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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: This episode contains discussion of sexual abuse and suicide.

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Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. Traumatic memory is fragmented and nonlinear

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Speaker 1: for a reason. My brain, but my family, wants me

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Speaker 1: to leave these memories buried. It had done its job

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Speaker 1: detaching from my body, playing possum, so I wouldn't suffer

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Speaker 1: my perpetrator's abuse in real time. But I have forced

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Speaker 1: my brain to follow the trail of somatic breadcrumbs. I

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Speaker 1: remember sounds, smells, tastes, and bodily sensations down the path

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Speaker 1: to my solidified memories. Even as I type these words,

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Speaker 1: my brain fights me, tries to persuade me to give up,

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Speaker 1: then acquiesces reluctantly, loosening its grip and letting the words flow.

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Speaker 2: That's Kate Price, sociologist, associate research scientist at the Wellesley

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Speaker 2: Centers for Women at Wellesley College, internationally recognized child sex

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Speaker 2: trafficking expert, an author of the recent memoir This Happened

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Speaker 2: to Me. Kate's story is one of the most haunting

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Speaker 2: and powerful I've ever heard, which, given the scope of

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Speaker 2: this podcast, is saying a lot. It's also a story

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Speaker 2: of an extraordinary human being who refused to allow what

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Speaker 2: happened to her to consume her. Ultimately, It's a story

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Speaker 2: about memory, familial history, tenacity, redemption, grit, and grace. I'm

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Speaker 2: Dani Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets that

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Speaker 2: are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others,

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Speaker 2: and the secrets we keep from ourselves.

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Speaker 1: The landscape of my childhood was incredibly dark. Spent a

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Speaker 1: lot of time hiding, a lot of time just with

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Speaker 1: my head and a book, trying to survive, and then

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Speaker 1: also just living this dual light of presenting as an

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Speaker 1: athletic swimmer, a neighbor who played with the neighborhood kids,

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Speaker 1: a great student at school, but at home just living

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Speaker 1: in abject terror.

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Speaker 2: So you grew up with your mother and your father

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Speaker 2: and your sister Sissy in Appalachia, in central Pennsylvania, in

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Speaker 2: a milltown, in a house that had been where you

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Speaker 2: were told that it had been a funeral home.

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Speaker 1: Yes, that was the story that our parents told us,

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Speaker 1: and it made sense to me. The windows were much

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Speaker 1: longer than our neighbor's windows, and the lore was that

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Speaker 1: these downstairs windows were bigger because so that they could

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Speaker 1: put coffins, you know inside, you know, take them in

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Speaker 1: and out of the windows. And then the basement was also,

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Speaker 1: we were told, used as the embalming room. There was

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Speaker 1: a big drain in the middle that we're told was

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Speaker 1: used for bearing blood and all of these things. And

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Speaker 1: it made a lot of sense, even though I never

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Speaker 1: saw any pictures of our house being used in that way.

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Speaker 2: Why do you think your parents shared with you and

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Speaker 2: your sister, you know, who were little kids growing up there,

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Speaker 2: that this was the history of the house. What do

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Speaker 2: you think they were thinking.

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Speaker 1: I don't think they were thinking. There wasn't a lot

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Speaker 1: of thought going into our well being. I remember watching

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Speaker 1: when my best friend Jess was over for weekend sleepover.

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Speaker 1: I remember watching the Shining when we were like eight,

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Speaker 1: and I was running out to the kitchen whenever I

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Speaker 1: got scared, and it just didn't, you know, not much

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Speaker 1: made sense in our home. So that seemed, you know,

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Speaker 1: hearing that it was a funeral home seemed pretty par

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Speaker 1: for the course. Because there were also two cemeteries within,

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Speaker 1: you know, one was on the exact same block that

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Speaker 1: I grew up on, and then the other was just

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Speaker 1: down just down the road, and the fire all was

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Speaker 1: directly across the streets, so it just seemed like this

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Speaker 1: would make sense for the home, for our home to

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Speaker 1: be used in some commercial purpose that would be linked

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Speaker 1: to the churches and the firehouse and the cemeteries that

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Speaker 1: were within eyesight of our home.

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Speaker 2: So your parents they married in nineteen sixty five. Your

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Speaker 2: mom was twenty yes, and then your sister Sissy is

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Speaker 2: a couple of years older than you, and she came

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Speaker 2: along two years after they got married. But tell me

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Speaker 2: about Let's start with your mother.

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Speaker 1: What was she like the mother of my childhood when

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Speaker 1: it was just me and her and Sissy, was really

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Speaker 1: fun and creative, and I could almost say care free.

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Speaker 1: She loved loved music. She loved Laura Brannigan and Neil

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Speaker 1: Diamond and CCR. And she would play these records when

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Speaker 1: we were in the kitchen, just the three of us,

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Speaker 1: baking using her mother's pyres almost butterprint mixing bowls, and

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Speaker 1: it was just we would just sing and have fun

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Speaker 1: and make But those really care free moments were really

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Speaker 1: relegated to just when it was just the three of us. Otherwise,

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Speaker 1: she was very quiet, very contained, and very obedient when

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Speaker 1: it came to her father, and my father.

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Speaker 2: Tell me about your father.

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Speaker 1: My father is the ultimate shape shifter. He is the ultimate,

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Speaker 1: or was the ultimate. You know. We would be out

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Speaker 1: in public and he would use the charm offensive and

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Speaker 1: be everybody's best friend. And I mean my voice just

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Speaker 1: you could probably hear it, and it shakes when I

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Speaker 1: talk about it. And yet at home he was such

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Speaker 1: a different person. Particularly when he was drinking. He would

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Speaker 1: just fly into a rage and would set me and

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Speaker 1: Sissy against each other and just create chaos in our

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Speaker 1: home so that he could be the master of that chaos.

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Speaker 1: We were just always on edge whenever he was around.

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Speaker 2: And when you said that the landscape of your childhood

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Speaker 2: was dark, you would hide from your father when you

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Speaker 2: knew that he was coming into the house.

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Speaker 1: Yes, closets, particularly the closet in between our kitchen and

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Speaker 1: the living room. It was quite deep and I could

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Speaker 1: fit way in the back corner. I could smell the

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Speaker 1: wet wool and feel the snow boots. And my mother

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Speaker 1: was very orderly. She had the shoes all lined up

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Speaker 1: and the boots. I just I felt like there were

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Speaker 1: little soldiers, you know. I was behind a firing line

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Speaker 1: and I could push myself way in the back corner

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Speaker 1: and underneath, you know, behind the coats and the boots.

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Speaker 1: And when my father was drunk, he wasn't particularly patient,

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Speaker 1: so it was more like he would open a door

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Speaker 1: and close it, you know, and just kind of he

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Speaker 1: was always looking for the first person that he could find,

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Speaker 1: and I did my best to not be that person.

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Speaker 2: How aware were you from the time that you were

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Speaker 2: a really small kid that what was happening in your house,

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Speaker 2: particularly what was happening in your experience of your father,

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Speaker 2: was not happening in other people's houses. Did you always

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Speaker 2: know that or was it something that you came to

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Speaker 2: know or that you just felt I.

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Speaker 1: Didn't always know it. I would say I came to

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Speaker 1: know it at about six seven eight. Those ages, that's

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Speaker 1: when they start. You start having playates, and you start

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Speaker 1: going to neighbors' houses more, you start having time without

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Speaker 1: your parents around.

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Speaker 2: This age is also the time with your parents around,

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Speaker 2: and in Kate's case, this time, especially with her father,

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Speaker 2: is incredibly difficult, trauma tizing and dangerous. Inside the home,

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Speaker 2: her father is sexually abusing her, and outside the home

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Speaker 2: something else is happening. She doesn't exactly know or remember

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Speaker 2: what's going on. What's going on is this her father

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Speaker 2: is taking her out late at night, bringing her to

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Speaker 2: nearby rest areas, and trafficking her to truckers.

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Speaker 1: What I really held on to was more, particularly with

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Speaker 1: being taken out in the middle of the night. It

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Speaker 1: was more how I felt the next day. I would

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Speaker 1: be sore. I would wake up not wearing any underwear,

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Speaker 1: like I knew something had happened to me in the

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Speaker 1: middle of the night, but once I got in the truck,

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Speaker 1: I couldn't hold on to what had happened. My father

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Speaker 1: would often inject me with something I've never figured out

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Speaker 1: what it was, but he would make me drink a

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Speaker 1: liquid or I would wake up to of cold feeling

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Speaker 1: of alcohol being wrapped on my arm, my right arm,

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Speaker 1: and then being injected. The biggest memory around that me

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Speaker 1: sensing that something was up was that when I was six,

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Speaker 1: I used my father's Cebe radio to contact Trucker, a

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Speaker 1: person that he would talk to on his Cebee radio

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Speaker 1: called Chicken Plucker. And I didn't know who this person was,

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Speaker 1: but I just had a sense that he was somehow

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Speaker 1: central to the harm that was being done to me

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Speaker 1: outside of our house. It's a ton of domestic violence,

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Speaker 1: sexual violence, emotional violence inside of our home. But then

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Speaker 1: I was also taken outside of our home, and I

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Speaker 1: just had a sense that this person, Chicken Plucker, was

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Speaker 1: somehow connected to that, and I was determined to reach

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Speaker 1: out and talk to this person.

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Speaker 2: So you had a friend in the neighborhood, and you

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Speaker 2: and he went over to your father's truck that's where

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Speaker 2: his sebee radio was, and you try to reach Chicken

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Speaker 2: Plucker on the Cebee radio and you do it's Chicken

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Speaker 2: Plucker answers.

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Speaker 1: He does, he does. I was lured that I was

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Speaker 1: able to.

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Speaker 2: Get him, and then your father essentially catches you. But somehow,

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Speaker 2: in this particular moment, despite his propensity for violence in many,

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Speaker 2: many other moments, this time he just kind of shakes

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Speaker 2: his head and goes, yeah, okay, wow, you did that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. It was like he was impressed somehow. You know.

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Speaker 1: He said to me, and Butch was his nickname for me.

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Speaker 1: He said, Butchy, you're twenty five percent me, twenty five

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Speaker 1: percent your mother, and fifty percent something different. And I

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Speaker 1: didn't quite understand what he meant at the time, But then,

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Speaker 1: you know, as the years went on, particularly the next

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Speaker 1: couple of years, as I got a sense that something

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Speaker 1: was just off, I understood that I was not participating

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Speaker 1: in whatever this was, whatever this messed up craziness was,

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Speaker 1: I stood apart from it. Somehow I was able to

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Speaker 1: observe it from the outside. Somehow. I joke that reaching

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Speaker 1: out to Chicken Plucker was my first sociological interview that

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Speaker 1: I ever did, and it's just how I survived and

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Speaker 1: how I just managed all of it. I've always been

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Speaker 1: and always will be a sociologist. You reference that there

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Speaker 1: was another child with me that was the neighbor boy,

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Speaker 1: and he was my first crush, and my father around

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Speaker 1: the same time, caught me getting dressed after school. Like

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Speaker 1: usually I would get home from school, change into my

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Speaker 1: play clothes, you know, and go out and play. But

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Speaker 1: this day I put on a nice dress, and I

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Speaker 1: put on my favorite witch sandals, and I combed my hair,

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Speaker 1: and usually I had on my key overalls in my

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Speaker 1: keymart sneakers that were all muddy.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: I was very much of a tomboy. And my father

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Speaker 1: immediately understood what I was doing, and he grabbed my

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Speaker 1: arm and he carved the ax into my left arm

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Speaker 1: with his pocket knife. And was like, you are mine,

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Speaker 1: you will always be mine, and then really beat me

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Speaker 1: very severely, and I woke up in the basement two

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Speaker 1: floors down from where I was, and I don't remember

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Speaker 1: getting there. So he made it very clear that I

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Speaker 1: was not allowed to. You can't call it fall in

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Speaker 1: love at six, you know, But that just any presence

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Speaker 1: of any other male person, no matter if they were

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Speaker 1: a six or seven year old or an adult. I

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Speaker 1: was his. I was his property.

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Speaker 2: Do you connect that to then screwing up the courage

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Speaker 2: to go into his truck and your first sociological experiment.

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Speaker 2: Do you connect those things?

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Speaker 1: I don't. It was not an act of defy alliance

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Speaker 1: in terms of finding chicken plucker. It really almost didn't

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Speaker 1: even have anything to do with my father. It was

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Speaker 1: the very beginning of this west for the truth that

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Speaker 1: I hold in my life, no matter if it is

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Speaker 1: about what happened to me, happened to my body, or

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Speaker 1: now my research into child sex trafficking, or any empirical evidence.

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Speaker 1: You know, the truth is what absolutely guides my light.

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Speaker 1: And that was the first moment that I really remember

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Speaker 1: feeling I need to know the truth, and this man

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Speaker 1: is at the center of it, and I know it.

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Speaker 2: Kate is an elementary school. Her world is expanding a bit,

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Speaker 2: and she finds herself at a birthday party for one

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Speaker 2: of her new friends. She enters a home unlike any

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Speaker 2: she's ever seen, a portal into a vastly different world.

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Speaker 2: There are Florida ceiling bookshelves, children's art on the refrigerator,

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Speaker 2: and the world a radio softly playing what she'll later

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Speaker 2: recognize as NPR. The house feels alive, with intellect, ease,

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Speaker 2: and above all else, a sense of safety. It's not

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Speaker 2: just the space, it's the feeling, kids laughing, no fear,

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Speaker 2: no off limits rooms. For Kate, it becomes a vision.

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Speaker 2: Someday I'll live like this at home. The contrast is stark,

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Speaker 2: her father's violence her mother's silence, but Kate is beginning

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Speaker 2: to realize that she has a potential ticket out learning

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Speaker 2: doing well in school. Her mother instinctively understands this and

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Speaker 2: even saves up to buy Kate her own scientific calculator.

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Speaker 2: So while her mother doesn't protect her, she does give

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Speaker 2: her a map, an escape plan.

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Speaker 1: I've really come to reconcile. She kept me alive, She

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Speaker 1: kept me and my sister alive, and that was literally

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Speaker 1: all she could do, and even that I think is

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Speaker 1: a very big feat given that statistically, I know I

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Speaker 1: should be dead, So it's very difficult to reconcile. You

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Speaker 1: know that she threw us to the wolves, basically that

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Speaker 1: she saw all of these things happening and we stayed,

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Speaker 1: and yet she was completely trapped, so that I understand.

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Speaker 1: I also though, understood when she drove me to the

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Speaker 1: town library, when she got me a scientific calculator, when

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Speaker 1: she had her father get me a dictionary an Athosaurus

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Speaker 1: for Easter. Those were absolute streaks of rebellion, and she

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Speaker 1: was able to do those things. I think because both

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Speaker 1: sides of my family education was not valued. She had

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Speaker 1: wanted to go to college, and her father had told

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Speaker 1: her that she could learn everything at the factory where

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Speaker 1: she worked as she could at college. So she was

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Speaker 1: trapped in that way in many ways. And yet their

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Speaker 1: distrust of education gave her the opportunity to let me

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Speaker 1: help me use that as an escape patch because they

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Speaker 1: were completely unfamiliar with that landscape, so they didn't understand.

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Speaker 1: You know, she could just downplay it, or she just didn't.

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Speaker 1: We just didn't say when I was going to the library,

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Speaker 1: so I did all of these things that were just

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Speaker 1: completely invisible to both sides of my family, and they

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Speaker 1: didn't understand the power of them because they didn't value them.

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Speaker 2: And also, one thing that you write is that you

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00:17:48,480 --> 00:17:52,320
Speaker 2: knew that the only time that your father would leave

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Speaker 2: you alone was when you had your nose in a book.

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Speaker 1: It was astounding to me. It was this power. I

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Speaker 1: can still see that moment so clearly. It was like

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Speaker 1: I was busy, you know, and I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I'm in a good part, you know, like leeby B

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Speaker 1: and he left me be. I just couldn't believe that

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Speaker 1: this book in my hand. I knew how powerful it

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Speaker 1: was for me emotionally to feel like I could escape

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Speaker 1: into these other worlds. But the fact that it had

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Speaker 1: this power that my father didn't rip it out of

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Speaker 1: my hands or throw it onto the ground was completely astonishing.

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Speaker 1: Not to say that I then walked around with the

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Speaker 1: book in my hand to protect myself like a is

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Speaker 1: a talisman of some sort. I certainly didn't do that.

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Speaker 1: I was more physically hiding in the closet downstairs, or

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Speaker 1: we had an old schifferobe upstairs that I always dreamed

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Speaker 1: and hoped would be like the lion which in the wardrobe,

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Speaker 1: and it wasn't. But he just left me be and

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00:18:57,359 --> 00:19:00,520
Speaker 1: it was an extraordinary feeling. It didn't make me feel

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Speaker 1: like I had power over him in any way, but

285
00:19:04,040 --> 00:19:07,600
Speaker 1: I knew very similar. Like thinking back to that, his

286
00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:11,159
Speaker 1: comment that I was somehow different, that was part of

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Speaker 1: my difference that I wouldn't say he respected it, but

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Speaker 1: I think it was also part of his. He wanted

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00:19:19,080 --> 00:19:23,280
Speaker 1: to lay his claim on me that somehow he had

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00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:27,359
Speaker 1: produced this child who was smart, you know, he who

291
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Speaker 1: was completely worthless, had done this thing. And so it

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00:19:33,240 --> 00:19:38,240
Speaker 1: was yet another thing for him to I wouldn't want

293
00:19:38,240 --> 00:19:40,800
Speaker 1: to say proud of, but it was definitely something that

294
00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:45,640
Speaker 1: I had a touch of something and he was responsible

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Speaker 1: for that.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty two, when Kate's twelve years old, her

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00:19:53,520 --> 00:19:57,119
Speaker 2: father leaves the family for another woman, a woman only

298
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Speaker 2: seven years older than Sissy, get married and live in

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Speaker 2: a trailer park not too far away. Kate and Sissy

300
00:20:04,880 --> 00:20:07,480
Speaker 2: live in their mother's house, but then weekends with their

301
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Speaker 2: father and new stepmother. It's also at this time that

302
00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:16,400
Speaker 2: Kate's father stops sexually molesting her she's gotten too old.

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00:20:18,359 --> 00:20:22,159
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was an extraordinarily confusing time. First, I do

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00:20:22,240 --> 00:20:25,520
Speaker 1: want to say in terms of the woman his mistress.

305
00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:27,639
Speaker 1: It turns out we found out later she had been

306
00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:31,639
Speaker 1: his longtime mistress, and I'm pretty sure she was a

307
00:20:31,800 --> 00:20:37,439
Speaker 1: teenager when they began their affair, so there was that,

308
00:20:38,000 --> 00:20:41,720
Speaker 1: And yes, she was only seven years older than Sissy.

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Speaker 1: And the other thing that was very confusing for me

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Speaker 1: was that my father during that time was constantly asking

311
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Speaker 1: me if I had gotten my period. He was very

312
00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:56,639
Speaker 1: aware and made tons of comments about my changing body,

313
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Speaker 1: whereas my mother never talked about my period. We never

314
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:06,320
Speaker 1: talked about sex, We never talked about sexuality, puberty, anything,

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Speaker 1: So that was very strange. And even though I wouldn't

316
00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:12,520
Speaker 1: say I had the words at the time, but it

317
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:18,800
Speaker 1: was very clear he was very aware of my menstrual

318
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Speaker 1: cycle and to me, which I the subtext was, you

319
00:21:23,040 --> 00:21:26,560
Speaker 1: know that he didn't want to get me pregnant. So

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Speaker 1: that was very difficult. It was also very confusing for

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Speaker 1: me because the overarching feeling was I was so glad

322
00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:38,880
Speaker 1: he was gone that I just felt so much more

323
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Speaker 1: physically safe, and yet at the same time, my role

324
00:21:44,119 --> 00:21:47,320
Speaker 1: had been very much to be the center of his world.

325
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Speaker 1: He had literally beaten the humanity out of me. I

326
00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:55,479
Speaker 1: didn't know how to think for myself, so now that

327
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Speaker 1: he was gone, I didn't understand my role in the family.

328
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:04,400
Speaker 1: I felt a little bit like, you know, I had

329
00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:10,080
Speaker 1: been left for this other woman, and I was completely

330
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Speaker 1: unmoored so much so, and I knew this consciously, I think,

331
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Speaker 1: but really understood it more as I grew up. That

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Speaker 1: my very best friend Jess from childhood, we did everything

333
00:22:24,400 --> 00:22:27,280
Speaker 1: together after meeting her in third grade, but then it

334
00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:30,199
Speaker 1: was during this time in sixth seventh grade that we

335
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:36,360
Speaker 1: drifted apart, and I very much latched onto mean girls

336
00:22:36,760 --> 00:22:39,040
Speaker 1: who would just tell me what to do. You know,

337
00:22:39,119 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 1: on one hand, I'm this critical thinker and this voracious

338
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Speaker 1: reader in this this you know, budding scholar even you know,

339
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 1: at twelve, that's my ambition. But on the other hand, personally,

340
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:52,720
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to think for myself. I needed

341
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:54,920
Speaker 1: people to boss me around and tell me what to do,

342
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 1: and these mean girls completely were more than happy to

343
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Speaker 1: fill that.

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Speaker 2: And also, you and Sissy had been very much played

345
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:10,959
Speaker 2: against each other by your father, so it wasn't like

346
00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:14,560
Speaker 2: there was a united front there or a confidant or

347
00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,880
Speaker 2: any kind of like sisterly feeling of safety.

348
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Speaker 1: No, quite the opposite. I was terrified of my sister

349
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:25,359
Speaker 1: in the same way that I was terrified of my father.

350
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Speaker 1: He really pitted us against one another, and much like

351
00:23:31,119 --> 00:23:34,280
Speaker 1: I did with his violence, I knew my sister was

352
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Speaker 1: going to hurt me eventually, so I would just trip

353
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:40,359
Speaker 1: the wire, you know, I would poke her, or I

354
00:23:40,400 --> 00:23:43,880
Speaker 1: would make some smart alec comment so she would pume

355
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:45,879
Speaker 1: away and so we could just get it over with

356
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:50,400
Speaker 1: quicker and so. No, there was always an adversarial relationship

357
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Speaker 1: that did not change at all once my father left.

358
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Speaker 1: But it was also by this time my sister had

359
00:23:58,000 --> 00:24:01,439
Speaker 1: started working. She had a boyfriend, you know, so she

360
00:24:01,640 --> 00:24:05,240
Speaker 1: was really out of the house and just surviving on

361
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:08,240
Speaker 1: her own and making her way the best that she could.

362
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:13,959
Speaker 2: So one of the hallmarks of trauma and repetition in

363
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 2: trauma is, you know, when you're in high school, when

364
00:24:18,080 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 2: it came to boys, your chooser was completely busted.

365
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Speaker 1: To say the least.

366
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Speaker 2: I know it's putting it pretty mildly, but yes, in

367
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,199
Speaker 2: the same way as you gravitated toward mean girls, you

368
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 2: gravitated toward boys who also perpetrated violence.

369
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Speaker 1: You didn't know anything else I didn't. And at the

370
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: same time, I did have one friend Page who was

371
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:49,040
Speaker 1: just a very kind human being, and I knew I

372
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 1: was supposed to want to date him, but it was

373
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Speaker 1: just I think for both of us, we both had

374
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: lived through a lot of trauma, and we were just

375
00:24:57,119 --> 00:25:03,360
Speaker 1: both each other's safe space anchor. And so in that regard,

376
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:07,680
Speaker 1: I did know safety to a degree, But in terms

377
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: of the boys and the young men I actually dated,

378
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:16,480
Speaker 1: it was a lot of repeating the trauma that my

379
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:20,840
Speaker 1: brain would just go into autopilot in terms of, Okay,

380
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to have sex, you know, with these guys

381
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:27,600
Speaker 1: when they say they want to, and then even when

382
00:25:28,359 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: I don't want to, you just dissociate, just blank out.

383
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Speaker 1: And that's very much the norm. I had been taught that,

384
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Speaker 1: I had been groomed that, and so that's just what

385
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 1: I thought sex was.

386
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 2: We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.

387
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 2: By junior year, Kate's father and stepmother have moved to Florida,

388
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 2: physically farther away and in some ways emotionally too. Their

389
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 2: absence creates space, diminishes the ever present tension that has

390
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 2: defined so much of her life. She transfers to a

391
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:18,200
Speaker 2: new school, a new environment, and with it the smallest

392
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 2: beginning of something else. Choice. Emotional maturity is just starting

393
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 2: to flicker on her brain. Her self coming online, she

394
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:33,919
Speaker 2: gravitates toward different friends now, the smart kids, the curious ones,

395
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:38,120
Speaker 2: the ones who feel safe. And yet she's crying all

396
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:43,680
Speaker 2: the time, quietly, constantly. The grief, the fear, the weight

397
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 2: of what she still can't speak, not even to herself,

398
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:51,640
Speaker 2: begins leaking out in tears she can't explain. Only one

399
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 2: adult notices, a guidance counselor who not only sees her,

400
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:59,879
Speaker 2: but tells her about something huge therapy.

401
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 1: My mother asked if we could move my senior year

402
00:27:03,960 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: of high school, and I didn't want to go. I mean,

403
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 1: this was I had been going to school with these

404
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:11,880
Speaker 1: kids since literally kindergarten. You know, that's why I grew

405
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:13,960
Speaker 1: up in a small town, and that's what you do.

406
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 1: So I did not want to go, but I understood,

407
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 1: you know, we were pulled all the time. She couldn't

408
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 1: afford the heat, I was hungry all the time, Like

409
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 1: this house was just it was a lot for her

410
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:29,879
Speaker 1: to manage, and it ended up being quite one of

411
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:34,440
Speaker 1: the best moves. Ever, I made great new friends. And

412
00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:37,679
Speaker 1: this was at a town there was a big hospital there,

413
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 1: so so many of the kids in my AP class,

414
00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 1: the higher level classes, they were doctors kids, and so

415
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:47,679
Speaker 1: there was the expectation of going to college. And that

416
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 1: was very different than the town where I'd grown up.

417
00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:55,159
Speaker 1: So that was wonderful. But I was crying constantly, and

418
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:59,160
Speaker 1: I was not doing well academically because I just couldn't focus.

419
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 1: But I did meet this guidance counselor, and this is

420
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:07,800
Speaker 1: one of those moments of alignment in life that it

421
00:28:07,880 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 1: turns out that her husband his family owned the grocery

422
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:17,119
Speaker 1: store where my father had worked when my father was

423
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: in high school and when my parents were first married,

424
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 1: And so this guidance counselor knew my father as a

425
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 1: teenager and actually shared with me that her family had

426
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:35,479
Speaker 1: offered to send my father to the local university to

427
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 1: pay his whole way, and he had declined. And it

428
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: was I can still feel it. It was such a

429
00:28:42,800 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 1: gut punch to me because I was working so hard.

430
00:28:48,400 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: I'm in high school, I'm working two jobs during the

431
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: school year, three jobs during the summer to save up

432
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:57,600
Speaker 1: to get to college and here. My father had been

433
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: offered this full ride, full free ride, had turned it down,

434
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: and it just really illustrated the chasm between me and

435
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: my father and what I wanted in life and what

436
00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: would be my trajectory. But that said, that guidance counselor

437
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: was the first person who ever told me about therapy.

438
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,040
Speaker 1: She told me about it. She gave me an a dress.

439
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 1: I walked out of my high school in the middle

440
00:29:24,600 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 1: of a winter snowstorm, didn't take my coat. I was

441
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 1: wearing an acrylic sweater, a mini skirt that I had

442
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 1: sown by myself, in black tights and black loafers. And

443
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:39,959
Speaker 1: I walked downtown and I found therapy, and it was

444
00:29:40,480 --> 00:29:43,960
Speaker 1: a revelation. I never knew anything like this had ever existed.

445
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 2: And with that therapist, one of the things that you

446
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:54,240
Speaker 2: write in your book is that you weren't willing or

447
00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 2: able to go beneath the surface, which makes so much sense,

448
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 2: because you were keeping a secret from yourself.

449
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 1: In a way.

450
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 2: I mean, it was leaking out of your eyes and

451
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 2: tears in dissociation and not being able to do well

452
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 2: in school even though that was you know, everything to you.

453
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:15,960
Speaker 2: But there you were with somebody you know, with a

454
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 2: door closed in an inner sanctum, but you couldn't. It

455
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:20,840
Speaker 2: was just literally impossible.

456
00:30:21,840 --> 00:30:25,600
Speaker 1: It was completely impossible because I also knew that I

457
00:30:25,600 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: shouldn't be there. I was seventeen, and since I was

458
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 1: working and could pay the copey by myself and I

459
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 1: was close enough to being eighteen, they let me see

460
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: a therapist without telling any parents. I never told my mother,

461
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: and she was working all of the time anyway, and

462
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: so even though I was in high school, it was

463
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 1: even beyond a latch key kid. She was around, certainly,

464
00:30:54,120 --> 00:30:58,520
Speaker 1: but I never had a curfew, or I mean, I

465
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: drove with friends from college. I had made some friends

466
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 1: at the local university because I was taking classes there,

467
00:31:05,440 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: but I also had a radio show on Saturday nights

468
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: at WBUQ, and so like, we drove to the other

469
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: end of Pennsylvania to see Love and Rockets, who was

470
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: one of my favorite bands at the time, and I

471
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: stayed out all night, and I went to school the

472
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,840
Speaker 1: next day in this wearing the same clothes, and she

473
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 1: didn't say a thing. Nobody at school set a thing.

474
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 1: It was the same thing that happened when I ran

475
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,640
Speaker 1: away to see a friend at Smith College. I ran

476
00:31:31,680 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: away for a week. No one said a word, so

477
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: I was really kind of on my own, and that's

478
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:42,920
Speaker 1: I was just bloating and surviving on a daily basis.

479
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:47,360
Speaker 1: There was just no words, and there was also just

480
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 1: not the safety. I mean, I think about, you know,

481
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 1: knowing so much with trauma, like you can't access things

482
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 1: until you feel safe. And so when I think about

483
00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 1: this therapist's office, it was literally on the same block

484
00:32:01,320 --> 00:32:08,440
Speaker 1: where my grandmother's boyfriend had a bar, and I remember

485
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:12,360
Speaker 1: that was my very first memory, was being sexually assaulted

486
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 1: by my father in that bar when I was in

487
00:32:14,880 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 1: diapers and we were also on the other and it

488
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: was like two blocks away of the projects where my

489
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:27,120
Speaker 1: father had lived with his mother and three brothers, and

490
00:32:27,200 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 1: so I was just oh, surrounded by intergenerational trauma that

491
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 1: the safety wasn't there, The acknowledgment was less than there.

492
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:44,360
Speaker 1: Not to mention all of the drugs and the alcohol.

493
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: I mean, the neighborhood where my father grew up, the

494
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 1: nickname was the Bloody Third because the men who lived

495
00:32:51,360 --> 00:32:54,920
Speaker 1: in that part of town would show up on Monday

496
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: morning at the mills that were all throughout the town

497
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 1: with bloody fists. Bloody knuckles from bar fights that spilled

498
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 1: out into the streets over the weekend. So I was

499
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 1: completely and utterly immersed in it. And so it was

500
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: just the reality. It was just my reality of things.

501
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 1: And yet I knew something was terribly wrong because I

502
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 1: could not stop crying.

503
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 2: It makes so much sense, and it was, you know,

504
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 2: sort of the first step toward trying to get to

505
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:24,800
Speaker 2: something in the deep interior that was so buried. But

506
00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:26,680
Speaker 2: it wasn't going to happen then. Wasn't going to happen

507
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:29,000
Speaker 2: with that person, No, not at all.

508
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 1: The other thing that was really distressing to me, too,

509
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 1: was for the first time in my life, I couldn't

510
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 1: do schoolwork. I had taken an AP calculus class. I

511
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: was so excited at this new school that they had

512
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:43,360
Speaker 1: AP classes because they didn't have them at my old school.

513
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, this is fantastic. I literally would just

514
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 1: put my head down, and because I just I couldn't think.

515
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 1: And I had the same last name as my father,

516
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:57,320
Speaker 1: and my last name did not square, you know, with

517
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 1: my GPA, with my family named in square with my GPA,

518
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 1: and so people just they just brushed me aside, and

519
00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:08,320
Speaker 1: if anything, they were actually angry at me for doing

520
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 1: so well in school, and when I entered that my

521
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: senior year, I was tenth in the class, and they

522
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:19,719
Speaker 1: were very angry about that because the Tupton seniors got

523
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 1: their picture taken for the yearbook, and not only students

524
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:27,759
Speaker 1: didn't want me in that picture, but neither did administrators.

525
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 1: The assistant principle made it very clear he did not

526
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 1: want me in that photo, and they all got their

527
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: wish because I dropped to thirteenth over the course of

528
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 1: the year because I just did not do well, particularly

529
00:34:39,600 --> 00:34:42,920
Speaker 1: in this ap calculus class, because I just could not function.

530
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 2: At eighteen, Kate leaves home, bolstered by a strong financial

531
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:55,040
Speaker 2: aid package and a quiet determination to begin again. She

532
00:34:55,160 --> 00:35:00,800
Speaker 2: starts at the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science, then moves, travels, evolves.

533
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:05,800
Speaker 2: She goes to India. She goes to the Audubon Expedition Institute.

534
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:09,600
Speaker 2: The path isn't straight, but it's hers. Along the way,

535
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 2: her name begins to evolve too, from Kathleen to Kathy

536
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 2: to Kate, each version shedding a layer, moving closer to

537
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 2: who she really is and who she hopes to become.

538
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:26,959
Speaker 2: These are years of motion and becoming, of stepping into

539
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 2: a life she's building from the ground up. Through it all,

540
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:33,160
Speaker 2: her father is absent, but even from a distance, his

541
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:36,400
Speaker 2: presence looms waiting, unresolved.

542
00:35:37,840 --> 00:35:41,360
Speaker 1: Once I figured out that I could get college credit

543
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 1: for seeing the world, I took advantage of that and

544
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: was much more interested in doing experiential programs than I

545
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: was sitting in a classroom at a traditional four year college.

546
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 1: And it was during my first year that school, Autowan

547
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 1: Expedition Institute, that one of my classmates was like, you know,

548
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:08,879
Speaker 1: you're not a Kathy. You're not a Kathleen, You're a Kate.

549
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: He's like, you're much more at You're direct to the point.

550
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:16,799
Speaker 1: And it was really shocking to me that people had

551
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:21,040
Speaker 1: seen me like I felt really seen. But I had

552
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 1: certainly felt myself changing on the inside since I was

553
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 1: experiencing the world outside of Appalachia. But to realize that

554
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:31,960
Speaker 1: the people around me and that my peers were seeing

555
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:35,279
Speaker 1: me so differently and in a way that felt so right,

556
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:39,200
Speaker 1: I really took on that part. It was like gat yeah,

557
00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: And I remember telling my mother and being like, er

558
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:45,839
Speaker 1: is she's going to think about it? And she was like, Oh,

559
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:47,919
Speaker 1: that makes so much sense. I called you Katie did

560
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: when you were little, and after I'd really changed my

561
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 1: name to Kate, she started calling me Katie did all

562
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 1: of the time. She really embraced it, and I think

563
00:36:57,200 --> 00:37:02,040
Speaker 1: it was for her a manifesting of the vision of

564
00:37:02,080 --> 00:37:05,399
Speaker 1: what we had been working toward for so long that

565
00:37:05,520 --> 00:37:08,360
Speaker 1: it was like, yeah, Okay, she's really making it in

566
00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 1: this world outside of what my mother even understood. And

567
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:16,640
Speaker 1: she just saw that I was being embraced by this

568
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 1: world that she had no clue how to navigate or

569
00:37:20,120 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: had ever entered. She would drop me off at a

570
00:37:22,560 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: bus station or an airport or a train station, and

571
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 1: that was the extent of it, you know, and then

572
00:37:28,239 --> 00:37:31,680
Speaker 1: the pole I would send postcards, but she didn't experience this,

573
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: and so I think she was really really thrilled and

574
00:37:34,480 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: embraced it by calling me Katie did.

575
00:37:36,560 --> 00:37:39,600
Speaker 2: Well. And isn't Katie did. I'm betraying my lack of

576
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 2: knowledge of the natural world here, but isn't it Katie

577
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 2: did a kind of insect that can fly?

578
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:47,640
Speaker 1: Yes, I had never thought about that. That's very true.

579
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean she was basically saying fly, you know, completely.

580
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:55,759
Speaker 1: No, she loved the B fifty two song Roam that

581
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: was always her song for me. She said, just go,

582
00:37:59,040 --> 00:38:03,000
Speaker 1: just completely go around the world, and she made sure

583
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 1: that that happened. She couldn't help me pay for it,

584
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: except for the right as I was getting ready to graduate,

585
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 1: she took out one student loan for me and insisted

586
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 1: that my father did the same, and that my grandfather

587
00:38:18,239 --> 00:38:21,840
Speaker 1: paid for my train ticket. And that was extraordinary. I

588
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,520
Speaker 1: never seen her stand up to these men before, but

589
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 1: she did it because the end was really close, the

590
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:29,880
Speaker 1: end of my undergrad education, and she was going to

591
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 1: make sure that I was going to graduate.

592
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:37,840
Speaker 2: As Kate builds her life as a young adult, she

593
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 2: hardly ever sees her father, nothing beyond a brief visit

594
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:44,280
Speaker 2: now and then. But now a few years have passed

595
00:38:44,640 --> 00:38:45,840
Speaker 2: and Sissy's getting married.

596
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 1: I just absolutely did not want to see him. I

597
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,080
Speaker 1: didn't really want to see any of my family other

598
00:38:54,200 --> 00:38:58,360
Speaker 1: than my sister and my mother. My sister and I

599
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 1: still were not close at all. I was in fact,

600
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:03,399
Speaker 1: I was shocked when she chose me to be her

601
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 1: maid of honor. But that really just spoke to very expectation.

602
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:12,279
Speaker 1: In Appalachia, the family comes first, no matter if you

603
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:15,839
Speaker 1: have an acrimonious relationship, you know, whatever it may be,

604
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 1: your family always comes first. So I was excited for

605
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:22,319
Speaker 1: her day. You know, her husband seemed very nice, his

606
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 1: family seemed very nice, and I was really happy for

607
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:30,279
Speaker 1: her because while my expectation from my mother was, you know,

608
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:34,600
Speaker 1: that I would I would leave, my sister's expectation from

609
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 1: our family, both my mother and my father was that

610
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 1: she was allowed to go to college, but only so

611
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 1: that she could find a good man to marry. And

612
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 1: it seemed like she had found a really great guy

613
00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 1: from a great family.

614
00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 2: There are these points in your story, multiple multiple points

615
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:57,239
Speaker 2: where your father lays claim to you, and one of

616
00:39:57,280 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 2: these happens at Sissy's wedding.

617
00:40:00,520 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was so scared that he was somehow going

618
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:09,320
Speaker 1: to ruin her day because he always managed to demean her,

619
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 1: demoralize her, or put her down. So it was just

620
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 1: kind of waiting for it. But instead he tracked me

621
00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 1: the entire time, and at the reception, I can still

622
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 1: feel the whisper on my neck. He leans into me

623
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 1: and says, you are the most beautiful woman in the room,

624
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:35,279
Speaker 1: and my skin just crawled off of my body. His

625
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:40,839
Speaker 1: wife was there, My sister was a beautiful bride. My

626
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:44,000
Speaker 1: mother was there, and for him to single me out

627
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: and say that and then just saunter over to the

628
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: bar was so just clearly was meant to put me

629
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:58,239
Speaker 1: right back into my place. That it was like, you

630
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:00,759
Speaker 1: can travel the world, you can do I read all

631
00:41:00,760 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 1: the books you want, you can do all of this,

632
00:41:02,880 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 1: but you are still my property. And I know how

633
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: to turn the knobs to get under your skin, and

634
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it. And that's exactly what he did.

635
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 2: A couple of years later, Kate's about to turn twenty

636
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 2: one when she gets a call from her stepmother that

637
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:27,000
Speaker 2: her father has attempted to take his own life. Shortly thereafter,

638
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:31,280
Speaker 2: Kate's mother is diagnosed with cancer and given a grim prognosis.

639
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 2: This one two punch happens as Kate is in a

640
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 2: really good place in her life, and it's like a

641
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:40,000
Speaker 2: giant finger has come down and pressed the pause button.

642
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: I'm traveling the country, you know, I'm just really starting

643
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 1: to come into my own I can even hear it

644
00:41:48,520 --> 00:41:51,879
Speaker 1: in my voice, you know, I'm meeting interesting people from

645
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 1: all over the world. I'm working for a student environmental

646
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 1: action organization to take some time off from school because

647
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 1: through all of this I was going to school, but

648
00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:03,920
Speaker 1: then I would need to take short period like a

649
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 1: semester off or a year off to make money because

650
00:42:06,520 --> 00:42:09,440
Speaker 1: I was completely paying my own way. But I was

651
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 1: managing to get these really interesting jobs, you know, as

652
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:16,959
Speaker 1: a nineteen twenty year old driving around the country organizing

653
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:21,280
Speaker 1: campus environmental groups was pretty fantastic. I was even getting

654
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:24,520
Speaker 1: a little comfortable with dating. I was meeting really smart,

655
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 1: interesting guys that were kind. I was just really starting

656
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 1: to feel like this is going to be my life,

657
00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:35,440
Speaker 1: you know. I was spending time in these intellectual hubs,

658
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:39,240
Speaker 1: these big college towns, and just really started to feel

659
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:42,800
Speaker 1: like I was really putting a lot of separation between

660
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:48,439
Speaker 1: my family, my hometown, my self. I was really able

661
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,279
Speaker 1: to fly under the radar, and I thought, Wow, this

662
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 1: is my life is really coming together. It was very exciting.

663
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 1: My father guilt tripped me into coming to visit him

664
00:42:57,800 --> 00:43:02,440
Speaker 1: in Florida after out of the psychiatric hospital after he

665
00:43:02,600 --> 00:43:05,919
Speaker 1: tried to complete suicide and I was taking a break

666
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:08,879
Speaker 1: from care taking. My mother and I took a road

667
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:13,719
Speaker 1: trip to go see friends from college and from my

668
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:18,959
Speaker 1: organizing time, and I would go to see him and

669
00:43:19,520 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 1: my car got towed when we had gone out for

670
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 1: ice cream, and granted I was paying for everything, I

671
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:32,160
Speaker 1: was filling his cupboards with food. This was the first

672
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:35,800
Speaker 1: time he had ever been alone, and he really played

673
00:43:35,800 --> 00:43:38,640
Speaker 1: the sympathy card of like, would you come take care

674
00:43:38,640 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 1: of the old man? And I thought that my mother's

675
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:48,160
Speaker 1: diagnosis and my father is attempting his own life in

676
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 1: this period of time. In my brain, as trauma does,

677
00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:56,279
Speaker 1: I had them happening years apart. I just saw them

678
00:43:56,280 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 1: as two very distinct different times in my life, and

679
00:43:59,520 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 1: yet they were happening concurrently. I just had to separate them.

680
00:44:03,920 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 1: There was no way in the world that I could

681
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:08,439
Speaker 1: think about it in real time. But it was during

682
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 1: this visit with my father, you know, and things were

683
00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:15,480
Speaker 1: actually going pretty well. I mean, granted I was caretaking him,

684
00:44:15,480 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 1: it was very codependent, but he took me to my

685
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 1: first alan On meeting and I'd never asked him why

686
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 1: he wasn't going to AA. But I was just happy,

687
00:44:24,920 --> 00:44:26,800
Speaker 1: you know, I was like to be going to alan On.

688
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:28,759
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, maybe I could see myself doing this,

689
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:31,880
Speaker 1: you know, me seemed like healthy people. My father was

690
00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:35,239
Speaker 1: talking about this book Toxic Shame, and these are just

691
00:44:35,280 --> 00:44:37,879
Speaker 1: like wow, kind of these glimpses that I had seen

692
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:40,480
Speaker 1: from therapy when I was in high school. I was like,

693
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:42,680
Speaker 1: all right, you know, maybe my father's getting some help.

694
00:44:43,719 --> 00:44:46,440
Speaker 1: But then during that same visit, my car was towed

695
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:51,959
Speaker 1: and we were at the TOLT and I didn't have

696
00:44:52,760 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 1: any cash left. I think I had bought these groceries

697
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:57,239
Speaker 1: and we went out for ice cream and I had

698
00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 1: paid and all of this, and I had a credit

699
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 1: card from Io was traveling, but I just didn't carry

700
00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:05,520
Speaker 1: it with me. It's just not something I did. And

701
00:45:05,640 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 1: my father flew into an absolute rage, screaming about his

702
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 1: soon to be ex wife. And I had been sitting

703
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: on the ground and I looked up and my father

704
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 1: had his fist pulled all the way back like he

705
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:23,239
Speaker 1: was ready to clock me. And just locked eyes with

706
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 1: him to just like, look, I'm an adult, I'm witnessing this.

707
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:31,920
Speaker 1: You haven't hit me in over a decade, you know,

708
00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 1: but here you are. I see you, And he just

709
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:40,240
Speaker 1: put his fist down and we just didn't We didn't talk,

710
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:43,279
Speaker 1: but for me, it was just like, ah, there he is.

711
00:45:43,840 --> 00:45:47,320
Speaker 1: There's the father I know, and he will never change

712
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:50,200
Speaker 1: and I am growing up and he is always going

713
00:45:50,239 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 1: to be this petty, callous, little wounded boy.

714
00:45:56,719 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 2: Do you have that flashback before or after your dies?

715
00:46:01,400 --> 00:46:03,840
Speaker 1: It was right before. It was about eight months before

716
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:06,440
Speaker 1: she died. She was given six months to live and

717
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:08,080
Speaker 1: she ended up living a year and a half.

718
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:14,240
Speaker 2: But the flashback is after you recognize your father's fist.

719
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:17,760
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it was. It's in between that time before

720
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:18,319
Speaker 1: she died.

721
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:21,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, so in a way, I mean it's it's always

722
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 2: so interesting to me, the way that the psyche works,

723
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:28,080
Speaker 2: the way that memory works. You're near home, I mean,

724
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:31,520
Speaker 2: you're near You're near your childhood when this happens, and

725
00:46:31,560 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 2: you also have just had a dose of your father

726
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 2: fairly recently. M talk to me about that flashback that

727
00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 2: you have.

728
00:46:40,840 --> 00:46:44,919
Speaker 1: I was actually hanging out with a boy I really liked.

729
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:49,120
Speaker 1: I never expected to meet a boy, a guy in

730
00:46:49,200 --> 00:46:51,719
Speaker 1: my hometown that I had a ton in common with

731
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:56,799
Speaker 1: and I could have actually imagine a future with. And

732
00:46:57,400 --> 00:47:00,840
Speaker 1: he grew up near Wolfsbar. And we went to the movies,

733
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 1: and we tried to go to this diner, and the

734
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:06,239
Speaker 1: diner was closed, and so we went to a restaurant

735
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:12,960
Speaker 1: in a refurbished warehouse called the Murray Complex. And I

736
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:18,680
Speaker 1: was incredibly nervous. I was so incredibly nervous because I

737
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:21,600
Speaker 1: really liked this guy and was getting all sorts of

738
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:27,239
Speaker 1: mixed messages and it was not a great relief in retrospect,

739
00:47:27,320 --> 00:47:29,400
Speaker 1: not a great relationship, but at the time I was

740
00:47:29,520 --> 00:47:32,040
Speaker 1: just in it and I was so thrilled to be

741
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:34,680
Speaker 1: there with him because he had been dating someone for

742
00:47:34,719 --> 00:47:36,359
Speaker 1: a long time and then they broke up, and then

743
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 1: he called and asked me to come meet up. But

744
00:47:39,480 --> 00:47:44,080
Speaker 1: when I pulled it in to this restaurant, just the

745
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: sound of the gravel, I was just like, m that

746
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 1: sounds familiar. And then when we were sitting in the restaurant,

747
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:57,440
Speaker 1: I was drinking a cup of coffee and I just

748
00:47:57,520 --> 00:48:00,120
Speaker 1: had this feeling of I have been here before, for

749
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: I have been here before. And I didn't say anything

750
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:07,640
Speaker 1: to him because I was so nervous, and it was

751
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 1: just so strange to me to be on a date

752
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:13,319
Speaker 1: that kind of felt like some of the dates I

753
00:48:13,400 --> 00:48:16,680
Speaker 1: was going on with environmental guys, you know, like guys

754
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:19,359
Speaker 1: in other states, and that felt normal, like no date

755
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 1: had ever felt normal in Pennsylvania. And so we sent

756
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:28,759
Speaker 1: a night and as I was driving out, hearing the

757
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 1: crackling again and then we said goodbye, and I was

758
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:34,600
Speaker 1: about to get on the highway that I had to

759
00:48:34,640 --> 00:48:39,480
Speaker 1: pull over because it was smells of motor oil and

760
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:45,400
Speaker 1: hearing engines and seeing walls of the inside of the

761
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:50,799
Speaker 1: factory and just other kids and seeing men in what

762
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:54,000
Speaker 1: I thought of as church clothes. But then I was

763
00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:56,799
Speaker 1: coming to understand where was really like opfice attire, you

764
00:48:56,800 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: know what. I grew up very working class, blue class,

765
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:03,120
Speaker 1: so people dressberry, blue collar. But now realizing that these

766
00:49:03,160 --> 00:49:06,080
Speaker 1: were men who probably worked in an office, you know,

767
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 1: short sleeves and ties, and it all just hit me

768
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 1: and I just had to stop. And then it receded,

769
00:49:14,960 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 1: and I just drove home like there was nothing. I

770
00:49:20,120 --> 00:49:22,880
Speaker 1: couldn't place it. And yet there were so many things

771
00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:25,960
Speaker 1: that were happening in my life. My mother was sick,

772
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:28,520
Speaker 1: and my father tried to complete suicide, and I'm back

773
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 1: in my hometown after really starting to feel like I

774
00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:33,719
Speaker 1: was putting my life together away from there, and I

775
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:35,360
Speaker 1: had just been on a date with this guy I

776
00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:37,799
Speaker 1: really liked, who I never thought would have asked me out,

777
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:40,560
Speaker 1: and all of these things, and so it was just

778
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:42,879
Speaker 1: a okay, I'm just going to step that aside because

779
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:44,560
Speaker 1: I was just in total survival mode.

780
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:47,200
Speaker 2: Where did you put it? When you set it aside?

781
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:52,920
Speaker 1: Just these recesses of my life. Julian Baker, the singer

782
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:56,400
Speaker 1: songwriter that I loved so much, she has this lyric

783
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:59,600
Speaker 1: she said, something is in the backseat of her body,

784
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:02,919
Speaker 1: and that's just the backseat of my body is where

785
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:04,360
Speaker 1: I put it, you know, even that it's like I

786
00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:08,920
Speaker 1: put in a truck. There was nowhere to swear it

787
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:13,480
Speaker 1: because it was also, while this flashback was much more

788
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:17,400
Speaker 1: pronounced than I had had in the past, the location

789
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 1: of the Murray Complex was in this place that I

790
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 1: had always kind of considered what I had called this

791
00:50:22,719 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 1: over there part of Wolfspear. I'd never really spent any

792
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:29,840
Speaker 1: time over there, and so I was actually in this place,

793
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:33,240
Speaker 1: and I had also to get there, had to drive

794
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:36,799
Speaker 1: past the rest area where I always also had this

795
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:39,880
Speaker 1: like something happened to me there, but I don't know what.

796
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:43,239
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is, and so it was

797
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:47,040
Speaker 1: just in that category. But it was like, maybe I'll

798
00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:51,440
Speaker 1: figure that out one day. I was, honestly, in the moment,

799
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 1: was more feeling excited. I had been on a date

800
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:58,640
Speaker 1: with this guy, and I was just so interested in

801
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:03,000
Speaker 1: putting as puched between myself and my childhood as I could.

802
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:07,360
Speaker 1: And this time of being of moving back home. I

803
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:10,000
Speaker 1: had quit my organizing job the day after I've got

804
00:51:10,040 --> 00:51:14,920
Speaker 1: my mother's diagnosis. This was just this in between time

805
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 1: that I've just got to I'm just going to be here.

806
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:19,000
Speaker 1: I'm going to be here with my mom, and then

807
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:20,719
Speaker 1: I'm going to get back to this life. You know

808
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 1: that I put a pause in and I will all

809
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:32,879
Speaker 1: do that. I put it in the backseat of my body.

810
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:44,719
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. Kate's mother dies at the age

811
00:51:44,719 --> 00:51:48,560
Speaker 2: of forty eight, Sissy's twenty six, and Kate's twenty three.

812
00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:54,680
Speaker 2: At their mother's memorial service, Kate experiences one last time

813
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 2: of her father attempting to lay claim on her.

814
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:02,440
Speaker 1: My mother made it very plain that she did not

815
00:52:02,800 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 1: want a traditional church service like me. She didn't like

816
00:52:08,120 --> 00:52:11,840
Speaker 1: being the center of attention. She also, I think, while

817
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:15,400
Speaker 1: she never said this to me, the subtext was she

818
00:52:15,480 --> 00:52:19,359
Speaker 1: didn't want a funeral service in a church because she

819
00:52:20,960 --> 00:52:26,560
Speaker 1: was very angry with God for taking her mother away

820
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:31,240
Speaker 1: from her when my mother was sixteen. My maternal grandmother

821
00:52:31,320 --> 00:52:34,360
Speaker 1: died when she was forty, and my mother was sixteen,

822
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:37,920
Speaker 1: and so my mother really didn't want to have anything

823
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:41,560
Speaker 1: to do with the church, even though my maternal side

824
00:52:41,560 --> 00:52:47,440
Speaker 1: of the family was very pious and founded churches in Pennsylvania,

825
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:50,319
Speaker 1: and so she did not want that. So even that

826
00:52:50,440 --> 00:52:55,240
Speaker 1: was already contentious because her stepsister was very angry about

827
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:59,480
Speaker 1: this fact that she didn't want a church service. But

828
00:52:59,719 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 1: my mother had found her power in her death and

829
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:04,440
Speaker 1: she's like, Okay, I'm dying. This is the way it's

830
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:07,439
Speaker 1: going to be. And my sister and I really held

831
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:11,720
Speaker 1: on to those wishes. So I was standing and talking

832
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:14,920
Speaker 1: and I guess we would call it a eulergy. I

833
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:18,840
Speaker 1: ended up running my mother's memorial service. As I was

834
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:21,760
Speaker 1: up there talking, my father was sitting in the front

835
00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:27,840
Speaker 1: row and he interrupted me talking and said, I love you, Butchie,

836
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:33,640
Speaker 1: and I felt completely compelled and manipulated to say I

837
00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 1: love you too, Dad. And yet this was my mother's uneral,

838
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:43,880
Speaker 1: and yet I knew I knew exactly what he was doing,

839
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 1: and I couldn't call him out on it. But it

840
00:53:47,120 --> 00:53:50,319
Speaker 1: was so important to him to have this public display

841
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:54,120
Speaker 1: of affection, mutual affection. He had been playing this game

842
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:57,319
Speaker 1: much longer than I had. But I really knew what

843
00:53:57,400 --> 00:54:00,920
Speaker 1: he was doing, and I was furious with him, but

844
00:54:00,960 --> 00:54:05,719
Speaker 1: I didn't say a word. I didn't say anything to him.

845
00:54:05,880 --> 00:54:09,319
Speaker 2: Now it's the mid nineteen nineties. Kate's living in Cambridge.

846
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:11,960
Speaker 2: She's seeing a therapist at her university, but they're not

847
00:54:12,000 --> 00:54:16,320
Speaker 2: making much progress. That therapist tells Kate that there's someone

848
00:54:16,400 --> 00:54:20,640
Speaker 2: she wants her to meet, another therapist, one who specializes

849
00:54:20,719 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 2: in trauma. And that therapist is doctor Besil Vander Kulch.

850
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:32,000
Speaker 1: So my mother never told me to do anything in

851
00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:34,239
Speaker 1: my life, but right before she died, she was like,

852
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:36,799
Speaker 1: moved to Boston. You love it there, And I knew

853
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:40,640
Speaker 1: she was right. So I moved to Cambridge and eventually

854
00:54:40,640 --> 00:54:44,400
Speaker 1: started working at Harvard University. And it was about a

855
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:46,719
Speaker 1: couple of years after she died, and I was really

856
00:54:46,719 --> 00:54:49,160
Speaker 1: getting settled and not really finding my way. I hadn't

857
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 1: really met any friends, but I'd started working in academia

858
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:54,680
Speaker 1: when I was working at Radcliffe and just surrounded by

859
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:58,840
Speaker 1: these absolute amazing feminist scholars. And I was really starting

860
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:02,560
Speaker 1: to grieve my mother and started seeing a therapist within

861
00:55:02,719 --> 00:55:06,919
Speaker 1: university health services, but she and I weren't making much progress.

862
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:09,080
Speaker 1: And then one day she came in and she's like, look,

863
00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 1: I have somebody. I saw this guy speak at a

864
00:55:11,800 --> 00:55:15,080
Speaker 1: conference at her medical school, and I really want you

865
00:55:15,160 --> 00:55:18,960
Speaker 1: to go see him. I only found out later that

866
00:55:19,080 --> 00:55:22,120
Speaker 1: both this therapist and Bessel were very, very very worried

867
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 1: about me because I wasn't making any progress with my

868
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:28,000
Speaker 1: first therapist, and so it was like, all right, time

869
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:30,560
Speaker 1: to bring in the big guns. She told me this

870
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:33,800
Speaker 1: man's name Besill vander Kolk, and I'd never heard of him,

871
00:55:34,120 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 1: but this was in the very early stages of the intranet,

872
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:39,640
Speaker 1: and so you know, after about our third session, I

873
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:42,960
Speaker 1: looked him up and was like, oh, okay, that's some publications.

874
00:55:43,000 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 1: And so I walked into my third session with him

875
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:48,400
Speaker 1: and I said, wow, so you're kind of a big deal, huh,

876
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:50,640
Speaker 1: And he was. He just smiled, kind of cupped his

877
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:52,760
Speaker 1: head and was like, yes, some people would say so,

878
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:55,440
Speaker 1: some people seem to think so. And it was the

879
00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:58,640
Speaker 1: very early stages of EMDR and he was really one

880
00:55:58,640 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 1: of the first pioneers of that, and I was just

881
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:06,160
Speaker 1: willing to try. I was not crying all the time,

882
00:56:06,239 --> 00:56:10,200
Speaker 1: like high school, but I was really struggling in Cambridge.

883
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:14,359
Speaker 1: Moving to Cambridge from Appalachia, even though I had been

884
00:56:14,400 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 1: traveling the world. It was like moving to Mars. I mean,

885
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:21,120
Speaker 1: it was to be in the epicenter of education after

886
00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:23,200
Speaker 1: growing up in this place, you know, where my mother

887
00:56:23,280 --> 00:56:25,719
Speaker 1: had to hight you know, to take me to the library.

888
00:56:26,239 --> 00:56:30,160
Speaker 1: It was just it was very strange, and after living

889
00:56:30,160 --> 00:56:32,600
Speaker 1: in the country and moving into the city and it

890
00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:36,520
Speaker 1: was all very exciting, but I was very unmored. You know.

891
00:56:36,600 --> 00:56:38,880
Speaker 1: My mother had told me what to do in terms

892
00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:41,239
Speaker 1: of my academia was going to be my way out.

893
00:56:41,320 --> 00:56:43,719
Speaker 1: She told me to move to Boston, but we didn't

894
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:45,839
Speaker 1: have a plan for me beyond that, and now here

895
00:56:45,880 --> 00:56:48,440
Speaker 1: I was and I was without her, and it was

896
00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:54,760
Speaker 1: really incredibly, incredibly difficult. So he ended up being really

897
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:58,279
Speaker 1: the first safe man in my life that I would

898
00:56:58,320 --> 00:57:01,480
Speaker 1: not say, like a father or anything like that. I

899
00:57:01,480 --> 00:57:04,080
Speaker 1: don't want to, you know, no paging doctor Fred with

900
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:07,960
Speaker 1: daddy issues. But he would tell me like, this is normal,

901
00:57:08,040 --> 00:57:10,000
Speaker 1: this is not normal. You know. As I would be

902
00:57:10,040 --> 00:57:13,600
Speaker 1: telling him these things, you know about my family, he

903
00:57:13,600 --> 00:57:15,919
Speaker 1: would be like, you know, that's not normal, and I'd

904
00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:18,160
Speaker 1: be like, no, I have no idea, Like even in

905
00:57:18,240 --> 00:57:21,080
Speaker 1: terms of my sister and I, you know, not getting

906
00:57:21,080 --> 00:57:24,000
Speaker 1: along and how we were pushed apart. You know, he

907
00:57:24,000 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 1: would just be like, you know, that was deliberate, and

908
00:57:26,560 --> 00:57:28,600
Speaker 1: to me, it was just the air of which I breathe,

909
00:57:28,640 --> 00:57:30,320
Speaker 1: you know, the water I was swimming in. And so

910
00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:32,640
Speaker 1: he really helped me parse all of those things out.

911
00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:38,400
Speaker 2: And at the same time, it's not immediate that you

912
00:57:39,520 --> 00:57:46,200
Speaker 2: tell Vessel that your father sexually abused you. And it's

913
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:54,120
Speaker 2: also definitely not immediate that you are able to access

914
00:57:54,760 --> 00:58:00,400
Speaker 2: again that flood of memories that began in Wilkespeare And

915
00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:02,880
Speaker 2: you know, and I think that that's really important because

916
00:58:03,600 --> 00:58:05,600
Speaker 2: so many people think you go to therapy and then

917
00:58:06,120 --> 00:58:08,520
Speaker 2: it all happens like with the snap of a finger.

918
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:11,920
Speaker 2: You know, these layers and layers, you know, working with

919
00:58:12,000 --> 00:58:17,160
Speaker 2: besl and doing EMDR, which you really take to and

920
00:58:17,640 --> 00:58:20,520
Speaker 2: you know, which is just this extraordinary modality. But still

921
00:58:21,120 --> 00:58:23,640
Speaker 2: it's a process, and it's a process where you don't

922
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:27,120
Speaker 2: even know what you're trying to process in this process.

923
00:58:27,720 --> 00:58:35,479
Speaker 2: Right at first, Kate's work with doctor besil vander Kolk

924
00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:38,960
Speaker 2: is about grief, her mother's death, her move to Boston.

925
00:58:39,560 --> 00:58:42,520
Speaker 2: But then comes the question, tell me about your father.

926
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:46,280
Speaker 2: Kate isn't sure what to say, how to describe him,

927
00:58:46,360 --> 00:58:50,080
Speaker 2: or how to possibly describe what might have happened to her.

928
00:58:50,520 --> 00:58:53,920
Speaker 2: But around this time, Kate also happens upon a resonant

929
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:57,800
Speaker 2: book in the student center, Father Daughter Incest by doctor

930
00:58:57,880 --> 00:59:01,480
Speaker 2: Judis Hermann. The book names what she has never been

931
00:59:01,520 --> 00:59:06,240
Speaker 2: able to. The book describes her father, describes what might

932
00:59:06,240 --> 00:59:10,880
Speaker 2: have happened to her, what did happen to her. She

933
00:59:10,960 --> 00:59:15,080
Speaker 2: also rereads Darthy Allison's Bastard out of Carolina during this time,

934
00:59:15,480 --> 00:59:19,120
Speaker 2: and the story resonates as well. She decides to watch

935
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:23,800
Speaker 2: the film adaptation, and when she does, a flashback overwhelms

936
00:59:23,800 --> 00:59:27,960
Speaker 2: her far deeper than before the past she thought she

937
00:59:28,080 --> 00:59:30,480
Speaker 2: knew begins to rewrite itself.

938
00:59:32,080 --> 00:59:36,360
Speaker 1: I felt brave enough to watch the film adaptation, and

939
00:59:36,440 --> 00:59:39,320
Speaker 1: it was the first time that I had ever seen

940
00:59:40,320 --> 00:59:45,880
Speaker 1: a visual depiction of child sexual abuse. And I cried

941
00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:50,760
Speaker 1: and cried and cried so hard my eyes literally swelt,

942
00:59:50,800 --> 00:59:54,440
Speaker 1: were swollen shut. It just all was coming forward. And

943
00:59:54,520 --> 00:59:58,840
Speaker 1: it was also two things in terms of safety. One

944
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:02,040
Speaker 1: in alan On they call it the geographical cure. You know,

945
01:00:02,040 --> 01:00:05,120
Speaker 1: I was three hundred miles away from my hometown. The

946
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:08,760
Speaker 1: other piece was the safety of working with vessel like

947
01:00:08,880 --> 01:00:11,800
Speaker 1: that my body just sensed like this is a person

948
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:15,880
Speaker 1: who really gets it beyond talk therapy, you know, like

949
01:00:15,960 --> 01:00:19,120
Speaker 1: we talk about the phrase our issues and our tissues.

950
01:00:19,400 --> 01:00:22,080
Speaker 1: You know, he really understood like it wasn't just me

951
01:00:22,680 --> 01:00:26,160
Speaker 1: talking my way out of this, that it was my

952
01:00:26,320 --> 01:00:29,240
Speaker 1: secrets were in the fascia, you know, in my fascia,

953
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:32,280
Speaker 1: like in with literally the connective tissue of my body.

954
01:00:32,800 --> 01:00:35,240
Speaker 1: And that was all just starting to open up as

955
01:00:35,280 --> 01:00:40,280
Speaker 1: I felt safe, and it was almost like in retrospect,

956
01:00:40,400 --> 01:00:47,760
Speaker 1: realizing that my body was just absolutely so parched and thirsty,

957
01:00:47,960 --> 01:00:50,120
Speaker 1: you know, for this, and it was just like blood

958
01:00:50,280 --> 01:00:54,440
Speaker 1: is going to come out, and you're ready. And so

959
01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:56,920
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened. A couple of days after I

960
01:00:56,960 --> 01:00:59,640
Speaker 1: had cried so much watching the Bastard out of Carolina,

961
01:01:00,000 --> 01:01:03,040
Speaker 1: there was a no'er Easter coming. I had been watching

962
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 1: the news, you know, in terms of my little tiny

963
01:01:05,120 --> 01:01:07,480
Speaker 1: television that I had bought in my little tiny studio.

964
01:01:07,640 --> 01:01:10,040
Speaker 1: It was the first time I was living alone, and

965
01:01:10,560 --> 01:01:14,480
Speaker 1: I closed my eyes and it was like a slideshow

966
01:01:15,080 --> 01:01:20,080
Speaker 1: of men. They were in trucker hats and had beards

967
01:01:20,120 --> 01:01:23,919
Speaker 1: and mustaches and flannel shirts and jeans, and metal belt

968
01:01:23,960 --> 01:01:30,360
Speaker 1: buckles and cowboy boots and glasses, and I could smell whiskey,

969
01:01:30,640 --> 01:01:33,520
Speaker 1: and just I could just see all of it. It

970
01:01:33,520 --> 01:01:35,560
Speaker 1: was like a flash booze about. It was one hundred men,

971
01:01:36,320 --> 01:01:39,280
Speaker 1: and it went on for minutes, and then it stopped

972
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:42,400
Speaker 1: for thirty seconds, and it all just started right back

973
01:01:42,480 --> 01:01:47,120
Speaker 1: up again. And I knew in that moment that these

974
01:01:47,160 --> 01:01:50,200
Speaker 1: were all men that my father had sold me to.

975
01:01:50,600 --> 01:01:54,520
Speaker 1: I just knew. I heard the rattling of the engines

976
01:01:54,560 --> 01:01:59,160
Speaker 1: and smell the gasoline. It was like literally all of

977
01:01:59,200 --> 01:02:02,880
Speaker 1: the puzzle pieces of me having those somatic memories of

978
01:02:02,960 --> 01:02:05,920
Speaker 1: driving by the rest area for all of those years,

979
01:02:06,360 --> 01:02:08,760
Speaker 1: and just having those feelings in the flashbacks and the

980
01:02:08,840 --> 01:02:11,320
Speaker 1: sound of the tire of the gravel. It all just

981
01:02:11,360 --> 01:02:11,960
Speaker 1: made sense.

982
01:02:15,880 --> 01:02:19,440
Speaker 2: Where could Kate possibly put those images memories that had

983
01:02:19,480 --> 01:02:23,160
Speaker 2: been stored so deeply inside her. There was nowhere for

984
01:02:23,200 --> 01:02:27,400
Speaker 2: this new understanding to go. She became suicidal and called

985
01:02:27,440 --> 01:02:31,040
Speaker 2: her therapist, who told her to go to the infirmary.

986
01:02:31,600 --> 01:02:35,040
Speaker 1: Because at this time I was still seeing my university

987
01:02:35,080 --> 01:02:38,960
Speaker 1: Health Services therapist and Bessel. I needed that much support,

988
01:02:39,040 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 1: and I was also going to multiple grief groups and

989
01:02:42,200 --> 01:02:45,280
Speaker 1: multiple alan on like I was just living all of this.

990
01:02:45,760 --> 01:02:50,240
Speaker 1: It was pouring out of me and I needed I

991
01:02:50,280 --> 01:02:53,960
Speaker 1: really needed the help and support us. I also didn't

992
01:02:54,000 --> 01:02:56,760
Speaker 1: have any friends. I had followed a couple of friends

993
01:02:56,800 --> 01:02:59,280
Speaker 1: from high school to Boston, but they had both moved

994
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:02,200
Speaker 1: to want a law school and went to graduate school,

995
01:03:02,240 --> 01:03:04,800
Speaker 1: and so I was very much on my own. So

996
01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:06,880
Speaker 1: that's how I filled my time as well. It was

997
01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:10,440
Speaker 1: fixing myself because I was also during this time, I

998
01:03:10,440 --> 01:03:12,400
Speaker 1: had been told it was all my fault and I

999
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:14,680
Speaker 1: believed it. So I felt I need to fix myself,

1000
01:03:14,680 --> 01:03:16,640
Speaker 1: and so that's what I'm going to do. So we

1001
01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:21,920
Speaker 1: had the plan with my university Health services therapist that

1002
01:03:22,000 --> 01:03:24,640
Speaker 1: if I ever needed something and off hours, I would

1003
01:03:24,640 --> 01:03:29,400
Speaker 1: call her first, because Bessel did not see patients in evening,

1004
01:03:29,440 --> 01:03:32,280
Speaker 1: and so I called her and she toldally flat out,

1005
01:03:32,320 --> 01:03:33,640
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm going to get into a lot of

1006
01:03:33,640 --> 01:03:37,120
Speaker 1: trouble for this, but go to University Health Services because

1007
01:03:37,680 --> 01:03:40,600
Speaker 1: otherwise I'm going to have to admit you into mcclean's

1008
01:03:41,040 --> 01:03:42,960
Speaker 1: and I don't want to do that because you need

1009
01:03:42,960 --> 01:03:45,840
Speaker 1: to see Bessel in the morning. I don't want you admitted.

1010
01:03:46,400 --> 01:03:49,840
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened, and snow was coming down,

1011
01:03:49,840 --> 01:03:52,600
Speaker 1: and I took a cab and the cab driver complained

1012
01:03:52,640 --> 01:03:55,280
Speaker 1: about driving in the snow, and I gave him a

1013
01:03:55,320 --> 01:03:56,959
Speaker 1: big tip, and I was like, look, if you hadn't

1014
01:03:57,000 --> 01:03:58,880
Speaker 1: driven me here, I would have killed myself. I didn't

1015
01:03:58,880 --> 01:04:02,240
Speaker 1: even I just slammed the door and I went upstairs

1016
01:04:02,280 --> 01:04:05,840
Speaker 1: to University Health Services. And it was very clear I

1017
01:04:05,920 --> 01:04:08,240
Speaker 1: was on suicide watch because they took me to a

1018
01:04:08,440 --> 01:04:12,360
Speaker 1: nice hospital bed with nice crisp sheets and cotton blankets.

1019
01:04:12,360 --> 01:04:15,280
Speaker 1: But the lights were on all night long, and they

1020
01:04:15,320 --> 01:04:17,360
Speaker 1: came to check on me every once in a while,

1021
01:04:17,480 --> 01:04:20,960
Speaker 1: and the nurse gave me warm milk. And it was

1022
01:04:21,000 --> 01:04:24,040
Speaker 1: the first time in my life that I ever felt

1023
01:04:24,680 --> 01:04:29,720
Speaker 1: cared for and comforted and recognized that I was in

1024
01:04:29,760 --> 01:04:31,720
Speaker 1: a really bad place in the moment.

1025
01:04:33,640 --> 01:04:37,000
Speaker 2: The next morning, Kate goes to see Besil. Now the

1026
01:04:37,040 --> 01:04:39,600
Speaker 2: two of them are in full possession of all the

1027
01:04:39,640 --> 01:04:44,800
Speaker 2: information what Kate's really dealing with. With Besil, Kate begins

1028
01:04:44,840 --> 01:04:50,520
Speaker 2: to do emdr IYE movement resensitization and reprocessing therapy, which

1029
01:04:50,560 --> 01:04:54,960
Speaker 2: is enormously effective in treating trauma. By the age of

1030
01:04:55,000 --> 01:04:57,920
Speaker 2: twenty eight, she feels ready to confront her father and

1031
01:04:57,960 --> 01:04:59,080
Speaker 2: tell him what she knows.

1032
01:05:01,320 --> 01:05:06,240
Speaker 1: He responds by not responding to me. He turns to

1033
01:05:06,600 --> 01:05:09,320
Speaker 1: his now third wife. I mean, granted this was on

1034
01:05:09,400 --> 01:05:12,040
Speaker 1: the phone, but he turns to her and said, well,

1035
01:05:12,080 --> 01:05:15,320
Speaker 1: now she says I raped her. He never denied it

1036
01:05:15,360 --> 01:05:20,920
Speaker 1: to me. He just turned to the person in the

1037
01:05:21,280 --> 01:05:23,600
Speaker 1: room that you know, he was living with his wife

1038
01:05:23,680 --> 01:05:26,439
Speaker 1: because he had to manage the situation. Like I said,

1039
01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:30,240
Speaker 1: he had created chaos in order to control the chaos,

1040
01:05:30,360 --> 01:05:34,080
Speaker 1: and he needed to control the chaos. So I found

1041
01:05:34,080 --> 01:05:38,280
Speaker 1: it very interesting that my father has never ever denied

1042
01:05:38,280 --> 01:05:44,760
Speaker 1: it to my face or to me directly, which to

1043
01:05:44,840 --> 01:05:48,520
Speaker 1: me said volumes. It was more about managing the world

1044
01:05:48,800 --> 01:05:51,920
Speaker 1: around me and the world around him. And he just

1045
01:05:51,920 --> 01:05:53,840
Speaker 1: told me to never call him again. And I never

1046
01:05:53,840 --> 01:05:57,600
Speaker 1: called him again. That was the last time we ever spoke.

1047
01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:04,520
Speaker 2: In the fall of two thousand, Kate places a personal

1048
01:06:04,560 --> 01:06:08,160
Speaker 2: ad in the Boston Phoenix, and the god of personal

1049
01:06:08,200 --> 01:06:12,280
Speaker 2: ads smiles upon her. One and done. She meets Chris,

1050
01:06:12,560 --> 01:06:16,200
Speaker 2: a journalist will become her husband. It takes a lot

1051
01:06:16,240 --> 01:06:18,840
Speaker 2: for Kate to tell Chris the entirety of her history,

1052
01:06:19,200 --> 01:06:23,160
Speaker 2: but she does. She is safe, she trusts him, and

1053
01:06:23,240 --> 01:06:27,200
Speaker 2: he needs to know Kate and Chris mary and settle

1054
01:06:27,520 --> 01:06:30,760
Speaker 2: into a book lined apartment reminiscent of the home she

1055
01:06:30,800 --> 01:06:34,160
Speaker 2: had once visited at her best friend's birthday party. That

1056
01:06:34,360 --> 01:06:40,080
Speaker 2: home full of love, warmth, curiosity, and possibility. They embark

1057
01:06:40,160 --> 01:06:44,200
Speaker 2: on the adoption process and eventually adopt their son, n.

1058
01:06:45,000 --> 01:06:48,520
Speaker 2: But still there's something gnawing at Kate. As she writes

1059
01:06:48,560 --> 01:06:52,000
Speaker 2: in her book, I knew on the deepest level, down

1060
01:06:52,040 --> 01:06:55,400
Speaker 2: to my bones, that my memories were real, but as

1061
01:06:55,440 --> 01:06:59,160
Speaker 2: a social scientist, I needed empirical evidence to be sure.

1062
01:07:00,880 --> 01:07:04,680
Speaker 2: How could she fact check her memory? Chris intuited that

1063
01:07:04,720 --> 01:07:09,280
Speaker 2: she needed help and suggested that she perhaps contact a journalist.

1064
01:07:09,840 --> 01:07:13,680
Speaker 2: Thus began a ten year professional relationship and friendship with

1065
01:07:13,760 --> 01:07:19,360
Speaker 2: a journalist named Janelle Nanos. Through a painstaking halting process,

1066
01:07:19,760 --> 01:07:24,080
Speaker 2: Janelle begins to work on Kate's story. Janelle needs to

1067
01:07:24,120 --> 01:07:27,120
Speaker 2: talk to Sissy. She also lets Kate know that she'll

1068
01:07:27,120 --> 01:07:30,480
Speaker 2: need to speak with their father. Kate is, of course

1069
01:07:30,600 --> 01:07:34,360
Speaker 2: terrified and ambivalent. She and Sissy haven't been in touch

1070
01:07:34,400 --> 01:07:37,720
Speaker 2: in years. But then one day out of the blue,

1071
01:07:38,280 --> 01:07:41,360
Speaker 2: Kate receives an email from her sister about an insurance

1072
01:07:41,400 --> 01:07:45,360
Speaker 2: policy of their moms. This opens the door a tiny crack,

1073
01:07:46,000 --> 01:07:49,960
Speaker 2: but sometimes tiny is enough. The two sisters start to

1074
01:07:50,000 --> 01:07:55,320
Speaker 2: form a relationship on their own terms in adulthood. During

1075
01:07:55,360 --> 01:07:59,320
Speaker 2: this rich time of discovery, there is also one conscious

1076
01:07:59,320 --> 01:08:02,760
Speaker 2: memory that has never kicked to the trunk of the car,

1077
01:08:03,520 --> 01:08:07,640
Speaker 2: the name chicken Plucker. What did it mean? Why did

1078
01:08:07,680 --> 01:08:10,640
Speaker 2: it stay in her consciousness all these years?

1079
01:08:11,680 --> 01:08:13,840
Speaker 1: So Janelle and I had been working together, I think

1080
01:08:13,840 --> 01:08:17,240
Speaker 1: a couple of years by that point, and I had

1081
01:08:17,280 --> 01:08:20,240
Speaker 1: recent around this time, I had recently learned about a

1082
01:08:20,280 --> 01:08:24,840
Speaker 1: wonderful organization called Truckers Against Trafficking and was just like,

1083
01:08:25,360 --> 01:08:28,800
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, you know, I don't know, do they maybe

1084
01:08:28,840 --> 01:08:31,839
Speaker 1: know about this person or whatever? And so I literally

1085
01:08:31,920 --> 01:08:35,200
Speaker 1: just googled the term chicken plucker and found out that

1086
01:08:35,200 --> 01:08:40,639
Speaker 1: it was trucker's slang for pedophile. And I contacted Janelle

1087
01:08:40,720 --> 01:08:43,800
Speaker 1: and she was just like, oh god, it was yet

1088
01:08:43,840 --> 01:08:46,679
Speaker 1: another piece. I kind of felt like we kept getting

1089
01:08:46,680 --> 01:08:52,479
Speaker 1: these breadcrumbs of validation as we went on, because right

1090
01:08:52,600 --> 01:08:55,240
Speaker 1: I had talked to chicken Plucker, like no one could

1091
01:08:55,280 --> 01:08:57,439
Speaker 1: tell me like that. I did not that this person

1092
01:08:57,479 --> 01:08:59,640
Speaker 1: did not exist. I talked to him, and I knew it,

1093
01:08:59,680 --> 01:09:02,280
Speaker 1: and that was a very solid memory that I did

1094
01:09:02,280 --> 01:09:03,360
Speaker 1: not question at all.

1095
01:09:04,040 --> 01:09:09,800
Speaker 2: Then at some point after that, you learn from Cissy

1096
01:09:09,840 --> 01:09:12,879
Speaker 2: that your father also sexually abused her, which is something

1097
01:09:13,000 --> 01:09:16,240
Speaker 2: that you never thought had happened.

1098
01:09:16,840 --> 01:09:20,559
Speaker 1: Never. I thought that she got all of the physical

1099
01:09:20,560 --> 01:09:24,559
Speaker 1: abuse and I got all of the sexual abuse. That's

1100
01:09:24,680 --> 01:09:26,720
Speaker 1: just how I thought he operated.

1101
01:09:27,320 --> 01:09:30,120
Speaker 2: So then there is this moment where you and Sissy

1102
01:09:30,160 --> 01:09:31,479
Speaker 2: and Janelle are together.

1103
01:09:31,600 --> 01:09:35,080
Speaker 1: I believe, yes, at a Barnes and Noble in wolfsbear.

1104
01:09:35,400 --> 01:09:38,040
Speaker 2: The things that happen in Barnes and Nobles, yep. And

1105
01:09:38,600 --> 01:09:42,760
Speaker 2: at this point all you know is that Cissy was

1106
01:09:42,800 --> 01:09:48,440
Speaker 2: also sexually molested by your father. But then Cissy proceeds,

1107
01:09:49,280 --> 01:09:53,360
Speaker 2: and you've never told Cissy about being trafficked.

1108
01:09:53,520 --> 01:09:56,240
Speaker 1: At this point I told her a little bit, but

1109
01:09:56,360 --> 01:10:00,040
Speaker 1: certainly not details. I didn't want to. I didn't I

1110
01:10:00,080 --> 01:10:02,800
Speaker 1: want to activate any memories for her. It seemed like

1111
01:10:03,080 --> 01:10:07,120
Speaker 1: I had much more concrete memories than she did, and

1112
01:10:07,200 --> 01:10:10,559
Speaker 1: so I didn't want to send her down a spiral

1113
01:10:10,720 --> 01:10:12,920
Speaker 1: that she had not experienced.

1114
01:10:13,720 --> 01:10:17,080
Speaker 2: But so at this Barnes and Noble in wilkesbere Sissy

1115
01:10:18,320 --> 01:10:23,720
Speaker 2: begins to talk about having been trafficked herself, and she

1116
01:10:23,920 --> 01:10:28,559
Speaker 2: uses the same exact language, language that you never used

1117
01:10:28,560 --> 01:10:31,240
Speaker 2: with her, but that you had spoken in depth with

1118
01:10:31,360 --> 01:10:32,479
Speaker 2: Janelle about.

1119
01:10:33,240 --> 01:10:35,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, at that point, I've been saying the exact things

1120
01:10:35,840 --> 01:10:36,879
Speaker 1: to Janelle for seven.

1121
01:10:36,760 --> 01:10:41,560
Speaker 2: Years, and then Janelle hears Sissy saying the exact same things.

1122
01:10:41,640 --> 01:10:46,920
Speaker 1: M hm, verbatim in terms of the well in the garage,

1123
01:10:47,000 --> 01:10:49,479
Speaker 1: you know, down to the smell of the oil on

1124
01:10:49,520 --> 01:10:53,240
Speaker 1: the blanks that we were wrapped in. And Janelle and

1125
01:10:53,280 --> 01:10:57,840
Speaker 1: I just looked at each other, wide eyed, and it

1126
01:10:58,000 --> 01:11:02,160
Speaker 1: was extraordinary. And here Sissy thought she had said something

1127
01:11:02,240 --> 01:11:05,679
Speaker 1: wrong when Janelle and I were looking at each other,

1128
01:11:05,920 --> 01:11:10,120
Speaker 1: because she too was so used to always messing something up,

1129
01:11:10,160 --> 01:11:12,760
Speaker 1: you know, as our father had taught her. And it

1130
01:11:12,840 --> 01:11:16,880
Speaker 1: was like, no, actually, quite the opposite. You're saying this verbatim.

1131
01:11:17,520 --> 01:11:21,680
Speaker 1: And it was right after that conversation that Janelle was

1132
01:11:21,760 --> 01:11:25,640
Speaker 1: so salient to me. Janelle said, Okay, that's two. Like

1133
01:11:25,680 --> 01:11:31,040
Speaker 1: I could see her investigative journalist in operation. You know that,

1134
01:11:31,080 --> 01:11:33,479
Speaker 1: It's like, okay, we now have two victims on the record.

1135
01:11:34,640 --> 01:11:37,840
Speaker 1: This is you know, this case is building well.

1136
01:11:37,840 --> 01:11:40,000
Speaker 2: And also what I thought you meant when you said

1137
01:11:40,080 --> 01:11:43,599
Speaker 2: now we have two is that it's like data. You

1138
01:11:43,680 --> 01:11:48,120
Speaker 2: have the chicken plucker meaning truck or slang for pedophile.

1139
01:11:48,520 --> 01:11:53,800
Speaker 2: And you have Sissy absolutely like layering her story on

1140
01:11:53,840 --> 01:11:57,519
Speaker 2: top of your story and it's the same story. And

1141
01:11:57,600 --> 01:12:04,920
Speaker 2: so then Janelle has that powerful reporters instinct that she's close.

1142
01:12:05,520 --> 01:12:09,240
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, she even said you know that it so

1143
01:12:09,360 --> 01:12:11,960
Speaker 1: fast forward a few years and she said, you know,

1144
01:12:12,120 --> 01:12:16,120
Speaker 1: we're really we're close, We're really close. And I was like,

1145
01:12:16,520 --> 01:12:19,360
Speaker 1: you mean to like getting the smoking gun, and she

1146
01:12:19,439 --> 01:12:22,200
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, we're close. I was like, oh, okay,

1147
01:12:22,520 --> 01:12:24,799
Speaker 1: you know, we had never talked like that before.

1148
01:12:26,080 --> 01:12:28,719
Speaker 2: So the last piece of this is the smoking gun,

1149
01:12:29,720 --> 01:12:35,920
Speaker 2: is Janelle actually finding finally after a lot of stonewalling

1150
01:12:36,240 --> 01:12:38,120
Speaker 2: from a lot of people and a lot of you know,

1151
01:12:38,160 --> 01:12:40,519
Speaker 2: we're just going to mind our own business, tell me

1152
01:12:40,600 --> 01:12:45,400
Speaker 2: about what you hear from Janelle and then how that

1153
01:12:45,479 --> 01:12:48,760
Speaker 2: sort of rewrites some of your own understanding of your

1154
01:12:48,800 --> 01:12:49,519
Speaker 2: family history.

1155
01:12:50,240 --> 01:12:53,519
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were in Pennsylvania and at that point Janelle

1156
01:12:53,560 --> 01:12:56,240
Speaker 1: had come with me. She was working at the Globe

1157
01:12:56,360 --> 01:12:58,160
Speaker 1: at this point, so was my husband at this point,

1158
01:12:58,320 --> 01:13:01,360
Speaker 1: and the Globe had sent a photographer with us. We

1159
01:13:01,439 --> 01:13:04,240
Speaker 1: had really amassed a lot of people were going on

1160
01:13:04,280 --> 01:13:07,200
Speaker 1: the record saying they believed me. Only one family member

1161
01:13:07,400 --> 01:13:09,360
Speaker 1: went on the record to say they believed me, but

1162
01:13:09,439 --> 01:13:12,040
Speaker 1: still other people around, like we had talked to magistrates

1163
01:13:12,040 --> 01:13:16,920
Speaker 1: and victims' advocates and people certainly remembered the rest area

1164
01:13:16,960 --> 01:13:22,000
Speaker 1: that I was referencing was definitely associated with adult prostitution.

1165
01:13:22,560 --> 01:13:26,200
Speaker 1: No one had ever heard of any child trafficking, but

1166
01:13:27,640 --> 01:13:30,439
Speaker 1: one police officer did remember from his time as a

1167
01:13:30,439 --> 01:13:34,080
Speaker 1: state trooper that a child had been kidnapped from a

1168
01:13:34,120 --> 01:13:37,360
Speaker 1: house very close to that rest area and then showed

1169
01:13:37,400 --> 01:13:40,720
Speaker 1: up three days later at a truck step forty five

1170
01:13:40,760 --> 01:13:43,559
Speaker 1: minutes south. So I was like, okay, we're really kind

1171
01:13:43,560 --> 01:13:47,360
Speaker 1: of getting evidence. And Janelle just kept knocking on doors

1172
01:13:47,479 --> 01:13:51,799
Speaker 1: and talking to people who would not reply to our letters,

1173
01:13:52,080 --> 01:13:54,760
Speaker 1: the letters that we had sent, and we had had

1174
01:13:54,760 --> 01:13:56,760
Speaker 1: a very busy day we had gotten This was the

1175
01:13:56,760 --> 01:13:58,639
Speaker 1: first time I had ever gone back to the rest

1176
01:13:58,680 --> 01:14:00,880
Speaker 1: area since I was a kid, and we were taking

1177
01:14:00,880 --> 01:14:05,719
Speaker 1: photos there and Janelle was like, Okay, I'm going back

1178
01:14:05,760 --> 01:14:10,720
Speaker 1: to your mother's friend, Gloria. She was out when I

1179
01:14:10,760 --> 01:14:14,080
Speaker 1: went there, and I'm going back there tonight. She had

1180
01:14:14,080 --> 01:14:17,880
Speaker 1: also found my first stepmother and was talking to her,

1181
01:14:18,479 --> 01:14:21,040
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, and a storm was coming

1182
01:14:21,320 --> 01:14:25,240
Speaker 1: and I ended up going back to the Airbnb. And

1183
01:14:25,280 --> 01:14:28,600
Speaker 1: then later that night I was terrified that Janelle was

1184
01:14:28,600 --> 01:14:30,479
Speaker 1: in a ditch on the side of the road somewhere,

1185
01:14:30,520 --> 01:14:33,000
Speaker 1: because her little rental car was this little, tiny smart

1186
01:14:33,000 --> 01:14:36,800
Speaker 1: car and we had done so much together, but this

1187
01:14:37,280 --> 01:14:41,120
Speaker 1: I was sitting home alone and Janelle came in and

1188
01:14:41,160 --> 01:14:44,720
Speaker 1: the look of horror on her face. I just had

1189
01:14:44,720 --> 01:14:47,400
Speaker 1: the thought, Okay, Janelle's about to break my heart. And

1190
01:14:47,479 --> 01:14:50,479
Speaker 1: I always thought it was my first stepmother who would

1191
01:14:50,520 --> 01:14:52,919
Speaker 1: have information. I didn't know maybe she was even involved,

1192
01:14:53,600 --> 01:14:56,440
Speaker 1: But it turns out that it was my mother's friend Gloria.

1193
01:14:56,760 --> 01:14:59,679
Speaker 1: So a few years before my mother got sick, had

1194
01:14:59,720 --> 01:15:06,200
Speaker 1: told her friend Gloria that she my mother had caught

1195
01:15:06,240 --> 01:15:11,000
Speaker 1: my father pimping out Sissy and me on his cebee radio.

1196
01:15:12,160 --> 01:15:15,639
Speaker 1: She heard him the first time, did confront him, heard

1197
01:15:15,720 --> 01:15:19,439
Speaker 1: him a second time, and did confront him, and he

1198
01:15:19,479 --> 01:15:22,759
Speaker 1: told her leave me alone. I know what I'm doing.

1199
01:15:24,760 --> 01:15:30,200
Speaker 1: And I heard that information, and I just completely the

1200
01:15:30,280 --> 01:15:33,439
Speaker 1: tears just came.

1201
01:15:34,000 --> 01:15:34,960
Speaker 2: Just ugh.

1202
01:15:35,640 --> 01:15:39,120
Speaker 1: It was the best and the worst moment. I mean

1203
01:15:39,120 --> 01:15:40,880
Speaker 1: it was the best because this was something I had

1204
01:15:41,000 --> 01:15:45,599
Speaker 1: been searching for for so long and knew, and here

1205
01:15:45,680 --> 01:15:49,120
Speaker 1: was this empirical evidence, but it was the worst knowing

1206
01:15:49,160 --> 01:15:52,519
Speaker 1: that it was my mother. She knew. I just kept

1207
01:15:52,520 --> 01:15:55,840
Speaker 1: saying she knew, and she threw us to the wolves.

1208
01:15:56,240 --> 01:16:00,559
Speaker 1: And after I could breathe a little bit, you know,

1209
01:16:00,680 --> 01:16:05,160
Speaker 1: Janelle told me some more of what Gloria had told her.

1210
01:16:05,400 --> 01:16:09,880
Speaker 1: Was that we did leave. My mother did take me

1211
01:16:09,960 --> 01:16:13,160
Speaker 1: and Sissy out for about a week, but then we

1212
01:16:13,280 --> 01:16:19,519
Speaker 1: came back. And what my sister and I were able

1213
01:16:19,600 --> 01:16:26,760
Speaker 1: to piece together then was that I really do strongly

1214
01:16:26,800 --> 01:16:30,479
Speaker 1: believe that my mother thought the trafficking had stopped then

1215
01:16:31,160 --> 01:16:39,360
Speaker 1: because he stopped trafficking Sissy, but he started taking out two.

1216
01:16:39,439 --> 01:16:42,439
Speaker 1: I was about six, and that's when he started taking

1217
01:16:42,479 --> 01:16:45,679
Speaker 1: me to the rest area, and so he just got

1218
01:16:45,760 --> 01:16:50,200
Speaker 1: much more secretive. I do believe on some level she knew.

1219
01:16:50,280 --> 01:16:52,800
Speaker 1: She must have known. That's something that Besil had said

1220
01:16:52,800 --> 01:16:55,000
Speaker 1: to me since the moment we started talking about Yeah,

1221
01:16:55,120 --> 01:16:57,200
Speaker 1: you know, I was like, no, she could never know.

1222
01:16:57,280 --> 01:17:00,240
Speaker 1: My mother would never do that, and she knew, she

1223
01:17:00,360 --> 01:17:08,479
Speaker 1: absolutely knew, And so that was incredibly difficult to square.

1224
01:17:09,600 --> 01:17:13,280
Speaker 1: And yet on a gut level, I completely understood she

1225
01:17:13,479 --> 01:17:19,200
Speaker 1: had no options. This was nineteen seventy two years. You know,

1226
01:17:19,240 --> 01:17:21,800
Speaker 1: I was born in nineteen seventy, two years before Roe

1227
01:17:21,880 --> 01:17:25,360
Speaker 1: v Wade. She was not allowed to go to college.

1228
01:17:25,920 --> 01:17:29,360
Speaker 1: She was trapped. She had nowhere to go, and so

1229
01:17:29,400 --> 01:17:32,840
Speaker 1: she kept us alive. And the other piece is that

1230
01:17:32,960 --> 01:17:36,200
Speaker 1: Gloria did say to my mother, Okay, well we have

1231
01:17:36,240 --> 01:17:39,160
Speaker 1: to do something about this, you know, and my mother

1232
01:17:39,360 --> 01:17:41,920
Speaker 1: was like, no, you can't say a word. This is

1233
01:17:41,960 --> 01:17:46,160
Speaker 1: our lives. So it was her keeping us alive was

1234
01:17:46,200 --> 01:17:53,040
Speaker 1: really her priority.

1235
01:17:53,160 --> 01:17:56,639
Speaker 2: In Kate's book, she writes, it would have been easier

1236
01:17:56,680 --> 01:18:00,639
Speaker 2: to allow myself to miire in the shame of my family. Instead,

1237
01:18:01,160 --> 01:18:05,880
Speaker 2: I found my calling. This powerful sentiment underscores something that

1238
01:18:05,920 --> 01:18:08,800
Speaker 2: Besil vander Kolk has written about, which is that when

1239
01:18:08,800 --> 01:18:11,400
Speaker 2: it comes to the depths of trauma, the people who

1240
01:18:11,400 --> 01:18:14,120
Speaker 2: tend to recover most are the ones who are able

1241
01:18:14,160 --> 01:18:19,000
Speaker 2: to make meaning of their experience. Janelle's piece ten Years

1242
01:18:19,000 --> 01:18:23,719
Speaker 2: in the Making, is titled Kate Price Remembers Something Terrible.

1243
01:18:24,560 --> 01:18:27,920
Speaker 2: It was published in The Boston Globe in twenty twenty two.

1244
01:18:27,960 --> 01:18:30,840
Speaker 2: The same year it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

1245
01:18:33,760 --> 01:18:38,040
Speaker 1: Making meaning was definitely something that Besel helped me understand

1246
01:18:38,160 --> 01:18:41,640
Speaker 1: pretty early on in our relationship. I mean, I'm so

1247
01:18:41,720 --> 01:18:44,639
Speaker 1: honored to say he's been my therapist for thirty years now.

1248
01:18:44,680 --> 01:18:48,040
Speaker 1: Who in the world would have known that the Body

1249
01:18:48,120 --> 01:18:52,280
Speaker 1: keeps the Score would become such a tremendous success and

1250
01:18:52,360 --> 01:18:54,800
Speaker 1: has helped so many people, And I'm honored to be

1251
01:18:55,080 --> 01:18:57,960
Speaker 1: part of that. In terms of what I decided to

1252
01:18:58,479 --> 01:19:02,360
Speaker 1: further research on child sex trafficking, Bessel was a big

1253
01:19:02,439 --> 01:19:04,720
Speaker 1: part of that conversation. My husband was a big part

1254
01:19:04,760 --> 01:19:08,000
Speaker 1: of that conversation. I was getting feedback that people were

1255
01:19:08,040 --> 01:19:12,360
Speaker 1: finding my research and my take on this emerging human

1256
01:19:12,400 --> 01:19:16,400
Speaker 1: trafficking movement in the early aughts. People were finding what

1257
01:19:16,400 --> 01:19:17,840
Speaker 1: I had to say helpful, and I was like, I

1258
01:19:17,840 --> 01:19:20,400
Speaker 1: think it could help this I could help make a difference,

1259
01:19:20,439 --> 01:19:22,360
Speaker 1: you know, which aligned with I wanted to be a

1260
01:19:22,439 --> 01:19:24,639
Speaker 1: nurse when I was little, so I wanted to help people,

1261
01:19:25,960 --> 01:19:27,720
Speaker 1: and Bessill was like, Yeah, I think that could be

1262
01:19:27,760 --> 01:19:30,000
Speaker 1: a really good thing for you. In the same way

1263
01:19:30,080 --> 01:19:35,200
Speaker 1: of when Chris and I were thinking of adoption, Bessel

1264
01:19:35,360 --> 01:19:38,759
Speaker 1: was like, Yeah, I think you being able to parent

1265
01:19:39,040 --> 01:19:42,200
Speaker 1: a child who's been through trauma would be a tremendous

1266
01:19:42,439 --> 01:19:46,439
Speaker 1: help for you and the child. So he was a

1267
01:19:46,439 --> 01:19:49,600
Speaker 1: big part of those decisions for me and Chris. I

1268
01:19:49,640 --> 01:19:51,360
Speaker 1: took him to see Bessell I think maybe six months

1269
01:19:51,400 --> 01:19:53,680
Speaker 1: after we met, just to let him know, let my

1270
01:19:53,760 --> 01:19:56,400
Speaker 1: husband know, you know, what he was getting himself into,

1271
01:19:56,920 --> 01:19:59,680
Speaker 1: and so he really understood the full scope because it

1272
01:19:59,720 --> 01:20:03,120
Speaker 1: is not easy managing trauma and being a partner to

1273
01:20:03,240 --> 01:20:07,479
Speaker 1: someone with extensive trauma. So we've really, you know, I've

1274
01:20:07,479 --> 01:20:10,439
Speaker 1: been able to build a professional life and personal life

1275
01:20:10,439 --> 01:20:13,479
Speaker 1: and I'm really thrilled to say, no, my son is

1276
01:20:13,479 --> 01:20:15,040
Speaker 1: twenty and he came to live with us when he

1277
01:20:15,160 --> 01:20:20,200
Speaker 1: was four, and he's really thriving and saying with my career,

1278
01:20:20,320 --> 01:20:22,200
Speaker 1: it was always my intention to get back to the

1279
01:20:22,200 --> 01:20:25,519
Speaker 1: Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College after getting my

1280
01:20:25,560 --> 01:20:29,639
Speaker 1: PhD and being able to do research on child sex

1281
01:20:29,680 --> 01:20:33,240
Speaker 1: trafficking and familial child sex trafficking that can then be

1282
01:20:33,439 --> 01:20:41,599
Speaker 1: turned into policy and practice and really help inform trauma

1283
01:20:41,720 --> 01:20:45,240
Speaker 1: informed services in the way we understand child sex trafficking.

1284
01:20:45,360 --> 01:20:48,800
Speaker 1: So I'm incredibly proud of that work and I'm just

1285
01:20:48,840 --> 01:20:52,200
Speaker 1: grateful to be able to help people. And I get

1286
01:20:52,240 --> 01:20:56,920
Speaker 1: emails from fellow survivors of familial trafficking but also non

1287
01:20:56,960 --> 01:21:00,360
Speaker 1: familial trafficking or child sexual abuse, or you know other

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Speaker 1: women who grew up in Appalachia with the pretty restrictive

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Speaker 1: worms of at least in the seventies. You know, we're

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Speaker 1: meant to be a wife, and that was it to

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Speaker 1: not have dreams, ambitions, or even thoughts. And so I'm

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Speaker 1: just grateful to be able to lend my experience to

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Speaker 1: those fellow people who were trying to navigate this world

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Speaker 1: without any sort of roadmap, and especially when we're being

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Speaker 1: told it's all our fault and we're crazy. And I've

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Speaker 1: heard too many stories of people taking their own lives

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Speaker 1: for that very reason. So I feel incredibly honored and

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Speaker 1: compelled to keep doing the work that I'm doing.

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Speaker 2: Here's Kate reading one last passage from her extraordinary memoir.

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Speaker 2: This happened to me.

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Speaker 1: I'm returning to this place because, in thinking about my

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Speaker 1: son and how much we've loved and protected him, I

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Speaker 1: cannot abandon vulnerable and exploited children in the same way

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Speaker 1: my sister and I were left by our parents, extended

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Speaker 1: family and community to fend for ourselves. Having become the

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Speaker 1: woman that I so very much needed as a girl,

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Speaker 1: I am growing a new community here that began when

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Speaker 1: I started to investigate my history. I now have a

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Speaker 1: collection of trusted allies, and I no longer have to

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Speaker 1: fight this fight alone. I am returning to this place

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Speaker 1: knowing I am safe, I am loved, I am home.

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Speaker 2: Family Secrets is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly Zakoor is the

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Speaker 2: story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer. If

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Speaker 2: you have a family secret you'd like to share, please

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Speaker 2: leave us a voicemail and your story could appear on

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Speaker 2: an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight eight

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Speaker 2: Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also find

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Speaker 2: me on Instagram at Daniwriter and if you'd like to

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Speaker 2: know more about the story that inspired this podcast, check

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Speaker 2: out my memoir Inheritance.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.