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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. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: I'm Danny Shapiro and this is family Secrets, the secrets

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

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Speaker 2: and the secrets we keep from ourselves. My guest is

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Speaker 2: Sasha Mardeux. Sasha is a cartoonist and graphic novelist and

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Speaker 2: memoirist whose new book Past Tense is just out. Sasha's

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Speaker 2: is a life affirming story about carrying secrets, burying them,

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Speaker 2: being haunted by them, and then releasing them in the

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Speaker 2: fullness of time. Is an extraordinary story of a beautiful

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Speaker 2: human determined to find the help she needs to survive

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Speaker 2: and thrive. So, Sasha, I'm going to begin where I

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Speaker 2: always begin these conversations, which is, tell me about the

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Speaker 2: landscape of your childhood. Give me a sense of as

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Speaker 2: early as you can remember, who was in that landscape,

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Speaker 2: what did it look like, what did it feel like?

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Speaker 3: Sure, So, my parents had married very young. They had

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Speaker 3: me in nineteen seventy five and they were just barely

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Speaker 3: out of their twenties. I was born into the north

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Speaker 3: of England and there was a lot of unemployment at

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Speaker 3: that time, you know, the Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister,

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Speaker 3: and just the landscape for men had just been decimated,

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Speaker 3: you know, there were no prospects. Men spent most of

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Speaker 3: their time in the pubs.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 3: My mother was very much raising me alone, even though

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Speaker 3: she was partnered. I would say my father was like

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Speaker 3: a very immature man who never really stopped being a playboy.

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Speaker 3: Some of my first memories of him coming home from

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Speaker 3: the pub and just hitting my mom, beating my mum

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Speaker 3: who would challenge him about him smelling of perfume or

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Speaker 3: you know, being with women. So yeah, there's my earliest

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Speaker 3: memories just him being kind of brutal to my mother

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Speaker 3: and being absent even though he lived in the same

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Speaker 3: house as us. My mother is a very caring and

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Speaker 3: warm and sweet person.

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Speaker 1: Actually, most of the women in my family were.

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Speaker 3: Nurses of one form or another, nurses or carers, so

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Speaker 3: very much a people pleaser kind of person. You know,

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Speaker 3: she keeps the peace by being nice and effusive. He

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Speaker 3: very intelligent woman. You know, she was well read and

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Speaker 3: was into teaching me how to read and write from

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Speaker 3: an early age, so she very much encouraged me intellectually.

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Speaker 3: I remember my parents' divorce very clearly because I remember

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Speaker 3: Charles and Diana were getting married on the TV set

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Speaker 3: at Westminster Abbey as we.

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Speaker 1: Were packing up the house to go our separate ways.

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Speaker 3: After the divorce, I lived with my dad for a

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Speaker 3: little while and then with my mom, and there was

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Speaker 3: a lot of poverty. She ended up taking a job

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Speaker 3: as a warden in a it was like a residential

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Speaker 3: home for the elderly, and the job came with a

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Speaker 3: living apartment, and so, you know, that was a lifeline

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Speaker 3: for us.

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Speaker 1: Both because we had a place to live.

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Speaker 3: Before that, we were living with, you know, with my aunts,

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Speaker 3: or you know, staying with friends, that kind of thing.

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Speaker 3: My mom became the deputy warden, and another woman called

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Speaker 3: Lorraine became the main warden.

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Speaker 1: And she had a family.

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Speaker 3: She had a husband and two children, a boy and

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Speaker 3: a girl, and my father would come to visit and

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Speaker 3: he and Lorraine began to have an affair and their

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Speaker 3: marriage fell apart. So my dad moved in with Lorraine

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Speaker 3: and became a stepfather to her two children. And the

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Speaker 3: weird thing about this was that Doug, who was the

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Speaker 3: ex husband of Lorraine, actually got together with my mom,

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Speaker 3: and so it was these two couples and you can

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Speaker 3: imagine just like the father's swapping, right, So.

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Speaker 1: I ended up with Doug as my stepdad.

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Speaker 3: And I ended up with these two half siblings, Gail

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Speaker 3: and Amon, and they started calling my dad dad, which

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Speaker 3: was very uncomfortable for me. It was my ninth birthday

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Speaker 3: when they got married, so I remember that clearly as well.

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Speaker 2: And then your dad and Lorraine have two more children.

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Speaker 3: They will go on to have two more children, but

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Speaker 3: a lot happens in the interim, so you know, it's

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Speaker 3: kind of comical in a way to think of these

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Speaker 3: two couples who've kind of like swapped husbands, but the

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Speaker 3: reality was very very difficult to be a child like

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Speaker 3: witnessing these partnerships, you know. So my stepfather, Doug was

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Speaker 3: very upset that his two biological children were calling my

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Speaker 3: father dad, and I had to start calling Doug dad,

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Speaker 3: which wasn't very comfortable for me. And the situation eventually

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Speaker 3: resolved when my dad and Lorraine moved like thirty miles

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Speaker 3: north of Manchester and it just ended the access. So

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Speaker 3: all the custod rangements fell apart and we didn't see

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Speaker 3: them for.

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Speaker 1: A couple of years.

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Speaker 3: Little Sasha was quite a bewildered and timid kid. I

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Speaker 3: was very bookish. I would spend a lot of my

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Speaker 3: time like reading books and blowing the world out. There's

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Speaker 3: a line from Alice Miller in the drama of The

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Speaker 3: Gifted Child where she talks about how you can perfect

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Speaker 3: the art of not feeling your feelings in childhood, and

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Speaker 3: that's very much what I did. I just blanked out

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Speaker 3: from the weirdness of my family. You know, I didn't

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Speaker 3: acknowledge it. I didn't talk about it.

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Speaker 1: So very early on I became a secret keeper.

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Speaker 3: And obviously in my interactions with my stepsister Gail, I

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Speaker 3: had secrets there to keep as well, because she was

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Speaker 3: a very confusing and bewildering child to be around. At

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Speaker 3: first met when I was about seven or eight, and

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Speaker 3: she was a very different person to me. She was

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Speaker 3: Catholic and so very churchy. I remember she was very

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Speaker 3: excited about going for her first confirmation and dressing up

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Speaker 3: like a little bride.

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Speaker 1: It was all very bewildering to me.

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Speaker 3: I'd never been so a and I think the first

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Speaker 3: time I went to a church was actually seeing her confirmation.

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Speaker 1: Her mother was my mum's.

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Speaker 3: Boss, and I feel like Gail adopted this attitude like

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Speaker 3: I'm your boss too, because we were thrown together for

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Speaker 3: a summer, and when we would play together, her games

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Speaker 3: would get very intense. And there was actually something that

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Speaker 3: happened in that summer we played together where she actually

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Speaker 3: played sexual bullying games on me, inspired by pornographic magazines

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Speaker 3: that her father had hidden under the mattress that she

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Speaker 3: would bloat and show me.

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Speaker 2: You know, Gail isn't just showing Sasha pornographic magazines. During

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Speaker 2: this time when Gail is nine and Sasha is eight,

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Speaker 2: Gil molests her.

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Speaker 3: It was the kind of thing that I had no

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Speaker 3: language for whatsoever. You know, I knew it had to

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Speaker 3: be a secret. But even if I were to tell

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Speaker 3: a grown up what Gail had done, I wouldn't have

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Speaker 3: known the words to say.

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Speaker 1: And so it was a secret that I just pushed

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Speaker 1: down really, really far.

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Speaker 3: And I wouldn't tell anyone this until I was in

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Speaker 3: my forties. Actually, when I was in therapy. That was

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Speaker 3: the first half of my connection with Gail as this

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Speaker 3: bully somebody who intimidated me. And then she moved away,

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Speaker 3: you know, my dad became her dad. I felt very resentful.

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Speaker 1: To her for that.

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Speaker 3: She would call my dad dad in front of my face,

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Speaker 3: and I would just feel so jealous, you know, like

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Speaker 3: he's not your.

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Speaker 1: Dad, Like I'm living with your dad. It was such

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Speaker 1: a weird situation for a.

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Speaker 3: Child, and you know, obviously something that I never talked to.

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Speaker 3: You know, I had friends in school, but I would

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Speaker 3: never tell them about my family's situation or how my

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Speaker 3: family came to be. It was just weird, and I

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Speaker 3: knew it back then, and it was also embarrassing, kind

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Speaker 3: of like a soap opera, you know, like a crazy

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Speaker 3: situation from a soap opera that no one would believe

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Speaker 3: really happened.

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Speaker 2: Did you understand that then, because you know, one of

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Speaker 2: the things that I've learned, it was in my own

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Speaker 2: life and hosting this podcast, is that our childhoods are

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Speaker 2: all we know, and there's a kind of strange but

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Speaker 2: very human normalizing in our minds. I think of whatever

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Speaker 2: happens in our childhood, it feels like, well, that must

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Speaker 2: be happening in everyone's childhood. It's the only world we know.

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Speaker 2: Was that the case for you or did you know

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Speaker 2: at a young age you know everything that you're describing

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Speaker 2: that it wasn't happening in other homes or in most

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Speaker 2: other homes. And in the case of Gail and these

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Speaker 2: awful sexual I mean molestation. You know, these quote unquote

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Speaker 2: games that she was playing with you, is that something

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Speaker 2: that you understood was deeply not okay? Or where do

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Speaker 2: you put that at the age.

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Speaker 3: Of eight, Well, these games had begun with her showing

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Speaker 3: me like secret pornography that was hidden under my then

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Speaker 3: stepfather's mattress. So is back when her, her father Doug,

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Speaker 3: and Lorraine were still together, you know that she would

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Speaker 3: show me these things, and so yeah, I had a

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Speaker 3: sense then that the secret you know, and you would

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Speaker 3: see pornography as a child, and it's really shocking. And

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Speaker 3: you know, this was how I learned about sex from

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Speaker 3: these from seeing these magazines that I didn't even particularly

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Speaker 3: want to look at. They just made me feel hot

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Speaker 3: and embarrassed and ashamed and very trapped because like Gail

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Speaker 3: was kind of my Jaila that summer, you know, she

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Speaker 3: was kind of in charge of me while my mom

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Speaker 3: and Lorraine were working in the old People's unit taking

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Speaker 3: care of the old people.

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Speaker 1: So I had a sense back then that the situation

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Speaker 1: was weird.

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Speaker 3: And when the partners what happened, and my dad became

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Speaker 3: her dad and her dad became my dad.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I knew it was weird.

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Speaker 3: I feel like in my life and my youth as well,

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Speaker 3: I've always been like drawn to people who have more traditional,

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Speaker 3: stable family situations, you know, And so I would always

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Speaker 3: compare my family life with the family life of my friends,

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Speaker 3: who would have like a mom and a dad, And yeah,

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Speaker 3: I always knew that I was kind of weird and different.

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Speaker 2: The incidents with Gail happened, and your moms were working together,

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Speaker 2: and your Lorraine was quote unquote your mom's boss, and

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Speaker 2: Gail kind of made herself the boss of you. The

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Speaker 2: swapping of partners had not happened yet or was in

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Speaker 2: the process of happening. Kind of during that period of time,

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Speaker 2: it was.

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Speaker 1: On the brink of happening.

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Speaker 3: So Lorraine and my father were beginning their kind of

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Speaker 3: secret affair which would kind of blow up and become

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Speaker 3: a public affair. So yeah, it was like right before

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Speaker 3: that happened. So already, I mean a lot of things

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Speaker 3: were kind of happening in my life, so there was

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Speaker 3: no real time to pipe up and go hey, by

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Speaker 3: the way, Gail's playing these word games.

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Speaker 2: On me, if that makes sense, and then she becomes

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Speaker 2: your stepsister after this has.

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Speaker 3: Happened, that's right, and she would actually end up living

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Speaker 3: with us because obviously Doug was her real father. So

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Speaker 3: after an extended period of no contact, like around nineteen

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Speaker 3: eighty six, we get a visit from Gail's mom, Lorraine,

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Speaker 3: Like early in the winter of nineteen eighty seven, Lorraine

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Speaker 3: comes to visit my mom while I'm at school, and

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Speaker 3: Lorraine tells my mom that my father is in prison

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Speaker 3: for sexually abusing Gail. And to add to that, she

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Speaker 3: says that Gail is in a children's home because she

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Speaker 3: can no longer cope with her.

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Speaker 2: How do you find this out?

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Speaker 1: I find out the same day.

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Speaker 3: I come home from school and I see my mom's

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Speaker 3: face in the window and she's waiting for me, and

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Speaker 3: I know that something's off as soon as I walk

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Speaker 3: through the door, and so she sits me down in

222
00:11:31,800 --> 00:11:34,800
Speaker 3: the living room, and I remember her chain smoking like

223
00:11:34,840 --> 00:11:36,520
Speaker 3: it was a winter's day. It was a very gray

224
00:11:36,559 --> 00:11:39,120
Speaker 3: skuy outside. You know, she hadn't put the light on

225
00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:41,080
Speaker 3: in the room, and so the room got dark as

226
00:11:41,120 --> 00:11:43,679
Speaker 3: we were talking, and she would light her cigarettes from

227
00:11:43,720 --> 00:11:46,040
Speaker 3: the gas fire. While she was telling me the story

228
00:11:46,640 --> 00:11:48,959
Speaker 3: of what had happened, and she told me what Gail

229
00:11:48,960 --> 00:11:52,439
Speaker 3: had told her, which was that like in nineteen eighty six,

230
00:11:52,600 --> 00:11:56,560
Speaker 3: Gale was about twelve, and she had apparently sexually matured

231
00:11:56,640 --> 00:11:59,080
Speaker 3: and she had breasts now, and she would walk around

232
00:11:59,120 --> 00:12:02,720
Speaker 3: the house and like shore t shirts. And my dad

233
00:12:02,720 --> 00:12:04,839
Speaker 3: was unemployed and he was kind of looking after the

234
00:12:04,920 --> 00:12:05,960
Speaker 3: kids during the summer.

235
00:12:06,520 --> 00:12:08,240
Speaker 1: Apparently Gail would get.

236
00:12:08,120 --> 00:12:10,560
Speaker 3: In bed with my dad for cuddles after Lorraine, her

237
00:12:10,600 --> 00:12:13,000
Speaker 3: mom had gone to work, and so this had been

238
00:12:13,080 --> 00:12:16,120
Speaker 3: going on all summer, and at the end of the summer,

239
00:12:16,160 --> 00:12:19,720
Speaker 3: when Gail went back to school in nineteen eighty six,

240
00:12:19,880 --> 00:12:22,000
Speaker 3: she told the nuns at the Catholic school that she

241
00:12:22,320 --> 00:12:27,040
Speaker 3: went to that her stepfather had been abusing her. And

242
00:12:27,080 --> 00:12:30,520
Speaker 3: so the police came and arrested my father and he

243
00:12:30,600 --> 00:12:32,680
Speaker 3: went to trial and he got sentenced to prison.

244
00:12:33,880 --> 00:12:35,360
Speaker 1: Lorraine had Aimen.

245
00:12:35,880 --> 00:12:37,920
Speaker 3: I think he would have been about six at the time,

246
00:12:38,160 --> 00:12:42,200
Speaker 3: and Gail, who was turning thirteen and had had a

247
00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:46,439
Speaker 3: really difficult time apparently, and social Services in England had

248
00:12:46,480 --> 00:12:50,240
Speaker 3: stepped in and taken Gail into a children's home. And

249
00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:52,400
Speaker 3: so my mom told me all this information on that

250
00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:55,600
Speaker 3: day in February in nineteen eighty seven, and my mom

251
00:12:55,640 --> 00:12:57,840
Speaker 3: put it to me that Gail doesn't need to be

252
00:12:57,880 --> 00:12:58,640
Speaker 3: in a children's home.

253
00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:01,400
Speaker 1: She has another parent she could live with. Doug was

254
00:13:01,400 --> 00:13:02,600
Speaker 1: her biological father.

255
00:13:03,160 --> 00:13:04,880
Speaker 3: And there was a part of me that day that

256
00:13:05,480 --> 00:13:07,760
Speaker 3: felt like, my father's a monster, and if I can

257
00:13:07,800 --> 00:13:10,160
Speaker 3: help make this right and get Gail out of a

258
00:13:10,240 --> 00:13:12,480
Speaker 3: children's home, like, of course we'll do that. Of course

259
00:13:12,520 --> 00:13:14,559
Speaker 3: girls should come in love with us. And so that's

260
00:13:14,559 --> 00:13:15,120
Speaker 3: what happened.

261
00:13:16,160 --> 00:13:23,720
Speaker 2: Were you completely shocked by this information about your father

262
00:13:24,679 --> 00:13:27,960
Speaker 2: or did it feel in some way like it was

263
00:13:28,120 --> 00:13:31,040
Speaker 2: part of a trajectory, like when you talk about your

264
00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:34,160
Speaker 2: very first memories of like violence between your parents and

265
00:13:34,200 --> 00:13:38,240
Speaker 2: you talk about your father and who he was. Was

266
00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:41,480
Speaker 2: there any part of you that wasn't completely surprised or

267
00:13:41,559 --> 00:13:42,760
Speaker 2: was it just utterly shocking.

268
00:13:43,600 --> 00:13:47,760
Speaker 3: It was definitely shocking in terms of like a feeling

269
00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:50,320
Speaker 3: of you know, sick disgust.

270
00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:50,560
Speaker 1: In my stomach.

271
00:13:50,920 --> 00:13:51,439
Speaker 2: Yeah.

272
00:13:51,559 --> 00:13:54,400
Speaker 3: But the thing is I'd been living with Doug my

273
00:13:54,480 --> 00:13:58,000
Speaker 3: mom for years and they'd constantly told me that my

274
00:13:58,080 --> 00:14:02,600
Speaker 3: dad's no good, you know, and so this basically confirmed

275
00:14:02,679 --> 00:14:06,560
Speaker 3: this bias that they both held for Doug. My dad

276
00:14:06,600 --> 00:14:09,080
Speaker 3: was the bad guy who'd stolen his kids, right, and

277
00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:12,440
Speaker 3: now my dad was the man who'd molested his daughter,

278
00:14:12,559 --> 00:14:15,000
Speaker 3: Like of course he was a monster. I felt an

279
00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:18,120
Speaker 3: internal shame that in some way this reflected on me,

280
00:14:18,360 --> 00:14:19,800
Speaker 3: like I didn't want to be like my dad, and

281
00:14:19,840 --> 00:14:22,400
Speaker 3: I very much wanted my mom to see, look, Mom,

282
00:14:22,440 --> 00:14:22,920
Speaker 3: I'm like you.

283
00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:23,960
Speaker 1: I'm a good person.

284
00:14:24,600 --> 00:14:27,080
Speaker 3: And so I think leaping to the aid of Gail,

285
00:14:27,320 --> 00:14:29,280
Speaker 3: even though I had my own dark history with her,

286
00:14:30,200 --> 00:14:32,120
Speaker 3: it was something I've felt compelled to do, you know,

287
00:14:32,280 --> 00:14:34,720
Speaker 3: just to kind of reclaim like I am your daughter,

288
00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:35,720
Speaker 3: I'm not his daughter.

289
00:14:35,840 --> 00:14:37,160
Speaker 1: That felt very important to me.

290
00:14:40,440 --> 00:14:43,760
Speaker 2: So what was that next period of time, Like when

291
00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:45,480
Speaker 2: Gail came to live with you.

292
00:14:46,280 --> 00:14:47,640
Speaker 1: Things moved so fast.

293
00:14:47,840 --> 00:14:50,080
Speaker 3: I feel like my mom and I had that conversation,

294
00:14:50,480 --> 00:14:53,720
Speaker 3: and I think the next weekend we met Gail and

295
00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:59,040
Speaker 3: her social worker in a cafe, and Gail was just

296
00:14:59,040 --> 00:15:01,960
Speaker 3: not the kid I remembered. I remember this long blonde hair,

297
00:15:02,640 --> 00:15:05,240
Speaker 3: like blue eyed, like perfect Catholic girl.

298
00:15:05,560 --> 00:15:07,720
Speaker 1: And here was this young woman.

299
00:15:08,000 --> 00:15:10,520
Speaker 3: You know, she had short cropped hair, like a full

300
00:15:10,560 --> 00:15:14,640
Speaker 3: eighties outfit, makeup, eyeliner. She just seems so grown up

301
00:15:16,080 --> 00:15:18,240
Speaker 3: within a few weeks she moved in, and I think

302
00:15:18,280 --> 00:15:20,840
Speaker 3: Social Services paid for like new bedding and a new

303
00:15:20,880 --> 00:15:24,000
Speaker 3: bed and we began to share a room, and in

304
00:15:24,040 --> 00:15:26,280
Speaker 3: my mind it was like, we will be teenagers together.

305
00:15:26,800 --> 00:15:30,080
Speaker 3: I think I was still eleven turning twelve. But I

306
00:15:30,120 --> 00:15:32,360
Speaker 3: felt very much like I have to hide away all

307
00:15:32,400 --> 00:15:35,200
Speaker 3: my dolls and my childish books because you know, I've

308
00:15:35,240 --> 00:15:37,480
Speaker 3: got this mature teenager moving in with us, and so

309
00:15:38,200 --> 00:15:41,200
Speaker 3: I swapped my dolls for klor of posters of the

310
00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:44,240
Speaker 3: Bangles and things like that. You know, I feel like

311
00:15:44,280 --> 00:15:46,360
Speaker 3: I tried so hard to make it fun and to

312
00:15:46,400 --> 00:15:48,560
Speaker 3: make things okay for her. I felt like, this is

313
00:15:48,600 --> 00:15:50,360
Speaker 3: the worst thing in the world that has happened to you,

314
00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:52,720
Speaker 3: and I want it to be okay. I want this

315
00:15:52,760 --> 00:15:55,560
Speaker 3: to work out. I was very invested in having it

316
00:15:55,640 --> 00:15:59,120
Speaker 3: work out. But it didn't take long for things to

317
00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:01,600
Speaker 3: just get like a little bit unhinged and weird.

318
00:16:01,760 --> 00:16:05,000
Speaker 1: You know. I remember she started in my school.

319
00:16:05,080 --> 00:16:07,840
Speaker 3: She was the year ahead of me, and she quickly

320
00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:10,320
Speaker 3: made like a clique of friends, like the popular girls.

321
00:16:11,160 --> 00:16:14,360
Speaker 3: And I had this assumption that everything that had happened

322
00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:16,920
Speaker 3: with my dad would be a secret. We're not going

323
00:16:16,960 --> 00:16:19,200
Speaker 3: to tell people that, But one of the first things

324
00:16:19,200 --> 00:16:21,400
Speaker 3: she did was she told like all the girls she'd

325
00:16:21,400 --> 00:16:23,880
Speaker 3: made friends with at school that, you know, she was

326
00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:25,240
Speaker 3: a victim of sexual abuse.

327
00:16:25,560 --> 00:16:28,480
Speaker 1: And it was a little bit horrifying to.

328
00:16:28,440 --> 00:16:30,440
Speaker 3: Me, Like I didn't want the shame of people knowing

329
00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:31,840
Speaker 3: that was my dad who'd done that.

330
00:16:31,960 --> 00:16:33,480
Speaker 1: I didn't want people see me that way.

331
00:16:34,080 --> 00:16:36,360
Speaker 3: But also I could see that she was doing it

332
00:16:36,400 --> 00:16:39,280
Speaker 3: to be manipulative. I know that sounds harsh, but that

333
00:16:39,320 --> 00:16:41,840
Speaker 3: really was what it was. Like she was telling her

334
00:16:41,880 --> 00:16:46,480
Speaker 3: friends and kind of enjoying the attention, and she was saying, Oh,

335
00:16:46,520 --> 00:16:48,400
Speaker 3: everyone's been so nice to me, it's so great.

336
00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:49,760
Speaker 1: And then she told me.

337
00:16:49,760 --> 00:16:52,080
Speaker 3: A story that just felt really weird, and it was

338
00:16:52,520 --> 00:16:55,040
Speaker 3: kind of like a red flag for me. She told

339
00:16:55,120 --> 00:16:58,480
Speaker 3: me that a friend in school had heard her story

340
00:16:58,520 --> 00:17:00,720
Speaker 3: of abuse and had kind of comforted with their own

341
00:17:00,720 --> 00:17:04,359
Speaker 3: story of abuse, and this girl's mother had freaked out

342
00:17:04,359 --> 00:17:07,000
Speaker 3: and taken her to acologist to get a check up

343
00:17:07,359 --> 00:17:09,760
Speaker 3: and the ofcologist to confirm that this girl was still

344
00:17:09,760 --> 00:17:12,960
Speaker 3: a virgin. And Gail told me this story with the

345
00:17:13,040 --> 00:17:15,880
Speaker 3: kind of air of gloating, like, see, she wasn't for real,

346
00:17:15,960 --> 00:17:16,320
Speaker 3: like she.

347
00:17:16,200 --> 00:17:17,000
Speaker 1: Hadn't really done it.

348
00:17:17,000 --> 00:17:19,479
Speaker 3: With a man, and that story just like disturbed me

349
00:17:19,520 --> 00:17:24,320
Speaker 3: so much, and those moments of of antagonism and mistrust

350
00:17:24,440 --> 00:17:27,720
Speaker 3: just began to kind of grow and grow. Gail was

351
00:17:27,760 --> 00:17:30,200
Speaker 3: the kind of person who used to pull the energy

352
00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:33,160
Speaker 3: in the room, you know, no amount of attention ever

353
00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:36,480
Speaker 3: seemed enough, and she completely hogged my mother, so my

354
00:17:36,520 --> 00:17:39,640
Speaker 3: mother no longer felt available to me. I would come home,

355
00:17:39,720 --> 00:17:41,880
Speaker 3: you know, from school, and like maybe Gail had gotten

356
00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:44,240
Speaker 3: there before me, and Gail would be like pouring a

357
00:17:44,280 --> 00:17:47,560
Speaker 3: heart out to my mom about boys or friends or

358
00:17:47,600 --> 00:17:49,400
Speaker 3: haircuts or makeup or whatever was.

359
00:17:49,359 --> 00:17:50,280
Speaker 1: On her mind that day.

360
00:17:50,640 --> 00:17:53,440
Speaker 3: And I really felt resentful, like, oh, this is my mom,

361
00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:55,359
Speaker 3: but she hasn't got time for me or room for

362
00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:57,880
Speaker 3: me anymore. And so even though I had the best

363
00:17:57,960 --> 00:18:02,119
Speaker 3: intentions when Gail first moved in, it quickly soured and

364
00:18:02,200 --> 00:18:06,119
Speaker 3: became the antagonistic relationship we'd always kind of had, you know.

365
00:18:06,560 --> 00:18:08,840
Speaker 2: And how long was that period of time where she

366
00:18:08,920 --> 00:18:11,480
Speaker 2: lived with you and you were in school together and

367
00:18:11,720 --> 00:18:12,359
Speaker 2: living together.

368
00:18:13,080 --> 00:18:15,879
Speaker 3: She moved in with us in the early spring of

369
00:18:15,960 --> 00:18:19,480
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty seven, and I think by early nineteen eighty

370
00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:21,800
Speaker 3: eight she had kind of moved back into a children's

371
00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:23,640
Speaker 3: home so she wasn't with us for that long.

372
00:18:24,440 --> 00:18:27,040
Speaker 2: What precipitated her moving back into the children's home.

373
00:18:27,760 --> 00:18:29,720
Speaker 3: There was an incident that I really should tell you about.

374
00:18:30,320 --> 00:18:31,879
Speaker 3: There was a library book that I'd always wanted to

375
00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:33,520
Speaker 3: check out. I'd read all the Judy.

376
00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:35,399
Speaker 1: Bloom books, and there was one Judy Bloom book that

377
00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:38,560
Speaker 1: I was not allowed to read, called Forever, and.

378
00:18:38,480 --> 00:18:42,159
Speaker 3: The local librarian, who'd you know, she'd not permitted me

379
00:18:42,240 --> 00:18:44,439
Speaker 3: to check it out on a number of occasions. And

380
00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:46,639
Speaker 3: then one day I came home from school in that book,

381
00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:50,520
Speaker 3: Judy Blooms Forever had materialized on our kitchen counter, and

382
00:18:50,560 --> 00:18:52,520
Speaker 3: I was so excited, like, this is the one Judy

383
00:18:52,520 --> 00:18:55,760
Speaker 3: Bloom book I've not read, and so I, you know,

384
00:18:55,840 --> 00:18:58,879
Speaker 3: I started to read it, and I had so many questions.

385
00:18:58,960 --> 00:19:01,640
Speaker 3: You know, it was about this sexual relationship and there

386
00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:03,320
Speaker 3: was language in it that I didn't understand.

387
00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:05,920
Speaker 1: So I had conversation with.

388
00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:08,960
Speaker 3: Gail one night after lights were out, and I said

389
00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:10,520
Speaker 3: to her, you know, what does it mean, Like what

390
00:19:10,560 --> 00:19:14,840
Speaker 3: does this sexual reference mean? And she told me, well,

391
00:19:14,880 --> 00:19:17,399
Speaker 3: first of all, she said, I'm not allowed to tell you.

392
00:19:17,640 --> 00:19:20,000
Speaker 1: And I'm like, what do you mean? And she said, well,

393
00:19:20,280 --> 00:19:22,600
Speaker 1: my Mum's made me promise not to talk to you

394
00:19:22,640 --> 00:19:23,240
Speaker 1: about sex.

395
00:19:23,280 --> 00:19:26,200
Speaker 3: She said, you're still innocent, and I was sex so offended,

396
00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:28,680
Speaker 3: like I know all about it, even though obviously I didn't,

397
00:19:28,680 --> 00:19:31,879
Speaker 3: because I'm asking her questions. And so she goes on

398
00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:34,840
Speaker 3: to tell me what this sexual reference means, and she

399
00:19:34,920 --> 00:19:37,199
Speaker 3: tells me in such a way that she's kind of

400
00:19:37,200 --> 00:19:40,679
Speaker 3: bragging about it, and so I keep my voice neutral

401
00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:43,159
Speaker 3: as I ask the more questions, and she goes on

402
00:19:43,200 --> 00:19:46,359
Speaker 3: to say that what a great lover she is, and

403
00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:47,800
Speaker 3: that when she and my dad.

404
00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:50,119
Speaker 1: Were together, like what a great sexual partner she was.

405
00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:52,840
Speaker 3: And I am like so shocked by this because she's

406
00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:55,800
Speaker 3: been telling kids at school that she was raped and abused,

407
00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:59,120
Speaker 3: and now my dad, who's in prison, is apparently her

408
00:19:59,119 --> 00:20:02,199
Speaker 3: ex lover. And so I just I turn away and

409
00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:04,880
Speaker 3: pretend I'm sleepy, but I am so shocked to my call.

410
00:20:05,080 --> 00:20:08,199
Speaker 3: That is a moment when I'm truly shocked. I'm just

411
00:20:08,840 --> 00:20:12,240
Speaker 3: so confused by this information. I can feel my heart

412
00:20:12,240 --> 00:20:14,480
Speaker 3: beating as I tell you this. You know, it's it's

413
00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:20,840
Speaker 3: a difficult memory after that incident when she made this

414
00:20:20,920 --> 00:20:24,000
Speaker 3: weird confession to me about my dad being her lover,

415
00:20:24,359 --> 00:20:26,320
Speaker 3: and just not knowing what to make of it, Like

416
00:20:26,359 --> 00:20:28,359
Speaker 3: I still think my dad is a monster, but now

417
00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:30,679
Speaker 3: I kind of think she's a monster too. And so

418
00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:34,080
Speaker 3: after that, I really I stop trying, you know, I'd

419
00:20:34,119 --> 00:20:36,879
Speaker 3: tried so hard to make this a fun teenage like

420
00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:39,720
Speaker 3: hangout for her, and now I just stop trying completely,

421
00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:43,119
Speaker 3: and we get more antagonistic. And there's actually an incident

422
00:20:43,200 --> 00:20:46,000
Speaker 3: where we we have an argument about me being in

423
00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:48,040
Speaker 3: the bedroom first and trying to read my book and

424
00:20:48,080 --> 00:20:50,959
Speaker 3: she comes in and blasphem Adonna tape and so as

425
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:52,439
Speaker 3: I walk out of the room, I say to her,

426
00:20:52,480 --> 00:20:54,560
Speaker 3: you're such a bitch, and I turn her tape off,

427
00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:57,480
Speaker 3: and she follows me out of the room and at

428
00:20:57,480 --> 00:20:59,399
Speaker 3: the top of the stairs, I don't realize she's behind me,

429
00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:03,600
Speaker 3: but she'd pushes me down, and you know, I'm okay,

430
00:21:03,720 --> 00:21:06,600
Speaker 3: Like I have some bruises and carpet burns, but I

431
00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:09,440
Speaker 3: did manage to save myself. But when my mom comes

432
00:21:09,440 --> 00:21:11,520
Speaker 3: home from work that day, I don't hold back and

433
00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:13,400
Speaker 3: I just tell my mom like what Gail had done,

434
00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:14,440
Speaker 3: and my mom.

435
00:21:14,440 --> 00:21:15,479
Speaker 1: Just loses it.

436
00:21:15,600 --> 00:21:17,800
Speaker 3: She loses her cool and says, Gail, you could have

437
00:21:17,880 --> 00:21:19,560
Speaker 3: killed her, You could have broken her neck, you know

438
00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:20,359
Speaker 3: what possessed you.

439
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:22,680
Speaker 1: And Gail shows no remorse.

440
00:21:22,720 --> 00:21:25,239
Speaker 3: She just says, you know, Sasha's been a baby, like

441
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:29,199
Speaker 3: she's fine, Like what's the problem here. And it's this

442
00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:32,680
Speaker 3: moment when my mom sees Gail's moral indifference and I've

443
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:36,000
Speaker 3: already seen it, so I'm not surprised anymore. I'm just disgusted.

444
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:38,399
Speaker 3: But my mom that is the final straw. And so

445
00:21:38,480 --> 00:21:39,840
Speaker 3: my mom.

446
00:21:39,640 --> 00:21:41,520
Speaker 1: Calls social services.

447
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:43,560
Speaker 3: And you know, the arrangements are made and Gail actually

448
00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:44,800
Speaker 3: goes back to a children's home.

449
00:21:45,560 --> 00:21:47,639
Speaker 2: That's such a powerful phrase, moral indifference.

450
00:21:48,480 --> 00:21:53,480
Speaker 3: Yeah, girl is fourteen at this point, almost fourteen, but

451
00:21:53,560 --> 00:21:55,439
Speaker 3: she did seem very morally indifferent to me.

452
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:59,359
Speaker 1: You know, she would change her story and not care, like.

453
00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:02,640
Speaker 3: She really didn't care about me, and I stopped caring

454
00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:05,680
Speaker 3: about her. It feels so ugly to say all this.

455
00:22:05,960 --> 00:22:09,080
Speaker 3: I'm very conscious that she's a mixed up kid who

456
00:22:09,200 --> 00:22:12,399
Speaker 3: has been abused, and I'm sitting here judging her. But

457
00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:14,320
Speaker 3: it's actually like a lot of therapy that I went

458
00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:17,160
Speaker 3: through and I don't feel that judgment anymore.

459
00:22:17,240 --> 00:22:20,320
Speaker 1: Is something I felt for a long time, kind of secretly,

460
00:22:20,400 --> 00:22:22,600
Speaker 1: that i'd kind of pushed down. I just pushed down

461
00:22:22,640 --> 00:22:23,639
Speaker 1: all of this, to be honest.

462
00:22:23,880 --> 00:22:26,840
Speaker 2: And when you say judgment, you mean judgment of yourself.

463
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:27,840
Speaker 2: Is that what you mean?

464
00:22:29,119 --> 00:22:31,560
Speaker 1: I feel like there's me judging myself for judging her.

465
00:22:32,240 --> 00:22:35,879
Speaker 3: When Gail left us, dug didn't really have any He

466
00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:38,720
Speaker 3: didn't show any emotions about it at all. It was weird,

467
00:22:39,080 --> 00:22:41,240
Speaker 3: you know, but he kind of washed her hands of her.

468
00:22:42,080 --> 00:22:44,280
Speaker 3: Gail's mom, Lorraine had washed her hands of her.

469
00:22:44,640 --> 00:22:45,679
Speaker 1: And after Gail.

470
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:49,399
Speaker 3: Goes into a children's home for a second time for

471
00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:53,199
Speaker 3: a final time, we find out that my dad is

472
00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:55,480
Speaker 3: out of prison. He's only been in prison for eighteen

473
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:58,919
Speaker 3: months of a three year sentence, and to people in

474
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:02,359
Speaker 3: the twenty first century, that sounds so shocking, but it

475
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:05,760
Speaker 3: really goes to show how this crime was not taken

476
00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 3: that seriously in the nineteen eighties. So my dad gets

477
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 3: out for good behavior and we found out it's a

478
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:15,520
Speaker 3: real scandal. But Lorraine has taken my dad back. They

479
00:23:15,560 --> 00:23:19,679
Speaker 3: have gotten back together. And what's more, Lorraine's pregnant. She

480
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:23,320
Speaker 3: immediately gets pregnant in nineteen eighty eight, and she has

481
00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:28,479
Speaker 3: my half sister, Charlie in late nineteen eighty eight, and

482
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:32,840
Speaker 3: it's followed a year later by another child in quick succession.

483
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:37,720
Speaker 3: It's very uncomfortable to go visit them, but Lorain is

484
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:41,240
Speaker 3: acting like it's all okay, and so I kind of

485
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 3: accept that. Well, maybe it is okay, and I can't

486
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 3: make sense of that. But there's something about this. It's like, well,

487
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:48,200
Speaker 3: he is my dad and Lorraine's forgiven him, so maybe

488
00:23:48,200 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 3: I can go and see my new sister. And so

489
00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:54,400
Speaker 3: I see them twice. I think over the next couple

490
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:58,439
Speaker 3: of years. I visit when Charlie is about one, and

491
00:23:58,440 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 3: then I visit again when Charlie is.

492
00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:25,520
Speaker 2: About We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets.

493
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:30,880
Speaker 2: Sasha heads to university and brings her secrets with her.

494
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:34,440
Speaker 2: As we do, she stuffs them down and carries them,

495
00:24:34,440 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 2: but they don't go away. They're alive in her body,

496
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:43,160
Speaker 2: alive in her psyche. They don't disappear. And yet Sasha

497
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:47,879
Speaker 2: isn't pulled under because she discovers reading, and she discovers

498
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:52,840
Speaker 2: herself in literature and in exploring the minds, hearts and

499
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:54,919
Speaker 2: souls of others on the page.

500
00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 3: I would use books to make sense of so many things.

501
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,639
Speaker 3: The time my dad and Lorraine got back together and

502
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:05,679
Speaker 3: started having babies. My mum had become a Jehovah's witness,

503
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:08,720
Speaker 3: and that was something that was very present for me.

504
00:25:08,800 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 1: For a couple of years.

505
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:12,320
Speaker 3: I had to study with the Jehovah's witnesses too, and

506
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 3: I would eventually pull away. And what empowered me to

507
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 3: do so was being a reader, just reading George Orwell

508
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:20,919
Speaker 3: and jam Paul Sartre, and these are the books that

509
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 3: made me think, maybe my personal freedom is kind of important.

510
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:26,960
Speaker 3: So I definitely decided not to be a Jehovah's witness

511
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 3: because of reading. And one thing I will say is

512
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 3: that I remember in my teen years. I hit sixteen

513
00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:38,800
Speaker 3: and I found a copy of Loalita by Vladimir Nabakov

514
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 3: in a thrift store, in a charity shop in England,

515
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:44,720
Speaker 3: and I remember reading this book and it's a story

516
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 3: of a young woman, Dolores Hayes, who kind of seduces

517
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,200
Speaker 3: her stepfather and it's such.

518
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 1: A weird scene, you know, like Loalita makes the first

519
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:56,840
Speaker 1: move on Humbert.

520
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 3: And I'd never read a story that actually maybe described

521
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 3: something that had actually happened in my family too.

522
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,679
Speaker 1: So literature was definitely the lifeline.

523
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,560
Speaker 3: It's how I tried to make sense of this really

524
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 3: weird family story that I never thought I.

525
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 1: Could talk about.

526
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:14,399
Speaker 3: And of course it's so complicated because Dolores Hayes is

527
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:19,359
Speaker 3: also this victim who dies tragically. There are no happy endings,

528
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:21,199
Speaker 3: so you know, that's how it kind of felt. But

529
00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:23,200
Speaker 3: literature gave me a means to kind of like make

530
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:25,840
Speaker 3: sense of what I couldn't speak about in my own family.

531
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 3: So I was always reading and always finding escape, definitely,

532
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:34,880
Speaker 3: but also understanding that life is so complex and so weird,

533
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,920
Speaker 3: and it's like, I may not know anyone else who's

534
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 3: had this happen in her life, but I've read about

535
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 3: it in a book, and so it can't just be us.

536
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 2: When Sasha's twenty three, she visits her dad, Lorraine, and Charlie,

537
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:53,680
Speaker 2: who's now around twelve. She also has a half brother Nick.

538
00:26:54,400 --> 00:26:58,320
Speaker 2: It's been a long time, perhaps long enough for things

539
00:26:58,359 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 2: to have changed. We can always hope, and sometimes that

540
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:04,199
Speaker 2: hope is heartbreaking.

541
00:27:06,200 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 3: I think I'm prompted by a boyfriend who his that

542
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 3: I've been estranged from my father for a really long time,

543
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 3: and I really don't remember how the reconnection happened, but

544
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 3: I was like, well, sure, like I can be curious and.

545
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:23,080
Speaker 1: Go see them. You know, what's past is passed.

546
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 3: And I think a part of me was pleased that

547
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 3: my dad and Lorraine had made it work, you know,

548
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:31,920
Speaker 3: like maybe it's okay, Maybe my dad's a reformed character.

549
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 3: I had all these thoughts going on in my head,

550
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:37,400
Speaker 3: and so I went to see them in nineteen ninety eight.

551
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:41,359
Speaker 1: I was a graduate. I was twenty three, and my dad.

552
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:43,919
Speaker 3: Picked me up from the train station, and as we

553
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 3: drove to the family, he gave me this lecture about

554
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 3: what a great guy he was and how his wife

555
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 3: was wonderful and if Lorraine ever turned her back on him,

556
00:27:53,960 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 3: he would be a lost man.

557
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: That you know, she'd forgiven him so much.

558
00:27:58,119 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 3: You know, he gave me this pep talk, But it

559
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 3: also felt like a warning in a way, like you know,

560
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:04,919
Speaker 3: you're not meant to talk about this in front of

561
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:07,879
Speaker 3: the kids, right, And I just kind of sensed that, like, Okay,

562
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,159
Speaker 3: I don't know what these kids know. I don't know

563
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 3: if Aimon remembers his older sister, and the fact that

564
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 3: I'd not been part of their lives felt very deliberate,

565
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 3: because you know, I was this witness to all that

566
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 3: had happened, Like maybe Aimon was too young to remember,

567
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 3: but I remembered Gail, and I knew what had happened,

568
00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 3: and so I always felt like an unwanted guest with them,

569
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 3: even though I'd seen them a few times. It was like, well,

570
00:28:28,880 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 3: you can see is, but you can't get too close,

571
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:31,680
Speaker 3: if that makes sense.

572
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. And also there's Charlie, who you don't know whether

573
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 2: she even knows about Girl's existence, right, I mean, Girl's

574
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 2: been in a way kind of written out of the story.

575
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:47,760
Speaker 1: She has been written out of the story.

576
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 3: And I'm pretty sure that at least two of the kids,

577
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 3: Nick and Charlie do not know they'd have a half sister.

578
00:28:55,640 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does not go well. Sasha's father displays his

579
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 2: true colors pretty quickly and flies into a rage. This

580
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 2: reminds Sasha that perhaps estrangement is for the best after all.

581
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:15,760
Speaker 2: But some good does come from the visit. She connects

582
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 2: with her half sister, Charlie.

583
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 3: She's kind of like a version of me, you know,

584
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 3: like there's something between the two of us.

585
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:24,120
Speaker 1: We just connect and clerk.

586
00:29:24,160 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 3: Even though I'm twelve years hes senior, and so I'm

587
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 3: a school librarian at this point in my life back

588
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 3: in Manchester and I sent her books and I've become

589
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 3: her pempal, and we writes.

590
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: To each other for the next three years.

591
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 3: And she's so charming and lovely, and I am so

592
00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 3: sure that she has no idea what's going on. You know,

593
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 3: what's happened before she was born. And there comes a

594
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 3: point I go on a vacation swiftly with my boyfriend

595
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 3: at the time, and I send her a postcard, and

596
00:29:49,360 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 3: this postcard really touches a nerve and she writes back

597
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 3: and she says, you know, Sasha, you can go on vacation,

598
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 3: but you never come see us. And you know Amon

599
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 3: had gotten married and you never came to his wedding.

600
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:02,680
Speaker 3: And I don't know how to reply to this letter,

601
00:30:02,800 --> 00:30:05,480
Speaker 3: like she's so annoyed at me. She's a teenager now,

602
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 3: and I don't know what to say to her. I

603
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 3: can't say to her, you know, your parents have this

604
00:30:09,920 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 3: secret that they're hiding from you guys, that happened before

605
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:15,120
Speaker 3: you were born. Like I don't know what she knows.

606
00:30:15,160 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 3: I don't know what they told her. And so I

607
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 3: just I realized I have to kind of be estranged

608
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:22,520
Speaker 3: from my half sister as well, even though it pains

609
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 3: me so much, and so I basically write to her

610
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 3: and very vaguely say, look, I wasn't invited to that wedding.

611
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: That's why I wasn't there.

612
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 3: And I don't really got on with Dad, but I

613
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 3: will always be there for you in some way if

614
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 3: I can be. And it's kind of like a goodbye letter,

615
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 3: and I know it is because shortly afterwards, my dad

616
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 3: actually writes me a letter saying, you know, I can't

617
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 3: believe you wrote this venomous letter to your sister, like.

618
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:48,520
Speaker 1: How dare you?

619
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:51,840
Speaker 3: And the fact that that's what my dad thinks of me.

620
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:54,480
Speaker 3: It just discussed me and I hate him so much

621
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 3: and I'm just done. At that point, I decided to

622
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 3: kind of like divorce my dad in a way, even

623
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:02,440
Speaker 3: changed my name shortly afterwards, so I don't have his

624
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 3: surname anymore. And unfortunately that's the end of me and

625
00:31:06,440 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 3: Charlie for a number of years.

626
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 2: During those next years, another relationship begins. Sasha meets Ted,

627
00:31:15,760 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 2: a fellow cartoonist, and it becomes clear to her very

628
00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:23,880
Speaker 2: soon that Ted is her person. He's someone she can trust.

629
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 3: I meet Ted in late two thousand and four, and

630
00:31:27,600 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 3: by two thousand and five it's kind.

631
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:30,959
Speaker 1: Of obvious that we are meant to be together.

632
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 3: So I visit him in the United States and we

633
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:37,000
Speaker 3: go on this road trip from Saint Louis to Chicago,

634
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 3: and I know that he is my person and not

635
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 3: going to get married, and I feel like I really

636
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 3: need to tell him and get this off my chest.

637
00:31:43,600 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 3: I've told him everything else about my life, but I've

638
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 3: not told him about my real father. So I tell

639
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 3: him this family history about Lorraine and my dad and

640
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 3: Gail and what happened and how Lorrain and my dad

641
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 3: got together again and had children, and how I just

642
00:31:58,320 --> 00:31:59,120
Speaker 3: have this history.

643
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: And I told him about Gail.

644
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 3: I didn't tell him about the sexual abuse with Gail,

645
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 3: but I told him about Gail coming to live with

646
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 3: us and being abusive. And my husband's response is just

647
00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:11,479
Speaker 3: pure love, Like he's just so sorry that I had

648
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:14,080
Speaker 3: to carry all lot as a kid and as a

649
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 3: young person, and I'm like, it doesn't matter, like it's

650
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 3: in the past, is behind me, Like America feels like

651
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 3: this whole new start, and actually my story just telling

652
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:25,720
Speaker 3: you this just feels so much lighter in my chest, Like, oh,

653
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 3: it's so good to be past all that old stuff

654
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 3: that baggage that I don't have to carry to my

655
00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 3: new life in America.

656
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 1: So yeah, I really feel like I get past my

657
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 1: past and I'm happy, you know, like I have a

658
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:36,480
Speaker 1: good life.

659
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 3: I work hard, I kind of enjoy, kind of let

660
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 3: the people around me. I work on making comics and

661
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 3: being a graphic novelist, and everything's going right, at least

662
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:46,600
Speaker 3: for a couple of years, you know.

663
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, First of all, I love that you instinctively chose

664
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:53,800
Speaker 2: a road trip and a car to unburden yourself, to

665
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 2: tell him the whole story, or most of the story.

666
00:32:56,800 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 2: There's something about cars that are just like confessionals. You know,

667
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 2: you're driving along the other person can't get out. The

668
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 2: world is kind of you know, you're speeding by in

669
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 2: a blur, but you're in this like really intimate little

670
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 2: confessional bubble.

671
00:33:09,920 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 3: Right, And imagine also, all the events of my childhood

672
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:15,360
Speaker 3: took place under these grace guys of Manchester where it

673
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,560
Speaker 3: always rains. And suddenly I'm like driving through cornfields and

674
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:20,720
Speaker 3: the sky is blue, and I just feel so far

675
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 3: from where I started, you know, like geographically, just everything

676
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 3: feels different, like life isn't technical, and.

677
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:29,520
Speaker 1: Now that's how it felt.

678
00:33:30,760 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 2: It's now years into what Sasha describes as her shiny

679
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 2: American life. She's married Ted and the couple has a daughter.

680
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 2: Via Sasha's first graphic novel is published, It's a Good, Rich,

681
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 2: Shiny Time. And then in twenty twelve, Sasha gets a

682
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:51,760
Speaker 2: letter from Charlie out of the blue.

683
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 1: She actually finds me through my Etsy store.

684
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:57,520
Speaker 3: And I've not been easy to find right because I've

685
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 3: changed my name legally and I've switched on. But she

686
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:03,440
Speaker 3: remembered that I made comics, and she remembered the name

687
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 3: of which I made comics, and she found them on Etsy.

688
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:08,680
Speaker 3: So I got a message from her saying, is this you?

689
00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:12,320
Speaker 3: This is me Charlie, And we struck up an instant friendship,

690
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:15,239
Speaker 3: picking up where we left off, and we skype and

691
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 3: we write emails and it's wonderful, like she's grown up

692
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 3: into a really beautiful young woman, Like I'm.

693
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:22,719
Speaker 1: So proud to know her and proud that she's my

694
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 1: half sister.

695
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 3: And what I noticed straight off the bat is that

696
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:29,480
Speaker 3: she's not talking about my dad, like where is he?

697
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:31,359
Speaker 3: And for a moment, I think, well, maybe he's dead

698
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 3: and that's why she's contacting me, But she goes on

699
00:34:34,440 --> 00:34:36,400
Speaker 3: to tell me that she knows some things about my

700
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 3: dad now that she didn't know back then. And furthermore,

701
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 3: he has left Lorraine. It turns out that around the

702
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:48,000
Speaker 3: same time Lorraine was pregnant with Nick, another woman was

703
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,319
Speaker 3: also pregnant with my father's child, a Spanish lady, and

704
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:53,960
Speaker 3: my dad has like left Lorraine to go be with

705
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 3: his son and his former girlfriend, his former mistress in Spain.

706
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 3: So it's a real chuck, and it's also like confirmation,

707
00:35:03,200 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 3: like I knew this man was a piece of crap,

708
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:08,320
Speaker 3: and this has just confirmed it. And I'm so delighted

709
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 3: to have my half sister back in my life. I'm

710
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:13,320
Speaker 3: really happy to have this validation that I did the

711
00:35:13,400 --> 00:35:16,839
Speaker 3: right thing in getting estranged from my father. But it's

712
00:35:16,840 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 3: also a time when Lorraine kind of enters my life

713
00:35:20,040 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 3: as well. Lorrain is a spurned woman and she spends

714
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:26,239
Speaker 3: her time now stalking my dad like on Facebook and

715
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 3: looking up pictures of him in Spain, like happy with

716
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 3: this new woman, And she kind of calls me on

717
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:33,080
Speaker 3: the phone and she tells me this stuff, and it

718
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 3: really feels like this past that I've really tried hard

719
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 3: to move away from, like physically, you know, and geographically

720
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 3: it's kind of back, like the baggage just back. So

721
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:45,800
Speaker 3: even though I'm happy to have Charlie back, it feels

722
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 3: like this family story has kind of come back to

723
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 3: haunt me a little bit, and it really coincides with

724
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 3: the beginning of this growing anxiety that I just find

725
00:35:53,280 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 3: I'm not able to shake.

726
00:36:01,800 --> 00:36:25,600
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. William Faulkner once wrote, the past

727
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:30,800
Speaker 2: is never dead, it's not even past. In many ways,

728
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 2: this applies to Sasha's experience when she's around forty and

729
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 2: the past returns. The secret does not behave or remains silent.

730
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 2: It's like a slumbering giant waking up, and when it

731
00:36:43,680 --> 00:36:47,319
Speaker 2: wakes up, it does so in the form of terrible anxiety.

732
00:36:48,239 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 2: Sasha develops acne, a symptom of what's going on inside emotionally.

733
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:58,759
Speaker 2: To ease the stress, she tries yoga, acupuncture, meditation, but

734
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 2: nothing is working. There's an unconscious symmetry at work. Sasha's

735
00:37:04,560 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 2: daughter is about seven, very close in age to when

736
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:10,439
Speaker 2: Sasha's own life had been turned upside down.

737
00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:13,840
Speaker 3: It took me a while to make the connection between

738
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 3: my acne and my anxiety. It was my acupuncturist who

739
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:19,480
Speaker 3: pointed it out to me, and he was so honest

740
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 3: with me. He said, look, I think we've gone as

741
00:37:21,239 --> 00:37:23,399
Speaker 3: far as we can go, and the next step will

742
00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 3: be therapy because it's obviously like an emotional healing that

743
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,040
Speaker 3: is what you need, it's not a physical thing. His

744
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:32,319
Speaker 3: honesty was such a gift to me because I really

745
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,040
Speaker 3: did need that emotional healing and it was actually through

746
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 3: his influence that I was trying meditation, and I would

747
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:40,920
Speaker 3: you know, I found meditation so hard. I mean it

748
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 3: makes you ache, Your back hurts, you know, your bum hurts,

749
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 3: and it's so boring. And then when you finally get

750
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 3: quiet enough, I would just start crying. You know this

751
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 3: this pain was coming up. It's because my daughter is

752
00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 3: the same age as me. When my life just like

753
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 3: began to fall apart, you know, my childhood really took

754
00:37:56,760 --> 00:37:59,799
Speaker 3: a tone for the dark. So I was grateful that

755
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 3: I had support to make that connection. And then the

756
00:38:04,680 --> 00:38:07,479
Speaker 3: accupunturist actually pointed me to a therapist here in Saint

757
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:11,360
Speaker 3: Louis where I would begin excavating and doing this self

758
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:16,000
Speaker 3: reckoning in therapy that would actually bring light to all

759
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:17,799
Speaker 3: this darkness as well.

760
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: As the you know, the acne and the anxiety.

761
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:23,360
Speaker 3: I was also having nightmares, like every night, you know,

762
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 3: I would go to bed and have dreams where I'd

763
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:27,840
Speaker 3: either wake up in panic and able to breathe, or

764
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 3: I'd find like mangled girls and car crashes, or I'd

765
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,880
Speaker 3: be lost in dark cities or just in complete darkness.

766
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:37,279
Speaker 3: My dreams were so frightening that I knew there was

767
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 3: something wrong, and I knew that I had to start

768
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 3: talking to someone, start asking for help. And I come

769
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:45,239
Speaker 3: from a culture, come from England, where we don't go

770
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 3: to therapy, you know, we go to the football. We

771
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:49,399
Speaker 3: go to see the football. It's not a culture where

772
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 3: you ask for help.

773
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 1: We have a stuff up alp, you know.

774
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 3: So I had a lot of biases to overcome before

775
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 3: I could go to therapy, but I'm so glad I did.

776
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:02,160
Speaker 2: So you'll go see Chris, your therapist, and in your

777
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:04,960
Speaker 2: first session, I was struck by this. I think it's

778
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:08,080
Speaker 2: something that happens a lot in therapy, which is that

779
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:11,919
Speaker 2: you tell him a lot, You spill out a lot

780
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:15,880
Speaker 2: of your story, but you don't tell him the quote

781
00:39:15,920 --> 00:39:18,879
Speaker 2: unquote worst thing, right, You don't tell him the thing

782
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 2: that you also didn't tell ted. You don't tell him

783
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:28,319
Speaker 2: about the molestation that Gail perpetrated on you.

784
00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:31,480
Speaker 3: Yeah. I remember being in that first session and I

785
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 3: was telling him this crazy family history with these two

786
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:38,680
Speaker 3: weird couples who swapped fathers, and then everything that happened

787
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:41,320
Speaker 3: with Gail. Just everything sounded like a bad soap opera.

788
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 1: You know, it's just too much.

789
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:45,399
Speaker 3: And there was a small voice inside me saying, tell

790
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:47,600
Speaker 3: him about the other thing too, But I just couldn't

791
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:49,840
Speaker 3: do it, you know, I was too embarrassed, like I

792
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:51,919
Speaker 3: don't know this guy, Like I've only just met him

793
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 3: and he's a man, and I'm going to tell him

794
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 3: the darkest secret that I've never told anybody, literally, never

795
00:39:57,200 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 3: told anybody. And there was another voice in my head

796
00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:02,480
Speaker 3: that said, and besides, it doesn't matter. It was just

797
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 3: a stupid kid game, like just forget it, forget it,

798
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 3: forget it. And that had been the dueling voice throughout

799
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:10,719
Speaker 3: the years. You know that I'd pushed this dock his

800
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:12,839
Speaker 3: secret down.

801
00:40:15,400 --> 00:40:18,399
Speaker 2: Early on in their work together, Chris tells Sasha about

802
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:23,760
Speaker 2: a therapeutic system called internal family systems or ifs for short.

803
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 2: It doesn't really resonate with Sasha At first, she's suspicious

804
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:32,320
Speaker 2: about therapy and whether it can help her. There's something

805
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 2: called parts work, which seems silly, the idea that were

806
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:40,160
Speaker 2: made up of different parts and that accessing them can

807
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 2: be useful, even healing. So she's resistant, but there's also

808
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 2: trust building between Chris and Sasha. At the same time,

809
00:40:51,760 --> 00:40:55,799
Speaker 2: the Me Too movement has just exploded into being, and

810
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 2: this is triggering to Sasha. The abuse that had happened

811
00:40:59,520 --> 00:41:02,560
Speaker 2: when she was eight years old doesn't fall into any

812
00:41:02,600 --> 00:41:05,840
Speaker 2: of the typical me too narratives, and she doesn't know

813
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 2: what to do with it. The past roars back into

814
00:41:09,200 --> 00:41:13,279
Speaker 2: the present. Sasha comes into a session after having had

815
00:41:13,320 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 2: a very disturbing dream.

816
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 3: I have a nightmare that I go into my daughter's

817
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 3: room to check on her, and she's okay, And when

818
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:22,359
Speaker 3: I go back to my bed, there's a little girl

819
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:24,320
Speaker 3: in the bed and I'm mo lest I dream this

820
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 3: and I'm so disturbed by it.

821
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:28,000
Speaker 1: And suddenly I just fall apart.

822
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 3: Like I hold my life together enough to take my

823
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 3: kid to school, and then on the way home, I

824
00:41:33,280 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 3: just like cry all the way and I can't wait

825
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:37,360
Speaker 3: for therapists to roll around because I know that I

826
00:41:37,400 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 3: finally have to tell my therapist Chris this component of

827
00:41:41,239 --> 00:41:43,759
Speaker 3: my story that I've not told anyone. And when I

828
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 3: do tell him, he's never seen me falling apart like

829
00:41:48,120 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 3: that before. He's never seen me weeping and shaking, you know.

830
00:41:51,200 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 3: But I'm just so disturbed by the past that all

831
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 3: of a sudden wants to come out, you know. And

832
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 3: when I tell him this secret about Gail's molestation of

833
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:04,120
Speaker 3: me as children, the first thing he says is like,

834
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 3: you're not the first. There are many kids this happens too.

835
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:10,760
Speaker 3: And he even suggests it's possible that Gail was abused

836
00:42:10,800 --> 00:42:13,800
Speaker 3: before my father came along, that maybe she was acting

837
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 3: out things on me like a younger kid, to regain

838
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 3: some kind of power that is obviously unknowable. But for

839
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 3: the first time it gave me like a feeling of

840
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:24,239
Speaker 3: like empathy, like oh wow, Like that's not even something

841
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:26,280
Speaker 3: I could have considered that could have happened to Gail,

842
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:29,960
Speaker 3: you know. And so this very difficult story comes up,

843
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:33,239
Speaker 3: and it's like in that session, Chris offers me the

844
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 3: keys to healing it. He says to me, you know

845
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:39,520
Speaker 3: that that eight year old part of you that's feeling

846
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:42,280
Speaker 3: this pain, now, you know, how to parent it because

847
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 3: you're a wonderful parents. You are on daughter Verra, so

848
00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:47,600
Speaker 3: you can take that same love, that same ferocious love,

849
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 3: and you can give it to that kid.

850
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 1: Part of you.

851
00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 3: And in that moment, like this IFS therapy, which had

852
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 3: rejected previously, it started to make sense, like, Yeah, I

853
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 3: am a good mother and I am a good person,

854
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 3: and I can give myself that care and compassion. This

855
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:05,840
Speaker 3: was like an youth way forward. And it began with

856
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:08,640
Speaker 3: the hardest thing that I ever had to tell him.

857
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like something clicked. And you then begin this

858
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 2: three month project of writing everything that comes to mind,

859
00:43:18,600 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 2: everything that you think, everything you remember, and filling up notebooks,

860
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 2: sort of addressing, as you put it, this little ghost child,

861
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 2: and just being in communication with her with this, you know,

862
00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:34,240
Speaker 2: eight year old Sasha.

863
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,600
Speaker 1: You know, Danny, It's funny because I'm a writer.

864
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 3: You know, I've written graphic novels and I've written personal

865
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 3: stories before, and yet I feel that there's a way

866
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 3: that you can recount things without actually feeling the emotions

867
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 3: attached to them. And I feel that as a writer.

868
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:53,000
Speaker 3: That's previously what I've done in my earlier books. But

869
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:55,239
Speaker 3: when I wrote in these composition books, the story of

870
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 3: my childhood and everything I remembered, and I would piece

871
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:02,239
Speaker 3: together like the timeline from what pop songs I could

872
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:03,200
Speaker 3: remember on the radio.

873
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 1: It just went so deep. It was this huge excavation,

874
00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:07,360
Speaker 1: and for the first.

875
00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:10,360
Speaker 3: Time, I was feeling every single feeling that that kid

876
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 3: never felt safe enough to feel or didn't know how

877
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 3: to express. And it was so painful. I would get

878
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 3: up at like five thirty in the morning and like

879
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:21,720
Speaker 3: write for like forty minutes and then spend twenty minutes weeping.

880
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 3: And it took me three months to write my childhood

881
00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 3: from beginning to end, and it broke something open in me.

882
00:44:28,960 --> 00:44:31,880
Speaker 3: I was a different person in therapy after that. My

883
00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 3: vulnerability was right there on the surface, but it was

884
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 3: no longer something that felt like weakness. It was something

885
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:40,839
Speaker 3: that felt like I can connect now because I'm in

886
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 3: touch with the deepest pain.

887
00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 2: During this time, Sasha is unpacking boxes of books at

888
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 2: the library and a book literally falls into her hands.

889
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 2: It's a book about internal family systems.

890
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 1: It's not only a book about intil family systems.

891
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:02,840
Speaker 3: It's a book on how to draw your parts and

892
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 3: use creativity to work with your parts. It's like, oh wow,

893
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 3: this book is not only about IFS, it's talking my

894
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:11,880
Speaker 3: love language. And so I set about drawing my parts

895
00:45:12,200 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 3: and a representation of self. And I took this to

896
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 3: my therapist and Chris just nerded out, like finally I

897
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:20,120
Speaker 3: was coming around in his way of seeing the world,

898
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:22,800
Speaker 3: you know, And yeah, it began my IFS journey.

899
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:27,319
Speaker 1: When you have a childhood that's like difficult, or you're neglected.

900
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:31,239
Speaker 3: Or abused or just not seen, children will invariably take

901
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:33,840
Speaker 3: on this idea that this is my responsibility, somehow, this

902
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 3: is my fault, and you will take on coping strategies

903
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 3: to deal with that stressful family life. And IFS calls

904
00:45:40,160 --> 00:45:43,880
Speaker 3: those coping strategies parts, and they can manifest.

905
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:45,320
Speaker 1: As protective parts.

906
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:47,920
Speaker 3: So it may be a part that manages how you

907
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:50,360
Speaker 3: appear to the world like a perfectionist, like I can't

908
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:52,799
Speaker 3: mess up because you know, I need to sort of

909
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 3: protect the vulnerabilities in me. I can't have people getting

910
00:45:55,160 --> 00:45:58,440
Speaker 3: mad at me because then the vulnerability inside me.

911
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 1: Will get triggered. So IFS has.

912
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 3: Components, like different kinds of parts, and what you do

913
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:06,880
Speaker 3: is you bring those parts into awareness with your therapist

914
00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:09,800
Speaker 3: and you discover their backstory, and once you have this

915
00:46:11,200 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 3: awareness of the part and how it came into being,

916
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:17,160
Speaker 3: you can kind of connect with your core self. It's

917
00:46:17,200 --> 00:46:21,880
Speaker 3: when you feel those qualities maybe of compassion or calm

918
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:25,239
Speaker 3: or courage. Those are aspects of our core self that

919
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 3: is not damaged by trauma. And when we bring in

920
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:32,040
Speaker 3: our imaginations together self that we feel in our bodies

921
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:34,840
Speaker 3: and the story of our parts, we can begin to

922
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 3: unburden them. It sounds a little bit woo woo, but

923
00:46:37,600 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 3: the experience of it is that you get to know

924
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:41,799
Speaker 3: yourself so well, and you get to know your own

925
00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:44,680
Speaker 3: story really well, and you get to pull on this

926
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:48,440
Speaker 3: inner resource of your own human heart. When you practice

927
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:52,320
Speaker 3: it with a good therapist, it can be incredibly, incredibly powerful.

928
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 3: And that was my experience of ifs.

929
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 2: Social works effectively with Chris. While she really likes him

930
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 2: and trusts him, at the same time, she has a

931
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 2: feeling that maybe she needs to see a female therapist

932
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:12,800
Speaker 2: to work through some of her mother's stuff. She worries

933
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 2: that this is a betrayal, but her desire to grow

934
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 2: and heal outweighs those worries. She starts seeing a new

935
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:25,080
Speaker 2: therapist named Sally, and Asasha writes, the silent parts began

936
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 2: to speak. Sally works with Sasha in a way that

937
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:33,920
Speaker 2: begins to unlock what is known in IFS as legacy burdens.

938
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:37,360
Speaker 2: She begins to explore the links between what happened to

939
00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:41,160
Speaker 2: her mother, her grandmother, her great grandmother, and the entire

940
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:44,719
Speaker 2: chain of female ancestors who came before her, and the

941
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 2: generational trauma she had inherited. The woman who had been

942
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:53,400
Speaker 2: highly suspicious of therapy now has nerded out. She wants

943
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 2: more and more and more.

944
00:47:56,680 --> 00:47:59,399
Speaker 3: So I start seeing Sally and we do nine months

945
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:02,960
Speaker 3: survive as together, which wasn't my intention when I set out,

946
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 3: but the symbolic number of nine months, it really did

947
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 3: feel like a birth. And with her therapy immediately is

948
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 3: kind of different. She relates to me as a woman,

949
00:48:11,560 --> 00:48:13,600
Speaker 3: and she relates to me as a mother, and that's

950
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:15,720
Speaker 3: the territory we end up exploring together.

951
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 1: So there was another family secret that I.

952
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:20,160
Speaker 3: Knew about and I didn't really know what to do with,

953
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:23,320
Speaker 3: is that my mother, when she was thirteen was raped

954
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 3: by a family member, and she had kept that head

955
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 3: in her whole life, and I think it had kind

956
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:31,279
Speaker 3: of shaped her decisions like of joining a church and

957
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:35,600
Speaker 3: becoming religious. I had lots of ideas about what happened

958
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 3: to her. I'd never really connected with empathy for her.

959
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:41,839
Speaker 3: There was numbness there rather than feeling, you know, like

960
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:43,840
Speaker 3: the true depth of feeling that my mum as a

961
00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:47,560
Speaker 3: child had been so deeply wounded, you know. And so

962
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 3: in therapy with Sally we kind of explore this. And

963
00:48:51,680 --> 00:48:55,319
Speaker 3: the thing is, I'm feeling so much stronger than the

964
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 3: twenty seventeen me who had entered therapy. You know, there

965
00:48:58,160 --> 00:48:59,560
Speaker 3: was this room for curiosity.

966
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:01,799
Speaker 1: Now, why was my childhood like it was?

967
00:49:01,840 --> 00:49:03,839
Speaker 3: Why did my mom make the decisions that she made?

968
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 3: And this is what we explore together. And the fact

969
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:09,840
Speaker 3: that my mother's rape comes up very strongly around the

970
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:15,840
Speaker 3: time of Breck Cavanaugh's confirmation hearings. So Christine Blazyford is

971
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:18,600
Speaker 3: testifying against Breck Havanah and what happened to her as

972
00:49:18,640 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 3: a fifteen year old. And I watched that and I

973
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 3: really kind of connect with Christine blazeyfod talking about she's

974
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:28,399
Speaker 3: actually speaking for the fifteen year old part of herself, right,

975
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:30,480
Speaker 3: And I can see that thirteen year old part of

976
00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:33,520
Speaker 3: my mom going on to sort of cope and not

977
00:49:33,640 --> 00:49:35,640
Speaker 3: tell anyone about what had happened to her in order

978
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:36,560
Speaker 3: to protect.

979
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:37,920
Speaker 1: Her own mother who was struggling.

980
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:41,480
Speaker 3: And so suddenly it's kind of cast a generation back, like, well,

981
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:44,360
Speaker 3: why didn't my grandmother notice that my mother was struggling,

982
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:44,799
Speaker 3: that she was.

983
00:49:44,719 --> 00:49:46,360
Speaker 1: A thirteen year old who'd been raped.

984
00:49:46,640 --> 00:49:48,560
Speaker 3: And it made me examine my grandmother's life and I

985
00:49:48,600 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 3: realized that my grandmother is carrying so much trauma.

986
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:52,839
Speaker 1: From World War Two.

987
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 3: You know, she lived in an area of Manchester that

988
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:58,520
Speaker 3: had suffered bombardment, like high explosive bombs were kind of

989
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,360
Speaker 3: like dropped ten minutes from her house. She'd lost people,

990
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 3: you know, she'd lost her brother and her husband. After

991
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:08,440
Speaker 3: the war, my grandmother would go on to have more tragedies,

992
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:12,320
Speaker 3: including a stillborn child. So this feeling that my grandmother

993
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 3: was asleep at the wheel when it.

994
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:14,719
Speaker 1: Came to parenting my mom.

995
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 3: But understanding why that trauma was this core element of

996
00:50:19,680 --> 00:50:22,400
Speaker 3: why my grandmother was numb, you know, of why my

997
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:24,840
Speaker 3: mother made the decision she made. It was like trauma

998
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:28,000
Speaker 3: was this repeating pattern in our family, and you know,

999
00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:32,440
Speaker 3: Bessel vander Kulk talks about how when people experience trauma,

1000
00:50:32,640 --> 00:50:35,000
Speaker 3: It cuts them, It kind of splinters them, you know, so.

1001
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:39,759
Speaker 1: You will act out of protective impulses. So fight or

1002
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 1: flight are two. Fawn is one.

1003
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:45,680
Speaker 3: I mentioned before that my mom's a people pleaser, and

1004
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:47,680
Speaker 3: it's like I could really see that maybe that people

1005
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:50,279
Speaker 3: pleasing was a trauma response because of what she was

1006
00:50:50,320 --> 00:50:53,600
Speaker 3: hiding from her own childhood. So just examining my own

1007
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:58,200
Speaker 3: family gave me this wider view of society and how

1008
00:50:58,760 --> 00:51:03,000
Speaker 3: trauma just like flows through our stories, and how the

1009
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:06,080
Speaker 3: fact that we often respond to trauma by concealing it,

1010
00:51:06,239 --> 00:51:08,880
Speaker 3: you know, And this is what felt so corrosive for

1011
00:51:08,960 --> 00:51:11,799
Speaker 3: my own life. But therapy was actually this place of

1012
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 3: healing and liberation. It felt like freedom to be able

1013
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:18,360
Speaker 3: to cast light on everything that happened, not just in

1014
00:51:18,440 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 3: my life, but generationally in my family.

1015
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:29,200
Speaker 2: After Sasha's work with Sally, she returns to Chris, continuing

1016
00:51:29,239 --> 00:51:32,040
Speaker 2: to follow her instincts about who can provide the best

1017
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:35,279
Speaker 2: care at what time and for what reason. When she

1018
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:38,719
Speaker 2: starts seeing Chris again, it dawns on her that she

1019
00:51:38,800 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 2: does want to tell her story. She wants to write

1020
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:46,160
Speaker 2: about it, to draw it. But before she can do this,

1021
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:49,759
Speaker 2: she feels she needs permission from the people she'll be

1022
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 2: writing and drawing into being. But it isn't permission from

1023
00:51:53,239 --> 00:51:56,799
Speaker 2: her father or Gaale she seeks. After all, they were

1024
00:51:56,840 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 2: her story, she survived them, and now she felt free

1025
00:52:00,280 --> 00:52:04,440
Speaker 2: and emboldened to chronicle them. But there are other people

1026
00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 2: in her life that she wants to take care of.

1027
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:10,120
Speaker 2: Charlie is at the top of that list. If Charlie

1028
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:13,040
Speaker 2: isn't okay with Sasha writing about her, then she won't.

1029
00:52:14,000 --> 00:52:17,120
Speaker 2: She also considers Chris and asks him if it's okay

1030
00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 2: to write about their work together, which now extends all

1031
00:52:20,040 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 2: the way back to twenty seventeen. He understands her as

1032
00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:26,239
Speaker 2: an artist and as a writer, and wants her to

1033
00:52:26,239 --> 00:52:29,359
Speaker 2: be able to express creatively the stories inside of her.

1034
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 3: When I went back to Chris, I think communication was

1035
00:52:34,200 --> 00:52:36,759
Speaker 3: very much the theme. That was what I was looking for.

1036
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:39,560
Speaker 3: I went back because he was such a good counselor,

1037
00:52:39,600 --> 00:52:41,920
Speaker 3: and he would coach me on how to have conversations

1038
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:44,640
Speaker 3: with difficult people, and I really needed that. Like who

1039
00:52:44,680 --> 00:52:47,160
Speaker 3: in life gives you advice on how to have these

1040
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:49,319
Speaker 3: tough conversations like he would do it. He would go

1041
00:52:49,360 --> 00:52:51,480
Speaker 3: there with me and I would do things in therapy

1042
00:52:51,480 --> 00:52:53,920
Speaker 3: that I never thought I would do like role play

1043
00:52:53,960 --> 00:52:56,520
Speaker 3: for example, It's like, you know, we would act out conversations,

1044
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:58,000
Speaker 3: and that was so helpful.

1045
00:52:58,320 --> 00:52:58,879
Speaker 1: But it was.

1046
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:03,319
Speaker 3: Also this notion that Chris very much responded to me

1047
00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:05,520
Speaker 3: from the get go as an artist, as a writer,

1048
00:53:06,239 --> 00:53:08,600
Speaker 3: and he encouraged me. And in the very first session,

1049
00:53:08,760 --> 00:53:12,960
Speaker 3: when I told him this very convoluted family story, he

1050
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 3: said to me, this is your story too.

1051
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:15,680
Speaker 1: It should be a book.

1052
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 3: And I thought in my head, like, you're crazy, there's

1053
00:53:18,000 --> 00:53:20,160
Speaker 3: no way I can ever tell that. But I did

1054
00:53:20,200 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 3: come around to his way of thinking, and I did

1055
00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:25,640
Speaker 3: want to make this book. I also had the fact that,

1056
00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:27,719
Speaker 3: you know, I'm a cartoonist, and so I carry a

1057
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 3: sketch book with me and I would get the metrolink

1058
00:53:30,200 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 3: to therapy and back, and so I would have time

1059
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 3: to like sit and like draw sketches and doodles and

1060
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:37,560
Speaker 3: talking heads and speech bubbles.

1061
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:38,840
Speaker 1: Of everything that had happened in therapy.

1062
00:53:39,400 --> 00:53:41,640
Speaker 3: Part of that was an economic device, like I wanted

1063
00:53:41,680 --> 00:53:43,360
Speaker 3: to get my money's worth that of therapy, so I

1064
00:53:43,400 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 3: wanted to graphically record it. But it was also the

1065
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:48,000
Speaker 3: fact that, you know, this is so interesting to me.

1066
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:51,279
Speaker 3: I became so fascinated with the gifts that therapy had

1067
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:53,680
Speaker 3: to offer me, and the skills that was learning in therapy,

1068
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 3: and the fact that it was making a palpable difference,

1069
00:53:56,280 --> 00:53:59,239
Speaker 3: not just in how I related to myself, but in

1070
00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:02,200
Speaker 3: how it related to the world around me. The idea

1071
00:54:02,239 --> 00:54:05,320
Speaker 3: of getting Chris's permission to be a character in my book.

1072
00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:07,160
Speaker 3: It's not an easy thing to ask someone, but he

1073
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:11,319
Speaker 3: was so generous regarding that, and I did. I had

1074
00:54:11,360 --> 00:54:13,440
Speaker 3: to find my way, and I had this idea that

1075
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:17,320
Speaker 3: maybe my book could be a bridge and telling Charlie

1076
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:19,439
Speaker 3: the story that I was not allowed to tell her

1077
00:54:19,520 --> 00:54:21,480
Speaker 3: when she was younger, because it was kept.

1078
00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:22,239
Speaker 1: A secret from her.

1079
00:54:22,520 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 3: But now the secrets, you know, the family secrets, become

1080
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:28,759
Speaker 3: like a bridge, you know, to her and I, and

1081
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:29,240
Speaker 3: we are.

1082
00:54:29,080 --> 00:54:29,799
Speaker 1: So close now.

1083
00:54:30,280 --> 00:54:33,719
Speaker 3: She's shared so much about her family story with me

1084
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:36,279
Speaker 3: that I did not know, and you know, being able

1085
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:39,160
Speaker 3: to see how it was from her perspective. She said

1086
00:54:39,160 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 3: that she always knew that something was wrong in her family.

1087
00:54:41,640 --> 00:54:43,760
Speaker 3: She carried it like a sick feeling in her stomach.

1088
00:54:44,080 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 3: And I could have told her back then, but obviously

1089
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:49,160
Speaker 3: I couldn't. You know, I had the secrets, but the

1090
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Speaker 3: fact that there were so many secrets in my family.

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00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 1: It made me be a secret keeper.

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00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:56,120
Speaker 3: Too, you know, that impulse, the fact that I had

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00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:58,759
Speaker 3: to keep secrets for my dad. That was not a

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00:54:58,760 --> 00:55:06,319
Speaker 3: healthy thing for me, but had no choice.

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00:55:06,920 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 2: Sasha's beautiful and powerful book Past Tense has been warmly

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00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:15,000
Speaker 2: received by its readers. She's finished her work with Chris

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00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:18,799
Speaker 2: at least for the time being. That whispering voice that

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00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:22,120
Speaker 2: told her to tell it, tell the whole truth is

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00:55:22,160 --> 00:55:25,879
Speaker 2: now between the hardcovers of her graphic memoir for all

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00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:29,840
Speaker 2: the world to see.

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00:55:32,080 --> 00:55:35,640
Speaker 3: I started telling this story online on social media, and

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00:55:35,840 --> 00:55:38,280
Speaker 3: it's a very interesting way to tell a story because

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00:55:38,320 --> 00:55:41,879
Speaker 3: you get real time feedback from people. And I found

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00:55:41,920 --> 00:55:46,880
Speaker 3: a community of people therapists and people doing there and

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00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:49,920
Speaker 3: healing would give me feedback on the short stories from

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00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:52,560
Speaker 3: therapy that I would tell online. And so the fact

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00:55:52,600 --> 00:55:54,600
Speaker 3: that I kind of grew this readership of people who've

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00:55:54,640 --> 00:55:57,759
Speaker 3: been with me as this book went from like very

1109
00:55:57,760 --> 00:56:01,000
Speaker 3: short stories online to be an a book that they've

1110
00:56:01,040 --> 00:56:06,000
Speaker 3: purchased and have, you know, shared photographs of themselves holding it.

1111
00:56:05,520 --> 00:56:08,040
Speaker 3: It's like, Wow, this really isn't the wider world, and

1112
00:56:08,080 --> 00:56:10,880
Speaker 3: it's proof that I'm like far from alone, you know,

1113
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:13,719
Speaker 3: Like I thought my story was so complicated and so

1114
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 3: weird that I could never tell it and people wouldn't

1115
00:56:16,280 --> 00:56:19,799
Speaker 3: believe me or accept it. And I've discovered instead that,

1116
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:24,480
Speaker 3: you know, so many of reels are carrying like dark paths

1117
00:56:24,520 --> 00:56:27,399
Speaker 3: that they have to heal from, and there's a real

1118
00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 3: sense of connection. It's been a real privilege. It's been

1119
00:56:31,960 --> 00:56:34,359
Speaker 3: truly wonderful. It's a rich experience. That's the best way

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00:56:34,400 --> 00:56:37,839
Speaker 3: I can describe it, you know, And I feel liberated,

1121
00:56:38,280 --> 00:56:40,480
Speaker 3: like the sky hasn't fallen, you know. I told this

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00:56:40,520 --> 00:56:42,520
Speaker 3: story and the sky didn't fall.

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Speaker 2: Family Secret is a production of iHeartRadio. Molly z Acur

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00:57:06,560 --> 00:57:09,800
Speaker 2: is the story editor and Dylan Fagan is the executive producer.

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Speaker 2: If you have a family secret you'd like to share,

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00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:15,880
Speaker 2: please leave us a voicemail and your story could appear

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00:57:15,920 --> 00:57:19,320
Speaker 2: on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight

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Speaker 2: eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You can also

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Speaker 2: find me on Instagram at Danny Ryder. And if you'd

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00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:30,960
Speaker 2: like to know more about the story that inspired this podcast,

1131
00:57:31,360 --> 00:57:33,240
Speaker 2: check 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.