WEBVTT - What is Codependency? With Priscilla Gilman 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:05.920 Lots of people use the term codependency, but what is 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:10.040 it If you've ever felt responsible for the happiness of 0:00:10.080 --> 0:00:14.800 another person or an incessant need to fix people's problems 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.880 so you can be loved. Stay tuned on this episode 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:24.600 of Navigating Narcissism. I am welcoming gifted author doctor Priscilla Gilman, 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:29.320 whose beautiful memoir The Critic's Daughter is a roadmap of 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:34.239 what she calls her codependent journey. Though her childhood appeared 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:38.200 happy from the outside, Priscilla was tasked with her family's 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:42.600 emotional burdens from a very young age. At the age 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:46.520 of nine, she took on the impossible responsibility of her 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:50.040 dad's well being after he told her he would have 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.519 taken his life if not for her and her sister. 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:58.560 Priscilla's journey is an important reminder we never know what's 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:02.640 happening behind closed door of what may look like the 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:07.039 most loving families, and ultimately, none of us can be 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:13.800 responsible for another person's happiness or sadness. From Red Table 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:19.920 Talk Podcasts and iHeartMedia, I'm Doctor Rominy and this is 0:01:20.040 --> 0:01:24.319 Navigating Narcissism. This podcast should not be used as a 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:29.360 substitute for medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:34.280 to seek independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:39.240 a healthcare professional with respect to any medical condition, mental 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:45.080 health issue, or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:51.080 This episode discusses suicidal ideation, which may be triggering to 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:55.520 some people. The views and opinions expressed are solely those 0:01:55.600 --> 0:02:00.240 of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:05.480 and do not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia, 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:11.520 or their employees. Priscilla Gillman, Welcome to Navigating Narcissism. It 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.400 is such a pleasure to have you. I've had the 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:18.360 exquisite pleasure of reading your book, The Critic's Daughter. What 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:22.600 I really love about it is there is a subtlety 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:28.400 and a relatability to it. Because this show, as you know, Priscilla, 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:32.480 is called Navigating Narcissism, right, But that's a very, very 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.960 vast umbrella. And I think one of the hardest things 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.880 about any kind of story about a family and what 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:44.600 happens with parents. Yes, yes, it's not black and white, 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:48.680 and when people find themselves in the gray, they often 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.600 don't know how to see what went wrong. But also, 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:56.480 most importantly, how all of that shaped them. For anyone 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.919 who doesn't know you and hasn't read the book, can 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:02.040 can you tell us who your parents are? 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.919 So, my father, Richard Gilman, was a professor at the 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.800 Yale School of Drama for thirty years. He was the 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:10.959 drama critic for Newsweek in the sixties. He was a 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:13.920 literary editor of The New Republic in the sixties, the 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:16.680 theater critic for The Nation in the eighties, the President 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:20.280 of pen America but didn't even have a BA. So 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.640 a self made, self taught person. And my mother, Lynnezbud, 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.160 who is still alive, is a very prominent literary agent. 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:29.919 Her clients when I was a child included Tony Morrison, 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:34.800 Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe, Michael Crichton, and Rice Now, 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:39.360 Robert Caro, Jimmy Carter, a whole host of incredible writers 0:03:39.360 --> 0:03:39.840 and people. 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.040 As I read your book, Going to be honest, I 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:45.760 envied you, you know, because I had a very different 0:03:45.920 --> 0:03:49.440 experience of these kinds of parental relationships and certainly of 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.080 early childhood. But there was an envy. And here you 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:54.080 were sort of hanging out with, you know, people that 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:58.400 are my personal heroes Tony Morrison, Joan Didion, the kinds 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:00.840 of people who are giving you dolls, so you know 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:03.080 you were playing make believe with your father. I think 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:06.640 the thing that struck me, though, most about the story 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:10.720 of your father is how attentive he was. He would 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.040 watch you perform, He was interested in what you did. 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.640 He asked you questions about yourself. He took delight in 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:20.680 what you were learning about. Most kids never would get 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.640 a parent ever in their lives to be interested in 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:25.840 sitting down and watching them do a play that doesn't 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:27.960 happen to them once in their childhood, right, and that 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.320 happened to you almost every day in the same breath. 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.919 There was this remarkable strictness about what you especially small children, 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.520 what you ate, the kinds of media you watched, you 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.880 know everything, the music you listened to. So could you 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:49.760 paint a picture of the complexity of who your father was, 0:04:50.160 --> 0:04:52.800 especially when you were a young child. 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.840 I love how you started Dr Romeny by talking about 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:59.200 shades of Gray. And I had one reader say to me, 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:03.920 You've written a book about human beings and all their 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.760 complexity and all their messiness in a world that wants 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:08.800 to look at things in terms of black and white, 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.240 and my father was this massive contradictions, which is part 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:16.400 of what made him so fascinating and so compelling. He 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.160 was exceptionally attentive to me and my younger sister. I 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.440 have a sister who's fourteen months younger. My best friends 0:05:21.480 --> 0:05:25.680 still really invested in our imaginative play, would ask us 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:28.919 questions about what our dolls or our Paddington's were doing 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:31.760 that day, would come in and watch. We would have 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.680 auditions for doll and stuffed animal productions of Westside Story 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:37.920 or Oklahoma, and he would come in and assess them, 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:39.760 and he would read to us for hours on end, 0:05:39.800 --> 0:05:44.359 and he was just clearly in love with our world. 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.000 He was invested in us as children, but also in 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:52.600 the realm of childhood per se. He took genuine enjoyment. 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:54.640 He would sit down and watch Esme Street and Zoom 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:59.720 and you know, all these shows Doctor Rothin, watch Mister Rogers. 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:03.960 But you're so right that he was very strict. We 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.960 were not allowed to watch any television except PBS, and 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:09.120 you did not allow us to listen to any pop music. 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:12.159 When Greece came out, you probably remember this. All my 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.400 friends at school were going to see Greece, they had 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:16.839 their grease cast albums. We were not allowed to listen 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:19.640 to that. My father did support me in reading, like 0:06:19.680 --> 0:06:22.120 the Hardy Boys series and the Nancy Drew series, but 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:25.400 a lot of other sort of popular mass market stuff 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.720 we would never be allowed to have, like Sweet Valley 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:30.320 High or Babysitters Club or anything like that. 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.720 What I hear though, was it was a childhood and 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:37.200 at least in the broad strokes. Yeah, it was safe, 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:43.240 it was predictable, it was comforting. You were seen, you 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:49.560 were heard, you were valued. Yes, when did things start 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:50.400 to change? 0:06:50.640 --> 0:06:56.000 So the fishers that I saw, these slight fishers almost imperceptible. 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.599 I agree with you. My father, I could tell was 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:03.479 prone to depression from writer's block. He smoked compulsively. I 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.480 could sense when he needed a cigarette. He started to 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:10.360 get irritable, He had a temper, he would get angry, 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.160 and it was rare, and I always felt that I 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:16.520 was the one who was best able to coax him 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.680 out of a bad mood dr rominy, and so from 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.840 a very young age, I felt that my role in 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.360 the family. My sister was a little bit more difficult. 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.600 She didn't sleep through the night. She would have temper tantrums, 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.440 and my role always in the family unit was to 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.320 be the good girl, the cheerful girl, the smiling girl, 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:41.400 the helpful one, the one who steadied everybody else. And 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:45.440 then I also always sensed that my parents didn't love 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:49.320 each other the way married couples in movies or books 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:51.720 that I was reading, or even some of my friend's 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:55.480 parents loved each other. There was no physical affection between them. 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.880 My father always seemed to crave my mother's good opinion. 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.560 My mother seemed a little distant from my father. She 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:05.240 was very warm with me and my sister, but not 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.480 with my father. My father was a very funny person, 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.560 but he never made her laugh the way he made 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:13.880 other people laugh. So I started thinking, something just doesn't 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.400 feel right. But we would ask them again and again 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:18.960 are you going to get divorced? If they would have 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:21.200 a fight, or we would hear about a family friend 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:23.320 getting divorced, and they would always say, we will never 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:29.880 ever get divorced. And then, as you know, vidd but 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:33.280 it took a long time. So when I was ten, 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.840 in the fall of nineteen eighty, my mother announced that 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:41.600 she was ending the marriage. And it was a night 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:45.120 in October I will never forget. Vividly, sitting in my room, 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:48.800 I heard my parents talking in the kitchen. I couldn't 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:52.000 really hear the words, and I'm writing in my journal. 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.080 I have a holly hobby journal, and I have the 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:57.480 puppy that we've just gotten, and that was another source 0:08:57.520 --> 0:08:59.160 of stress because my mother didn't want a dog. So 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:01.040 I was thinking, oh, are they fighting about the dog? 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:02.960 That my mother is not happy that we have this 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.360 puppy now. And then my mother summoned to me and 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.079 my sister into the kitchen and my father had left, 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:10.640 and she announced to us that my parents were going 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:14.360 to do what they called a trial separation. My sister 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:16.920 immediately gets very upset, and I try to stay calm, 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:19.920 and I'm digging my nails into my tights to keep 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:24.720 from crying. And I knew that it wasn't a trial separation. 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.240 I knew this was false comfort that was being given 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.520 to us, that this was not an experiment, that there 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:36.640 was something definitive, and my mother looked at peace in 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:38.200 a way that I had never seen her before. 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.640 I want to ask you a few questions about that 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:44.760 entire sequence you said. I dug my fingers into my tights. 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:48.000 To keep from crying. What would have happened if you 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.040 did cry and they saw you cry. 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.080 That's such a great question. I never cried as a kid. 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.000 It was kind of legendary in the family that I 0:09:57.080 --> 0:09:59.320 was the baby who never cried and my sister was 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.640 a baby who cried. And I, you know, I think 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.000 that my father suffered from untreated clinical depression, for sure, 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.520 and I was blessed. I was lucky that I had 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.160 this naturally kind of optimistic, buoyant temperament. But I also 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:15.920 think that I leaned into that and I was cast 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:18.720 in the role of the happy one who doesn't cry, 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:22.160 who makes other people feel better. And I think that 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:25.080 if I had cried in that moment, it would have 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:29.880 disconcerted my mom and my sister, and my sister would 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.080 have cried more if I had started to cry. But 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.400 it's just it's so interesting. I don't know. I wouldn't 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.040 have been able to go and comfort my dad, which 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:39.760 is what I did next. 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.640 Now you've taken to another interesting place. And this is 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.000 something we often see in any family system. Right, children 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:50.079 do get cast into roles based on their temperaments, right, Yes, 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.920 And that child with the easy temperament the well sleeping, 0:10:54.400 --> 0:11:01.360 not crying, optimistic, constantly cheerful child. They perceive that that 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.680 is a very valued role, like that's a good part 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.640 to have landed in this play called this family, and 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:12.200 so it's a safe role. To cry would have been 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:15.280 to violate that role. But even as we're talking here, 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:18.480 you can see the danger of that role, right, because 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:25.480 now what's being rewarded is emotional constraint number one, exactly, 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:32.520 And number two is that your value comes from displacing 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:37.200 your emotion in favor of a caregiving role and not 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:42.800 inconveniencing anyone. Right, And no one ever sat you down, 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.720 Priscilla and said, hey, Priscilla, we need you to not 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.960 cry and not inconvenience us. It was a perception, but 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:54.199 these roles can give a child a sense of place 0:11:54.240 --> 0:11:56.880 and safety and your temperament work. Now, I want to 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:59.800 go to this next piece here, which is I knew 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.760 that I didn't want my sister to cry. More so, 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:06.120 you felt responsible for your sister's emotion. I can understand 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.760 that siblings feel that. However, your father a grown man, 0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:14.720 you really were trying to protect him. Can you talk 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:19.360 about your role as you're the protector of your father's 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.720 emotion and frankly, your father, and when did that role 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:23.560 kick in for you. 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.319 It's so interesting parallel to my sense of being completely 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.720 seen and safe and accepted and loved from my true 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:34.200 and best self by my father. I always felt that 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:39.120 my father's well being, his emotional wellbeing, even his physical wellbeing, 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:43.800 was precarious. And I always worried about the smoking from 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:47.400 a very young age. And he would drink, not excessively, 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:49.600 but he would have to have his drink every day 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:52.240 at a certain time when his moods started to potentially 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:56.520 go south. And I talk in the book about becoming 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:00.320 a football fan to give my father company. I wrote 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.040 a letter to a football player when I was nine 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.120 years old, after we had seen the Giants lose and 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.760 the football player, Harry Carson, had his head in his 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:09.880 hands and looked like he was sobbing on the sidelines, 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:13.120 and I wrote a letter and I said, don't be sad. 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.720 You're a wonderful player and a wonderful man. We'll all 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:19.960 be happy again. And I realize now that I was 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:22.920 writing this to Harry Carson, but I was also writing 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:26.959 this to my father, and this was a year before 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:31.079 the separation. But I was already sensing my father is 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.200 somebody who's prone to sadness, prone to depression. 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:37.560 And I also want to call you out on something 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.840 else here, Priscilla. It was a word usage you adduced. Okay, 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:45.160 said doctor Robiney. Moment here when we're calling you out 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.800 the doctor roy Okay. So you know that letter you 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.040 wrote to the football player really hit me hard. And 0:13:51.040 --> 0:13:53.120 in fact, if I remember correctly, he'd even sent you 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:55.200 a photo of him or something that you hung over 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:56.080 your bed and he. 0:13:56.080 --> 0:13:58.280 Said, God bless you always old fifty three. 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.400 Yes, but what you wrote to you said you mustn't 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:02.040 be sad. 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:03.480 Oh. 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.400 So that's very different, weighing in much more heavily trying 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:11.280 to kind of run the emotional sort of show. And 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.200 you were very invested in this man's emotional state. You 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:16.599 didn't even know him, but I do think he was 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:21.280 a representation of your father, someone who was He played 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:23.360 for the Giants. The love of the Giants was something 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.000 that was really shared between you and your dad in 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.120 many ways, an interest you took on to facilitate a 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.800 greater closeness with your father. And that's something we will 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:35.480 see with children who come from environments where they do 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:40.040 sort of take emotional responsibility for their parents. They start 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:42.880 to cultivate interests that are in line with what their 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:45.680 parents like. They'll take up a sport their parent likes, 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.480 they will read books their parent likes. In this case, 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.080 you watched sports the way your father likes, and it 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:55.240 really created a lifelong sort of point of connection. It 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:59.160 was a wonderful thing, but once again, you were chasing 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:00.160 what mattered to him. 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:04.640 Maybe I was perceiving a big shock, a big sadness 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:07.920 is about to come, and I'm going to get you 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:10.160 through this. We're going to solder through this, and I'm 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:11.520 going to make sure that we get out on the 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:17.280 other side and we're happy. I didn't focus on how 0:15:17.320 --> 0:15:21.400 these things affected me because I was so plugged into 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:26.440 Oh my gosh, Clary. My sister, she's more vulnerable, she's little. 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:28.120 I have to protect her. I don't want her to 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.800 upset my parents more by crying, because her crying would 0:15:31.880 --> 0:15:35.160 upset them. And then my mother, you know, she sort 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:36.760 of ends the scene and says he's going to be 0:15:36.760 --> 0:15:39.160 here for a few more months, and you know, it's 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.720 not happening immediately, and she takes my sister off to bed, 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:46.200 and I saw my father with his shoulder shaking from 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:49.720 the back, walking down the hall, and I went after him, 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:51.680 and I thought, I have to because what's going to 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.960 happen if I don't. And I walk into his office 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.040 and I kept thinking, he's about to be expelled from 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:02.840 this he's about to be literally expelled from this apartment, 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:07.800 literally expelled from this office, and he's about to lose 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.840 our family. And he was crying, and he beckoned me 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.000 to him, and I had not seen him cry very 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:15.080 often at all, and he was crying and he said, 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:17.400 I don't want this, but I don't want to lose 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.240 our family. And he was crying and crying and crying, 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.800 and I snuffed up my tears. I remember just like 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:27.480 aggressively trying to keep the tears from coming out and 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:30.200 snuffing them up because I thought that that would make 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:30.920 it worse for him. 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:34.880 I mean, that's an incredibly powerful moment and powerful awareness. 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:36.360 To think of how young you were. You said you 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:40.000 were around ten. I believe right ten, fifth grade, fifth grade, 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:43.120 ten years old. You're getting a piece of news which 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.880 is catastrophic for a child to hear, especially a child 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.360 who actually was really content in her family's space. Yes, 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:55.400 and you are entirely focused on your father's well being, 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.520 what he's about to lose, watching the heaviness of his 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.760 hunched over back, picked up on all those physical cues. 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:07.440 How did you manage, Priscilla, the juxtaposition between your father's 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:11.040 absolute sense of despair and defeat that day you saw 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:14.480 all that he was going to lose, and what you 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:18.480 saw as your mom's sense of relief. I don't want 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.240 to quite say happiness, but you definitely saw your mother 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.280 felt like she put a weight down and felt lighter, 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:26.359 and your father took on the weight of the world. 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:30.840 How did you, at ten years old, negotiate that difference, 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:31.760 that tension. 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.679 My mother obviously huge trailblazer in publishing in a major career, 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:37.960 and was not around as much when I was little 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:41.240 as my father was, and was not invested in childhood 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.800 and playing with children in the way that my father was. 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.800 But I always felt very protective of my mother. I 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:49.879 sensed at a young age that she was a woman 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:52.440 in a man's world. She was going out to work, 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.080 and she was under a lot of pressure. My father 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:58.160 was very supportive of her in that and always told 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:00.480 us girls like don't make too much noise. She needs 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:03.040 to work. He was very ahead of his time in 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.879 being totally comfortable with the woman's power and going out 0:18:05.920 --> 0:18:09.199 in the world and working. And my mother was tired 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.760 a lot, she was stressed a lot. And so I 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.800 felt happy in a weird way that my mom seemed 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:19.360 relieved and she seemed less tired, and she seemed better 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:21.520 to me. And I didn't want to make her feel 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:26.000 guilty about this decision that she had made, because I 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:29.080 could see that she had needed to make it. I 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:32.040 just sensed it. There was something about her body language 0:18:32.160 --> 0:18:35.159 that told me this is something that she had been 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:37.840 wanting to do for a while, and this is something 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.080 she needed to do to save herself in some way. 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:45.480 So that's a remarkable and I'm like, I'm drawing out 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:51.359 that remarkable amount of empathy for a ten year old child. 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.240 Most adults could not engage in the balance circumspection and 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.439 would maybe even not balance. You were making allowances for 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:05.080 everyone's different position, your mother's relief, your father's despair, your 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:10.360 sister's anguish. The only emotion that wasn't being accounted for 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:15.880 was yours. But you were simultaneously able to literally make 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.199 that adjustment. Don't want mom to feel guilty because I 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.080 can see that she's okay, want dad to feel okay. 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:25.080 In adults, we would view that as quite a skill, right, 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.720 and in fact that's actually a shrink skill. But the 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:29.879 difference between a shrink and what you were doing is 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:33.320 a shrinks an adult who went to school for many 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:37.720 years and is objective. They're not in that family. Most 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:43.080 ten year olds would be enraged, upset, devastated and run 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:45.639 to their room and cry and would not give a 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.000 damn about the mental state of either of their parents. 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.480 And what you did was literally the opposite. You became 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.879 so invested in your father's emotional world and well being, 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:59.840 especially at the point that the trial separation and subse 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:07.119 divorce happened. Was he equally plugged into your emotional world 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.800 and equally aware of your emotional world and responsive to it. 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:13.439 I don't think he was in those couple of months 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.639 after this night where my mother breaks the devastating news 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:20.679 my father has moved out. I don't know where he's living. 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.000 We're not told he doesn't have an upsteady apartment where 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:26.520 we can come over for sleepovers. We're only seeing him 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.359 for these like rushed lunches and dinners on the Upper 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:32.240 West Side. And then my mother goes to California on 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:34.280 business and my father is allowed to come back and 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.640 stay in the apartment for a few days. And he 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:39.879 got upset with my sister one night when she was 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.800 crying and we were playing a game. She spilled some 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.120 apple juice on the monopoly board and started to cry, 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.600 and he got mad and he yelled, and then I 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:53.080 went to find him and he was apologizing, essentially for 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:56.280 getting angry, and which he always did. And that's the 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:57.840 thing about my dad. He had a temper, but he 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:00.159 knew he had a temper. He didn't justify it. He 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.560 felt very guilty about it. And he said to me, 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:06.040 you know that I love you girls more than anything 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.040 in the world. And I said, of course, Daddy, of course, 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:11.360 And he said, sometimes I think I'd kill myself if 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:15.080 it wasn't for you girls. And that was like a 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:19.840 moment where it just was imprinted on me that my 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:23.959 father's survival is my responsibility and I'm going to do 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:27.639 everything it takes to make sure that he stays alive. 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:37.480 My conversation will continue after this break. 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:41.240 And you know, when we would have these lunches and 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:44.440 dinners with him. He would get irritable. Sometimes he would 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:47.280 rush us through our meals. He was struggling financially, so 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.240 he would make us split a dish at a restaurant, 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:52.080 and my sister would say, but I'm hungry, that's not 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.359 enough food, and I would kick her to try to 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.880 get her to be quiet. And once I would see 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:02.040 him in McDonald's taking the packets of salt and sugar 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:04.680 and ketchup and putting them in his bag, and I thought, 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:07.480 this is really alarming, Like he doesn't have enough money 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:09.399 to buy these things on his own. He's taking them 0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:13.560 from the restaurant. And he never asked us how are 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:16.359 you handling the split or anything like that. Neither of 0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:19.879 my parents ever said how do you feel about this? 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:25.480 And we were not to talk about our feelings about 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:28.760 my dad not being there, so it just didn't come up. 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:30.880 And my parents didn't. You know, this was nineteen eighty 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:34.160 nineteen eighty one, Cramer versus Kramer generation. You know, there 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:36.679 just wasn't any discourse about how to talk about divorce. 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:38.600 Very few of my friends at school had parents who 0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:42.000 had split up. I felt ashamed, so I just didn't 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:42.959 talk about it. 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:45.840 It was a different time. But you're a mom, all right, 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:49.399 I'm a mom. Yeah, And when do you think about 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:53.639