1 00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:04,880 Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. This episode contains 2 00:00:04,920 --> 00:00:09,520 Speaker 1: discussion of sexual abuse, substance abuse, and self harm. Listener 3 00:00:09,520 --> 00:00:10,720 Speaker 1: discretion is advised. 4 00:00:16,840 --> 00:00:20,720 Speaker 2: I went to sleep that night, hoping unconsciousness would reverse 5 00:00:20,840 --> 00:00:25,200 Speaker 2: the horrifying depletion that had taken place. But I awoke 6 00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:28,720 Speaker 2: the next morning and fell breathless into a room I 7 00:00:28,720 --> 00:00:33,279 Speaker 2: could barely recognize, a body I could barely feel, and 8 00:00:33,320 --> 00:00:38,480 Speaker 2: a mind I could barely follow into perception. The unmistakable 9 00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:42,159 Speaker 2: arrhythmia of the disconnect, as I had begun to call it, 10 00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:47,400 Speaker 2: that had been disrupting my life was now louder, more insistent, 11 00:00:47,880 --> 00:00:51,520 Speaker 2: A second heart that beat along with my original heart. 12 00:00:51,920 --> 00:00:53,960 Speaker 2: Out of time, out of body. 13 00:00:57,200 --> 00:01:01,160 Speaker 1: That's Alice Carrier, author of the recent memo Are Everything 14 00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:05,959 Speaker 1: Nothing Someone. Alice's is a story of a childhood of 15 00:01:06,040 --> 00:01:11,280 Speaker 1: profound extremes. Her mother, the painter Jennifer Bartlett, was one 16 00:01:11,319 --> 00:01:14,479 Speaker 1: of the most famous and critically acclaimed artists of her time. 17 00:01:15,600 --> 00:01:18,520 Speaker 1: Alice grew up in a world filled with access an 18 00:01:18,680 --> 00:01:23,840 Speaker 1: enormous privilege. But access and privilege mean nothing to a child. 19 00:01:24,560 --> 00:01:32,039 Speaker 1: A child wants only love, safety, boundaries, support, protection. A 20 00:01:32,160 --> 00:01:47,800 Speaker 1: child wants to be seen. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this 21 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:51,080 Speaker 1: is family secrets, the secrets that are kept from us, 22 00:01:51,320 --> 00:01:54,080 Speaker 1: the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we 23 00:01:54,200 --> 00:02:01,320 Speaker 1: keep from ourselves. Tell me about the land of your childhood. 24 00:02:01,640 --> 00:02:04,520 Speaker 1: You have two different landscapes. Do you remember anything about 25 00:02:04,920 --> 00:02:06,320 Speaker 1: Paris before you were four? 26 00:02:07,760 --> 00:02:11,400 Speaker 2: Yes? The Paris apartment is still in my life. It's 27 00:02:11,400 --> 00:02:15,080 Speaker 2: a time capsule. It's been preserved exactly as it was 28 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:18,480 Speaker 2: when my parents lived there. So I do have a 29 00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:21,160 Speaker 2: lot of memories there, and I get to inhabit those 30 00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:25,480 Speaker 2: memories physically whenever I visit, which is really powerful because 31 00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:32,440 Speaker 2: it was the only location where my parents were truly together. 32 00:02:33,520 --> 00:02:37,000 Speaker 2: I'm grateful to have that place because every time I 33 00:02:37,080 --> 00:02:40,640 Speaker 2: go there, it readheres me to myself in a really 34 00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:44,920 Speaker 2: powerful way. And you know, these places, the houses that 35 00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:49,000 Speaker 2: my mom created, were like characters, were like family members. 36 00:02:49,400 --> 00:02:56,359 Speaker 2: They were just as grandiose and outlandish and sometimes sinister 37 00:02:57,080 --> 00:02:58,679 Speaker 2: as the people who populated them. 38 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:02,880 Speaker 1: Me about one thirty four Charles Street, which was the 39 00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:08,000 Speaker 1: backdrop to most of your childhood and teenage years. 40 00:03:08,840 --> 00:03:13,800 Speaker 2: So one thirty four Charles Street started out as a 41 00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:16,560 Speaker 2: place not intended to be lived in. It was a 42 00:03:16,600 --> 00:03:21,120 Speaker 2: factory for manufacturing train parts. It was a seventeen thousand 43 00:03:21,120 --> 00:03:25,720 Speaker 2: square foot building in downtown Manhattan in the West Village, 44 00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:32,200 Speaker 2: and my mom purchased it and turned it into a fortress. 45 00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:36,920 Speaker 2: She added an indoor swimming pool next to which she 46 00:03:37,040 --> 00:03:39,920 Speaker 2: put her bed. She loved to sleep next to water. 47 00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:43,880 Speaker 2: She was a California girl, lived by the ocean. She 48 00:03:44,040 --> 00:03:49,440 Speaker 2: added two floors of gardens. She loved to be surrounded 49 00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:53,240 Speaker 2: by things that were growing, because she always felt like 50 00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:56,640 Speaker 2: she was killing things, that anything she touched would die. 51 00:03:57,680 --> 00:04:03,120 Speaker 2: She loved to nurture her spaces. She loved to gardens. 52 00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:07,640 Speaker 2: She loved to create these spectacular spaces. So that's I 53 00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:10,160 Speaker 2: think where a lot of the intimacy that was lacking 54 00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:12,760 Speaker 2: in most of her other aspects of her life. That's 55 00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:16,680 Speaker 2: where it went. This massive building. She had two floors 56 00:04:16,680 --> 00:04:21,159 Speaker 2: of studios where she painted from seven o'clock in the 57 00:04:21,160 --> 00:04:23,320 Speaker 2: morning until seven o'clock at night, with a two hour 58 00:04:23,360 --> 00:04:26,920 Speaker 2: and after day. And that's where we lived from when 59 00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:29,240 Speaker 2: I was about five years old to when I was 60 00:04:29,279 --> 00:04:33,520 Speaker 2: about twenty three. I remember the glowing exit signs, you know, 61 00:04:33,600 --> 00:04:36,000 Speaker 2: all of these remnants from when it was a factory 62 00:04:36,880 --> 00:04:42,400 Speaker 2: and had industrial The toilets would flush with this ferocity 63 00:04:42,480 --> 00:04:46,520 Speaker 2: that would make you jump every time. It had its 64 00:04:46,560 --> 00:04:49,800 Speaker 2: own rhythms and rules. The taps were marked with C 65 00:04:49,960 --> 00:04:52,760 Speaker 2: and F, which is show and fought, which is hot 66 00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:55,680 Speaker 2: and cold and French, so of course people would scald 67 00:04:55,680 --> 00:04:58,719 Speaker 2: themselves when they tried to wash their hands. It was 68 00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:03,720 Speaker 2: an extraordinary extra in a place. I was raised by 69 00:05:04,560 --> 00:05:08,280 Speaker 2: a British nanny named Dennis. Her real name was Eileen 70 00:05:08,360 --> 00:05:12,279 Speaker 2: Dennis Maynard, but we only ever called her nanny, and 71 00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:17,760 Speaker 2: she was my constant. She read to me at night, 72 00:05:17,839 --> 00:05:22,120 Speaker 2: she brought me to school. She was hired before I 73 00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:28,240 Speaker 2: was born for her quote unquote ability to handle unconventional problems, 74 00:05:28,680 --> 00:05:32,760 Speaker 2: which was some impressive self diagnosis and self awareness on 75 00:05:32,800 --> 00:05:36,920 Speaker 2: my parents' part that they identified our problems as unconventional. 76 00:05:37,640 --> 00:05:41,440 Speaker 2: So she lived in Charles Street. I just remember it 77 00:05:41,480 --> 00:05:44,599 Speaker 2: being nanny and I on the second floor, and my 78 00:05:44,760 --> 00:05:48,640 Speaker 2: mom up in the pool room, drinking her white wine, 79 00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:52,240 Speaker 2: smoking her cigarettes and reading her books, and then summoning 80 00:05:52,279 --> 00:05:56,000 Speaker 2: me on the intercom that bodilessly connected us through the 81 00:05:56,000 --> 00:05:58,479 Speaker 2: seventeen thousand square feet so I would be in my 82 00:05:58,600 --> 00:06:02,240 Speaker 2: room and sometimes the only contact I'd had with my 83 00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:06,560 Speaker 2: mom throughout the day would be her disembodied voice calling 84 00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:09,440 Speaker 2: me over the intercom, and then I would go to 85 00:06:09,480 --> 00:06:12,200 Speaker 2: pick it up, and she would sometimes be really impatient 86 00:06:12,200 --> 00:06:14,200 Speaker 2: to hang up, and then I couldn't call her back 87 00:06:14,240 --> 00:06:18,600 Speaker 2: because she'd have her phone on privacy setting. So it 88 00:06:18,680 --> 00:06:22,080 Speaker 2: was this sort of surreal way we moved through each 89 00:06:22,080 --> 00:06:23,279 Speaker 2: other's lives. 90 00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:29,080 Speaker 1: As a girl, as she tried to fall asleep at night, 91 00:06:29,760 --> 00:06:33,479 Speaker 1: Alice would imagine the swimming pool directly above her bed. 92 00:06:34,279 --> 00:06:38,200 Speaker 1: She would picture the ceiling caving and tons and tons 93 00:06:38,200 --> 00:06:41,839 Speaker 1: of water crashing over her. It was both a reality 94 00:06:42,440 --> 00:06:45,599 Speaker 1: there really was a massive swimming pool above her, and 95 00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:51,279 Speaker 1: a metaphor for the vast and consuming chaos surrounding her. 96 00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:55,240 Speaker 2: The word I used to describe my mother is the 97 00:06:55,279 --> 00:06:59,920 Speaker 2: process by which mountains are made, origenic, and that four 98 00:07:00,200 --> 00:07:05,400 Speaker 2: that's captured in the threat of tons of water collapsing 99 00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:09,080 Speaker 2: over your head, my head, or the process by which 100 00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:11,360 Speaker 2: mountains are made. That's what I think of when I 101 00:07:11,360 --> 00:07:15,360 Speaker 2: think of my mom. And she was known for the 102 00:07:15,440 --> 00:07:18,760 Speaker 2: scale of her work, the scale of her grandiosity, but 103 00:07:19,080 --> 00:07:23,720 Speaker 2: in equal measure was the scale of her remoteness, of 104 00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:30,040 Speaker 2: her fear, the threat of what she imagined had happened 105 00:07:30,040 --> 00:07:34,520 Speaker 2: to her, loomed so large over her life and of 106 00:07:34,560 --> 00:07:39,360 Speaker 2: course mine. I think of natural forces that are so monumental, 107 00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:45,960 Speaker 2: they change the landscape, they're so massive, and I think 108 00:07:46,280 --> 00:07:50,240 Speaker 2: that metaphor extends to the way she lived her life 109 00:07:50,280 --> 00:07:54,400 Speaker 2: to She was also she was very funny. She was 110 00:07:54,440 --> 00:07:59,240 Speaker 2: a ravenous reader. She had these sort of enormous appetites. 111 00:07:59,520 --> 00:08:02,480 Speaker 2: She loved good food, she loved good boothe she loved 112 00:08:02,480 --> 00:08:06,800 Speaker 2: to smoke, she loved good books, she loved expensive clothing. 113 00:08:07,280 --> 00:08:14,080 Speaker 2: She loved having confrontational conversations. She was very glamorous. My 114 00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:20,160 Speaker 2: father was this German film star and intellectual. He had 115 00:08:20,560 --> 00:08:26,120 Speaker 2: grown up in a mental institution in Germany, so you 116 00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:31,440 Speaker 2: know a very gothic tale. His babysitters were the patients 117 00:08:31,480 --> 00:08:35,200 Speaker 2: of a hospital at which his father, a psychiatrist, worked, 118 00:08:36,080 --> 00:08:39,240 Speaker 2: and one of them had attempted to burn her two 119 00:08:39,360 --> 00:08:44,120 Speaker 2: children alive. One of them believed that God was transforming 120 00:08:44,200 --> 00:08:46,120 Speaker 2: him into a woman so he could have a child 121 00:08:46,200 --> 00:08:50,079 Speaker 2: with him. So my father lived in these mental institutions, 122 00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:57,240 Speaker 2: and dad experience created this porousness of boundaries that extended 123 00:08:57,440 --> 00:09:01,079 Speaker 2: throughout my life. He couldn't really tell who was sick 124 00:09:01,160 --> 00:09:04,320 Speaker 2: and who was saying what the difference between those two 125 00:09:04,360 --> 00:09:08,720 Speaker 2: things was. And after that experience he never really found 126 00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:12,800 Speaker 2: anything in human nature strange. Then he was discovered at 127 00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:16,800 Speaker 2: the age of thirteen by a German film director and 128 00:09:17,200 --> 00:09:20,320 Speaker 2: started making movies, and then he moved to Paris in 129 00:09:20,360 --> 00:09:24,559 Speaker 2: his twenties, where he fell in with the Gille de 130 00:09:24,679 --> 00:09:28,160 Speaker 2: Laus crowd. He was a famous philosopher who was known 131 00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:32,720 Speaker 2: for his rather anarcic thinking, and my father was his potage. 132 00:09:33,200 --> 00:09:38,960 Speaker 2: So he started to espouse these pretty radical theories and 133 00:09:39,240 --> 00:09:43,760 Speaker 2: this approach to life as a grand experiment. And he 134 00:09:43,920 --> 00:09:47,640 Speaker 2: met my mother, I think the first week he moved 135 00:09:47,640 --> 00:09:49,920 Speaker 2: to New York and they were at a dinner party 136 00:09:49,960 --> 00:09:54,319 Speaker 2: together and she was chainsmoking cigarettes and eating smoked salmon, 137 00:09:54,559 --> 00:09:58,800 Speaker 2: and he approached her and she was with another man 138 00:09:58,880 --> 00:10:01,800 Speaker 2: named Matthew. His name is matt and he announced at 139 00:10:01,840 --> 00:10:03,960 Speaker 2: the table, who's it going to be? Which Matthew are 140 00:10:04,040 --> 00:10:05,840 Speaker 2: you going to take home him or me? And she 141 00:10:05,960 --> 00:10:09,000 Speaker 2: picked him, so that's how they met. They moved to 142 00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:15,120 Speaker 2: Paris when I was born, and he spent his time 143 00:10:15,640 --> 00:10:19,000 Speaker 2: making films, playing speed chess and doing cocaine, and my 144 00:10:19,120 --> 00:10:22,120 Speaker 2: mom would just work and drink and to hear him 145 00:10:22,280 --> 00:10:26,520 Speaker 2: categorize it. She was completely in her own world. She 146 00:10:26,679 --> 00:10:30,120 Speaker 2: dictated all the rules, and he felt kind of like 147 00:10:30,120 --> 00:10:34,560 Speaker 2: a puppy dog, and I think he felt rather unmoored. So, 148 00:10:35,480 --> 00:10:40,680 Speaker 2: in keeping with the self mythologizing tactic of my family, 149 00:10:41,120 --> 00:10:47,200 Speaker 2: he made an autobiographical film about a pianist, a German 150 00:10:47,280 --> 00:10:52,040 Speaker 2: pianist married to a successful American architect who is addicted 151 00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:55,880 Speaker 2: to cocaine and speed chess and ruins his life. So 152 00:10:55,920 --> 00:10:58,760 Speaker 2: he kind of used art, I think, as an act 153 00:10:58,800 --> 00:11:02,080 Speaker 2: of defiance, but also as a prophylactic, which I found 154 00:11:02,200 --> 00:11:06,600 Speaker 2: very interesting. And it's exactly how my mom negotiated what 155 00:11:06,679 --> 00:11:09,280 Speaker 2: had happened to her and her life. So they had 156 00:11:09,320 --> 00:11:13,199 Speaker 2: a very intense relationship. It started out as sort of 157 00:11:13,240 --> 00:11:15,840 Speaker 2: always being in crisis in the sense, and then he 158 00:11:16,240 --> 00:11:20,320 Speaker 2: in this movie, he cast the woman he was having 159 00:11:20,400 --> 00:11:23,160 Speaker 2: an affair with as the woman the main character has 160 00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:25,920 Speaker 2: an affair in the film. My mom was doing the 161 00:11:25,920 --> 00:11:29,840 Speaker 2: costumes and she had to dress his mistress in the 162 00:11:29,880 --> 00:11:34,120 Speaker 2: movie and in real life. So this kind of musing 163 00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:40,840 Speaker 2: life in an almost careless, reckless, callous way in the 164 00:11:40,960 --> 00:11:48,320 Speaker 2: service always of art and intellectualizing the softest, most delicate 165 00:11:48,400 --> 00:11:53,160 Speaker 2: parts of ourselves was an established pattern in my family. 166 00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:13,800 Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Alice's mother begins to see a 167 00:12:13,840 --> 00:12:18,880 Speaker 1: renowned psychiatrist named doctor Viola Bernard. At first, she discusses 168 00:12:18,960 --> 00:12:23,560 Speaker 1: relatively mundane issues, but doctor Bernard begins introducing other methods, 169 00:12:23,920 --> 00:12:27,440 Speaker 1: including hypnosis, as a way of probing deeper into her 170 00:12:27,480 --> 00:12:32,040 Speaker 1: psyche for what might be buried there. Eventually, Alice's mother 171 00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:34,800 Speaker 1: comes away from therapy with the belief that she has 172 00:12:34,880 --> 00:12:38,120 Speaker 1: recovered memories from her childhood that reveal that she'd been 173 00:12:38,200 --> 00:12:40,479 Speaker 1: used in a Satanic sex cult. 174 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:46,679 Speaker 2: I discovered her story when I was eleven years old, 175 00:12:47,280 --> 00:12:52,520 Speaker 2: and my father had given me the mission of looking 176 00:12:52,559 --> 00:12:55,840 Speaker 2: through my mom's things to find out who was being 177 00:12:55,880 --> 00:12:59,319 Speaker 2: called as a witness in their very acrimonious divorce that 178 00:12:59,400 --> 00:13:03,320 Speaker 2: lasted seven years. And I was snooping her stuff and 179 00:13:03,360 --> 00:13:08,360 Speaker 2: I found these journals and I read them, and one 180 00:13:08,360 --> 00:13:11,840 Speaker 2: of the entries described how she was giving my father 181 00:13:11,920 --> 00:13:16,040 Speaker 2: a blowjob and had a flashback, and that the flashback 182 00:13:16,200 --> 00:13:20,680 Speaker 2: was of her on a boat having her head held 183 00:13:20,760 --> 00:13:23,880 Speaker 2: underwater while she vomited while a man said, you're feeding 184 00:13:23,920 --> 00:13:28,320 Speaker 2: the fishes. And I confronted her about what I had found. 185 00:13:28,840 --> 00:13:31,520 Speaker 2: She was on her way from the studio up to 186 00:13:31,559 --> 00:13:33,760 Speaker 2: the pool room where she was going to take her nap, 187 00:13:34,840 --> 00:13:38,360 Speaker 2: and she sat in my room and very matter of 188 00:13:38,400 --> 00:13:43,320 Speaker 2: factly told me the following story. She told me that 189 00:13:44,200 --> 00:13:46,680 Speaker 2: a married couple, Bertie and Russell, who were friends of 190 00:13:46,679 --> 00:13:50,120 Speaker 2: the family, had used her and her one and a 191 00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:54,240 Speaker 2: half year old sibling in a sex cult. That they 192 00:13:55,200 --> 00:13:59,520 Speaker 2: recruited the children of all of the maids in the neighborhood, 193 00:13:59,600 --> 00:14:04,120 Speaker 2: and you then and ritualize sex games. And that she 194 00:14:04,200 --> 00:14:07,640 Speaker 2: had witnessed the murder of a seven year old black 195 00:14:07,679 --> 00:14:11,560 Speaker 2: boy that had murdered him through erotic asphyxiation and had 196 00:14:11,600 --> 00:14:14,400 Speaker 2: made my mother bury the body on the beach and 197 00:14:14,440 --> 00:14:16,880 Speaker 2: told her never to tell or she would go to 198 00:14:16,880 --> 00:14:22,480 Speaker 2: prison forever. And she told me this, I could detect 199 00:14:23,040 --> 00:14:26,360 Speaker 2: no emotion. She didn't tell me how she felt about it. 200 00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:28,800 Speaker 2: She didn't ask me how I felt. It was the 201 00:14:28,880 --> 00:14:32,240 Speaker 2: equivalent of listening to an audiobook, one of the many 202 00:14:32,280 --> 00:14:35,800 Speaker 2: audiobooks that I listened to all of the time. And 203 00:14:36,600 --> 00:14:40,640 Speaker 2: then she left to take her nap, leaving me wondering 204 00:14:40,640 --> 00:14:44,000 Speaker 2: how to spell erotic asshixiation and picturing my dad getting 205 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:48,800 Speaker 2: a blowjob. I would later find out that she was 206 00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:52,160 Speaker 2: most likely a victim of the Satanic panic, which was 207 00:14:52,400 --> 00:14:56,120 Speaker 2: a moral hysteria that swept the nation in the eighties 208 00:14:56,160 --> 00:14:59,960 Speaker 2: and nineties, where one aspect of it was that overzelle 209 00:15:01,080 --> 00:15:08,560 Speaker 2: therapists and psychiatrists would implant false memories of ritualized sexual 210 00:15:08,560 --> 00:15:12,200 Speaker 2: abuse and murder into their patients. I don't think it 211 00:15:12,240 --> 00:15:16,680 Speaker 2: was nefarious. It was motivated by a genuine desire to 212 00:15:16,760 --> 00:15:20,280 Speaker 2: help people. I think that trauma was starting to be 213 00:15:20,400 --> 00:15:26,160 Speaker 2: understood and credence was starting to be given to let's say, 214 00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:29,560 Speaker 2: trauma beyond the trauma of war or you know, for instance, 215 00:15:29,600 --> 00:15:33,400 Speaker 2: sexual trauma. So I think there was a genuine desire 216 00:15:34,160 --> 00:15:38,440 Speaker 2: to help people and to learn and be curious about 217 00:15:39,400 --> 00:15:44,200 Speaker 2: very real emotion states of being. The way that trauma 218 00:15:44,240 --> 00:15:50,160 Speaker 2: reverberates through a life is very complicated. So I struggle 219 00:15:50,320 --> 00:15:55,200 Speaker 2: with speculating what these doctors were thinking. But maybe it's 220 00:15:55,360 --> 00:15:59,720 Speaker 2: the allure of a story. But until the end of 221 00:15:59,760 --> 00:16:03,800 Speaker 2: her life, she believed with her whole heart that this 222 00:16:03,840 --> 00:16:09,200 Speaker 2: had happened, and because of that, she really felt that 223 00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:14,280 Speaker 2: she would do irreparable harm to me that I think 224 00:16:14,600 --> 00:16:19,240 Speaker 2: if she showed affection or tried to be tender or 225 00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:23,520 Speaker 2: intimate with me, it would somehow damage me as irrevocably 226 00:16:23,640 --> 00:16:26,760 Speaker 2: as she had been damaged. So in a way, her 227 00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:31,000 Speaker 2: remoteness was an act of tremendous love. But that distortion 228 00:16:31,240 --> 00:16:37,520 Speaker 2: came from this imaginary secret that her mind had allegedly 229 00:16:37,560 --> 00:16:41,920 Speaker 2: been keeping from herself. From her I think my mom 230 00:16:42,280 --> 00:16:48,800 Speaker 2: found having this outrageous story it excused the fact that 231 00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:52,880 Speaker 2: she couldn't move beyond it. Once the villain is Satan, 232 00:16:53,880 --> 00:16:58,160 Speaker 2: then you know, I think that can't be topped. She 233 00:16:58,400 --> 00:17:05,600 Speaker 2: also created massive oil paintings in response to these recovered memories. 234 00:17:05,840 --> 00:17:10,960 Speaker 2: Her reaction was to make one hundred and eight versions 235 00:17:11,440 --> 00:17:14,840 Speaker 2: of these scenes of abuse. So in her paintings, there's 236 00:17:14,960 --> 00:17:18,320 Speaker 2: a naked person wielding an axe, and they were hanging 237 00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:21,920 Speaker 2: in the hallways of my home. So as she went 238 00:17:21,960 --> 00:17:25,199 Speaker 2: off to take her nap and she left me behind 239 00:17:25,280 --> 00:17:27,560 Speaker 2: to kind of process everything she had told me, I 240 00:17:27,720 --> 00:17:33,080 Speaker 2: wandered out into the hallway and just stared at these 241 00:17:33,119 --> 00:17:38,480 Speaker 2: scenes of abuse. And I would get very confused because 242 00:17:38,880 --> 00:17:41,520 Speaker 2: I started not knowing where I ended and she began. 243 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:45,399 Speaker 2: I started getting confused about what had happened to whom, 244 00:17:45,560 --> 00:17:49,000 Speaker 2: and I almost believed that what she had endured had 245 00:17:49,040 --> 00:17:53,040 Speaker 2: also happened to me, which made the confusing things that 246 00:17:53,040 --> 00:17:58,080 Speaker 2: were happening in my life almost secondary, and they kind 247 00:17:58,119 --> 00:18:03,440 Speaker 2: of evaporated and des and were supplanted by these extreme 248 00:18:03,880 --> 00:18:09,199 Speaker 2: scenes that she had fabricated. So it's another example of 249 00:18:09,280 --> 00:18:18,600 Speaker 2: how my parents turned their damage into beautiful stories. And 250 00:18:18,680 --> 00:18:22,880 Speaker 2: I learned at a young age that what we experienced 251 00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:27,040 Speaker 2: and how we felt about those experiences were meant to 252 00:18:27,080 --> 00:18:28,800 Speaker 2: be thought about and spectated. 253 00:18:32,840 --> 00:18:35,879 Speaker 1: Part of the spectacle is the six year custody battle 254 00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:39,920 Speaker 1: that follows Alice's parents divorce. For some of this time, 255 00:18:40,040 --> 00:18:43,639 Speaker 1: Alice's father remains living at one three four Charles Street, 256 00:18:44,160 --> 00:18:48,560 Speaker 1: and eventually he moves out. As Alice moves between her parents' 257 00:18:48,600 --> 00:18:52,520 Speaker 1: two worlds, her own world is fraught and fractured as 258 00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:56,919 Speaker 1: she oscillates between slippery landscapes, one where her relationship with 259 00:18:56,960 --> 00:19:00,879 Speaker 1: her father is exceedingly blurry and without boundaries, and the 260 00:19:00,960 --> 00:19:05,159 Speaker 1: other in the shadowy corners of her mother's presence. With 261 00:19:05,240 --> 00:19:08,840 Speaker 1: the huge and notable exception of Nanny, there isn't an 262 00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:12,359 Speaker 1: adult in Alice's life who isn't somehow spiraling. 263 00:19:13,680 --> 00:19:18,760 Speaker 2: So my father treated parenthood as a radical experiment in 264 00:19:18,800 --> 00:19:23,480 Speaker 2: the annihilation of boundaries. He was also during the divorce 265 00:19:24,040 --> 00:19:33,600 Speaker 2: very lonely, very desperate, So that combination resulted in this 266 00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:39,479 Speaker 2: erosion of boundaries and this confusion of roles where I 267 00:19:39,560 --> 00:19:43,000 Speaker 2: didn't know what or who I was to him. I 268 00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:46,320 Speaker 2: didn't know if I was his daughter, his wife, his mother, 269 00:19:46,800 --> 00:19:51,040 Speaker 2: his confidant, his collaborator, and I'm just going back to 270 00:19:51,160 --> 00:19:54,920 Speaker 2: Charles Street. There were no locks on the doors. There 271 00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:59,359 Speaker 2: were no locks emotionally either. When I'm seven years old, 272 00:19:59,560 --> 00:20:02,960 Speaker 2: he told that one of his girlfriends could only orgasm 273 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:07,080 Speaker 2: on her own with a showerhead. And later on he 274 00:20:07,119 --> 00:20:11,720 Speaker 2: would take my underwear with him on trips to remember 275 00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:14,880 Speaker 2: me by he would ask the premiere pimp of Hamburg 276 00:20:14,960 --> 00:20:18,159 Speaker 2: how much he would charge for me. He had this 277 00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:24,600 Speaker 2: idea to revolutionize the world of cinema by starring in 278 00:20:24,880 --> 00:20:28,919 Speaker 2: the first film to star a father and daughter in 279 00:20:28,960 --> 00:20:31,959 Speaker 2: the role of the lovers and have them have a 280 00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:35,720 Speaker 2: sex scene. And he presented this idea to me as 281 00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:38,680 Speaker 2: if we were going to do that together. So there 282 00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:44,679 Speaker 2: was repeatedly this sense that the things that should have 283 00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:48,080 Speaker 2: remained secret, or at least the things that should have 284 00:20:48,160 --> 00:20:56,119 Speaker 2: been treated with the delicacy or the apprehension, or the 285 00:20:56,160 --> 00:21:02,760 Speaker 2: reverence or the protectiveness of a secret, not they were shared. 286 00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:09,679 Speaker 2: So it was this diffusion of roles and boundaries that 287 00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:14,280 Speaker 2: led to this profound diffusion of identity for me. My 288 00:21:14,359 --> 00:21:18,000 Speaker 2: father was also He loved to play games. He taught 289 00:21:18,080 --> 00:21:21,240 Speaker 2: me about philosophy, he taught me about history, He made 290 00:21:21,320 --> 00:21:24,679 Speaker 2: up stories, he told me about Greek mythology. He was 291 00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:32,000 Speaker 2: very interactive, and that contrasted with my mother, who couldn't 292 00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:34,159 Speaker 2: play games with me because, according to her, she was 293 00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:38,879 Speaker 2: too competitive. So my father rushed in to fill this vacuum. 294 00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:44,680 Speaker 2: So this sense of excitement and almost titillation from parental 295 00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:51,919 Speaker 2: engagement got very confused and tumbled around with the salacious 296 00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:55,399 Speaker 2: tamera of the information he was sharing with me. So 297 00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:59,679 Speaker 2: it was hard to differentiate or to even notice that 298 00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:02,360 Speaker 2: some that shouldn't be shared, something that should have been 299 00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:06,719 Speaker 2: kept to himself, was being shared. There was a transmission 300 00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:10,720 Speaker 2: that was happening that shouldn't have happened, but I didn't notice. 301 00:22:10,880 --> 00:22:13,679 Speaker 2: I thought it was normal. And I also thought that 302 00:22:14,440 --> 00:22:17,280 Speaker 2: it was almost like a calling that I had to 303 00:22:17,480 --> 00:22:20,920 Speaker 2: be the perfect confidant. I had to be someone who 304 00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:27,359 Speaker 2: could be the receptacle for my mother's story about burying 305 00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:31,560 Speaker 2: a child on the beach, or the sexual exploits of 306 00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:32,040 Speaker 2: my father. 307 00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:39,640 Speaker 1: Herein we have the difference between secrecy and privacy between 308 00:22:39,640 --> 00:22:43,200 Speaker 1: parents and children. There certainly can be secrets that are destructive, 309 00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:45,879 Speaker 1: and we spend a lot of time on this show 310 00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:50,160 Speaker 1: talking about those kinds of secrets. But here are matters 311 00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:53,240 Speaker 1: that have to do with two adults, internal lives. No 312 00:22:53,320 --> 00:22:58,439 Speaker 1: one's business, most certainly not their child. What happens when 313 00:22:58,480 --> 00:23:02,760 Speaker 1: there are no boundaries, no can, no edges. Secrets are 314 00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:07,639 Speaker 1: about borders and edges, but in Alice's family there are none. 315 00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:11,560 Speaker 2: So where is a secret when you need one? This 316 00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:17,440 Speaker 2: undifferentiated quality was unbelievably destructive, and I think also another 317 00:23:18,080 --> 00:23:22,920 Speaker 2: thing that was obscured or concealed were the basic sort 318 00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:26,720 Speaker 2: of physics of living. There was this one incident where 319 00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:30,840 Speaker 2: I had seven pet rats. My father gave me a 320 00:23:30,880 --> 00:23:32,879 Speaker 2: pet rat and it was pregnant and it had a 321 00:23:32,880 --> 00:23:36,320 Speaker 2: bunch of babies. So I had seven pet rats, and 322 00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:39,879 Speaker 2: he sat on one accidentally and it died. But he 323 00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:43,720 Speaker 2: assured me he could bring it back to life by 324 00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:46,840 Speaker 2: putting it in the freezer next to the pop tarts, 325 00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:49,399 Speaker 2: and then when it didn't come back to life, he 326 00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:53,800 Speaker 2: promised me that it would reanimate if you just put 327 00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:57,399 Speaker 2: it on the heater. And that's what it was like 328 00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:02,119 Speaker 2: being the child of my parents, This denial of reality, 329 00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:05,840 Speaker 2: this belief that the power of our minds could shape 330 00:24:05,880 --> 00:24:09,840 Speaker 2: reality and could defy even the laws of death. So 331 00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:14,000 Speaker 2: it's sort of this obfuscation of the rules and the 332 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:18,360 Speaker 2: borders define reality, and it's almost like reality was its 333 00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:22,399 Speaker 2: own secret that we were all trying to We didn't 334 00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:25,000 Speaker 2: want to know. That's the secret we were keeping from ourselves, 335 00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:30,560 Speaker 2: that we were just a couple of human beings moving 336 00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:34,000 Speaker 2: through the world and moving through time, but we wanted 337 00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:35,399 Speaker 2: to deny that as long as we could. 338 00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:40,840 Speaker 1: Alice's behavior begins to feed into this notion of defying 339 00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:46,800 Speaker 1: the laws of death. She finds herself exiting reality, secreting herself, 340 00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:50,040 Speaker 1: as it were, by cutting and self harming at a 341 00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:54,960 Speaker 1: very young age. Such practices reinforce the fragmentation she feels 342 00:24:55,400 --> 00:24:59,280 Speaker 1: up against the backdrop of her fragmented family life. At 343 00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:03,479 Speaker 1: some point, reality is obstructed even further when Alice begins 344 00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:07,040 Speaker 1: to believe that surely everyone must live like this with 345 00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:10,960 Speaker 1: so much pain, and secrecy. How could they not? And 346 00:25:11,080 --> 00:25:14,760 Speaker 1: yet not all families do. Not all seven year old 347 00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:18,359 Speaker 1: girls cut themselves while also trying to fulfill all the 348 00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:22,639 Speaker 1: basic milestones of growing up. And even when Alice tries 349 00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:26,439 Speaker 1: to unsecret herself and show her mom how she's been 350 00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:30,280 Speaker 1: hurting herself, her mom's reply is not one of distress, 351 00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:35,080 Speaker 1: but one of unsettling advice to use makeup to cover 352 00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:35,680 Speaker 1: the scars. 353 00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:40,760 Speaker 2: So in one three fourth trial street, my mom upstairs 354 00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:46,560 Speaker 2: drinking and reading her downstairs painting. I'm by myself, listening 355 00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:53,160 Speaker 2: to audiobooks constantly, NonStop stories, other people's stories, and I'm 356 00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:57,840 Speaker 2: also thinking about myself and the third person. So I 357 00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:00,399 Speaker 2: would walk down the street and I would say, she 358 00:26:00,480 --> 00:26:02,800 Speaker 2: is walking down the street, the rainfalls on her jacket, 359 00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:08,280 Speaker 2: turning myself into a story, narrating myself into existence, turning 360 00:26:08,320 --> 00:26:12,480 Speaker 2: myself into a character. And those were the first signs 361 00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:17,720 Speaker 2: of me distancing from myself, this sort of abstraction that 362 00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:20,879 Speaker 2: would get more and more visceral. And then I started 363 00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:23,480 Speaker 2: cutting when I was seven years old, and I don't 364 00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:25,520 Speaker 2: know how I knew to do it. It was in 365 00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:29,240 Speaker 2: a moment where I was unbelievably overwhelmed I couldn't tell 366 00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:34,480 Speaker 2: the difference between anger and sadness. I couldn't safely fit 367 00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:39,440 Speaker 2: any of those emotions inside of me, so I cut. 368 00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,440 Speaker 2: It was sort of this orienting horizon that kind of 369 00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:48,040 Speaker 2: folded me into these clean origami lines. Just made me 370 00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:51,800 Speaker 2: feel better, and it worked, and I continued to do 371 00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:57,360 Speaker 2: that through adolescence, and in adolescence I developed what I'd 372 00:26:57,440 --> 00:27:02,680 Speaker 2: later learned was a dissociative just order called depersonalization derealization. 373 00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:07,480 Speaker 2: I couldn't recognize my face in the mirror. I didn't 374 00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:10,199 Speaker 2: know where my voice was coming from. I felt no 375 00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:15,040 Speaker 2: connection to my body, my feelings, my history. I was 376 00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:20,280 Speaker 2: convinced I didn't exist. It was like my identity was 377 00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:23,600 Speaker 2: an alka seltzer tab dipped in water and it had 378 00:27:23,640 --> 00:27:29,760 Speaker 2: sort of dissolved into the unnameable, unending nothingness. It was 379 00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:33,520 Speaker 2: the most terrifying thing I'd ever experienced, and I would 380 00:27:33,560 --> 00:27:37,960 Speaker 2: cut and then later burn, first of all to mark 381 00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:42,919 Speaker 2: time because time stopped making sense, because every single moment 382 00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:45,840 Speaker 2: felt like the first moment in history. But also there 383 00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:49,840 Speaker 2: was this perpetual sense of deja vu. So I had 384 00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,840 Speaker 2: no sense of consequences or like I was a body 385 00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:58,400 Speaker 2: moving through time, So every time I cut, it reinstated causality. 386 00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:01,800 Speaker 2: I would cut, and the next day I would heal, 387 00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:04,600 Speaker 2: and then the next day I would heal more. So 388 00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:07,320 Speaker 2: it gave me this sense that one I had a body, 389 00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:09,959 Speaker 2: because I really didn't think I had a body. I 390 00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:13,439 Speaker 2: was outside of myself watching myself, but that thing that 391 00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:16,679 Speaker 2: was outside was also outside of itself, watching itself. So 392 00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:20,280 Speaker 2: cutting made me feel like time existed and that I existed. 393 00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:25,000 Speaker 2: And I also used it to punish myself. I used 394 00:28:25,040 --> 00:28:30,000 Speaker 2: it to reward myself, so I never kept it a secret. 395 00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:35,719 Speaker 2: I would even intentionally wear a short sleeve shirt with 396 00:28:36,119 --> 00:28:38,360 Speaker 2: a huge gash down my arm to see how long 397 00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:40,479 Speaker 2: it would take for my mom to notice or comment 398 00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:45,000 Speaker 2: on it. And the cutting really felt like a communication 399 00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:45,920 Speaker 2: with my body. 400 00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:49,520 Speaker 1: And your mother doesn't notice, your mother doesn't comment on 401 00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:55,080 Speaker 1: it only reinforces your feeling of not being real because 402 00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:57,400 Speaker 1: you're not being seen right exactly. 403 00:28:57,480 --> 00:29:01,480 Speaker 2: And also I think the cutting was also a way 404 00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:06,120 Speaker 2: to try and get my body to reveal its secrets 405 00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:08,920 Speaker 2: to me. And as I said before, the things that 406 00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:14,280 Speaker 2: were kept secret from us were reality consequences, and that 407 00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:19,560 Speaker 2: was obscured by dissociation. Dissociation was like I was being 408 00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:23,840 Speaker 2: kept secret from myself because I could no longer access 409 00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:28,520 Speaker 2: who I was, how I felt that view of myself 410 00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:33,560 Speaker 2: was completely obscured. So by cutting, it was a revelatory act, 411 00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:38,640 Speaker 2: or an attempt at revelation, an attempt to sort of 412 00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:40,840 Speaker 2: dig myself out of myself. 413 00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:47,400 Speaker 1: It works until it doesn't. Alice valiantly tries to hit 414 00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:51,000 Speaker 1: all the marks, check all the boxes. She goes on 415 00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:55,120 Speaker 1: college tours. She begins college at Vassar, but once there 416 00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:59,479 Speaker 1: she falls apart in a deeper way. The unreality really 417 00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:02,520 Speaker 1: takes hold, and she reaches a point where she can't 418 00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:03,280 Speaker 1: stop cutting. 419 00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:09,000 Speaker 2: I admitted myself to the hospital, and I was there 420 00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:16,280 Speaker 2: for one week, and I would have these terrifying dissociative episodes. 421 00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:21,600 Speaker 2: One of them found me hiding under the sink, banging 422 00:30:21,600 --> 00:30:25,200 Speaker 2: my head against the wall, screaming my name and address 423 00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:30,320 Speaker 2: over and over again, trying to remind myself at least 424 00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:33,959 Speaker 2: of the semantic information of who I was. And it 425 00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:36,240 Speaker 2: ended by me just screaming my own name over and 426 00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:40,080 Speaker 2: over again. So the nurse comes in or the tech 427 00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:43,680 Speaker 2: comes in and says, what's happening or frightening on the 428 00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:48,560 Speaker 2: other patients, and I told her what I was experiencing, 429 00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:53,720 Speaker 2: and dissociation is notoriously difficult to describe, which is also 430 00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:57,520 Speaker 2: why it felt so alienating, Because I had been seeing 431 00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,320 Speaker 2: a therapist, and the more I described what I was experiencing, 432 00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:05,080 Speaker 2: the more she thought I was schizophrenic. The more ineffective 433 00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:09,240 Speaker 2: the treatment became, the therapy became. So I tell this 434 00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:12,440 Speaker 2: nurse what I'm experiencing, and she very casually says, oh, 435 00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,680 Speaker 2: it sounds like you're associating. And I had never heard 436 00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:20,080 Speaker 2: that word before, and I immediately did all the research 437 00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:24,120 Speaker 2: I could, and I started reading the scant literature about it, 438 00:31:24,160 --> 00:31:27,280 Speaker 2: which was The Passion according to gh by Clarice the Specter. 439 00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:31,160 Speaker 2: Many people call it a mystical book, but it's actually 440 00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:35,320 Speaker 2: a very realistic rendering of the dissociative experience. It's just 441 00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,520 Speaker 2: this woman thinking about her own thinking, thinking about killing 442 00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:45,040 Speaker 2: a cockroach, and then Saltla's Nausea, Octavia Butler's short story 443 00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:48,680 Speaker 2: about a dissociative disorder in the context of speculative fiction. 444 00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:52,760 Speaker 2: So I read everything I could, and having that word 445 00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:55,560 Speaker 2: for one second made me feel like I wasn't falling 446 00:31:55,560 --> 00:31:56,480 Speaker 2: through infinite space. 447 00:31:57,120 --> 00:31:59,760 Speaker 1: So that was a turning point for me, and he 448 00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:04,200 Speaker 1: was essentially had to diagnose yourself, the nurse said the word. 449 00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:08,400 Speaker 1: But then there you are valiantly trying to like, you know, 450 00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,920 Speaker 1: sort of do your research, and you know, name what's 451 00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:14,520 Speaker 1: going on with you, because the people who are treating 452 00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:16,200 Speaker 1: you aren't getting it right. 453 00:32:16,760 --> 00:32:19,959 Speaker 2: And all of the research that I'm turning to is fiction, right, 454 00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,800 Speaker 2: you know, it's not even a medical text. It's just 455 00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:30,240 Speaker 2: the art based on the pathology. 456 00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:46,760 Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. 457 00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:51,880 Speaker 1: Alice stays on the psych word for a week, but 458 00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:55,720 Speaker 1: when she returns home, the cutting resumes and only grows worse. 459 00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:01,400 Speaker 1: One night, Nanny walks in on her cutting. Nanny witnesses 460 00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:05,360 Speaker 1: Alice in a way she's never been witnessed before, in 461 00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:10,960 Speaker 1: a way that she's wanted for her pain to be seen, known, understood. 462 00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:19,000 Speaker 2: She refuses to leave me alone, and she sits with 463 00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:21,440 Speaker 2: me all night. And by the time I wake up, 464 00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:26,440 Speaker 2: my cutting kit the razor blades that i'd pried, you know, 465 00:33:26,520 --> 00:33:30,560 Speaker 2: the blades i'd pried out of shaving razors, my lighter, 466 00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:33,760 Speaker 2: my Swiss army knife. My dad had given me. The 467 00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:36,960 Speaker 2: blades of exact ownives from my mom's studio. All of 468 00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:40,920 Speaker 2: that had been removed. And after that experience, I'm floating 469 00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:45,560 Speaker 2: around one through before Charles Street, I have no purpose 470 00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:48,480 Speaker 2: I'm writing. I had known since I was five years 471 00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:51,080 Speaker 2: old that I wanted to be a writer, and I 472 00:33:51,120 --> 00:33:54,000 Speaker 2: was writing all the time. But the two jobs I 473 00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:58,600 Speaker 2: looked up were stripping jobs or writing death row convicts. 474 00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:01,120 Speaker 2: And for some reason, I thought the only things I 475 00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:05,840 Speaker 2: was qualified to do was to essentially entertain dying men, 476 00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:09,319 Speaker 2: whether you know, on a semen's like sofa or in 477 00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:15,400 Speaker 2: a prison cell. So I was looking for this specialness 478 00:34:15,880 --> 00:34:20,640 Speaker 2: that I could only access through it seemed pathology. And 479 00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:25,160 Speaker 2: this was the beginning of kind of my career as 480 00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:29,600 Speaker 2: a patient, as a professional sick person, as a virtuosic 481 00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:36,040 Speaker 2: infirm mentally infirmed like a virtuosic patient. So this was 482 00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:41,560 Speaker 2: really the beginning where I started constructing what little identity 483 00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:46,400 Speaker 2: I had around my madness. I was reading all of 484 00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:52,839 Speaker 2: this fiction about my disorder, and I ended up taking 485 00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:59,960 Speaker 2: my dead uncle's hydromorphone pills, drinking vodka, and cutting a 486 00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,280 Speaker 2: in my arm four times, and I almost killed myself 487 00:35:03,320 --> 00:35:07,040 Speaker 2: in three different ways, and my psychiatrist at the time, 488 00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:10,200 Speaker 2: said that she would convince them to release me if 489 00:35:10,239 --> 00:35:15,759 Speaker 2: I agreed to admit myself to a residential treatment center 490 00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:21,560 Speaker 2: called Austin Riggs in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. And Austin Riggs had 491 00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:25,720 Speaker 2: this illustrious pedigree. Judy Garland had had installed a pink 492 00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:28,440 Speaker 2: sink in her room. James Taylor had written fire and 493 00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:32,960 Speaker 2: rain while he was there, so I agreed. I showed 494 00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:39,600 Speaker 2: up there with my mom and it was this bizarre place. 495 00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:43,360 Speaker 2: It was this white mansion in the middle of Stockbridge, 496 00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:49,480 Speaker 2: Massachusetts that was sort of its glory was faded, and 497 00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:53,600 Speaker 2: it was a bunch of really rich people. The recommended 498 00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:57,719 Speaker 2: stay was indefinite, or at least until your money ran out, 499 00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:03,400 Speaker 2: and there were no rules. There was a bridge full 500 00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:08,640 Speaker 2: of smoothies and yogurts, and we had fireplaces in our room, 501 00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:14,200 Speaker 2: and there were no consequences. The only requirement, which was 502 00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:17,240 Speaker 2: not even a requirement, was to sit in community meeting 503 00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:22,240 Speaker 2: and talk about whatever conflicts or whatever, even illegal behavior happened. 504 00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:29,279 Speaker 2: And while I was there, I one evening was in 505 00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:35,400 Speaker 2: the bathroom and I was wiping myself and I thought, wait, 506 00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:38,680 Speaker 2: what's happening down there? And I pulled my hand away 507 00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:48,920 Speaker 2: to reveal a very long, still alive worm. And I 508 00:36:49,040 --> 00:36:51,840 Speaker 2: walked to the sink and I very neatly folded it 509 00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:54,120 Speaker 2: into a paper towel and put it into my pocket. 510 00:36:55,320 --> 00:36:57,520 Speaker 2: I checked my reflection in the mirror, and I walked 511 00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:02,279 Speaker 2: to the nurses station. They didn't believe me, so I 512 00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:05,040 Speaker 2: withdrew it from my pocket and laid it on the 513 00:37:05,280 --> 00:37:10,279 Speaker 2: partition between us and unwrapped it and presented them with 514 00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:13,759 Speaker 2: my worm and asked to go to the hospital. And 515 00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:15,759 Speaker 2: they said, we've never seen anything like this before, but 516 00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:19,920 Speaker 2: this is not an emergency. And it was this extraordinary 517 00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:26,560 Speaker 2: moment where it was like being told a secret. It 518 00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:28,799 Speaker 2: was a secret my body was keeping for me, and 519 00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:32,239 Speaker 2: that secret was that I had a body, that there 520 00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:38,640 Speaker 2: was something alive in me still, even though I thought 521 00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:42,280 Speaker 2: I was dead or I thought there was no difference 522 00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:46,560 Speaker 2: between me and name any inanimate object around you. And 523 00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:51,600 Speaker 2: it was this moment of corporeal physical crisis that for 524 00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:55,000 Speaker 2: a second made me feel alive and made me feel 525 00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:57,719 Speaker 2: more sane than I had ever felt. So that was 526 00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:02,000 Speaker 2: the stand up moment at Riggs, where, amongst all of 527 00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:08,440 Speaker 2: this kind of just hanging out, this introspective luxury, this 528 00:38:08,880 --> 00:38:15,680 Speaker 2: kind of glorious, gluttonous psychological lethargy. Suddenly my body is 529 00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:23,520 Speaker 2: doing these very real things. Secrets are coming out of it, 530 00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:29,400 Speaker 2: provable secrets that I can literally say, Look, something isn't right. Look, 531 00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:31,840 Speaker 2: and it just happened to be in the shape of 532 00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:33,080 Speaker 2: a six inch worm. 533 00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:40,240 Speaker 1: It's at RIGS where you first encounter the term depersonalization. Yes, 534 00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:43,440 Speaker 1: and again you look it up and one of the 535 00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:46,719 Speaker 1: things that you learn is that it's a condition brought 536 00:38:46,760 --> 00:38:47,520 Speaker 1: on by trauma. 537 00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:52,839 Speaker 2: Right, But at that point I was convinced that I 538 00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:56,799 Speaker 2: was having a reaction to my mom's traumatic history, and 539 00:38:56,840 --> 00:39:01,879 Speaker 2: I sort of denied the idea that anything traumatic had 540 00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:05,400 Speaker 2: ever happened to me. So basically, I get out of 541 00:39:05,400 --> 00:39:09,280 Speaker 2: BRIGS and they refer me to a psychopharmacologist, who, upon 542 00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:12,840 Speaker 2: meeting me for forty five minutes, sends me home with 543 00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:18,800 Speaker 2: ninety adderall, which is a stimulant for add and ninety klonipin, 544 00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:22,960 Speaker 2: which is a highly addictive anti anxiety medication similar to 545 00:39:23,120 --> 00:39:27,759 Speaker 2: xanax vallium, And the only instruction he gives me is 546 00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:32,160 Speaker 2: adderall wears off every four hours and take the clonipin 547 00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:36,040 Speaker 2: whenever you're feeling anxious. Or to go to sleep. I 548 00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:41,040 Speaker 2: take this adderall and within forty five minutes, my heart 549 00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:44,000 Speaker 2: is pounding, I'm sweating through my shirt, telling stories about 550 00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:47,880 Speaker 2: my childhood and chain smoking cigarettes. And then you know, 551 00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:50,919 Speaker 2: a bit anxious too. So I'm taking the klonipin, which 552 00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:53,320 Speaker 2: I can't even feel because I'm on so much adderall 553 00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:55,640 Speaker 2: because I was instructed. It wears off every four hours. 554 00:39:56,320 --> 00:40:02,719 Speaker 2: So this medication completely hijacks my personality, and the combination 555 00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:07,040 Speaker 2: of this medication is causing these side effects that mimic 556 00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:12,560 Speaker 2: other disorders. So I gradually get diagnosed with new disorders 557 00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:16,640 Speaker 2: that require more medication. So in the span of three years, 558 00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:23,680 Speaker 2: I'm on eight different medications, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, axiolytics, stimulants, 559 00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:28,840 Speaker 2: and of course other medication who treat the side effects 560 00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:31,880 Speaker 2: of all of the medication, So whether it's a thyroid medication, 561 00:40:32,239 --> 00:40:35,360 Speaker 2: whether it's a weight loss medication, because the side effects 562 00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:39,320 Speaker 2: are extreme. And I'm also starting to learn that feelings 563 00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:43,000 Speaker 2: are pathologies that need to be medicated away. There is 564 00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:45,839 Speaker 2: no such thing as joy, there is only hypomania. There 565 00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,800 Speaker 2: is no such thing as sadness, there is only clinical depression. 566 00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:54,200 Speaker 2: And I had switched psychopharmacologists, and I had found another 567 00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:56,680 Speaker 2: one who had just read my file and continued to 568 00:40:56,680 --> 00:41:01,120 Speaker 2: prescribe more and more medications. And this psychopharmacologist assured me 569 00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:04,400 Speaker 2: that this trial and error was how it was supposed 570 00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:06,840 Speaker 2: to go, and that I'd need to be on medication 571 00:41:06,920 --> 00:41:11,080 Speaker 2: the rest of my life. And it was so casual, 572 00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:15,759 Speaker 2: this prescribing that I even would be able to leave 573 00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:21,480 Speaker 2: a message on his voicemail requesting, let's say lithium, and 574 00:41:21,560 --> 00:41:23,640 Speaker 2: the next day a prescription would be called in for me. 575 00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:31,120 Speaker 2: So I truly believe that I was basically like an 576 00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:35,720 Speaker 2: appliance or a machine that ran on pharmaceuticals, and any 577 00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:40,760 Speaker 2: discomfort I had, I thought was just my stupid, dumb body, 578 00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:48,320 Speaker 2: and not this barrage of medication. So it was again 579 00:41:48,360 --> 00:41:54,359 Speaker 2: this kind of secret. The medication obscured who I was, 580 00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:58,560 Speaker 2: and who I was sort of became very like a 581 00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:02,160 Speaker 2: secret that I would only hear whispers of because I 582 00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:08,200 Speaker 2: was so hostile. I was the completely different person than 583 00:42:08,239 --> 00:42:13,320 Speaker 2: I had been before on these medications. In two thousand 584 00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:18,400 Speaker 2: and nine, the medications trigger a psychotic break, and I 585 00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:23,160 Speaker 2: believed I had delusions of persecution. I had delusions of surveillance. 586 00:42:23,200 --> 00:42:25,920 Speaker 2: I thought people were following me. I thought I had 587 00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:30,920 Speaker 2: been hacked. I thought people were breaking into my apartment, 588 00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:33,279 Speaker 2: chloroforming me and gang raping me. In my sleep, I 589 00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:39,120 Speaker 2: would tape bed sheets to my windows so people couldn't 590 00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:41,399 Speaker 2: surveil me. I would get in a cab and then 591 00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:46,520 Speaker 2: realize that that cab had been put there by these invisible, 592 00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:49,919 Speaker 2: unknowable assailants to track me, and I would just get 593 00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:51,960 Speaker 2: out of the cab and run through the streets. 594 00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:55,640 Speaker 1: So this is sounding awfully like your mother's quote unquote 595 00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:56,920 Speaker 1: recovered memories. 596 00:42:57,360 --> 00:43:02,040 Speaker 2: Exactly right. So basically, my life became this war. I 597 00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:05,040 Speaker 2: was having to defend myself against these invisible forces, and 598 00:43:05,360 --> 00:43:11,200 Speaker 2: as horrifying as it was, it gave me this bizarre 599 00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:18,600 Speaker 2: sense of purpose and significance, because if I'm someone who's 600 00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:24,280 Speaker 2: being followed and being persecuted in this way, I must 601 00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:29,800 Speaker 2: be important, I must be special, and I have a calling. 602 00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:35,480 Speaker 2: That calling is to defend myself. So, in this strange way, 603 00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:41,760 Speaker 2: this delusion became the only true thing in my life, 604 00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:47,280 Speaker 2: and no one else believed for me. The psychosis lasted 605 00:43:47,680 --> 00:43:48,120 Speaker 2: a year. 606 00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:49,440 Speaker 1: How old were you? 607 00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:55,719 Speaker 2: I was twenty three, and I finally went to my psychopharmacologist, 608 00:43:56,760 --> 00:44:00,560 Speaker 2: and he said, take these three extra medications or I'm 609 00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:02,919 Speaker 2: going to send you to a lockdoord. But he kept 610 00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:06,640 Speaker 2: me on all the other medications too, and the new 611 00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:10,160 Speaker 2: medications made my hair fall out, they made my hands 612 00:44:10,200 --> 00:44:13,759 Speaker 2: go numb. I gained forty or fifty pounds in a 613 00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:17,319 Speaker 2: couple of months, and again I thought it was just 614 00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:21,919 Speaker 2: my stupid mind and body. So I agreed to go 615 00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:24,640 Speaker 2: to a treatment center, but I was admitted into a 616 00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:29,480 Speaker 2: trauma group, where, on the one hand, I could accurately 617 00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:34,440 Speaker 2: identify the transgressions that had been taken place, but it 618 00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:39,959 Speaker 2: went too far. I had this over zealous counselor who 619 00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:44,680 Speaker 2: convinced me that my mind was keeping secrets from me 620 00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:49,520 Speaker 2: and that much more had happened and I just wasn't remembering. 621 00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:53,600 Speaker 2: And she told me that she took a long time 622 00:44:53,840 --> 00:44:56,440 Speaker 2: to get me to say the words I was molested 623 00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,399 Speaker 2: by my father, So she convinced me never to talk 624 00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:02,279 Speaker 2: to him again and never to see him again. And 625 00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:07,760 Speaker 2: I was so desperate, like my mother, for something big 626 00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:13,520 Speaker 2: and dramatic, to explain everything, to exonerate me, to make 627 00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:16,879 Speaker 2: me not feel like such a fuck up, that I 628 00:45:16,960 --> 00:45:22,120 Speaker 2: welcomed the simplicity and the straightforwardness of that story, and 629 00:45:22,239 --> 00:45:26,000 Speaker 2: I made it my new identity. And I didn't talk 630 00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:27,960 Speaker 2: to my father for twelve years. 631 00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:36,240 Speaker 1: Twelve years. A lot happens in those twelve years. Alice 632 00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:39,800 Speaker 1: reconnects with a man named Gregory, who she had met earlier. 633 00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:44,759 Speaker 1: They'd had a tenuous but beautiful relationship early on, but 634 00:45:44,960 --> 00:45:48,640 Speaker 1: neither had been to put it mildly ready. Each had 635 00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:50,960 Speaker 1: been in the throes of their own addiction and despair. 636 00:45:51,840 --> 00:45:54,719 Speaker 1: But when they find each other again, they're each in 637 00:45:54,760 --> 00:46:01,040 Speaker 1: a very different place. Gregory is extraordinarily optimistic and compassionate. 638 00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:07,120 Speaker 1: He supports Alice through myriad stages of pain and self discovery. 639 00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:11,080 Speaker 1: He's there for her when her mother develops dementia, then 640 00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:18,000 Speaker 1: Nanny starts to decline, then Nanny dies. Alice and Gregory 641 00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:21,400 Speaker 1: moved to Nashville, far from one three to four Charles Street, 642 00:46:21,960 --> 00:46:25,120 Speaker 1: far from the city that held so many difficult memories 643 00:46:25,120 --> 00:46:29,600 Speaker 1: for them both. But Alice can't outrun her history. She 644 00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:32,920 Speaker 1: still struggles with all the medication she's on, and at 645 00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:36,439 Speaker 1: one point, the clinical flux, paired with all that's gone 646 00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:39,960 Speaker 1: on in her life, leads to a massive dissociative break 647 00:46:40,719 --> 00:46:44,040 Speaker 1: as Alice calls it the most gone she's ever been. 648 00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:48,040 Speaker 2: The touchstones of my life are not there anymore. My 649 00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:51,920 Speaker 2: mother has dementia. She no longer houses our history. Nanny 650 00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:54,240 Speaker 2: is dead. She was the holder of all of our memories. 651 00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:57,760 Speaker 2: She was the witness. The only person left is my father. 652 00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:02,200 Speaker 2: So in order to build myself from the raw materials 653 00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:06,239 Speaker 2: of my life, I decide I'm going to confront him, 654 00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:10,920 Speaker 2: and Gregory and I decide to go to Paris. We 655 00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:13,160 Speaker 2: have no idea what to expect. Is he going to 656 00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:15,520 Speaker 2: be furious at me? Is he going to deny everything 657 00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:21,480 Speaker 2: I couldn't live with no one inside? And we arrive, 658 00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:25,480 Speaker 2: Gregory announces rules no drinking, which is directed at my dad. 659 00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:29,359 Speaker 2: If anybody wants to stop at any time, you can. 660 00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:34,640 Speaker 2: The first person presents their version of events for half 661 00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:37,640 Speaker 2: an hour with no interruption, then the other person can respond. 662 00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:40,600 Speaker 2: And then he said, I will be outside monitoring for 663 00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:42,920 Speaker 2: signs of distress, and I will come in if I 664 00:47:42,960 --> 00:47:48,760 Speaker 2: hear yelling. So I tell my dad every single incident 665 00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:54,600 Speaker 2: where I felt violated, whether it was him organizing naked 666 00:47:54,600 --> 00:48:00,120 Speaker 2: photos of me on a horse galloping through the Germany toplet, Yes, 667 00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:03,279 Speaker 2: while I was quote unquote still a lolida before I 668 00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:06,600 Speaker 2: turned eighteen, or whether it was the pimp. I told 669 00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:14,040 Speaker 2: him everything, and he responded with such humility, with such shame. 670 00:48:14,760 --> 00:48:18,920 Speaker 2: He didn't deny any of it, he didn't remember some 671 00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:23,279 Speaker 2: of it, but he believed me. He apologized. He not 672 00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:29,560 Speaker 2: only apologized, but I watched him embody my experiences and 673 00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:32,279 Speaker 2: what I was telling him in a way that was 674 00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:39,279 Speaker 2: so powerful. He understood and he felt totally awful, and 675 00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:43,040 Speaker 2: he embraced, for lack of a better word, my reality. 676 00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:46,719 Speaker 2: And that was a plot twist I was not expecting, 677 00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:51,440 Speaker 2: and I allowed him to share his version of events, 678 00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:57,839 Speaker 2: and I conceded places where maybe I had misunderstood, or 679 00:48:57,920 --> 00:49:01,879 Speaker 2: maybe it was a collaborative effort to construct this new 680 00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:06,080 Speaker 2: reality that we could both inhabit, both being wholly ourselves 681 00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:11,800 Speaker 2: and belonging wholly to ourselves. And what was so special 682 00:49:12,680 --> 00:49:18,400 Speaker 2: was that it was exactly because we could say anything 683 00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:21,160 Speaker 2: to each other, that we could say everything we needed to. 684 00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:29,040 Speaker 2: It was exactly the oversharing, the intellectualizing that had caused 685 00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:34,520 Speaker 2: so much harm was exactly what allowed us to heal together. 686 00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:40,719 Speaker 1: That's really beautiful. I'm very touched by your incredible eloquence 687 00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:44,600 Speaker 1: about things that can have the opposite effect on people. 688 00:49:48,200 --> 00:49:52,600 Speaker 2: What I realized was, you know, the dissociation, the thing 689 00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:57,359 Speaker 2: that had almost killed me, was what allowed me to 690 00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:01,719 Speaker 2: embody his truth and understand that so many things could 691 00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:04,239 Speaker 2: be true at the same time. And that's what inevitably 692 00:50:04,680 --> 00:50:08,239 Speaker 2: gave me back my family and gave me back to myself. 693 00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:11,799 Speaker 2: And I think, you know, maybe things he did were 694 00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:15,759 Speaker 2: some of them were inexcusable, but I think that it's 695 00:50:15,760 --> 00:50:20,360 Speaker 2: not a zero sum game. Exercising empathy for him only 696 00:50:20,440 --> 00:50:25,560 Speaker 2: fortifies the empathy I feel for myself. So believing in 697 00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:30,279 Speaker 2: him and believing that he was a damaged person who 698 00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:36,080 Speaker 2: tried his best doesn't diminish what I experienced. It was 699 00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:43,800 Speaker 2: just a powerful, a powerful exchange. 700 00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:49,320 Speaker 1: Here's Alice reading one last passage from her magnificent memoir 701 00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:54,880 Speaker 1: Everything Nothing Someone. In this scene, Alice is in effect 702 00:50:55,280 --> 00:50:59,080 Speaker 1: saying goodbye to her brilliant, complicated force of a mother, 703 00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:02,600 Speaker 1: scattering her ashes in the Atlantic Ocean. 704 00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:10,359 Speaker 2: The clouds split open, the gaudy guts of a shamelessly 705 00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:15,560 Speaker 2: showy sunset, spilling across the horizon. A thick golden light 706 00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:19,160 Speaker 2: spread over our faces, which were all turned toward the 707 00:51:19,200 --> 00:51:25,120 Speaker 2: sun's extravagance sinking. It looked exactly like an endless, excessive 708 00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:31,719 Speaker 2: oil painting. It looked, in its extreme, bragging beauty, almost insolent. 709 00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:37,560 Speaker 2: I recognized it. Gregory tears and light in his eyes, said, 710 00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:42,759 Speaker 2: Jennifer looks good up there. We laughed. I stripped down 711 00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:45,800 Speaker 2: to my swimsuit and I lowered myself into the Atlantic. 712 00:51:46,520 --> 00:51:50,960 Speaker 2: I swam out, holding my mother's ashes aloft. We were 713 00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:54,680 Speaker 2: as far out as we could go. I didn't want 714 00:51:54,719 --> 00:52:03,320 Speaker 2: to leave her, but she needed to be alone. 715 00:52:03,719 --> 00:52:07,759 Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly Zaccur is 716 00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:10,960 Speaker 1: the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer. 717 00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:14,200 Speaker 1: If you have a family secret you'd like to share, 718 00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:17,040 Speaker 1: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear 719 00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:20,480 Speaker 1: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight 720 00:52:20,480 --> 00:52:24,680 Speaker 1: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also 721 00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:29,600 Speaker 1: find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder. And if you'd 722 00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:32,120 Speaker 1: like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast, 723 00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:58,600 Speaker 1: check out my memoir Inheritance. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio.