutions do wrong? What
Speaker 1: did the people do wrong? What did your parents do wrong?
Speaker 1: Without putting the very white house spotlight and the only
Speaker 1: place it belonged is the perpetrator. I think though, to
Speaker 1: do that means that that, just like that transforms the
Speaker 1: world into a terrifying place.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's so scary if we say the only answer
Speaker 2: is that this guy is this kind of monster moving
Speaker 2: among us, and you have to just look out for
Speaker 2: people like that. That's unlivable, you know, the ideas this
Speaker 2: could happen to anyone any time. I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a conversation to be had about the circumstances that
Speaker 2: allow a man like that to do what he did,
Speaker 2: you know, And that's the really really complicated conversation that
Speaker 2: I don't really know how to have. I don't think
Speaker 2: that there was anything fundamentally wrong with how my parents
Speaker 2: raised me or communicated with me. But there were real
Speaker 2: gaps and failures in that relationship which allowed openings for him.
Speaker 2: Not failures that are more extreme necessarily than anyone else's,
Speaker 2: but it's there. There were real wonderful things about Sarah
Speaker 2: Lawrence and the freedom that it afforded the students, but
Speaker 2: also real failures and the relationship between the authority of
Speaker 2: the school and the student body, you know, and each
Speaker 2: of us. The people who ended up being abused by
Speaker 2: Larry Ray had different intersecting vulnerabilities and you know, resiliencies
Speaker 2: and different things that he managed to work into or
Speaker 2: around and to take advantage of us. So I think
Speaker 2: that it's possible to look at all of those things
Speaker 2: and look at the ways that, you know, in a
Speaker 2: world where parenting looked different or the way we talk
Speaker 2: about parenting was different, it might protect us better against
Speaker 2: someone like this.
Speaker 1: Right, You're right, all of those things are happening simultaneously.
Speaker 1: I often talk about this idea even if multiple truths.
Speaker 1: Our parents were good, our parents also weren't good, because
Speaker 1: no parent is perfect. We were going through some things,
Speaker 1: we had some strengths, we had some weaknesses. We were
Speaker 1: an environment that was good that wasn't great. This is
Speaker 1: the stack of pancakes. These are the multiple truths and
Speaker 1: they don't fit together well. And in fact, the fact
Speaker 1: that they don't fit together well is also what can
Speaker 1: sometimes render us vulnerable because it does create those little cracks.
Speaker 1: What is interesting is that very rarely on this show,
Speaker 1: I think maybe one, maybe two other times in the
Speaker 1: whole two seasons of this show have we faced up
Speaker 1: to actual psychopathic s. It's of people when somebody's full
Speaker 1: time job, like a psychopaths, is to find the cracks
Speaker 1: and other human beings and that's what they focus on.
Speaker 1: It's like a predatory virus that is just its only job, morning, noon,
Speaker 1: and night is to find the weaknesses to infect the host.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what was so scary about Larry. This was
Speaker 2: a person who would devote not even his waking like
Speaker 2: literally like twenty four hours a day to just harming
Speaker 2: other people. And it's amazing what a person can achieve
Speaker 2: if they just devote all their time and energy to
Speaker 2: hurting other people. And yeah, I think that people don't
Speaker 2: really realize. You can't conceive of what that's like.
Speaker 1: No, you can't, and thank you for pointing that out.
Speaker 1: I think I think that's the problem is I do
Speaker 1: think that there's certain human phenomena we can't get our
Speaker 1: heads around. But you were in actual direct contact with
Speaker 1: this This was your life, this was your home, and
Speaker 1: initially you actually went from sort of avoiding him and
Speaker 1: kind of thinking, like you said, he was a little weird,
Speaker 1: he was a little off, but then there was a
Speaker 1: transition to trusting him. Can you walk us through that
Speaker 1: process for you?
Speaker 2: For sure. The first person after Talia who he got
Speaker 2: to was Isabella, who was Talia's best friend. So Santo's
Speaker 2: Italian Isabella were kind of a trio from the beginning
Speaker 2: of school. They were all close. Isabella was from Texas,
Speaker 2: she was far away from home, was kind of a loner,
Speaker 2: and Talia was like her first best friend. And when
Speaker 2: Larry moved into our dorm, he became kind of Isabella's
Speaker 2: dad too, and there was this kind of family feeling
Speaker 2: and he was looking out for Isabella. And then I
Speaker 2: would hear that Isabella was having some kind of crisis,
Speaker 2: but something was going on with her and Larry was
Speaker 2: helping her, and then Santos was closer to them, and
Speaker 2: it was like this group was forming. And then my
Speaker 2: friend Claudia also started talking to Larry, and she definitely
Speaker 2: had like noticeable mental health stuff going on. To Santos,
Speaker 2: you know, had had his own mental health struggles, which
Speaker 2: I didn't know about as his friend. He hadn't really
Speaker 2: been open about them, but I you know, you could
Speaker 2: feel that he had certain like sadness or something that
Speaker 2: he was struggling with. And suddenly after he was talking
Speaker 2: to Larry, he was you know, exercising and he was
Speaker 2: seemed to be feeling good and had this kind of
Speaker 2: glow about him, and so it was noticeable that something
Speaker 2: had shifted, but it didn't feel like there was any
Speaker 2: reason to be concerned. Just looked like this man who
Speaker 2: was very motivated and maybe a little bit more into
Speaker 2: kind of a stereotypical idea of like masculinity was sort
Speaker 2: of pushing that onto Santos. And so there was this cascade,
Speaker 2: you know, where everyone seemed to go from living our
Speaker 2: kind of chaotic, kind of messy college liberal arts life
Speaker 2: where we were like not doing a whole lot of
Speaker 2: school work and smoking cigarettes and you know, playing video games,
Speaker 2: to now they're way more polished and clean and like
Speaker 2: doing their work and really regimented, and so it seemed
Speaker 2: like on paper there was all these positivesage impacts. And
Speaker 2: then I had been dating Raven at the time. It
Speaker 2: was my first long term relationship, and that relationships started
Speaker 2: to get not great for either of us and was
Speaker 2: really difficult, and I sort of tried to end it,
Speaker 2: and I had Santos and Claudia suggesting, like, well, why
Speaker 2: don't you talk to Larry. He can kind of give
Speaker 2: you advice on your relationship. He can maybe help you
Speaker 2: figure out how to find a place to live in
Speaker 2: New York, because I just didn't understand how to do that,
Speaker 2: And so I finally gave in. What was the harm
Speaker 2: of getting a cup of coffee with this guy?
Speaker 1: What happened to that cup of coffee that you went
Speaker 1: from a little bit sort of cagy around this person
Speaker 1: to growing to trust him.
Speaker 2: What's important to understand is how when Larry and I
Speaker 2: met for coffee, the two of us were coming to
Speaker 2: this meeting with such completely different levels of preparation for
Speaker 2: what it was going to be. You're two different agendas, yes, exactly.
Speaker 2: So I show up thinking I'm just getting a cup
Speaker 2: of coffee for you know what, forty five minutes with
Speaker 2: my friend's kind of weird dad, and maybe he'll give
Speaker 2: me some kind of advice or something. And for him,
Speaker 2: he's done this before, he will do it again after me.
Speaker 2: He's going to show up, and he knows that he's
Speaker 2: going to try to work me and love bamb me
Speaker 2: right and manipulate me and control the conversation so that
Speaker 2: I will be pulled further and further in. It's this
Speaker 2: sort of predator p situation that's exactly right. But I
Speaker 2: didn't know any of that. So what I thought would
Speaker 2: just be sort of a short coffee became this conversation
Speaker 2: that is so hard to explain. He got me to
Speaker 2: start talking about the things that I felt insecure about,
Speaker 2: my anxieties and angsts, and my mom was sick my
Speaker 2: whole childhood. That suddenly it was this vulnerable conversation, and
Speaker 2: I was talking about my relationship but also my insecurity
Speaker 2: around romance and relating to other people, and my body
Speaker 2: and sex, and then we're talking about sexuality, and then
Speaker 2: I'm talking about, you know, well, I've questioned my sexuality
Speaker 2: and he's digging into that, and so it's just becoming
Speaker 2: more and more open and raw, and the conversation is
Speaker 2: stretching on and on, but it sort of didn't realize
Speaker 2: how much time was passing until I realized the sun
Speaker 2: is going down. So we sat in that Starbucks talking
Speaker 2: for hours, and by the end of the conversation, he
Speaker 2: had convinced me that I should break up with my girlfriend,
Speaker 2: and that I didn't have to feel that I owed
Speaker 2: her anything. I should just like send a message in it.
Speaker 2: We left the Starbucks and we're walking down the street.
Speaker 2: He offered that I could come and stay in the apartment,
Speaker 2: like crash around the couch and Santos and Claudia you
Speaker 2: were hanging out there or whatever, and so that seemed
Speaker 2: like a, you know, low commitment kind of way to
Speaker 2: have some place to stay in New York while I
Speaker 2: found what I thought would be my more sort of
Speaker 2: permanent living situation. And we rounded the corner and there
Speaker 2: was a stretch limousine idoling there and the door opened
Speaker 2: and all of my friends were inside, Talia, Isabella, Santos,
Speaker 2: and Claudia. And what I didn't quite put together then
Speaker 2: but would realize later because I was constantly in this position,
Speaker 2: was that they had been sitting in the limousine waiting,
Speaker 2: idling on the corner for the many, many hours, the
Speaker 2: whole time that conversation was happening, because Larry had stepped
Speaker 2: out of the limousine to go talk to me, and
Speaker 2: then they just waited until he came back with me.
Speaker 2: That was the beginning of me joining that group and
Speaker 2: the end of that period of my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and you're using the language of these relationships,
Speaker 1: the love bombing, the manipulation. It's something we sort of
Speaker 1: called the narcissistic or psychopathic intel gathering. Every single conversation
Speaker 1: for them is transactional. It's about getting intel, right. They're
Speaker 1: sort of pickpocketing your soul, Like how many pieces can
Speaker 1: I pull off this person put in my pocket that
Speaker 1: I'm going to weaponize later. That's every interaction for this person.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't have known that going in. It's a tough
Speaker 1: way to live, Daniel, to go through life thinking that's
Speaker 1: everyone's game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't seem possible. Additionally, I didn't realize that
Speaker 2: he was using every conversation with everyone to gather information
Speaker 2: about everyone else. Yes, so he also had all this
Speaker 2: information about me that I hadn't hold him, but I
Speaker 2: might have shared here or there with friends, and he
Speaker 2: wasn't directly coming out and pretending that he magically knew things.
Speaker 2: But he was a little bit like making guesses or
Speaker 2: seeming to somehow be so intuitive that he would sort
Speaker 2: of open by talking about someone was sick in my
Speaker 2: family growing up, or something as seems like my background,
Speaker 2: you know. So he would use this information to make
Speaker 2: it seem like he had some sort of intuitive ability
Speaker 2: that he didn't have. Correct.
Speaker 1: But there was a uniqueness of timing and where that
Speaker 1: coffee shop conversation took place, because you are at a critical
Speaker 1: juncture of a relationship. You were coming into your own
Speaker 1: in an identity. So when somebody wants to see and
Speaker 1: hear you, and it's someone who's not in your peer group,
Speaker 1: it really can feel like the sun is shining on you.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that he wanted you to break
Speaker 1: up with her because that was the guidance he was giving.
Speaker 1: Do you think it was just purely to isolate you,
Speaker 1: or that he sensed that he wasn't getting through to
Speaker 1: her and it was a way to eliminate her from
Speaker 1: the structure.
Speaker 2: I think it was all of those things. It was
Speaker 2: alienation yea. Right. She was someone who was not just
Speaker 2: a connection to the real world for me, but also
Speaker 2: someone who was really opposed to Larry, and so as
Speaker 2: long as I was connected to her, I was not
Speaker 2: available to him. And also the relationship had become pretty
Speaker 2: toxic at that time. You know, as an eighteen year old,
Speaker 2: I was going through a lot, but it wasn't great.
Speaker 2: What Larry did was upfront provide some kind of apparent value,
Speaker 2: you know. And so the fact that he like got
Speaker 2: me out, so to speak, of that relationship, which had
Speaker 2: really been making my life feel which was pretty bad
Speaker 2: at the time, felt like he was helping me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and it was a concrete form of help.
Speaker 2: And so I could look at that and say, well,
Speaker 2: what he did today feels pretty bad, but he helped
Speaker 2: me with that thing. I can't deny that, you know.
Speaker 2: So here we are.
Speaker 1: But he also gave you permission to do the thing
Speaker 1: you wanted to do. Yeah, right, you had already made
Speaker 1: a choice, and what he was doing was sort of
Speaker 1: doubling down on that, which made it seem like he
Speaker 1: was g you advice, but really you would make the choice,
Speaker 1: So it was easy to separate the two. But at
Speaker 1: this point, though you've been giving this offerage to sleep
Speaker 1: on this couch of an apartment where your friends live,
Speaker 1: did you then transition to being there more and living there?
Speaker 1: And what happened once you did that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I was living out of a backpack, sleeping
Speaker 2: on the couch in that apartment, you know, which for me,
Speaker 2: it was like summer in college didn't feel like that
Speaker 2: big of a deal in my mind. It was like,
Speaker 2: how do people pay for apartments? You know? I got
Speaker 2: a job working at a nice cream shop downtown and
Speaker 2: it just didn't the math didn't quite work out. And
Speaker 2: then like who would be my roommate? And it was
Speaker 2: like Santos, But Santos is spending all his time at
Speaker 2: this apartment, you know. So the prospect of living my
Speaker 2: like summer in New York started to fade away in
Speaker 2: favor of spending time in this apartment where all my
Speaker 2: friends at the time were hanging out every day and
Speaker 2: I had a free couch to sleep on and Larry
Speaker 2: was cooking meals every night. And started to feel like
Speaker 2: a very familiar kind of parental situation. And so it's
Speaker 2: just like you just kind of fall back into it
Speaker 2: because it's convenient.
Speaker 1: Basically, we will be right back with this conversation. And
Speaker 1: so you did. Then what happened once you started living there,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't quite as simple as a couch to
Speaker 1: crash on.
Speaker 2: No, no, So you know there was a trade off, right,
Speaker 2: which was that I got free meals and I got
Speaker 2: a free couch to sleep on, and in return, I
Speaker 2: had to be subjected to these Larry conversations that I'd
Speaker 2: been avoiding the whole time. What he worked on that
Speaker 2: whole summer was destabilizing us. So it would be as
Speaker 2: simple as like he would slice a grape vertically and
Speaker 2: have you close your eyes and taste half of a
Speaker 2: grape sliced vertically, and then he would slice it horizontally
Speaker 2: and have you taste it the same way. And he
Speaker 2: would say, don't you notice how that's different? And that
Speaker 2: sounds so odd, But you would be in this situation
Speaker 2: where you really wanted to be like, yeah, you're right,
Speaker 2: there is something different, and just this tiny little thing
Speaker 2: was one of many other things where you started to
Speaker 2: trust his claims about your own sensory perceptions and experiences
Speaker 2: more than your own. He would play songs and talk
Speaker 2: about sort of the feelings that you were having from
Speaker 2: the song, and you would want to agree with him
Speaker 2: because it was almost like cool to go along with
Speaker 2: the thing that he's claiming is happening. And your friend
Speaker 2: right next to you is saying like, yeah, totally, I
Speaker 2: do I hear that in the song or whatever, and
Speaker 2: you would just build on this, and then we're talking
Speaker 2: about government and about the you know, the history of
Speaker 2: American imperialism. So more and more it just started to
Speaker 2: feel like the apartment was the whole world and kind
Speaker 2: of the place where things were real and outside everything
Speaker 2: else is like not real or chaos.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting you put it that way, because you know,
Speaker 1: part of it is also time served right when there's
Speaker 1: no other competing stimulus. That's how families can indoctrinate people
Speaker 1: into stuff, right, But because you go to school and
Speaker 1: other places, there's a balance. But when there was no alternate,
Speaker 1: there was this pressure to yield, right, all kinds of
Speaker 1: research on suggestibility and to get the social pressure to
Speaker 1: yield to that and all of that, and so those
Speaker 1: are real things. I don't think he was that smart,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, I really really don't think
Speaker 1: it's a smart man, but I think that he was
Speaker 1: so singularly motivated by power and control and dominance, and
Speaker 1: he just had this little, weird, manipulative bag of tricks.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm even thinking of like even myself, as
Speaker 1: you were saying that, I remember being at a wine
Speaker 1: tasting once, or like don't you taste the chocolate raspberry
Speaker 1: and oak tree? And I'm like no, And I felt
Speaker 1: pressure to go along, but I turned to the person
Speaker 1: next to myself, I don't taste any of those things.
Speaker 1: But what you have to do then is like I'm
Speaker 1: a philistine. I'm not sophisticated. So there had to be
Speaker 1: some explanatory models. But that explanation sometimes doesn't feel good, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm not so special or food smart that I
Speaker 1: can tell that this great is cut two different ways.
Speaker 1: So I think that somewhere the explanation has to go,
Speaker 1: and so to relent to it when everyone else was
Speaker 1: saying that it's a very very powerful sort of experience.
Speaker 1: So you're living in this apartment and slowly but surely
Speaker 1: you're losing this touch with reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it started to become kind of a boot camp,
Speaker 2: you know. So he's playing a playlist of the same
Speaker 2: one hundred songs every morning, you know that I'm waking
Speaker 2: up to and he has only the boys doing some
Speaker 2: kind of like workout routine. And then the summer ends
Speaker 2: and I had gotten into a study abroad program, okay,
Speaker 2: in England, So I left and went to England. And
Speaker 2: I feel like this is a part of the story
Speaker 2: that's hard to explain and gets kind of skipped over
Speaker 2: for its complexity. But you know, I had distance from
Speaker 2: the group. It was across the Atlantic Ocean in school.
Speaker 2: But I remember feeling this like deep fear that I
Speaker 2: couldn't quite let myself explain. But it just felt so
Speaker 2: bad when I would think about Larry and when I
Speaker 2: would think about going back home, and I mean, there's
Speaker 2: like it's became abusive before that, and there was the sex,
Speaker 2: and things started to get really bad, and then I left,
Speaker 2: and so all of that was in my mind, but
Speaker 2: I had no way to make sense of any of it,
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to shut it all out. England
Speaker 2: became its own bubble away from this other bubble, and
Speaker 2: I cut myself off from everyone and I just couldn't deal.
Speaker 2: And then you know, I had to go home. For
Speaker 2: winter break, and I tried to figure out a way
Speaker 2: to just go to my parents and not make it
Speaker 2: seem like I was somehow avoiding Larry, but I couldn't
Speaker 2: figure out a way around that, and so he convinced
Speaker 2: me to come back and stay in the apartment for
Speaker 2: that winter break. And things had become so much more extreme,
Speaker 2: and that winter break was like horrible, and there was
Speaker 2: all kinds of abuse.
Speaker 1: When you were in the UK, were you completely out
Speaker 1: of touch with everybody?
Speaker 2: No. I just tried to avoid thinking about any of
Speaker 2: this as much as I could, and then you know,
Speaker 2: Larry would reach out and I'd kind of dodge his calls.
Speaker 2: It was almost like I was trying to break up
Speaker 2: with him but didn't know how, and so it was
Speaker 2: kind of trying to ghost him or something and felt
Speaker 2: bad about that. And then I would send a message,
Speaker 2: you know, explaining how I'd been having these negative thoughts
Speaker 2: against him and that that was so ungrateful because he'd
Speaker 2: done all these things for me, and you know, this
Speaker 2: was all stuff that he'd really beaten into us. So
Speaker 2: even in England, he had a very long reach.
Speaker 1: And do you feel comfortable talking about the situations involving
Speaker 1: sexual abuse, because sexual abuse in the situation is such
Speaker 1: a form of coercion, right, It's advantaging a vulnerability, it's exploitative,
Speaker 1: it creates a sense of shame and that you people
Speaker 1: are further under someone's control. None of it's consensual. And
Speaker 1: so how was that playing out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally. One of the things that made it
Speaker 2: so hard for me to make sense of this afterwards
Speaker 2: is I just really didn't think about men consenting, you know,
Speaker 2: which I think is like an important part of the conversation. Yeah. So,
Speaker 2: really it started off the bat I was staying in
Speaker 2: the apartment. I think it might have been like even
Speaker 2: the first week, Isabella was sleeping in the bedroom with
Speaker 2: Talia and Larry. You know, so there's a room where
Speaker 2: just they are, Okay, so that's yeah. I don't know
Speaker 2: how I accepted that, frankly, but I did. And early
Speaker 2: on she came out of the bedroom. For context, I
Speaker 2: had known the whole time we knew each other in
Speaker 2: college that Isabella kind of had a crush on me,
Speaker 2: and I just wasn't really into it, and so I
Speaker 2: just kind of steered clear of any of that. You know,
Speaker 2: it's just whatever, And she came out of the bedroom
Speaker 2: and approached me, and I was in like pajama. She
Speaker 2: like pulled my briefs down and started performing oral sex
Speaker 2: on me, which I had not signed up for and
Speaker 2: didn't want to be happening. But in my head, you know,
Speaker 2: I'd had this conversation with Larry prior about my sexuality
Speaker 2: and masculinity and about like maybe me having a certain
Speaker 2: kind of prudishness, like that's how he kind of led
Speaker 2: me to interpret these things and that you know, a
Speaker 2: man should be like sexual and she did all these things.
Speaker 2: Is very like classic, refined, toxic masculinity that he was
Speaker 2: sort of trying to inject into me. I think even
Speaker 2: without someone like Larry in the situation like that, it's
Speaker 2: very hard to reverse the flow of what's happening, you know.
Speaker 2: And so I felt like I froze, you know, I
Speaker 2: kind of a little bit went out of my body
Speaker 2: in this dark room and was just letting what was
Speaker 2: happening happen. Because I also knew that if I said
Speaker 2: no or I didn't do it, then this would get
Speaker 2: back to Larry and would somehow become a whole conversation
Speaker 2: or something. And it almost felt like I just had
Speaker 2: to be chill so that I could keep living for
Speaker 2: free in this place, you know. And so that to
Speaker 2: me was kind of this first instance of you know,
Speaker 2: I do think he sent Isabella out to do that,
Speaker 2: so he's like abusing her, I think, using her as
Speaker 2: kind of a tool to abuse me and confuse me further.
Speaker 2: What that led to same summer is he sort of
Speaker 2: proposed a sort of sexual education for me between him
Speaker 2: and me and Isabella. There would be this like private
Speaker 2: kind of almost course for me to get like better,
Speaker 2: because I was struggling with my sexuality and I felt
Speaker 2: nervous and uncomfortable with sex, and so he was going
Speaker 2: to kind of be like a professor for the two
Speaker 2: of us who turned out to get involved, you know.
Speaker 2: And really what it became was it was pretty clear
Speaker 2: that he was enacting his sexual desires on Isabella and
Speaker 2: that I was somehow kind of being used to enable
Speaker 2: that or something under the guise of like him helping me.
Speaker 2: It was really really confusing.
Speaker 1: I don't even know with psychopathic people, if we're talking
Speaker 1: about sexual desire or where other than it's just one
Speaker 1: more place to use power to maybe have a moment
Speaker 1: of pleasure. I mean why Dolphin said that. You know,
Speaker 1: psychopathic people are motivated solely by power, profit, and pleasure,
Speaker 1: pick one on any given day or any given moment.
Speaker 1: But in capitalizing on this narrative he was creating around
Speaker 1: your sexuality, then he was creating one more place to
Speaker 1: be able to control and overpower you to do the
Speaker 1: same thing to Isabella. All of it was this course
Speaker 1: of control, you know, using sex as that weapon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because all of
Speaker 2: the things that he was doing did seem less about
Speaker 2: any kind of sexual pleasure and more about control. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was sending people out to have sex with each other.
Speaker 2: He was like putting me in a dress in front
Speaker 2: of my friends and having me like go out and
Speaker 2: do things just purely for shame and control. There were
Speaker 2: a lot of things where he was getting me to
Speaker 2: participate in my own sexual abuse in front of my friends.
Speaker 1: You know, well, it's really participating in your own degradation.
Speaker 1: But you could cut him out of the shot, and
Speaker 1: it looks like you're doing this on your own right.
Speaker 1: So what that does is it puts him above reproach. Well,
Speaker 1: you're doing it. I don't see anyone with a gun
Speaker 1: against your head. And that is the reason people like
Speaker 1: Larry Ray and anyone like him get away with what
Speaker 1: they do because laws are not designed to account for
Speaker 1: dynamics like coercion and exploitation. They see someone who's being
Speaker 1: an agent in their own life, and that's not the
Speaker 1: case at all, Tony. Coercion is the psychological gun at
Speaker 1: somebody's head totally.
Speaker 2: And to ask people to embrace the idea that you
Speaker 2: could not have full control over your own choices, it's
Speaker 2: a lot to ask. It makes it so hard to
Speaker 2: explain what happened, and then when it comes to sex,
Speaker 2: it's a real journey to get to a place where
Speaker 2: you can say to yourself, I didn't want that to happen, right.
Speaker 1: Well, the fact is that anyone out there listening to this,
Speaker 1: watching this who's been in a relationship with a narcissistic
Speaker 1: or psychopathic person will understand. And while their stories didn't
Speaker 1: end up on TV in a documentary and don't have
Speaker 1: that sort of the arking notes of your story, that
Speaker 1: sense of how could anyone understand this? It feels as
Speaker 1: though nothing I was doing made sense. It actually fully
Speaker 1: makes sense from that point of view, And so keep
Speaker 1: that in mind. It almost feels like, especially in a
Speaker 1: psychopathic relationship, which is what it was with Larry Ray,
Speaker 1: there is no consent to anything. You've been so deeply manipulated,
Speaker 1: you're fully in the service of another that there's no
Speaker 1: consent around sex, there's no consent around interaction. There's just
Speaker 1: no consent. That's how those relationships work. A lot of
Speaker 1: people there argue that the sexual encounters people have with
Speaker 1: malignantly narcissistic or psychopathic people is never consensual because it
Speaker 1: often happens, almost always happens under this cloak of manipulation
Speaker 1: or trying to keep a relationship from ending, or trying
Speaker 1: to give in to the other person. So you're not abused.
Speaker 1: That's not consent, you know. Unfortunately, to the world it
Speaker 1: looks like it, which really complicates the healing of somebody
Speaker 1: who's going through an experience like that. But as you're
Speaker 1: going through this, Daniel, what were you going through mentally,
Speaker 1: because there's so much happening to you, What was your
Speaker 1: psychological experience of this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, So for a long time, when I reflect on this,
Speaker 2: I thought that my internal experience was the whole time,
Speaker 2: I didn't buy into it, and I felt scared and
Speaker 2: uncomfortable internally all the time the same amount, and was
Speaker 2: just looking for a way to get out. And then
Speaker 2: looking back on it and some of the writing I
Speaker 2: did at the time, and some of the evidence and
Speaker 2: that sort of thing, the video that exists, I think
Speaker 2: that there were a lot of different layers of thought
Speaker 2: happening for me internally at the same time. And I
Speaker 2: wanted so badly for this to be a good situation.
Speaker 2: I wanted it to be what it had been sold
Speaker 2: to me as, which was this was a good and
Speaker 2: special man who was helping me and my friends, and
Speaker 2: we were all becoming better people and we're going to
Speaker 2: do good things. And I also felt simultaneously a deep discomfort,
Speaker 2: and trying to reconcile those two things was where so
Speaker 2: much pain came from. So what I told myself, what
Speaker 2: Larry was encouraging, was that I was uncomfortable because there
Speaker 2: was something wrong with me, you know, because of my
Speaker 2: pre existing issues whatever, and that's what he was helping
Speaker 2: me with, you know. So my resistance to him was
Speaker 2: in fact a symptom of my own problems, and I
Speaker 2: had to just get with the program and then I
Speaker 2: would feel better. It's like, something's always been wrong with
Speaker 2: me and I've always felt this bad, and with Larry,
Speaker 2: I'll finally feel good again. Right.
Speaker 1: Well, it's a double gaslight, right He is denying reality.
Speaker 1: He's telling you there's something wrong with you, and then
Speaker 1: he's telling you I'm the one who has the answer
Speaker 1: for what's wrong with you.
Speaker 2: Right, So that.
Speaker 1: Double gaslighting is a multiplier and it's very difficult to
Speaker 1: crawl out from under it because what he's done is
Speaker 1: you've got someone kicked down to the ground and now
Speaker 1: you've got a boot at their throat kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So there's not many places they can move. But now
Speaker 1: you're telling them and I can help you get out
Speaker 1: of this position, and they're like, oh great, you saved
Speaker 1: to me, and so he said up that savior relationship totally.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most perilous dynamics. And you see
Speaker 1: this in imprisonment settings hostage settings. The thing that was
Speaker 1: worse for all of you. A person who is literally
Speaker 1: being held hostage is very aware I'm being in prison.
Speaker 1: You were being held hostage, but there was actually a
Speaker 1: door you could walk out of, but you couldn't. It's
Speaker 1: almost a philosophical dilemma. Right, because you could walk through it.
Speaker 1: You couldn't walk through it, you couldn't leave. You were
Speaker 1: being held hostage. But to the world you look like
Speaker 1: a person who got a push set up in an
Speaker 1: apartment where you could stay and go in and out
Speaker 1: at will, at least for the person being held hostage.
Speaker 1: The pieces of the story terrifying as they are, they
Speaker 1: fit together. In your case, none of them fit together
Speaker 1: when they didn't fit. That's the stuff that drives you mad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed, That's been the driving motivation behind telling this story.
Speaker 2: And I think what's so valuable about podcasts, like Navigating
Speaker 2: Narcissism is seen so many action movies where someone's telled hostage.
Speaker 2: It's a pre existing schema in people's minds, so they
Speaker 2: know how to think about it and talk about it
Speaker 2: very smart. Daniel, Yeah, And so I'm hoping that, you know,
Speaker 2: as we see more and more of these stories, people
Speaker 2: start to learn the shape of them and they recognize them.
Speaker 2: And just as the conversation and the social attitudes changed
Speaker 2: the same way that they did, you know, around domestic
Speaker 2: violence and like not until the seventies, right, and even
Speaker 2: then it wasn't like really all the way where it
Speaker 2: should be, but at least people start to think, like,
Speaker 2: this is what this is and it's not okay.
Speaker 1: Correct, correct, you're right. I mean I think domestic my
Speaker 1: own is a great example. We're still not where we
Speaker 1: need to be, but up until the nineteen seventies, there
Speaker 1: wasn't even a name for it. Here we are in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. Terms like coercive control and gas lighting
Speaker 1: are now more part of the public conversation. There is
Speaker 1: a recognition. But all of that said, people still look
Speaker 1: at the story put out there and stolen use in
Speaker 1: your book, just your entire experience, and still look at
Speaker 1: it with a huh. And we have to lift the
Speaker 1: huh because to do so invalidates your experience, and it
Speaker 1: can really put the brakes on healing from something like
Speaker 1: what you've gone through, because it was enough to be
Speaker 1: terrorized and traumatized and abused, but then to have that
Speaker 1: experience invalidated, it's a retraumatization and like I said, it
Speaker 1: really can stop healing from unfolding. One of the parts
Speaker 1: of your documentary, and I will be honest, it was
Speaker 1: one of the parts I found most upsetting. And it's
Speaker 1: almost in some way surreal to have you in front
Speaker 1: of me. You know, I've never had this experience. It
Speaker 1: was heartbreaking. I paused, you know, it was just a
Speaker 1: little bit too much. It was like one of those
Speaker 1: pulled the blanket over my head. I can't watch this.
Speaker 1: It was a video recording that was in the documentary
Speaker 1: that was incredibly graphic abuse, torture. I would say with pliers,
Speaker 1: and I hear you were the one who pushed for
Speaker 1: this to be in the documentary, because of course any
Speaker 1: of us watching this would say, this is so cool
Speaker 1: to you to have this feature, But can you talk
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 2: So the first thing I want to say, which isn't
Speaker 2: a direct answer to that, is I can imagine how
Speaker 2: surreal it would be to sit across from me having
Speaker 2: seen that footage. So surreal to watch it yourself and
Speaker 2: see yourself on screen and see this whole experience covered,
Speaker 2: and then to close your laptop and just be in
Speaker 2: your life. Now, very weird experience to be documented. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I say that I don't mean to be like callous,
Speaker 2: but when I hear from people who have trouble watching
Speaker 2: the content, I of course I need to be empathetic
Speaker 2: and understand how challenging that is, and there is a
Speaker 2: little part of me which I like to think is
Speaker 2: my self advocate. That's kind of like, well, sorry, like
Speaker 2: it was hard for me, yeah, like to be there,
Speaker 2: and I didn't have a choice to pause, you know, And.
Speaker 1: Thank you for saying that, because I really appreciate you
Speaker 1: framing it that way.
Speaker 2: You didn't have a chance to boss. But yeah, So
Speaker 2: to address the question.
Speaker 1: This is a moment that's going to stay with me
Speaker 1: for a long time. I did close my eyes seeing
Speaker 1: a young man be violently tortured and abused with something
Speaker 1: I could not watch. Daniel made the important point that
Speaker 1: he couldn't hit pause. Everybody seems to be fascinated by
Speaker 1: true crime, but as viewers of these stories, we can
Speaker 1: hit pause and choose to protect ourselves from the worst
Speaker 1: of it. This was a rare case when some of
Speaker 1: the worst of it was recorded and right there for
Speaker 1: us to see.
Speaker 2: So that footage came out in trial. I didn't know
Speaker 2: it existed until pretty close to when the documentary was
Speaker 2: being finished. There was a lot of footage that I
Speaker 2: was shown when I was working with the US district
Speaker 2: attorneys helping them build their case. Once I learned that
Speaker 2: footage existed. It was one of the most validating things
Speaker 2: that had ever happened in my life because this did
Speaker 2: happen to me. And let me tell you, there's nothing
Speaker 2: like sitting in a room surrounded by lawyers and law
Speaker 2: enforcement people and hitting play on a ninety minute sex
Speaker 2: tape of yourself that you didn't know existed. Yeah, they
Speaker 2: do you the favor of not watching the screen while
Speaker 2: you watch it, but the sound is still on for everyone.
Speaker 2: So sorry. Anyway, I left before anyone else. I lived
Speaker 2: with this in secret for years and there was no evidence,
Speaker 2: there was no video, there was nothing I could turn to,
Speaker 2: so if I wanted to tell someone about it or
Speaker 2: explain it, it was just me staking my flag in
Speaker 2: the truth. Yeah, and there was nothing that I could
Speaker 2: point to and say, but it's real, I promise. I
Speaker 2: know it sounds so crazy, but this is what happened.
Speaker 2: And so that video came out and I was thinking
Speaker 2: about how these true crime documentaries somehow manage even though
Speaker 2: they feel kind of blood and guts, they don't make
Speaker 2: us feel that visceral, empathetic pain, and in fact somehow
Speaker 2: kind of desensitize us and dehumanize the victim. So we
Speaker 2: feel this odd distance and it becomes like fiction. They're
Speaker 2: like characters. Yeah, I wanted people to feel how you know,
Speaker 2: if we're gonna engage with watching stories about like the
Speaker 2: most horrible things that have ever happened to people, then
Speaker 2: we have to take on the responsibility of, like we're
Speaker 2: watching the most horrible things that have ever happened to people.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna be like a fun ride, right. I
Speaker 2: hear that.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry all of that happened to you. I
Speaker 1: really am, and I and I'm so grateful you're sitting
Speaker 1: in front of me here, Okay, you know, I really
Speaker 1: am that experience. There was so much footage you're saying,
Speaker 1: ninety minutes of sex, this footage of you, you know,
Speaker 1: being tortured. Why did he video everything? What was that about?
Speaker 2: I would be curious for your take on this dealing
Speaker 2: with like narcissism, because I recorded every single phone call
Speaker 2: and when he was arrested, I mean, the terabytes upon
Speaker 2: terabytes of recordings that they seized is unfathomable. He used
Speaker 2: those recordings as blackmail. Part of why I didn't speak
Speaker 2: at first, and part of why it was a debate
Speaker 2: to talk to the reporters to tell the story at
Speaker 2: all was because I had the sound seared into my
Speaker 2: mind of the camera shutter on his phone, that sound
Speaker 2: effect on those old flip phones when you take a photo.
Speaker 2: While I was in Address, he'd put me in and
Speaker 2: he was telling me to try to swallow a dildo
Speaker 2: that was in my mouth. You know. It was like horrible.
Speaker 2: But that photo, you know, as you're saying, he's cut
Speaker 2: out of the frame, so it's like a photo of
Speaker 2: just me and Address with a dildo in my mouth,
Speaker 2: you know, with no context. So that's him documenting. But
Speaker 2: my fear was he could send that photo to anyone,
Speaker 2: and how would I explain that I'm trying to live
Speaker 2: a life where that's not part of my existence. So
Speaker 2: I think think blackmail was a big part of it.
Speaker 2: And then there's also the question of I don't know
Speaker 2: how much someone like him who's kind of a con
Speaker 2: artist and there's a psychopath and this kind of delusional
Speaker 2: like how much he believes his own story, because it
Speaker 2: did also seem like he genuinely thought that he was
Speaker 2: recording people confessing that they had harmed him. So that's
Speaker 2: what these interrogations often were, was him pushing us to
Speaker 2: confess that we had done something to mess up his
Speaker 2: life or to harct his things, his apartment, whatever. And
Speaker 2: it seemed like he did genuinely believe, like I have
Speaker 2: this evidence because he made a website where he put
Speaker 2: Claudia's a video of her admitting supposedly these things online
Speaker 2: and he would send these videos or written confessions to
Speaker 2: other people as if trying to self advocate.
Speaker 1: I think that that was the most stunning part of it,
Speaker 1: because you know, Daniel, you said there was a certain validation,
Speaker 1: seeing that almost all cases when people are victimized or traumatized,
Speaker 1: there's no evidence, it's just what is in your memory,
Speaker 1: and your memory had been so adult by this experience
Speaker 1: because of what he was doing to everyone. So that
Speaker 1: moment of validation, as horrifically painful as it must have
Speaker 1: been to watch that, there's also a moment of yes, liberation,
Speaker 1: this did happen. This is remembering that right. It could
Speaker 1: have broken you out of part of this gaslight cycle
Speaker 1: that you were so embedded in. I have to say,
Speaker 1: when I recognize like he made all this video is
Speaker 1: there's an impunity to him. There's no consequence. He's never
Speaker 1: faced yes, he'd done short prisonstance, but for what he
Speaker 1: had done repeatedly and managed to find the loopholes over
Speaker 1: and over and over again. This was a guy who
Speaker 1: didn't believe there were consequences. When there were consequences, he
Speaker 1: launched in some conspiratorial rant. You know, he's always always masterful,
Speaker 1: like I am being victimized. I'm being victimized. That was
Speaker 1: his delusional narrative, I am forever a victim. But that
Speaker 1: sense of impunity when you throw in there, the delusional
Speaker 1: grandiosity we see in psychopathy and malignant narcissism that need
Speaker 1: to be seen in a certain way to construct this narrative,
Speaker 1: and in a sick way, they felt like the trophies
Speaker 1: of a serial killer. It had that sense of I
Speaker 1: did this. There was zero sense of remorse, and that
Speaker 1: absolute lack of remorse is what nudges us out of
Speaker 1: narcissism territory fully into psychopathy, because narcissistic people feel remorse
Speaker 1: for their wrongdoings. They feel shame, they don't want to
Speaker 1: be caught, they don't like what it does to their
Speaker 1: public image. To this day, he remains immersed in the
Speaker 1: sense he did no wrong. I was stunned by that
Speaker 1: the amount of footage, because I did a double take
Speaker 1: at first, and I said, where did this come from?
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, this dude shot this. But he knew
Speaker 1: what he was doing because the fact of the matter, Daniel,
Speaker 1: he got his daughter out of there so she wouldn't
Speaker 1: bear witness to any of this. I think that this
Speaker 1: idea that there was this he was so like, he
Speaker 1: was crazed, he was so calculated, he was so conniving.
Speaker 1: This was thought through.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean another example of that is I think
Speaker 2: that he intentionally chose people who are just over eighteen,
Speaker 2: you know, so we were still vulnerable and you know,
Speaker 2: defining ourselves and all of that, but technically, legally, you know,
Speaker 2: there's nothing that can be done. I can provide just
Speaker 2: a bit of that background, which a lot of people
Speaker 2: I think don't really have. Larry was victimizing people his
Speaker 2: whole life, right, you can look at things going back
Speaker 2: into the eighties, or he's sort of in this like
Speaker 2: club scene in New Jersey. He's a club owner, and
Speaker 2: he was like, he was doing pretty horrible things to adults.
Speaker 2: And then you know, he gets married and I think
Speaker 2: that his wife was a victim of his had two
Speaker 2: daughters together, and then his next victims were his daughters,
Speaker 2: right Yeah, And there's audio footage that is heartbreaking where
Speaker 2: you know, you can hear him manipulating his daughter's gaslighting them.
Speaker 2: He's manipulating his youngest daughter Ava and using Talia even
Speaker 2: then as this kind of like lieutenant to get to
Speaker 2: the youngest daughter and convincing them that their mother had
Speaker 2: been abusing them so that he could get custodies essentially, so,
Speaker 2: I think he was in some ways really accustomed to
Speaker 2: coercing young people and had seemed to have just done
Speaker 2: that with Talia in a way that was really total.
Speaker 1: One thing that was also striking was all of you
Speaker 1: living in that apartment who were in that orbit were
Speaker 1: convinced things happened that didn't yeh that I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean writing down affidavits paying for the I mean, really
Speaker 1: convinced things happen that did not happen, and he used
Speaker 1: dozens of different techniques to solidify that. That to me
Speaker 1: was such an extraordinary level of manipulation. One bizarre and
Speaker 1: terrifying tactic that Larry used throughout his reign was coercing
Speaker 1: his young followers to confess to breaking or destroying his things.
Speaker 1: He would then have them write out itemized costs for
Speaker 1: the damages they were forced to pay. Larry also dismantled
Speaker 1: the student's memories, making them believe they had repressed various
Speaker 1: traumas from their childhoods, when in fact the events had
Speaker 1: never happened. This would have terrible ongoing impacts, as they
Speaker 1: would then be more likely to doubt their memories of
Speaker 1: the actual abuse they experienced.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to break down the idea of what
Speaker 2: it even means to be convinced of something, because from
Speaker 2: the outside, it looks like a person who really believes
Speaker 2: that they ruin this thing. And even when I'm in
Speaker 2: that situation, you know, I'm looking at a friend of
Speaker 2: mine who is confessing to something and it looks like
Speaker 2: they fully believe it. So I believe that they believe it,
Speaker 2: and so I believe I should believe it because everyone
Speaker 2: else is saying it. And so you have this simultaneous
Speaker 2: thing where you kind of think, yeah, maybe it is possible,
Speaker 2: or I don't remember doing this thing that everyone's saying
Speaker 2: I did. And then also I know that if I
Speaker 2: push back and say it didn't happen, I'll be harmed.
Speaker 2: So it's just the path of least resistance is set
Speaker 2: up for you. And it's amazing what someone can achieve
Speaker 2: as far as manipulating people when you play on the
Speaker 2: idea of repressed memory, which is what Larry did. It's
Speaker 2: been so disorienting afterwards because immediately after I left, I
Speaker 2: just decided that Larry's whole set of ideas around repressed
Speaker 2: memory was not really along, was just for manipulation. And then,
Speaker 2: as an example, the video you're talking about of me
Speaker 2: being tortured with the pliers. I saw that video and
Speaker 2: had absolutely zero memory at all of that happening. I
Speaker 2: remember all kinds of other abuse that happened, I have
Speaker 2: zero memory of that. And I understand though, you know
Speaker 2: brain chemistry and we log things in different ways. It's
Speaker 2: just a lot easier to live in a world where
Speaker 2: I just think Larry made up the idea that we
Speaker 2: cannot remember things. But of course, again, like everything else
Speaker 2: is just like it's more complicated, and that's a way
Speaker 2: that the brain works that someone can harness if they
Speaker 2: want to gaslight you.
Speaker 1: I mean, you just said something so powerful, Daniel, because
Speaker 1: you know this, You're absolutely right, You've brought up something
Speaker 1: so important based on your story. This whole concept of
Speaker 1: repressed memories an incredibly controversial area in the whole field
Speaker 1: of psychology. We do know that trauma impacts how memory
Speaker 1: is encoded and how it can be recalled, which is
Speaker 1: why that, for example, especially sexual assault survivors will have
Speaker 1: a recollection many, many, many years later. And then the
Speaker 1: first pushback is, well, why didn't you say something at
Speaker 1: the time, And we know the whole cascade of reasons
Speaker 1: they couldn't, but part of it was there's a real
Speaker 1: blocking out of the memory. Anyone listening to this who
Speaker 1: cares about repressed memory listen to this, because you just
Speaker 1: said it. You said I had no memory of that happening.
Speaker 1: So if asked and you were giving the whole history
Speaker 1: of what happened, you wouldn't have brought up that event, right,
Speaker 1: And so you're almost saying that even if someone asked me,
Speaker 1: sat down and said what happened, they wouldn't have drawn
Speaker 1: that memory out of you.
Speaker 2: Oh, I sat down with the US district attorneys, all
Speaker 2: these people whose job it is to put together these
Speaker 2: stories and to pull memories out of people. Wonderful, really
Speaker 2: great people who I trusted It wasn't that I was
Speaker 2: hiding anything or holding anything back. And we talked for
Speaker 2: over a year, you know, having a conversation after conversation,
Speaker 2: and they had this video, you know, and were I think,
Speaker 2: I'm sure hoping that I might say something about this
Speaker 2: thing that happened, but it just never I never got
Speaker 2: to it because I just had zero memory of this.
Speaker 1: But then the video existed. And there's a whole cadre
Speaker 1: of people in psychology and their whole thing is there's
Speaker 1: no such thing as repressed memory, And just in that
Speaker 1: one sequence you're showing us, Yeah, sure there is, because
Speaker 1: this happened. That's you on the video very clearly. Those
Speaker 1: things were happening. This was not a created adulterated video
Speaker 1: in any way. It was in the hands of law enforcement.
Speaker 1: They play it. And then after the video was played,
Speaker 1: How did your memory get repopulated? How did that affect
Speaker 1: you from a sort of an integration and memory perspective.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a really interesting question because it's not as
Speaker 2: if I now have those memories. Interesting, I have the
Speaker 2: memory of watching the video, and I can contextualize the video.
Speaker 2: It's not like it's out of the blue. It makes
Speaker 2: sense to me, it's I think that I sort of
Speaker 2: file it away in place of the other memories I
Speaker 2: have where there's no video. You know, there's all this
Speaker 2: other similar abuse that was happening, and so I think, well,
Speaker 2: this video exists, that's kind of evidence of that. Part
Speaker 2: of what is difficult for me to confront is that
Speaker 2: you know, that happened to be recorded, and the fact
Speaker 2: that I have no memory of it potentially implies that
Speaker 2: there was more abuse that I don't remember, you know,
Speaker 2: And so then it's like, how much time did I lose?
Speaker 2: And there's not a whole lot that I can do
Speaker 2: with that. But yeah, it's not like the memory is
Speaker 2: just locked away in there. I just think that I
Speaker 2: never formed the memories as it was happening. And I
Speaker 2: think if you watch it, you do see someone who's
Speaker 2: just fully trying to survive.
Speaker 1: That's it, Yeah, exactly what it was. My conversation will
Speaker 1: continue after this break. How soon after these things happen,
Speaker 1: and these the things we are seeing recorded on video,
Speaker 1: you know, being humiliated in front of others, being tortured,
Speaker 1: how soon after that did you get out? Because you
Speaker 1: did get out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the abuse I think was escalating for me
Speaker 2: towards the end, and for what it's worth, part of
Speaker 2: how Larry kind of set this up was there was
Speaker 2: kind of a hierarchy and there would always be someone
Speaker 2: who was the scapegoat for the group, someone who was
Speaker 2: always being harmed and being blamed for everything. They were
Speaker 2: the cause of all the problems, and you never wanted
Speaker 2: to be that person, and it created this power dynamic
Speaker 2: where you were inclined to maybe kind of almost like
Speaker 2: snitch on each other, you know, and then you feel
Speaker 2: complicit in all of this. But so towards the end,
Speaker 2: you know, I had gone in and out of being
Speaker 2: in that role, but then I was like really in
Speaker 2: that role at the bottom of the pyramid, and the
Speaker 2: abuse was getting worse and worse, and in retrospect, part
Speaker 2: of me almost wonders if Larry was using me to
Speaker 2: test how far he could go or something. Early on,
Speaker 2: and it reached a point that was so extreme that
Speaker 2: I think a kind of survival instinct kicked in, but
Speaker 2: even that is oversimplifying. It was a moment of crisis
Speaker 2: where I had a kind of suicidal ideation start to
Speaker 2: enter my mental landscape, and it did feel like either
Speaker 2: I'm going to die or I'm going to leave, And
Speaker 2: it was kind of confusing. It was either like, this
Speaker 2: guy's going to kill me, or I'm going to get
Speaker 2: out and getting out might mean killing myself, or I
Speaker 2: could almost just begin to conceive of the idea of
Speaker 2: getting out meaning literally walking out the door. And then
Speaker 2: my thinking about the situation and started to shift where
Speaker 2: he just was hurting me so much that I don't
Speaker 2: know how to explain it. I just started to almost disassociate,
Speaker 2: I guess, and think like, how can I get out
Speaker 2: of here in a way that will cause me the
Speaker 2: least long term harm? And I started to get really
Speaker 2: strategic about it. If I'm honest, you know, I did
Speaker 2: a little reality testing where he was torturing me in
Speaker 2: front of my friends and trying to get me to
Speaker 2: admit something, and I consciously decided, you know what, if
Speaker 2: I tell a story that's not true, that's good enough
Speaker 2: that he goes along with it, Because if he goes
Speaker 2: along with it, then that means either he can't tell
Speaker 2: what's true and what's false, or he is willing to
Speaker 2: go along with a story he knows that it's false
Speaker 2: in order to prop up his power. So it's like
Speaker 2: either way, you know, unless he calls me out for
Speaker 2: it being fake, which like I'm already being beat up,
Speaker 2: so you know who cares. And I did that and
Speaker 2: told the whole story, and he went along with it,
Speaker 2: and I was like, okay, so something's not real here,
Speaker 2: and I thought, you know, I don't want to let
Speaker 2: him get in the way of me finishing school because
Speaker 2: that will have long term, permanent impacts to my life.
Speaker 2: And so my goal became getting back into school and
Speaker 2: out of the apartment without him realizing that I had
Speaker 2: like quote unquote turned against him, which is kind of
Speaker 2: how he treated everyone who didn't go along with what
Speaker 2: he wanted. So, you know, somehow it was like I
Speaker 2: got housing on campus, and I kind of participated in
Speaker 2: his storytelling around the abuse that I had kind of
Speaker 2: graduated his program, and now I was going to live
Speaker 2: on campus. So it didn't diminish his power at all.
Speaker 2: It was like his choice that I would go and
Speaker 2: live elsewhere, and then I did, and after a little
Speaker 2: while I stopped answering his phone calls, and then I
Speaker 2: lived in fear for many.
Speaker 1: That separating and cutting off from someone like this there
Speaker 1: was you know, the horrific fear in the moment because
Speaker 1: something real was happening to you, But then there's the
Speaker 1: fear of if you separate, will this person come find
Speaker 1: you and harm you. There was no good way forward.
Speaker 2: No and no way to wrap my head around what
Speaker 2: had happened, you know, the same way that people hear
Speaker 2: a story like this and have trouble understanding it, Like
Speaker 2: so did I and I went through it. So it
Speaker 2: took me a long time to think the word cult
Speaker 2: even applied, you know, and it's just what didn't occur
Speaker 2: to me. It just just like this guy was really bad,
Speaker 2: treated me badly, and that's like as much as I
Speaker 2: could think about it. And then I saw this checklist
Speaker 2: that was like all the qualities of a cult, and
Speaker 2: it's like those do all happen to apply? And then
Speaker 2: it took me even longer to think about what had
Speaker 2: happened to me as sexual abuse or as like no
Speaker 2: unconsensual Yeah, so yeah, it's really hard to figure out
Speaker 2: how to live with this. And then I didn't integrate
Speaker 2: the experience, I would say, until I started being public
Speaker 2: about it, which was really uncomfortable but kind of seemed
Speaker 2: to be the only way to bridge the gap between
Speaker 2: this whole part of my past and my regular life.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry you went through this. Did it help
Speaker 1: you to have that framework of thinking of it as
Speaker 1: a cult or did it make no difference?
Speaker 2: It was really helpful. It was like a diagnosis or something,
Speaker 2: you know, having a name to put to it just
Speaker 2: made it a little bit easier to think, Okay, it's
Speaker 2: like I'm a cult victim. Now I can look to
Speaker 2: see if there are like cult support groups, or I
Speaker 2: have something I can say to a therapist, you know.
Speaker 2: And being able to say that, as much as there's
Speaker 2: stigma around you know, what a cult is, being able
Speaker 2: to just explain efficiently saved me from a lot of
Speaker 2: confusion at the outset.
Speaker 1: After you move back to Sarah Lawrence, what was your
Speaker 1: process of not just living but healing like at that point?
Speaker 2: It was slow. First. I tried to make myself as
Speaker 2: unavailable as possible in case Larry or anyone involved called
Speaker 2: me or saw me and was saying, you know, you
Speaker 2: should come back to the apartment. I just wanted to
Speaker 2: be able to be busy all the time so that
Speaker 2: I could say, sorry, I no, I have to like
Speaker 2: go to this class right now, or maybe also using
Speaker 2: those things to avoid reflecting on what had happened. I
Speaker 2: started dating someone, and you know, to her and to myself,
Speaker 2: I just kind of was saying, like, yeah, that living
Speaker 2: situation was weird and bad, and she didn't really fully
Speaker 2: understand until one day we were walking down the street
Speaker 2: we were in Manhattan, and I said something off handedly
Speaker 2: about how Larry would hit me, and in my mind
Speaker 2: it had been so normalized that I just was like
Speaker 2: I thought, I was just relaying information, and I was
Speaker 2: walking and talking, and then realized she wasn't standing next
Speaker 2: to me anymore because she was just crying, you know,
Speaker 2: standing there, and it kind of was like seeing someone
Speaker 2: feel the feelings that you haven't allowed yourself to feel,
Speaker 2: you know. And so that in a lot of ways
Speaker 2: was the beginning of me understanding like, oh, this is not,
Speaker 2: for lack of a better word, normal, you know, and
Speaker 2: I maybe need to reflect a little bit more on
Speaker 2: that time.
Speaker 1: You did graduate, which to me is also amazing. It
Speaker 1: sounds like though in some ways it was its own
Speaker 1: form of trauma response. You finished school. What happened?
Speaker 2: So I moved into the city successfully finally for the
Speaker 2: first time on my own. Yeah, so at first I
Speaker 2: was there, I got a job for the Department of Education.
Speaker 2: You know. I started to make new friends right at
Speaker 2: the end of school in that last semester and kind
Speaker 2: of accepted that there was this grand canyon in the
Speaker 2: middle of my life where I had lost all these
Speaker 2: people and I could never talk to them again to
Speaker 2: be safe, I was just gonna move on. And I
Speaker 2: also still felt that deep fear and discomfort in the
Speaker 2: pit of my stomach and didn't know what to call
Speaker 2: it or pin it on, and it felt mixed up
Speaker 2: with the mental health stuff that I had been struggling
Speaker 2: with before I met Larry and had never really processed
Speaker 2: in therapy. And in New York, I saw a therapist
Speaker 2: for the first time, and I thought, going in, you know,
Speaker 2: I would just tell her the whole thing. And I
Speaker 2: had never done that before, and I didn't realize how
Speaker 2: it was not going to be possible to do that
Speaker 2: in a short period of time. But I had the
Speaker 2: full body trauma response. I just had never let myself
Speaker 2: get that close, and my throat closed up and was
Speaker 2: sweating and just like couldn't really do it, but managed
Speaker 2: to get enough out that, you know, I could watch
Speaker 2: her face and see it was like her jaw was
Speaker 2: on the floor, which didn't help me feel sane, you know.
Speaker 2: But then after that went on, you know, I had
Speaker 2: other therapists later who were much better, and then my
Speaker 2: therapist now is amazing and has been so so helpful
Speaker 2: and so that you know, therapy is its own journey.
Speaker 2: But after New York, I got offered a job taking
Speaker 2: care of Robert Frost's house in the White Mountains in
Speaker 2: New Hampshire. So I moved up to New Hampshire. And
Speaker 2: part of that I think was getting away. And then
Speaker 2: I applied for grad school for writing, and then got
Speaker 2: into a funded MFA fellowship in California, and I got
Speaker 2: further away. And then when I was graduating from my MFA,
Speaker 2: I got a call from a reporter who was working
Speaker 2: on this story about he thought this girl at Sarah
Speaker 2: Lawrence had been poisoning people, and there was this video
Speaker 2: online where she's confessing to it. And do I know
Speaker 2: anything about it.
Speaker 1: It's extraordinary because it was a process, but you kept
Speaker 1: on going through it and taking that courageous leap of
Speaker 1: going into therapy because trauma therapy is tough, right, The
Speaker 1: meat of the work is really feeling safe in the
Speaker 1: world again, and whole in your body again, capable of
Speaker 1: making safe and secure attachments to other people again, and
Speaker 1: trusting yourself and trusting the world again. There's a story
Speaker 1: that happened there, but now your body's responding to that.
Speaker 1: You don't need to live in the story. You can
Speaker 1: live in the response and push back through that. And
Speaker 1: you did that, and it sounds like you've also found
Speaker 1: a really creative place to land with it through being
Speaker 1: a writer and thinking about story. And then New York
Speaker 1: Magazine came and found you. That must have been extraordinary
Speaker 1: to have someone reach out and say, the people are
Speaker 1: being poisoned at Sarah Lawrence, what did you say to them?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that point was about six years from having left,
Speaker 2: and I had fantasized about raiding that apartment, like I
Speaker 2: was like swat or something, getting all my friends out
Speaker 2: and like burning it down. And I tried to just
Speaker 2: look at it through the lens of my own state
Speaker 2: of mind at the time, and I knew that if
Speaker 2: anyone had physically extracted me from the situation at certain points,
Speaker 2: I think that would have done more harm than good
Speaker 2: in some ways, and I would have almost dug in more,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't think of any way to safely do that.
Speaker 2: But the reporter thought that they were telling a story
Speaker 2: about a girl at Sarah Lawrence who had poisoned people
Speaker 2: and wasn't really sure what to make of the video,
Speaker 2: but thought maybe she was on drugs or something. And
Speaker 2: so it just felt like the onus was on me.
Speaker 2: No matter how scared I was, you know about retaliation
Speaker 2: or something. Larry's still out in the world doing what
Speaker 2: he was doing, completely free to come after me if
Speaker 2: he wanted. But I couldn't let everyone think that Larry's
Speaker 2: version of reality that he was forcing on my friends
Speaker 2: through abuse and torture was in fact factual and let
Speaker 2: him be like validated by some story that was published.
Speaker 2: So it felt like it was my responsibility to set
Speaker 2: the story straight, to at least make it as easy
Speaker 2: as possible for my friends to leave if they ever
Speaker 2: wanted to, at least they would exit into a world
Speaker 2: that correctly understood what they've been going through. Yeah, so,
Speaker 2: you know, I started to basically told the reporder like,
Speaker 2: I have a lot to explain to you about the
Speaker 2: you know, context around what that video is and what's
Speaker 2: going on, and Claudia did not poison anyone, and we
Speaker 2: ended up talking for many many sessions of many many hours,
Speaker 2: kind of building their story, and then the story came out,
Speaker 2: and it felt like this became a kind of battle
Speaker 2: of credibility. If this story wasn't taken seriously, and if
Speaker 2: it wasn't seen by a whole lot of people, and
Speaker 2: Larry wanted to attack me or ruin my life, I
Speaker 2: would be vulnerable. I wanted them to have something that
Speaker 2: they could look at that would be everywhere where they
Speaker 2: would say, oh, no, this guy's an abuser, you know.
Speaker 2: And so it felt like this real risk where I
Speaker 2: was going against him, you know, for the first time,
Speaker 2: and if he wanted to attack me, he could. But
Speaker 2: once the story came out, it was a protector, you know.
Speaker 2: It was this shell because if anyone googled Larry Ray,
Speaker 2: they saw that. If anyone googled my name, they saw that.
Speaker 2: So it made me feel safer in some ways than
Speaker 2: I ever had, because I just I lived with the
Speaker 2: possibility that he could be around every corner before that.
Speaker 2: But it also told the story in a way that
Speaker 2: was designed to elicit a certain type of response. Was
Speaker 2: a pretty salacious story. And it got a lot of attention,
Speaker 2: and then there was a lot of interest in adapting
Speaker 2: the story, and I didn't know that, you know, by
Speaker 2: writing the story, New York Magazine suddenly kind of had
Speaker 2: the rights to what had happened to us, and so
Speaker 2: that became sort of the struggle of the next couple
Speaker 2: of years, as figuring out how to put control over
Speaker 2: how the story was told back in the hands of
Speaker 2: the actual survivors of the experience.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you've been able to do that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I wrote this book, and I never
Speaker 2: expected to write memoir about being abused, you know, I
Speaker 2: write poems. But it meant getting the rights back to
Speaker 2: the story. Our whole experience was having control taken away
Speaker 2: from us, and then very powerful people were trying to
Speaker 2: control our lives again. That worked, and then I got
Speaker 2: lucky and managed to find a director who had like
Speaker 2: integrity and cared about telling this story in a way
Speaker 2: that was sensitive and compassionate but also meaningful. And the
Speaker 2: documentary seems to have helped a lot of people. You know,
Speaker 2: knew that that would be an effect of it, but
Speaker 2: I have been continually surprised by the really like concrete
Speaker 2: impacts that has had for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, for people to have come through these relationally traumatic
Speaker 1: experiences in all their forms and be able to share
Speaker 1: their stories is really remarkable for people to see. Were
Speaker 1: there impacts of that New York Maga story beyond just
Speaker 1: New York Magazines? Ultimately, I mean, this thing got shut down.
Speaker 1: How did all of that come together?
Speaker 2: After the New York magazine article came out? You know,
Speaker 2: get a call from an FBI agent and she wanted
Speaker 2: to talk about the story and what had happened. It's
Speaker 2: maybe a good indication of how these things still hang
Speaker 2: on to your brain after this kind of abuse. Because
Speaker 2: my first thought was that she was someone acting on
Speaker 2: Larry's behalf, pretending to be an FBI agent. That's understandable,
Speaker 2: but she wasn't. And we had a conversation and I
Speaker 2: told her, you know, we talked for a long time
Speaker 2: and kind of went through what had happened, and I
Speaker 2: told her all kinds of things, and she took those
Speaker 2: notes from that conversation back to her office and used
Speaker 2: that conversation to form the basis of an investigation, which
Speaker 2: you know, they decided to open. Ultimately, they decided they
Speaker 2: had enough to justify by arresting him and then indicting him,
Speaker 2: and then we began the process of the whole trial.
Speaker 2: And all of this was happening at the same time
Speaker 2: that I was contracted to write and then publish this book,
Speaker 2: which itself became evidence, you know, and so was being
Speaker 2: line read by FBI agents and prosecutors and all these
Speaker 2: lawyers and stuff. It's been a lot to triangulate between
Speaker 2: all of these different powerful entities. But the goal the
Speaker 2: whole time was very clear, just to make my friends
Speaker 2: as safe as I possibly could. And that's been kind
Speaker 2: of my guiding light through the whole thing. And now
Speaker 2: we're here in Larry's in prison for sixty years, and
Speaker 2: you know, we've managed to not be exploited by the
Speaker 2: media in a way that a lot of people who
Speaker 2: go through this kind of thing are.
Speaker 1: As a trauma survivor, It's not lost on me that
Speaker 1: your singular focus is to help your survivors feel safe.
Speaker 1: The way you've shared it today to me is extraordinary
Speaker 1: because it is a terrorizing, chilling experience. I've been talking
Speaker 1: about your history, how you healed, and you know what
Speaker 1: happened to you after this all happened. But how are
Speaker 1: you doing today?
Speaker 2: My life is really good. It's really really good. It
Speaker 2: is really weird to have not just gone through something
Speaker 2: like this, but then to have gone through talking about
Speaker 2: it on the news and having this documentary be out there.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's just a really surreal experience that there's
Speaker 2: not much of a roadmap for. But you know, here
Speaker 2: I am, and I get to live in a really
Speaker 2: beautiful place, and I have friends who I love, and
Speaker 2: a partner who's amazing, and a therapist who's amazing. I
Speaker 2: think that I've had this impulse in my healing that's
Speaker 2: both to like create safety for other survivors and also
Speaker 2: I can't help but want to like fix everything and
Speaker 2: knit everyone back together and make it as if it
Speaker 2: never happened, which is not possible. But I am back
Speaker 2: in touch with everyone and we talk regularly, and after
Speaker 2: years of thinking that I would never talk to these
Speaker 2: people ever again, I have those relationships back, which is amazing.
Speaker 2: Not to boil it down to the simplest thing, but
Speaker 2: sometimes I do think about the fact that I can
Speaker 2: open the door and walk outside. Yea, you know, that's everything, man.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's the simplest thing.
Speaker 1: It's an amazing thing because there once was a door
Speaker 1: you couldn't walk out, So understand the profundity of being
Speaker 1: able to walk out and bring your full self out
Speaker 1: into the world without having to look around corners. You
Speaker 1: have probably an exquisite understanding of the beauty of what
Speaker 1: life can be, maybe more than any other person. What
Speaker 1: has helped you most in this process of healing and
Speaker 1: growth and frankly thriving.
Speaker 2: The heart of my experience with this psychopathic abuser right
Speaker 2: was that he made me not believe myself, And the
Speaker 2: process of healing for me has been a process of
Speaker 2: believing myself and learning who I am, and then standing
Speaker 2: behind that and really planting my flag in my own
Speaker 2: reality and experience and being open to all of the
Speaker 2: complexity and chaos and messiness of life. At the end
Speaker 2: of the day, it's that I believe me.
Speaker 1: That's so amazing, And I think every survivor needs to
Speaker 1: hear that, because regardless of the context of the situation,
Speaker 1: that's what survivors grapple with most. They lost all belief
Speaker 1: in themselves while they were in these situations, and the
Speaker 1: stumbling block to healing is to end self blame and
Speaker 1: to fully believe themselves and to recognize that they are
Speaker 1: fully in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard because sometimes we do have to question
Speaker 2: our own thoughts and feelings about things, and that's fine,
Speaker 2: but yeah, figuring out how to trust yourself has been
Speaker 2: kind of the foundation of me being able to rebuild
Speaker 2: the rest of my identity and sense of self after
Speaker 2: it was dismantled.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's the foundation of all healings. So
Speaker 1: thank you for sharing that. This is such a powerful conversation.
Speaker 1: And it was one thing to read your words and
Speaker 1: see the series you were involved in making. It's quite
Speaker 1: another to hear it right from you. It's transformative. So
Speaker 1: thank you, and you know, next week we'll be talking
Speaker 1: with Felicia, who was, you know, one of your fellow
Speaker 1: survivors who I'm sure all of you had different experiences
Speaker 1: of it, And I think the one of the most
Speaker 1: important things to remember is anytime there has been this experience,
Speaker 1: this traumatizing experience that happens to a group, that our
Speaker 1: temptation is to paint it with the same brush, and
Speaker 1: all of you had very different experiences, and everyone listening
Speaker 1: needs to know that whatever they've gone through their process
Speaker 1: of healing may look different, but there are some universals,
Speaker 1: and you really brought us back to some of those universals.
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough. I know this cannot be
Speaker 1: easy to talk about for bringing your vulnerability here today
Speaker 1: and so openly, so I'm extraordinarily grateful to you.
Speaker 2: So thank you, thank you so much. This is such
Speaker 2: a great conversation.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. Here are my takeaways from my
Speaker 1: conversation with Daniel. First, Daniel's experience and the entire experience
Speaker 1: of everyone harmed by Larry Ray, is something most people
Speaker 1: watch and think could never happen to them. There is
Speaker 1: a danger in believing anyone is immune. It's easy to
Speaker 1: clearly see a story when it's over. Understanding the subtle
Speaker 1: predations of a manipulative and exploitative person can hopefully keep
Speaker 1: all of us a little safer. In our next takeaway,
Speaker 1: Daniel did say that one aspect of Larry Ray that
Speaker 1: he found quite disarming was his authoritative confidence that Ray
Speaker 1: would spout off anything with such conviction that it made
Speaker 1: it seem plausible when that is combined with a perceived legitimacy.
Speaker 1: Because a person is acquainted with others in your network,
Speaker 1: and that other people are seemingly accepting of this authoritative
Speaker 1: person's behavior. It makes it less likely that people may
Speaker 1: trust their instincts in these situations. Then, throw on top
Speaker 1: of that how young everyone in that house was. Breaking
Speaker 1: out of social conformity isn't easy, and a good tip
Speaker 1: to remember is that people who actually do know their
Speaker 1: stuff tend to be a little less authoritative and more circumspect.
Speaker 1: For our next takeaway, the experience of not only Daniel,
Speaker 1: but others preyed upon by Larry Ray reflected a slow
Speaker 1: and systematic indoctrination and eroding of perception. Daniel shared the
Speaker 1: experience of the grapes and the suggestion that they should
Speaker 1: taste different. This systematic process did not happen right away,
Speaker 1: and this extreme a process is something we are more
Speaker 1: likely to see in a relationship with a psychopath, but
Speaker 1: not with someone narcissistic. These relationships only work because a
Speaker 1: person is slowly and methodically pulled away from their perceptions
Speaker 1: and experiences. In this next takeaway, isolation is an insidious
Speaker 1: dynamic in any form of abusive relationship, and shame was
Speaker 1: used as a tool of isolation. Whether this was bi
Speaker 1: sexual shaming, or a collection of videos and images. This
Speaker 1: process of shaming can often get people imprisoned by the
Speaker 1: abuser because they are afraid of the consequences of breaking free.
Speaker 1: This is a terrifying dynamic and the effects of this
Speaker 1: can last long after a person finally does get away
Speaker 1: from one of these relationships. Daniel shaired that therapy was
Speaker 1: an important part of this process for him, and it
Speaker 1: is essential to be able to work through these dynamics
Speaker 1: and find safe spaces of connection and relationship. Next, Daniel
Speaker 1: shared a particularly terrible dynamic that occurred in this relationship
Speaker 1: and is something we would observe in coercively controlling relationships.
Speaker 1: Larry Ray fashioned himself as someone who could fix anything
Speaker 1: that was affecting the young people he preyed on through
Speaker 1: advice and pseudotherapy. But what he was doing was working
Speaker 1: both sides of this equation. He was breaking Daniel and
Speaker 1: everyone else down and then presenting himself as the only solution.
Speaker 1: This sort of double gaslight is a deeply exploitative dynamic
Speaker 1: that can keep people stuck in these traumatic systems for years.
Speaker 1: In our next takeaway, there are roles we witness people
Speaker 1: being placed in when they are in toxic situations, and
Speaker 1: the most dangerous role of all is to be the scapegoat.
Speaker 1: Toxic family systems have scapegoats, as do toxic organizations, and
Speaker 1: that role can be fluid, creating a sense of dread
Speaker 1: and compliance in people within the system who must always
Speaker 1: live in fear about whether they were going to be
Speaker 1: the next scapegoat. Malignant narcissists and psychopathic abusers use menace
Speaker 1: and dread to maintain absolute control within a system. Daniel
Speaker 1: found himself in that role for a while, and in
Speaker 1: the name of survival and safety, a person may say
Speaker 1: what they need to remove themselves from that role when
Speaker 1: that is the circumstance. The concept of free will, consent,
Speaker 1: and choice has evaporated, and for our last takeaway, Daniel
Speaker 1: was changed by his experience, but he is also healing
Speaker 1: and in a good place in his life. Hearing how
Speaker 1: these processes play out is crucial for all survivors to heal.
Speaker 1: It looks different every time in every person, and survivors'
Speaker 1: experiences may have shared patterns, but ultimately are very different.
Speaker 1: Once again, we see that it is therapy social supports
Speaker 1: meaningful and purposeful activities reconnect with some of the other
Speaker 1: survivors and the awareness of small, wondrous, albeit ordinary experiences
Speaker 1: in Daniel's case, that he can open the door and
Speaker 1: walk outside. But above all else, Daniel shared what healing
Speaker 1: really is, which is believing himself. This is a key
Speaker 1: reminder that survivors can take themselves back from these relationships
Speaker 1: and situations.