The Hispanic, 31 year-old PhD shares about the downside of raising herself up by her bootstraps; growing up knowing she couldn’t depend on her passive mother or gambler father, and now finding her emotional development lacking, especially in areas of trust, intimacy or being comfortable asking for help.
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Episode 208 Renee M
PG: Welcome to episode 208 with my guest, Renee. I'm Paul Gilmartin. This is the Mental Illness Happy Hour; honesty about all the battles in our heads, from medically diagnosed conditions, past traumas and sexual dysfunction to everyday compulsive negative thinking. This show is not meant to be a substitute for professional mental counseling. It's not a doctor's office. I'm not a therapist. It's more like a waiting room that doesn't suck. The website for this show is mentalpod.com. Mentalpod is also the Twitter handle--[dog barks]--oh… Herbert chimin’ in. You can follow him @Herbert… um… you can follow me @mentalpod—that’s my Twitter handle. Yeah, go check out the website. There's all kind of stuff there.
PG: Let’s see… I wanna kick it off with a Struggle in a Sentence survey. This is filled out by a trans man, teenager, who is pansexual. He calls himself Brew [sp?]. About his life, he writes:
Brew: One time I overate. I ate a whole bag of Doritos and leftover pasta in the fridge. And a Pop Tart. And a bag of popcorn. Just so much food. I felt ugly and disgusting, so I went in the bathroom and tried to throw up. I couldn’t do it no matter how far I shoved my fingers down my throat. And I got so upset and hated myself so much that I sat down on the bathroom counter and started cutting myself.
PG: Thank you for sharing that. This is by a guy who calls himself LazyFuck69 [chuckles]… how do you not like that name? And he writes about having Aspergers:
LazyFuck69: Like I’m an alien sent from another planet to figure out this strange race called humans. Turns out I really just suck at my job.
PG: Any suggestions to make the podcast better?
LazyFuck69: Perhaps list some ways people who are unwilling or incapable of understanding the concept that mental illness doesn’t have to be seen to be experienced.
PG: To which I would say… I don’t know if there’s anything you can do. If somebody is unable to or unwilling to understand mental illness, maybe just avoid them. But if somebody does have an interest, that makes a complete difference. And there are many things you can do. You can give them books to read. You could try to turn them on to this podcast. I think this would be a great beginning place for them to understand what we go through… mental illness or trauma. This is, uh, same survey filled out by Lauren, and she’s a teenager. About her anorexia, she writes:
Lauren: Eating makes me feel dirty whereas starvation is numbing and gives a distinct high.
PG: This is filled out by a woman who calls herself New Listener, and about her PTSD she writes:
New Listener: I keep thinking to myself, ‘Do people know what happens to people who survive shootings? Because it sucks. Because the nightmares are constant. Because you know how shitty people can act.
PG: And a snapshot from her life:
New Listener: I consistently have a hard time falling asleep because I’m scared about what I’ll face in my dreams.
PG: Sending you some love. I can’t imagine how hard that must be to survive something like that. Um… and if you happen to hear this, shoot me an email because I’d be interested in maybe having you write a guest blog about your experience. Or if you get to southern California, to be a guest, email me at mentalpod@gmail.com. [pause] This is filled out by Caitlyn and about her anxiety:
Caitlyn: Shaky hands. Triggers. Rapid heartbeat and a mind that races.
PG: About her OCD, she writes:
Caitlyn: As a child, all to do with the number 2.
PG: I’m assuming that means poo, and not the literal number two. About her food addiction:
Caitlyn: Bingeing and constant intake. Obsessive about food. And when nearing 500 lbs. is the only thing that raises my mood.
PG: About being a sex crime victim:
Caitlyn: Fragmented within my mind, it affects all of me.
PG: About her obesity:
Caitlyn: I feel like a blob who overoccupies space. I have given up and feel too far gone. It is the words my brain keeps repeating to me over and over again. I cannot stop eating. I cannot let myself become normal in body as I don’t feel normal in mind. I cannot allow myself to ever again be viewed sexually. I don’t deserve happiness and therefore I don’t deserve to fit in a regular-sized seat.
PG: Ugh, that breaks my heart…. This is from Lu, and she writes about her PTSD:
u: Flashes. Terror. Lights. Darkness. Him. Me. Silence. Screaming. Weight.
PG: Weight is w-e-i-g-h-t. About sexual bias:
u: I hate men and their penises. They are weapons.
PG: Snapshot from her life:
Lu: This morning I was meditating to help me keep in peace, and I had flashbacks of the abuse that sent me into a state of terror. Now I’m at work, and I have to pretend that it didn’t happen.
PG: Uh, I can’t imagine how hard that must be. Sending you some love. [pause] This is filled out by Nick, and about his anxiety:
NNick: A vice on your lungs; a ball of acid in your stomach.
PG: Wow. That is so fucking descriptive. Thank you for that, Nick. And, uh, about a serious health issue he writes:
Nick: A broken back. Constant. Throbbing.
PG: I guess I must have a broken penis. Hahahahuhhhh… huhhhhhh…. [chuckling] This is filled out by Ellie, and she’s a teenager, and she writes about her anxiety:
Ellie: It’s like being swallowed whole by yourself, feeling completely helpless and fragile, as though you’re going to fall off the edge of something—anything—at any moment.
PG: About her anger issues:
Ellie: You’re stuck inside yourself, driven by someone you don’t want to be. You have vanished, but you don’t know it, until you have erupted with uncontrollable rage.
PG: And a snapshot from her life, she writes: I must have been about 17. I found myself on the edge of another mental breakdown. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to disappoint myself by harming myself again. I just sat on the floor balling my eyes out, in utter despair and helplessness. I felt like I was melting, and the world was just carrying on without me, oblivious to how I felt. All I could think of to do was end my own suffering, but there was something that kept pulling me back telling me to stay. I had no idea what it was. Still, to this day, I have no idea, but it comes back to me whenever I hit rock bottom. The first time this happened to me I was at my worst. I had just been broken up with, moved out of my house, lost my friends, my dad had let me down repeatedly, and I had failed my math exam—again. I wanted to share this because I am not sure if there are people out there who want to give up. But you’re not alone—and you have to find a reason to pull yourself back.
[cue opening sequence/music]
PG: I’m here with Renee, and that’s a pseudonym we’re going to use for her so she can share more freely. And the reason is not because of any big shame on your part. It’s that you’ve gotten your PhD, and you’ll probably be teaching at some point, and you don’t really want your students knowing all of the details of your personal life, which I think is understandable.
Renee: Yes, yes.
PG: You’re 31 years old. You’re a Latina. [laughs]
Renee: Yes. [laughs]
PG: Um… you had emailed me.... a couple of months ago, and… tell me what you had said when you emailed me.
Renee: So, um, I do have my PhD, and I’m actually the first of my family to have ever gone to college. I’m still the only person in my family to have ever gone to college. And so when people hear that, they often tell me, ‘Wow, it must be so amazing to have gone so far and be so successful.’ And it is amazing, and I do love the fact that I accomplished all of that. But those statements don’t let me share the other half of it, I guess… which is that, um, you know it… sometimes I feel like an imposter still… AND it came out of a place where I really had to take care of myself from a very young age because my family was just… all kinds of crazy. And so, um, at a very young age I took it upon myself to basically become my own parent and out of that came this ability to succeed. And so… I think a lot of people go through that where they just become a little adult, and it will sometimes lead to a ‘successful life’ (successful in quotes) because people see you and think, ‘Oh wow, you’ve done so much’ but it does come at a cost, and I think that’s one of the topics that hasn’t really been talked about on the podcast.
PG: You know, I-I relate to that very much because I think there’s this… when you’re a little kid, and you suddenly realize (even if it’s not on a conscious level) that ‘Oh, I’m on my own here. I’m gonna have to raise myself in certain ways. You know, I may not have to feed myself, but I’m gonna have to figure out the world on my own.’ Um, there’s this—and maybe I should just speak for myself—but there was this carrot that I would dangle that once I get on TV, it’ll all be okay. And then when I did reach that, it was like the bottom fell outta my world because it didn’t fulfill me. And I was like ‘Oh my god’—this panic set in of ‘where is happiness gonna be then?’
Renee: Yeah.
PG: And you’re faced with that—that myth being popped that if you do enough, you will be okay.
Renee: Yeah. I think that I definitely relate to that. There have been lots of moments in my life where I, like, thought ‘Oh, but I thought this is the end. This is where I would feel like I deserved it and it was all worth it and –especially later because, like, early on I was just one of those kid who loved to go to school, loved to get good grades, all of that. And that really sustained me through college and in grad school when you basically have to create your own carrots, you know, um… be your own boss. It kind of really fell apart because I… I basically didn’t think I was that good. So, it was hard for me to set my own deadlines and then motivate myself. Um… so I definitely know that feeling—
PG: Was there that voice in your head that was saying, ‘You’re not like the—because, because you said you were one of two Latino students in your program--
Renee: Yes, yes.
PG: Was there a feeling… is that what contributed to ‘I’m an imposter’ or was it other… other?
Renee: It was that, but I think the bigger issue was that I was the only person I interacted with—I didn’t interact with anyone else who came from a working class or a poor background. And that was really hard, uh… you know, because when you first arrive anywhere new, you talk about oh, you know, ‘Where are you from? What do your parents do?’ And so being around so many people whose parents were professors, whose parents were lawyers, doctors… I felt soooo out of place. And, um, I think the harder part of that was that often their parents knew the kind of stress they were under, where they could support them in way where they understood, ‘Oh, you’re giving a talk. I understand that that is stressful, and you need someone to tell you it’s gonna be okay.’ And my parents were completely in the dark.
PG: And your PhD, ironically, is in Social Psychology, which is geared toward the individual experience—as… as Clinical or Therapeutic Psychology—but still, there is a component…
Renee: Yeah. Yeah.
PG: … in it of… even though you look at society as a whole, and it’s more like Sociology, there’s still this irony about what do people feel and experience and how do they relate to the world, and there you are…
Renee: [laughs] Yeah, it’s definitely been informed by my own experiences.
PG: So, give me a little example. You’re sitting around with your friends in college, and they’re talking about something, and they pose a question to you. What’s something that would make your insides kind of… clench up and go, ‘Oh my god. They’re gonna judge me.’
Renee: About being, like, from a lower SES family? Um…
PG: What’s SES?
Renee: Socioeconomic status. So, I guess it’s jargon in my field.
PG: Ok.
Renee: Um… mostly when they talk about what their parents did, um, a big one was like ‘Ohhh.. my parents are coming to visit. Are your parents gonna visit? It’s like ‘My parents can’t afford to visit. Are you kidding me? Like, I have to go to them. There’s no way.’
PG: How far away did they live from where you—
Renee: So, it was about 500 miles. So not far… I drove… um… whenever I wanted to go home. Uh, it was an 8 hour drive. So, it was things like that where they would just assume ‘Oh, of course your parents will visit.’ The only… my mom visited me twice. And the second time was for my graduation. So, you know, things like that. Or…
PG: Did you get the sense that she was proud of you when she came to visit?
Renee: Oh yeah. Yeah. Even though she didn’t quite get—she still doesn’t quite get—what I do, um, she’s very, very proud of what I’ve done, and so—
PG: Was she, was she born here?
Renee: No, my mom was born in Mexico in a little tiny, tiny town and came when she was 12. Uh... and… had never experienced anything American until she came and, um… but, you know, she did okay.
PG: And how about your dad?
Renee: So, my dad is an interesting story. So, he’s from Ohio—his family is from Ohio—so he’s white. Um, but he’s not my biological dad. My biological dad is Mexican, but I’ve never met him. I.. a crazy story is that I didn’t even know that my dad was not my biological dad until I was 19. That’s like a very big moment in my life.
PG: Do you want to talk about that?
Renee: Yeah! So, my… so my mom and my dad had a really tumultuous relationship. Not, um, physically abusive, but really emotionally abusive. My dad, um, was very emotionally manipulative—
PG: To her and everybody else?
Renee: To her an everybody else. Um… and so…
PG: Like, in what ways would he be emotionally manipulative?
Renee: Um, well I can… I can… like the more current experiences for me were things like asking to borrow money, and if I said no, he’d say, ‘Well if you wanted to be a good daughter, you would help me out.’ Like this.
PG: He wanted to borrow money from you?
Renee: Yeah. And that was—like he was—like he took money from me since I was working, and so that was when I was like 16.
PG: Was he drunk or was he a drug addict?
Renee: Gambling addict.
PG: Ah… same thing.
Renee: [laughs] Yeah. Pretty much. Um… so… so very emotionally manipulative. He would, like, lie to one person to be, you know, save a relationship with someone else, and it was this, this constant—
PG: juggling of plates
Renee: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
PG: At what age did he come into your life, or was he always there?
Renee: From the moment when I was born, he was there. So, he was on my birth certificate.
PG: Did he know that you’re--
Renee: He did know. So, basically my mom had left him right before I was conceived [laughs nervously], started dating someone else, became pregnant, and then, uh, what I believe (because I don’t know because I don’t really care to know) uh… that man was actually married. And so she came back to my dad, and he agreed to raise me….
PG: I see
Renee: … as his own.
PG: I imagine—this is probably unfair for me to judge a guy I’ve never met but—
Renee: [laughs] I do it.
PG: For a manipulator and an addict, that’s leverage. That’s a huge amount of leverage cuz you can always play that card and get what you want.
Renee: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s why it took my mom so long—until I was 19—to leave him again. And I was off in college, so basically she’s like, well, I was grown. So she’s, like, I’m done being used in this way. So when I was 19 she left. Um, it was like really crazy because she was really afraid of him, and so when she left, she left for like a week and nobody knew where she was. Like, we knew that she had gone of her own accord—like it was her decision to leave—but we didn’t know where she was. She wasn’t calling anyone. For a week, I had no idea where my mother was.
PG: Were you freaking out?
Renee: I was freaking out. Um… so she contacted my really good friend so that she could tell me that she was okay. She didn’t want me to know where she was or anybody because—
PG: Even though he’d never been physically abusive.
Renee: Even though he’d never been physically abusive because she just didn’t know how he was gonna react, so… when she left…
PG: Did she just pack her shit up and leave when he wasn’t there?
Renee: Um…
PG: Or did she… I—
Renee: I don’t know because I was at school but, um, from what I understand… actually, no, now that I think about it, I don’t think she told him because when she told him is when she told me—that he was not my dad. I mean, you can imagine, my whole world just turned upside down. [nervously breathes/laughs] Because in one fell swoop, it was like ‘Ok. They’re disintegrating.’ Which is fine, I support that because I don’t think she should be with him, but now there’s this whole other bomb that’s been dropped.
PG: What did you think or feel when you heard that? [pause] And did you know the man who—
Renee: no
PG: —was your biological—
Renee: No. Mhmm. He’s still in Mexico.
PG: So you never—
Renee: I’ve never met him. She’s tried to tell me about him, but I know that he knows about me, so if he’s never really wanted to contact me then… I see nothing good coming out of that. [laughs] Um… so….
PG: You don’t see it as a chance to be abandoned twice a good opportunity? [both chuckle]
Renee: I don’t know, man. Hahaha… I feel like then I’d have a good book to write or something. But, uh, I just felt really betrayed, I guess…
PG: By your mom?
Renee: By my mom—and I did feel for a while, like, grateful to my dad for having raised—he didn’t have to—but then I was like, ‘He wasn’t really that good of a dad’ so I don’t know if I actually won out on that… on that decision… so, you know, it’s still really complicated.
PG: Any other highlights or lowlights from your relationship with him?
Renee: With him? So, like, because of all of the manipulativenes—one of the things he did, for example, was when I was really young was that he would always take me to the racetrack and then tell me to lie to my mom. So, we weren’t really here, we were at the park. Um, so I learned—
PG: Ugh. That’s so fucked up.
Renee: [laughs]
PG: That is so fucked up.
Renee: So… but, um, when I was little, you know, I just saw that as like bonding time with my dad. And then later… so, I have a cousin who I grew up with because her parents died young, so she’s older, like 11 years older. And so when I was young—I wanna say like 8 or 9—she got a checking account because she was old enough, so my dad stole from her using her checks that she had in the house. And he had me sign her name. Because my writing would look more like hers. And I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t know how wrong it was. I think he told me that she had said that it was okay, or something, because I remember being stressed out that I wouldn’t write her name correctly. That, like, I wouldn’t get it right. That’s what I was concerned about. And years later, I was like, ‘Wow. That’s really fucked up.’ [laughs]
PG: That is really fucked up.
Renee: You shouldn’t do that to your kids. Um… so, those are just… I mean, stealing from me—like stealing from me. So, when I was like 16, I got my first job, so I had cash laying around the house, and it would just disappear. And, you know, he would claim—
PG: You knew where it went
Renee: I didn’t know, but—
PG: Did you suspect?
Renee: I would suspect and he, of course, would say he had nothing to do with it, and then when I was in college… yeah, because I remember I was with my college boyfriend, um, he stole my identity. [laughs] So, I get this thing in the mail that says, like, ‘You haven’t paid your credit card in however many months’—
PG: By the way, you’re the second guest I’ve had whose step-father… who’s stolen their identity.
Renee: It’s probably more common than people would like believe… because it’s like the easiest… so, I get this thing in the mail saying, ‘You haven’t paid your credit card’ and I’m like ‘I don’t have this credit card’ so I call them and tell them ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ and figure out he opened it, cashed it out—so he got cash out of the ATM—had help from this crazy, weirdo neighbor and, uh, then I had to legally do all this stuff to get out of it. And that was… that was like… just devastating. So… what’s funny is that the last straw was something really small, where he had gotten parking tickets on my car ‘cuz he’d been driving it, so I told him to pay them and then he claimed he did and, of course, he didn’t, so I just paid them even though I had nothing to do with it. I’m in college—on a college budget—or grad school budget, so I had no money. I pay them off, and I’m like ‘I’m done. We… like… that’s it. I’m done.’ And so, I also have an older brother who’s his biological son, and I said ‘You can tell him I’m never talking to him again. It’s just not gonna….’
PG: And how long ago was that?
Renee: So, this was six and a half years ago.
PG: And did you talk to him after that?
Renee: No. So, that was pretty much it. Um… he called and called and called me, saying he had done nothing wrong. Saying that he didn’t understand why I would make this decision. And that probably lasted a couple of years.
PG: That must’ve just added fuel to the fire. That must’ve just made your decision that much easier.
Renee: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I was very upset because it was soooo shocking. Like, how could you not know that what you did was wrong? You know, like, I went back and forth with ‘Should I tell him? Should I not tell him because… ?’ And then I just… I just thought like ‘He’s a toxic person.’ He’s stolen from me, his children, his wife, his mother, his sister, like, everybody. And it’s probably because, like, really bad shit that’s happened to him, but I can’t be responsible for him.
PG: No, no. And he’s an addict—he’s an untreated addict.
Renee: Even when he did come to the realization that he had, like, a mental illness, he used it as a crutch. Right. So, it was ‘Oh well, it’s because I’m depressed.’ And I’m like ‘Well, you need to go fix that because, you know, just saying it isn’t going to do anything.’ Um… so… so then, yeah. I stopped talking to him. I didn’t talk to him for probably four or five years. And then I moved back into the area and… and I’m still close with his side of the family. So, whenever I went to go to family functions, he was there. And I thought ‘well, it’s been long enough.’ So, the last couple of years—year and a half—it was kind of like a relationship with a distant uncle, where you just say hello, give a hug, you know, talk about the weather or whatever [laughs] and then that’s it. And that was really okay with me. So….
PG: And then when we were in the lobby…
Renee: [laughs nervously]
PG: … before we started recording, you said that you almost cancelled—
Renee: yes, yes
PG: And I asked you why and you said?
Renee: Because he passed away. [voice shaking slightly] Um, so I got a call on Saturday night, like, 3 o’clock in the morning, saying he had had a heart attack and he died. And it was… not shocking… at all because my dad had… earlier… he had always been a gambling addict, but when I was really young, he was also a smoker, a drinker, and a food addict.
PG: [sarcastically] At the track???
Renee: I know! You wouldn’t think those things go hand in hand. But they do! But he quit. He smoking cold turkey.
PG: BUT he did have on a jogging suit a lot of times, so you do get health points for that. [both laughing]
Renee: As long as you look active.
PG: I don’t know why I’m just imagining anybody at the racetrack has to have on a jogging suit, but I’m not that far off, am I?
Renee: Um… No, well, he was a contractor, so would go from work, so he had a toolbelt on. [laughs] But, um….
PG: So, your brother called you….
Renee: My brother called me. In the past three years, he got remarried, and he has a six-year-old daughter, who I really don’t interact with much. And, um, but his food addiction came back. I mean, really… in the last last four or five years, he probably gained, like… two to three hundred pounds.
PG: Wow….
Renee: Yeah. Like, I’d never seen him that heavy. I mean, he was heavy when he was young, but he was like heavy, like I couldn’t even—
PG: I wonder if he was cutting down on his gambling, so he was—
Renee: it could be. It could be. So, you know, they told us a year ago that he might need, like, heart surgery. And I was like ‘Their never gonna do it because he won’t—like he won’t survive it—and it wouldn’t be worth it because he’s not gonna change his eating habits. So, that he had a heart attack is not at all… shocking... but, of course, it’s still sad. Um… and I’m sad because it’s sad. [voice wavering] You know… I’m not… I don’t feel like ‘Oh my god, there’s any resolved anything’ because I accepted that this was going to happen and that we weren’t ever going to talk again. But it’s only been a few days, so I don’t know if my attitude is gonna change. People keep telling me—because when I first stopped talking to him, the first thing people would say is ‘When he dies, you’re going to regret it. You’re going to regret it.’
PG: Can I just interject and say to people, I know you’re well meaning, but if I get one more fucking email from people telling me to forgive my mom—by the way, which I really have. I’m not angry with her. I just have to protect myself. And people think there’s this thing where you have to forgive and intermingle with the person who has hurt you. And for some people, maybe they can do that, but for some of us, we can’t.
Renee: Yeah, yeah. It’s hard because people—and I dunno if your mom is like this, but my dad is like a tornado—you know, a tornado of toxicity.
PG: Yes.
Renee: As soon as you get within a certain distance, he just sucks you right in. And he knows how to push your emotional buttons, you know, and so, yeah, it is just a protective thing. I would love more than anything to have a relationship with my dad, but he makes it impossible.
PG: Yes.
Renee: And so, I can’t be—I can’t like, you know, risk my sanity for the sake of having what other people—
PG: And I’m glad you use that word because it is insane constantly going back into a situation and expecting this person to act differently when they don’t have the tools or insight to do that. And the sadness—I feel more sadness than anything, and I wonder if what you’re feeling is that sense of like ‘what a waste, what a shame’—
Renee: Yes. Yes. That is exactly the feeling because… I’ve also struggled with telling certain friends that he’s passed because I have this weird mixture of sadness [pause] but relief. You know, that it’s like… over. Like I don’t have to think ‘Oh what if he’s there? What am I gonna do? What am I gonna say?’ You know, this is going to sound cruel to a lot of people, but my dad was a great dad when I was really little. He would sing random songs and, you know, play with me. He was like a big kid, so with his daughter now, he’s like that with her. She just like loves him—she’s just in love with her dad.
PG: It’s also easy when you’re too young to have shit stolen from you.
Renee: [laughs] Although he did use her as leverage a lot with people, like ‘Oh, but I need to take care of my daughter. Can’t you just help out and… ’ But anyway, so I’m happy that she got the good side of him and doesn’t have to grow up and get the crappy side of him, so… there’s that relief, too.
PG: I wonder if—and you’ll never know the answer to this, but with a person like that, is that niceness—is that calculated? Or is that coming from a genuine place? Is that—because… you know… the addict is usually such a manipulator because the—the—their drive or drug or whatever it is, they need in such large quantities that to keep getting it, they’ve got to be manipulating 24 hours a day. Keeping this lie aloft and that and canceling on this person and saying it’s for this other reason and… and I wonder if there’s... that genuine thing is, like, ‘Oh, I’ve burned enough fires these last few weeks. I need to get into Good Guy mode so I can rekindle some trust.’ And maybe that’s just me being really cynical, but I think with some addicts that are really, really in their sickness—I don’t think there’s even a genuine empathy and compassion for other people because they’re so consumed with numbing themselves.
Renee: Yeah… yeah. You know, what’s interesting is that it really took me being in an abusive relationship with someone who was very similar to my dad to make me realize so much about my dad. Right. So, that relationship was when I decided to stop talking to my dad. Because the person I was with was also very emotionally manipulative, but completely unaware of what he was saying. It was so obvious that this was just his way of being, and I was just getting caught up in it because I had already been—I knew the role to play, and you know, it was so cl—I was, like, ‘Either my dad knows what he was doing or he doesn’t’—and I don’t know which one is worse—that he could potentially be lying to everyone because that is just his natural mode of being. And to this day, I hate lying because I-I get really stressed out if I even have to say a grey lie, where it’s just like almost true but not really because I’ve seen my dad weave these tales of deceit. And it takes so much energy to keep them going. And so I don’t want to ever get caught up in anything like that. But, yeah, people who emotionally manipulate often, it’s their go to reaction instead of a calculated thing.
PG: Um hmm… well, I can say for myself that my wife for years pointed out to me that I would be passive-aggressive because I was so afraid—if I had a need or I had a want I would passive-aggressively try to get her to do things, instead of just saying ‘I would like this. Would you please do this?’ And it drove her fucking crazy, and I’m just beginning now to see that it’s because I grew up afraid of having needs because that was, that was terrifying to have needs. And, so, you just wind up… it’s easier in the short run to… be subtle about your needs. But in the long run, it makes it so hard for people to get close to you because you never can say what’s going on inside of you.
Renee: I know that. So well. So, my reaction to not wanting to see me because I have it so strong is to just not have them. I will literally do everything on my own. And it—it’s impossible many of the times, but I would rather do something on my own than ask someone for help. It’s just—it’s just so aversive to say, ‘Can you help me?’
PG: And it’s the greatest phrase you will ever say when you find those people who will help you.
Renee: And the irony is that I love helping people. Like I am all about helping people. But needing that help is, uh, so hard.
PG: And the crux is finding those people. And that’s why I always talk about support groups. It’s… therapy is great. Therapy is great. Awesome. But you can’t call your therapist between sessions and say, ‘Can you come over and hug me’ or ‘Can we go out to dinner because I need someone to talk to.’
Renee: Yeah... yeah. I’ve actually thought about doing support groups. I don’t currently, so I just talk to my friends.
PG: I imagine that there is some support group, probably a 12-step meeting for, um, loved ones of gamblers—
Renee: Probably
PG: I’m sure there is ‘cuz there’s that for all—every other addition. Um, there’s something else I wanted to ask you. So, talk about… how you came to go to therapy. How long have you been going?
Renee: So, so, that came from the abusive relationship. So,
PG: Let’s go back to that then. Let’s go back to the abusive relationship.
Renee: So, just to say that the other half of the mix was that while my dad was doing all this craziness, my mom is, like, the most passive person. So, my mom became the person I did not want to be. Right. So, it was like ‘Ok. He’s going to be like this. And she’s not going to take care of me, so I’m gonna take care of myself.’ Uh… but… yeah, so when I was in—when I just started dating someone. And it was long distance. And he had tons of issues. But the biggest one was a jealousy streak. Like a huge—like I wouldn’t answer my phone, and it was like ‘Oh, you must be with someone else. Who are you with?’ And it got to the point where I couldn’t even sleep. So, I went to the therapist at—‘cuz at college campuses it’s free—and that’s awesome. And I just said, ‘This is what’s going on’ and she said, ‘You need to break up with him. Like, you can tell him I said it. I don’t care what you do. You need to get away from this guy.’ And as much as I wish I could say that’s when I broke up with him, it still took another, like, six months for me to truly… Like what happened is that I just got so emotionally drained… like I had zero emotion left, and I was like ‘Ok. He’s taken everything I had’—
PG: Were you trying to have it both ways, where you could extricate yourself from it and minimize the hurt to him?
Renee: Yeah. So, what my dad did—
PG: Which is crazy-making, by the way.
Renee: Is that he—so, for a long time, I wanted to fix my dad, from the moment I can remember, from when I was like 6. I wanted my dad to be a better person, and I truly, truly believed that I could be the one to make him a better person.
PG: And how did you think you could do that?
Renee: I mean, it was little things like—my earliest memory is like when I was 6 or 7 and he smoked—like 2 packs a day—he smoked and, you know, that’s when they teach you that smoking can kill you. And I was like, ‘My dad’s gonna die. My dad’s gonna die.’ So, I threw out his cigarettes. And I was like, ‘Done and done. Now my dad’s gonna be okay.’ And I almost got hit for that. Like that’s how upset he got. I mean it was just like a huge rampage... of anger.
PG: And he couldn’t even see how much—
Renee: No.
Renee: --you cared for him.
PG: He couldn’t see that I was upset.
Renee: That’s the saddest part.
Renee: Yeah. And my mom was just… ‘Just give them to him. Just give them to him.’ She couldn’t—she also couldn’t understand why I had done it? Like, and her thing is just, like, minimize, minimize, minimize, minimize.
PG: Have you ever gotten in touch with any anger you have for her being that way?
Renee: Yeah. Yeah, that’s a lot of my [nervous laugh] therapy sessions. It’s about, like, no one let me be a kid. No one was just like, ‘I’m gonna take care of you.’ And this is the cycle, right. The cycle is, ‘Oh. She’s so smart (or he’s so smart). She’s basically like a little adult. So, we’ll let her take care of herself. Isn’t that wonderful.’ There’s no… What are we doing that’s making her think that no one’s gonna take care of her?’ Right? So, then I become the strong one in the family. Like everyone comes to me. Everyone comes to me. For money, for help, for advice, for everything. And never thinking, ‘Oh. Maybe this is not the best idea.’ And so that’s like the weird cycle that happens. Um… but yeah, so I ended up like—so I’ve been in therapy for like three and a half years now. It started in grad school, and like I was saying earlier, grad school was just… it’s enough to make anyone go insane. You know? It’s just….
PG: What was your first breakthrough in therapy where you began to feel some relief or you began to see some light at the end of the tunnel? [pause] Or have you?
Renee: I mean, it’s a process. My therapist will say things and I’m like, ‘Well, that can’t be true….’
PG: Like what?
Renee: So, one of the things I struggle with, like, with my dad I was able to cut him out. Um… is I tend to see things in just black and white. Right? So, it’s either, like, it’s good or it’s bad. Or, I’m good or I’m bad.
PG: I have a book for you to read. It’s so fucking good, and it describes exactly—exactly—children that grew up afraid to—where the parents need were—it’s called The Narcissistic Family.
Renee: hmmmm
PG: And that’s one of the hallmarks of the children of narcissists. They really struggle with grey thinking.
Renee: Yeah, it’s hard, especially—like one of the things my dad used to do when I was young was push me on the grades. If I didn’t get an A, he was like, ‘Why didn’t you get an A?’ Um… and so… I didn’t feel perfect or good unless I had, like, all As. And then… for anyone who’s ever been to grad school, it’s all grey. There’s no black and white ever.
PG: So, you never knew where you stand… or what your worth is.
Renee: You don’t know where you stand. And the worst thing you can do is compare yourself to the best person in the group. ‘Cuz, you know, there’s always one who’s, like, amazing. And is just like getting stuff done left and right and is way ahead of everyone else, and you’re like, ‘They’re obviously the Good One. And I’m the Bad One.’ Um… and it’s hard because there’s so many—
PG: And forget about the fact that you were previously just thinking, ‘If I could just get into grad school.’
Renee: Yeah. Yeah. And I got into a really good program—a really good program—like a program that I would never in a million years have thought I would get into. And that’s actually an interesting issue because I tell people where I went to school, and they assume a lot about me. They assume I have money. They assume—
PG: Can you say which school you went to?
Renee: I’d rather not say but [self-conscious laugh] it is a school where every, you know, every parent wants there kid to get into that school.
PG: Okay.
Renee: And so….
PG: And were you on scholarship for this program?
Renee: For a PhD program, they pay for you. So, it’s hard, right, because they’re like investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in your ideas—and your ideas could be bad and not work. They could—you know? And then especially—
PG: Is that all PhD programs? They’re paid for?
Renee: Pretty much. Yeah. If you’re paying for your PhD program, it’s probably not a good sign.
PG: Ok.
Renee: Yeah. Masters programs are you pay out of pocket, but a PhD is… is… they pay for you… which is great. I actually have a really funny story where I got into the school, and I called my parents (this is when they were already separated). So I called my mom, and my mom said, ‘Wait. Where is that school?’ And if you knew where I went to school, it’s like everybody knows where this school is. And I was like, ‘Of course….’ And then I called my dad and he said, ‘Wait. So, where—how are you gonna pay for it?’ And I said, ‘No, they pay for it. They pay me to go to school.’ And he said, ‘Are you gonna play for the basketball team?’ And I said, ‘No. No. I don’t have to do anything. I just have to think.’ [chuckling] Um… so…. Yeah, it’s a really funny story, but like, you know, the problem—it’s such a hard problem. Every week the first year, I was like ‘I’m going home.’ It’s just so intense. ‘What if I’m not cut out for this? What if I’m not as smart as they think I am?’ Um… and part… and there were moments when I knew this was crazy and not true, but I was like, ‘Maybe they just wanted me because I’m Latina. And they could say that they’re diverse and that they don’t really think that I’m that smart.’ Then I was like, ‘No. That’s a lot of money to invest in someone just to like up their numbers.’ So… yeah… it’s just hard. If I hadn’t gone to therapy while I was in grad school, I would not have made it. I would not have made it because therapy at least let me realize that, like, a lot of the thoughts I was having were a little intense. And I could somewhat work on not having such intense like “trudes” that were not true. So either I’m good or I’m bad.
PG: Yeah… yeah…
Renee: Um… I’m either smart or I’m not. Um… so… so that helped a lot.
PG: And did you begin to have some relief knowing that every thought that went through your head wasn’t necessarily the truth?
Renee: Yeah. Yeah.
PG: I should say every negative thought.
Renee: Yeah. Because sometimes you can just say, ‘Well, I’m not gonna believe that for now. Maybe it is true, but’—
PG: Put it on the back burner, at least.
Renee: Yeah. But I’m not gonna believe it for now. And you know, that’s when I started realizing that I was in a tough positon. My family didn’t prepare me to take care of myself because I was taking care of myself. You know like… so when I was 12, I… so I went from a private school to a public school because my family couldn’t afford the tuition anymore. It was a very low-cost private school, but it was still too much for my parents, so I ended up in a public school the last year of elementary. So I was 12. And the feeder—like the middle school that it fed into—was the worst. It was horrible. It was full of gangs. It just had like a really bad reputation, and uh… so I told my mom, ‘I really don’t wanna go to that middle school. I don’t know what else there is to do, but if there is anything, I would like to figure it out.’ And this is before Google, right? So, somehow I figured out—like I just took my mom to the local education department—and I was just like ‘I don’t wanna go to this middle school. What can you do for me?’ And they… I think they looked at my grades, and they were like, ‘Oh, well you can go to this other middle school. You just have to get yourself there. We can’t bus you in because you’re too far.’ And I was like, ‘Ok. Tell me what I need to do.’ So we filled out all the paperwork, and then from 7th grade, I started taking public transportation an hour to school, by myself, because I couldn’t picture myself in such a bad school.
PG: Wow….
Renee: And my mom like just kind of followed along. She was like, ‘Ok. Ok. Tell me where to sign.’
PG: That blows my mind and breaks my heart at the same time.
Renee: Yeah. But it was like what I had to do, so… and so my knowledge of taking care of myself was built from a child. You know, it’s like from a child’s point of view.
PG: And all about your practical needs, but nothing about your emotional needs.
Renee: Nothing about emotional needs. And nothing about… you know just coming from a family that lives paycheck to paycheck, and we moved a lot because we often just couldn’t pay the rent and stuff like that… there’s no envisioning of a career. There’s no ‘how to handle stress’ about your position within the field. Like that is like really impossible for my family to even think about. So, when that happened… when I had to think, ‘What kind of researcher can I be? Do I want to go and stay in academia or go into something else?’ my family couldn’t help me with those questions. They didn’t really even understand what they meant. Um… and at the same time I felt—and still feel (as much as I’m working it) a huge responsibility to take care of them. Like I’m the only one who’s made it out.
PG: And they think that because you’ve got your PhD that you’re going to be rich—in social work—is it considered social work?
Renee: No, um… it’s just social psychology. It’s like experimental psychology.
PG: Academia? Is that what’s it’s considered?
Renee: Yes. Academia. So, within academia, there’s so many ways to go. So, you can go to a big research school. Those are the ones we know. Those are like UCLA, USC, um… Harvard, Stanford, all of those. Uh… and there’s like smaller, very well-known teaching schools. Those are on the east coast. Um… and then there’s smaller, more teaching-focused schools. That’s like the Cal State system. And then within that, there’s like huge status. So, I actually have a new job lined up to be a professor in the fall, and it’s at one of the—it’s like a Cal State level. And I can tell that people are like, ‘But really? But you went to school at blahblahblah’ And I’m like, ‘But I love teaching! I love teaching. And I hate that you’re like, you know, bashing my decision.’ So, you know, it’s also hard to—how do you talk about that with your family… who just thinks very practically about stuff—and doesn’t have to worry about… those kinds of… stresses. So… it’s been… crazy. It’s been very crazy…. [voice trails off] Yeah, without therapy, I don’t think I would have been able to do any of it… ‘cuz it gave me just a lot of insight into those thoughts that I was carrying with me from when I was having to take care of myself, when I was young. And realizing that they weren’t good anymore. They were good at the time—they got me through, uh, but they’re not the thoughts I should continue….
PG: And that’s a really great point to make… is that our coping mechanisms as children become our anchors as adults. It’s amazing the things that will get you far in your professional career are sometimes the things that will destroy your personal life.
Renee: Yeah… yeah [sighing] So…
PG: So, do you feel like you’re becoming more… h-has, has your… I don’t wanna use the word “sickness”—your upbringing pain ever expressed itself in a way other than making bad relationship choices and being a workaholic—were you, were you… I dunno, maybe I shouldn’t put words in your mouth saying you’re a workaholic. An achiever—an overachiever.
Renee: Yeah. Yeah.
PG: Um… cutting? Or any kind of other…?
Renee: No, nothing physically harming, but I think I picked up my dad’s weird relationship with food. So, that’s definitely come through. My mom… my mom… I tell people I hit the genetic jackpot in the sense that there’s so much mental illness in my family and only got anxiety and depression.
PG: [chuckles]
Renee: So, I don’t know my biological father, so I have no idea what the issues are on that side of the family. But when I was growing up, my grandmother was also an alcoholic—like severe alcoholic—like so I only knew her as a mean drunk. She died when I was 8, so my mother fell into a huge depression. My family’s really secretive, so I don’t know everything that happened, but I do know that my mom was in a mental hospital a couple of months after that. And from what I can deduce, I think she tried to commit suicide.
PG: Your mom did.
Renee: Yeah. And so, that was hard. That was hard. And all I really remember is that it happened around Christmastime. So, my grandmother died in September, and then that Christmas—
PG: How old were you?
Renee: I think I was 8 or 9 when all of this happened. So that Christmas I didn’t have her. And nobody would tell me anything, so I was just like, ‘Where is she? What’s happening?’ And she came back, but as an adult—after going to therapy—I can see her depression so clearly. Like so clearly. And my mom carries a lot of shame about me, about the way I was conceived, about the decision she made to have my dad become my dad… just lots of stuff. So, when I was 16, I had my first depressive episode. And it hit me like a truck. I just stopped everything. Like I could be at school and actually continue to get decent grades, but I would just come home and just like cry and cry. I couldn’t understand what was happening. And I didn’t like want to commit suicide, but I had these weird suicidal thoughts. And I was like, ‘What is happening? Like I don’t want that to happen. But I can’t stop the thoughts from coming in.’ So I told my mom. So I sat my parents down. And all I could really get out of my mouth—because I don’t like asking for help—was like, ‘I think that something is wrong. I don’t know what. But I think something is wrong.’ And they just denied it. They just said, ‘You’ll snap out of it. You’ll be fine.’ And I could tell that my mom knew that was not true, but she didn’t know what to do. My mom has a lot of anxiety over not being a good mom, so she just kind of ignored it and let it go. Luckily I did pull out of it, and then I didn’t really have another depressive episode again until I was in grad school. And because of the lack of routine, the lack of someone telling me what exactly to do, having to be my own boss and motivate myself, you know, if I don’t believe that I’m capable, it’s really hard to say, ‘You can do this!’ Because I don’t know if I can, and I don’t know if I’m able. And then it hit again.
PG: And that’s that black-and-white thinking because we think, ‘If I’m not able to do this, that’s the end of the road.’ That it couldn’t possibly be laying the groundwork for something else that needs to happen. We have this linear black-and-white thinking that is so rigid, and life is… very rarely do any people live the life that they have linearly planned out to happen—‘I will do this and then that will happen and that will happen.’ And even the people who do wind up becoming dismayed by what it is. Flexibility is so… fucking important. But it involves optimism and patience and faith. And when you’re raised in an environment where there’s no trust, how do you generate those things?
Renee: Yeah. And it’s also coming from a family that just thinks, ‘Oh, you’re so smart.’ And if there’s any sign that I’m not smart, they must have been wrong. Someone was wrong about that assessment of me. And that… and my depression is mostly just, like, sleeping. I just can’t—
PG: Ah, sweet, sweet sleep….
Renee: But it’s like the worst sleep ever. It’s just horrible. Cuz it’s really just trying to escape from everything, so… you know….
PG: You must not have the pillow that I’ve got.
Renee: [laughs] I need to get that one. That way it’s just a vacation as opposed to a depressive episode.
PG: When I squeeze my pillow, it says, ‘There, there.’
Renee: [laughs] You should market that.
PG: ‘Where have you been?’
Renee: Yeah, it’s probably not great. You know, it’s just so weird because all of my family has issues, and we don’t talk about it. And so, one of my fears is that with my dad dying, my brother and my dad were very close. Very close. It was super dysfunctional... their relationship. But I’m very worried about my brother. I’m very worried. He’s definitely sliding into a depression now, like I’ve already talked to him, and it’s not good. I’m actually really scared that he’s going to react to my dad dying the way my mom reacted to her mom dying. And, you know, he has three kids—he can’t do that.
PG: And the sad thing is there’s nothing you can do to save him from that.
Renee: I think that… just let him know that I-I don’t want that to happen to you. I-I’m here. So, I think—
PG: And I think that’s the best thing anyone could ever say is that I love you and I’m here for you. I’m worried about you.
Renee: Yeah. Yeah… that’s what I’m trying to do. It’s just I do feel like whenever these crises hit, my mom backs away because she feels so incapable. Um… and I’ve tried to tell her just say, ‘I’m here’ or ‘I love you’ or whatever, and she just still feels very inadequate as a mom, and that’s been tough to deal with. And you know, it’s just hard because I think like when I was little—and I still pretty much remember being little and thinking, ‘I’m gonna just—‘[shifts thought] So, this is what was happening. My family was crazy. My brother is 10 years older, so when I was 4 (this is the story that like says it all) I told my mom that I didn’t want to grow up. That’s not for me. And that’s basically because I saw all these adults, and they were like fucked up. You know? Like they were all unhappy… always fighting. I was like that just seems like not a great deal. And so I said, ‘I’m just gonna stay four. Four is a really good age for me.
PG: I’m in my sweet spot.
Renee: Yes. [laughing]
PG: Four is my wheelhouse. [laughing]
Renee: Before like school starts. That seems like a lot of work, too, and so I’m just gonna stay four. And my mom has a very morbid sense of humor. And so she thought it was funny, and said, ‘Well, if you wanna stay four, you could, but that means you would have to die and go to Heaven.’
PG: Oh my god.
Renee: ‘And stay with the angels. But then you’d be four forever. But then you wouldn’t be here anymore.’ To me, it was actually a great response because I was like, ‘Oh, never mind. If that’s the way it has to be, then I guess I should just see what this growing up thing is all about.’ But I just didn’t want to be with the people I was surrounded by. And I still remember my brother and my dad fighting, and my mom getting so upset, and me having thought, ‘I’m just going to be the good, quiet kid because my mom has so much going on already, I don’t want to add to that. So I’m just going to be the good quiet kid.’ But when I grew up, the past few years, I realized that what I actually thought was, ‘I’m gonna be the good, quiet kid—for now—until it’s my turn to to be the kid.’ The kid who people take care of. That never happened because they were so busy with my brother… and then busy with kids, you know, and their own illnesses… and the emotion that I struggle with the most is the feeling of being cheated.
PG: Is there a temptation when you get into a relationship to… to want to be… I don’t know if “parented” is the right word, but to be taken care of by that person in a way that is maybe unrealistic?
Renee: No. Well… no. So, my reaction in relationships, thus far, has been to take care of people because that’s what I know how to do really well.
PG: And then they won’t leave?
Renee: No. So, in my head, I’m making the same, uh, deal, where I’m like, ‘Ok. I’m gonna take care of you, but you have to care of me.’ But I find people who don’t know how to do the taking care of, right, because those are the people I grew up with. And, so, what happens is I take care of them, and then I need support, it doesn’t come (because we’ve set up the relationship now where I’m the caretaker) um… and then I’m completely resentful.
PG: And you don’t know how to express your needs or your feelings, so they’re confused as to why you’re angry and being passive-aggressive.
Renee: Yup. Yup. [laughs] Sometimes I’m just—I won’t say “aggressive”—but I just get angry. You know? I’m like, ‘I needed you for this and you were like completely…’ or ‘You see me sitting here stressed out and you’re not asking me what’s wrong.’ But then, I have gotten some moments where, like, people take care of me, and I don’t know how to react.
PG: Why?
Renee: Because I’ve never been in that position.
PG: What does it feel like?
Renee: It feels… uh… I feel needy.
PG: You feel weak?
Renee: Yeah. Almost. Like this shouldn’t be happening.
PG: Do you feel vulnerable?
Renee: Yeah.
PG: Like you’re open to something… like you might get hurt? Or what?
Renee: Um… I’m trying to think.
PG: Or is it the unknown that is… that just kind of freaks you out?
Renee: I think it’s a little bit of the unknown, but just… yeah, like needy. And I’m so against having needs.
PG: Yeah. Like this is kind of pathetic and selfish of me.
Renee: Yeah. Pathetic is probably the word I’m looking for. Pathetic. I have had relationships where it’s fine because I feel like it’s going both ways, and then I’m okay. But if I ever feel like I’m really being taken care of? Yeah, it just feels very odd. So, that’s kind of one of things I’m working on… asking people for help when I need it. Like when my dad died, you know, my reaction was just stay in my apartment. You know, just like don’t tell anyone, just deal with it, take care of my brother, you know, all that stuff. And then I was like I should probably call my friends, and one of them came over and stayed with me. We just watched tv, you know, nothing—
PG: Dramatic
Renee: Yeah, nothing crazy, but that’s what I needed. And she left and I kind of like fell apart and I was like ‘Ok, now I see that while she was here I could keep it together.’ But if I had fallen apart in front of her, she would’ve been fine, too. So….
PG: Did you find yourself fighting the urge to fall apart in front of her?
Renee: No. I’m really good at compartmentalizing. So this is one of the things that when you grow up in a family with tons of issues, you learn how to be different people. Right? So you are the person you are at home, dealing with the shittiness? And then you go to school or work or wherever, and you just have to forget. You just have to not let it affect you. And I think that’s why when I am depressed, I still like go to work and act out “working” and then I go home and I’m like a mess. Um… so it’s like one of those automatic things where, like, if people are around, I learn to like… I feel better. I feel better. I’m distracted. But then as soon as they’re not there, I don’t have anything to distract me anymore. And that’s when it all comes rushing in. So… that compartmentalizing is something I got really, really good at. And it’s not always easy because sometimes those worlds are gonna blend. Uh… and that’s really anxiety-provoking for me. So… so… yeah, I don’t have the urge to hold back feelings; they just hold themselves back. [laughs] That’s a little scary, now that I think about it.
PG: Well, you seem like you’re making progressive, though. You’re committed to therapy. You’re open to the idea of going to a support group. Um….
Renee: So, one of the things that my dad—you know, there’s just so much bad stuff that happened with my dad—when I decided to stop talking to him (it was like, you know, he’s just a toxic tornado, I need to stay away from all of that) but I knew that so much of his behavior came out of a place of deep pain. Like deep pain. And that’s when I realized I can’t fix that. I have nothing to do with that. I can’t fix that. And, like you know, these days I’ve been up and down. Even before he passed away, I’ve been like up and down. Um… a little bit more than usual. I think it’s like the stress of a new job. I’m gonna be moving. And, you know, change is hard. Um… but also in the past few months, my therapist and I have been talking about possibly talking about starting medication, and I’ve been kind of like ‘Hmmm… I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know…’ and she just like said, well, in the best case scenario, it’ll just take the edge of your emotions—because when I’m emotional, I’m like really emotional. [nervously laughs] Um… and I said that sounds amazing. That sounds perfect. Like if I could feel my emotions at 80 percent, I think it would be just so great. But I was still wishy-washy about making the decision and, you know, the day after my dad died, I took a long walk, a really long walk. I live relatively close to the beach, and so I walked like 4 miles, just to think about it, and I was like… I could see his pain. I could see it. Like when he gained all that weight? That’s pain. That’s visual reminder of how much pain he’s in. And I feel pain. But I refuse to admit it. I refuse to say that I’m in pain. I still… somewhere deep inside, as much as I know about psychology, as much as I know about my family, I still believe that I should somehow be able to fix it. Like I should be able to tell myself, ‘Stop feeling this way. You know, just get it under control.’
PG: Your pain’s not valid, but other people’s are.
Renee: Yeah. Yeah. That’s exactly how it’s felt, but then I thought my dad’s pain affected so many people—so many people—not just him. But it’s like sad that he was in pain, but it adds to the sadness that he caused so much pain because of it. So, I called today to get an appointment to get on medication pills. Like I don’t wanna affect people. Like it’s almost okay if I go through, but I don’t want it to affect other people.
PG: There’s no harm in trying it.
Renee: Yeah. I mean, I definitely was, like, not 100 percent committed to it.
PG: And psyche meds don’t make you euphoric. They just bring the bottom up, so that you can be more of your normal self. I’ve used the analogy a thousand times, but it’s like a diabetic using insulin. That’s not cheating, is it?
Renee: Yeah. When I went back to college, I was relatively mentally healthy. And that’s because I had set-out rules. Like, this is how you get an A. This is how you get into grad school. You know, all of those things. So I could just follow them and do well. Um… but now, even in my new job, I answer to me, and if this is truly what I want to do—and I do—then I’m gonna have to figure out a way to not let it make me crazy.
PG: And one of the first casualties of depression is inspiration. And when you’re working for yourself, inspiration is currency.
Renee: Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. So, I think, you know, his passing has reminded me how important it is to take care of myself, not just for myself (because it’s still hard not to think of that as selfish). [sighs] Ugh…. It’s hard. It’s so hard.
PG: It gets easier. It’s a process. I mean, you’ve been in therapy for three years, and you can see the progress that you’ve made, right?
Renee: Yeah. Definitely. I mean, when I first went in, just talking about my family, I’d be in tears the whole session.
PG: And feeling guilty that you’re talking about them behind their backs.
Renee: [laughs] Yeah, and sometimes I fear, like, what if they know they’re the reason I’m there. But, um… but yeah, it’s definitely still a process. I think the biggest thing is just that we look at people we think have made it, and we think they have it so easy. And I know this is like a weird parallel, but I often hear people say that celebrities or super models… why would they have anything to complain about. And I’m like ‘Because they’re humans beings!’ I mean we all have problems, and I think when you look at successful people and think that they must have it easy, or like they don’t have worries, or like people that have a lot of money… I mean, everybody has their own story.
PG: Right. I always think of what Ringo Starr said when the Beatles were at the height of their popularity. He called up George Harrison and said, ‘I’ve gotta quit the group.’ And George was like, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘I’m just tired of it always being the three of you and me being on the outside.’ And George said, ‘I always feel like it’s the three of you and I’m on the outside.’ And they called John Lennon and he said the same thing. So, if you’re in the most popular band of all time, at the height of its popularity, and you’re feeling like an outsider thinking everyone else has got it going on….
Renee: Yeah.
PG: I think that’s a pretty pervasive, common thing to feel.
Renee: Yeah. Especially… especially with… uh, I don’t know… with imperfections where people just don’t talk about anything personal. It’s just hard to see what’s going on behind the scenes.
PG: I imagine, too, especially in a… in a field where intellect is prized… to detach from the intellect and then to begin to talk about emotions, that’s kind of a big segue.
Renee: Yeah, even though so many of our research ideas come from our emotions, we intellectualize them. And…
PG: And there’s a safety to intellectualizing things.
Renee: Yeah. Definitely. I think, too, my field also… sometimes I wish I thought more about like how my mental illnesses will interact with the field that I’m going into because the people that got really rewarded in my field are the ones who work 24 hours a day. They just work all the time. And I just can’t do that. Like I burn out. And I fall into depression or I get really high anxiety, which leads into depression, which is not good. So I’ve learned to take breaks and, you know, if I need to take a couple of days off, then that’s okay, but like you know, just because of the field I’m in, I will not get as far as they do. And that’s okay.
PG: Well, I think if you open your mind up to what counts as success, and if you count ‘meaning’ in your life as success, there’s so many more paths that can bring meaning into your life. So many more than financial success and recognition because that’s largely beyond our control. There’s so many things that we do have control over in our lives… taking the time with students, being a really present teacher, taking that natural love you have for teaching and let that shine by caring of your depression. And make sure it doesn’t get muted by that. To me, then you’re touching lives. And what’s more fucking successful than making the world a slightly better place.
Renee: Yeah. I think my initial ‘I can change people’ because of my dad and to some extent my brother, has made me a very good teacher, in the sense that I’m very present with my students. And I’m sooo concerned about them. Like if they’re not learning, I’m doing something wrong and I need to fix that. But, in that sense, it’s become a really good version of that belief, in the sense of like when I’m teaching, I’m not trying to change people; I’m trying to affect people. And then they can take that and do whatever they want with it. And then I know I did my part.
PG: Yeah. Yeah.
Renee: And I don’t have to check in on them and like make sure… um… so that’s where I can see where these things fall in line and where I’m gonna need like some help to get me through it a little bit more. So, that’s where I am… currently [whispers, trails off, nervously laughs].
PG: That’s awesome. Thank you, Renee. You wanna do a Fear Off and a Love Off?
Renee: Sure. And I have to try to remember mine.
PG: Okay. No problem. If you have to pause between them, I can edit them out. No sweat. She had written them down but then forgot to bring ‘em.
Renee: Of course.
PG: I’m gonna be reading the fears of a listener named Matt. And I’ll start with his. He writes: I’m afraid of being injured and having it ruin my life. I just fixed my credit, and it would only take me being clipped by a car to send me back into debt.
Renee: Yeah. I know that…. I fear that I’m really smart, but all of my ideas will be lost in my head.
PG: I fear having a relationship like my parents. I always hear my mother whispering, ‘Shut the fuck up’ under her breath every time my dad talks.
Renee: Ugh…
PG: Wow…
Renee: That’s… wow.
PG: I gotta get Matt on the show.
Renee: I’m afraid I’m not as smart as I sometimes think I am. [laughs nervously]
PG: Uh… Matt says: I’m afraid I’m going to be fired. I never thought I was doing well at a job I’m being paid for, but I’ve been at my current job for six years. I must be doing something right.
Renee: I’m afraid that I’ll never get over not being able to just be a kid.
PG: I hope… I hope…
Renee: Me, too.
PG: That you can find that fun and silliness and being in the moment totally unrelated to work. It’s not easy, but I think it’s definitely doable. Um… I’m afraid about being honest about my occasional depression… dying and my family being unsure if I killed myself or not.
Renee: I’m afraid that I will start my new job and will decide that it was not the best decision.
PG: [chuckles] That’s a funny one. We always have synchronicities in these. Matt’s next one is I’m afraid of staying at my current job for another six years. I can do it, but it’s not what I want to do.
[both laugh]
Renee: I’m afraid that people will find out about my depression and anxiety at work and treat me with kid gloves.
PG: I used to have that one, and giving that up was one of the most freeing things. Owning my mental illness was, like, so fucking freeing. Um… I encourage everybody to do it because then you find out who your real friends are. Let’s go to Loves. Mat says: I love the cold side of the pillow.
Renee: I do, too. I love when my cat runs up to the door when I come home.
PG: I love falling asleep alone and waking up with a warm body beside me. Hopefully that’s not a freshly dead body. [laughs]
Renee: Well, it’s still warm. I love the sound of high heels walking down a hallway.
PG: Oh, that’s a good one.
Renee: Ever since I was little.
PG: Uh… I love admitting that I hate a book or movie on Twitter and having 5 or 6 people Favorite it.
[laughter]
Renee: I know that feeling. I love when I’m teaching… that moment when a student gets it. There’s a flash of recognition on their face.
PG: That’s gotta be beautiful.
Renee: It’s awesome. Awesome.
PG: I love being consistently creative, as though I can actually make a living as a writer.
Renee: Well, I’m with that. I love when I analyze my data, and I was right! [laughs heartily]
PG: Oh, that’s gotta be a great feeling.
Renee: The other possibility is what I fear, but I do love when I am right.
PG: Um… and Matt’s last one is I love discovering people who are consistently creative—people who spewing wells of creativity, even if it’s sometimes bad—especially when it’s bad—because it makes me think it’s possible for me to be a crappy, professional writer. [laughs]
Renee: I love when I end up having a really nerdy conversation with someone, and I really wasn’t expecting it. That’s really great.
PG: Well, Renee, thank you so much for sharing your life and your insides with us. I really appreciate it.
Renee: Thanks. I really appreciate this. This is really… really great.
PG: Many, many thanks to Renee. And, um, we recorded that episode almost two years ago. That was recorded in May of 2013. And sometimes I don’t let people know I’m posting their episode until the night before I’m posting it, and I ask them for an update. And I wasn’t able to get a response from her other than that she was excited that the episode was going up, so I don’t have any updates for you. But she’s alive. How about that? [chuckles] How about that for an update?
PG: Anyway, before I read a bunch of surveys and emails and stuff I have, I wanna remind you there are a bunch of ways you can support us if you’re so inclined. You can support us financially by going to the website MentalPod.com and making either a one-time PayPal donation or a recurring monthly donation. And it means so much to the show. I really appreciate it. You can support us by spreading the word through social media, writing a nice review on iTunes…. There’s all kinds of ways you can do it without spending money, so I appreciate that.
PG: Alright. Let’s get to this. This is an email I got from a listener named Laura, and she asked a question:
Laura: I was thinking it would be good if you were able to talk about the first time you went to a support group, and what they’re like, if you made any friends there.
PG: The first time I went it was one for… uh… because I couldn’t stop drinking or doing drugs, and it was scary. It was really scary, in my mind, before I got in there. But once I got in there, people were laughing and having a good time. And it was super safe. And it felt like I was home, even though I wasn’t thrilled to be there because I didn’t want to admit I had a problem. It was still soothing. The second support group I started going to, I didn’t start feeling at home until probably about six months into being there. But I think that was because I really… I was really… resistant. But it’s funny because the friends that I’ve made in that support group now… the friendship is much deeper because that support group deals with issues around intimacy and childhood sexual abuse and sexual trauma and stuff that we’ve experienced. And the connection in those tend to be much deeper because the wounds are much deeper. [Herbert the dog barks in background] And that’s been my experience—and Herbert’s experience.
PG: This is an Awefulsome Moment filled out by a woman who calls herself The Earth is Black in Puddles. And it’s a very brief Awefulsome Moment.
The Earth is Black in Puddles: My middle name is Joy and I’ve been depressed since 5th grade and have attempted suicide multiple times.
PG: I’m not laughing at that. I’m just laughing at the irony, but obviously you are, too, because you filed in Awefulsome Moment. [pause] This is a Struggle in a Sentence filled out by a woman who calls herself Poisonous, and she writes… and she’s gay… and about her anorexia, she writes:
Poisonous: I starve myself to see how little I can run on. How I need nothing and no one. I see this as punishment. I see myself as intrinsically bad and as proof of being indestructible.
PG: About her love addiction:
Poisonous: I’ll do anything so you’ll stay. I’ll do anything so you’ll protect me. I think forgiveness is just too weak to set standards.
PG: And about her PTSD:
Poisonous: I feel like I’m from another planet, like I can’t communicate with anyone. Like my experience of the world is so terrifying that I must not be from the same world as everyone else. The nightmares. The disassociation. The constant fear. It ate me up. None of me is left.
PG: About being a sex crime victim:
Poisonous: She broke me, and now all I’ll ever do is cut people with my edges.
PG: Wow… that is profound. A snapshot from her life:
Poisonous: I came out when I was 16, and my parents didn’t look at me or talk to me for months. I lived at home, so I drowned myself in study and work so I didn’t have to feel that rejection. I thought if I could be the smartest kid, it would make up for the failure of being gay. They’re better now, but I don’t know how to tell them that it’s kind of meaningless—the damage is done. I feel like they’ve ruined my capacity for love. I’ll never get over the look of disgust on their faces.
PG: Thank you for sharing that. This is an Awefulsome Moment filled out by Pete and he writes:
Pete: My wife called my shrink for an appointment after a long hiatus, at my request. He was dead. After the call, my wife said, ‘He’s dead. Cancer. They said it took him fast.’ My response? ‘Well, there ya go.’
PG: [laughs] Uh… I love you guys. I love ya. This is Struggle in a Sentence filled out by Cat, who is an asexual female, and she writes about having a serious health issue.
Cat: Everyone at work knows that I have a brain tumor and now people say hi to me in the hallway all the time, but I can see the judgement in their eyes, like ‘Why doesn’t she hurry up and die already? Why does she still have her hair?’ She’s not really sick; she must be lying.’ Judgement that comes with having a terrible disease that’s not actually quite as bad as it sounds. Neurologists won’t treat me because I attempted suicide a few months ago, and so most of my problems are obviously psychological. Psychologists won’t treat me because I have a brain tumor—small, slow-growing, but still a brain tumor. Inoperable. Thus, most of my problems are obviously neurological. In the meantime, I get sicker and sicker.
PG: Well, sending you some love. And I wouldn’t automatically assume what those other people are thinking that you pass by in the hallway. We have no idea what other people are thinking and, honestly, it’s none of our business. Um… I like this email. This is one I got from Frank. He writes that something that helps him with his depression and getting out of bed… he writes… and he was homeless for years… he writes:
Frank: I have three, huge 3 x 4 foot dry eraser boards on my walls, and before I go to bed, I write inspirational messages on them, so when I wake up, I am literally looking at four walls of cheerleaders cheering me on. And, yes, I draw images of stick figure cheerleaders, too. Anytime, anything I want, I draw it. I don’t do it every day but, damn, I need to. An example is… after I do morning yoga, I feel good—really, really good.
PG: Thank you for that, Frank. This is an Awefulsome Moment by Whitney and she writes:
Whitney: My mom was extremely controlling and abusive around matters of food and weight. And my brother died at age 23 of a heroin overdose. My brother was obese from a young age, but he got his largest in the years leading up to his death. The Awefulsome Moment was the morning of my brother’s funeral, after my family arrived at the funeral home. My mom’s friend put together a photo collage of my brother’s life, and as she presented it to us, she noted that she couldn’t find many recent photos. Then she concluded, ‘Maybe that was for the best. He wouldn’t have wanted to be remembered that way.’ My mom agreed. Taking in the fucked-upness of that, my family was alone again, and then suggested that we all go to therapy. I said I planned to go. My mom said, ‘No. I’m not going to therapy. I’m going on a diet. That is what I learned from this.’
PG: Wow. Fucking wow…. This next one I want to read is a textbook example of what… how dad’s not paying attention to their daughters can set them up to be attracted to men who are unavailable or abusive. And this is from the Shame & Secrets survey. And his is filled out by a woman named Fall Vortex, and she is… let’s see… she’s 20, bisexual, raised in a pretty dysfunctional environment. Was the victim of sexual abuse, never reported it.
Fall Vortex: I was dating an older man when I was 15. He was 21 at the time. I had moved into his house as mine was absolutely toxic for my well-being. However, living with him was no much better. One night he approached me about wanting to have a threesome with a friend of his, who was 50+ years old. I told him I was extremely uncomfortable with this and would never want to do that. However, the next day I was sitting on the couch watching a movie, and he came home. I looked over to greet him, and she was right their behind him. I asked why she was there. He told me that we were going to have a threesome. They both came up to me and started taking off my clothes, and I was scared beyond belief—so scared that I couldn’t find my voice or the power to stop them. I felt like maybe if I just did it, he would love me more, which makes me sick. She kept commenting on my body and how tight and young I was. And he started fucking me and wanting me to eat her out. I was so grossed out. I couldn’t do it, but she kept trying to get me to finger her. I started crying and telling them to stop grabbing me and penetrating me. I went up on the couch and then he got on top of her in the middle of the living room and made me watch him having sex with this disgusting, 50+ year old woman. After it was all over, she confessed to us that she was addicted to crack. So even when I couldn’t feel any more violated, I realized I’d just been forced to have sex with a crack-addicted, 50+ failure of a mother. Fuck my life. Fuck this memory. Fuck him. I continued to have toxic relationships—
PG: Btw, I’m going to try not to be offended by the fact I’m over 50 years old [laughs]. I’m not. Um… because obviously in this situation, it’s… there’s… yeah. Shut up, Paul. Um… she writes:
Fall Vortex: Fuck him. I continued to have toxic relationships with men for years. There was a man I worked with when he was in his 30s and I was 16. He would always want to finger-bang me in the cooler in our workplace. I wanted to feel needed and important so badly that I just let him do it. I feel so fucking dirty about that and have never told anyone. Even after all that, I had been raped by two boyfriends in my late teens, which has caused my vagina to have multiple tears in it. I hate how I have to look down and think about how many times I have tried to make a man happy, and how they just took advantage of me. Now when I have sex, I just disassociate and just ‘let it happen.’ I hate this about myself. I feel like if I were stronger, braver, or more beautiful, none of this would have happened. I hate myself so much.
PG: Well, you know, my first thought is that the people to blame are the ones who wouldn’t take no for an answer. But, you know, the next person’s shoulders… in… in… in my opinion… that should shoulder some of this blame is the parent, of the opposite sex, that doesn’t see that child, that doesn’t make the attempt to connect with them. I know. I’m sure kids are hard to connect with. I’m not a parent but… um… it just… yeah, sometimes I’m just uh… And there’s more. There’s more to her story, but you get the gist. I’ve read thousands and thousands and thousands of these surveys, and I just see it again and again and again and again… the dad that doesn’t take an interest in his daughter’s life. And she ends up in abusive relationship after abusive relationship… trying to… get a do-over on being with someone who is emotionally unavailable.
PG: This is an Awefulsome Moment by a guy named Well-worn. (And if it seems like I’m a bit tired, it’s because I am. Normally I get this part of the show done much earlier than it is right now. Right now it’s after midnight, and I’ve had a very, very long day—good, in many ways, even an awesome day—but I’m just a little bit tired. I don’t know if my pace is slow or… my brain just feels like it’s moving very, very slowly. Um… but I’ve been in a really good place lately. I know some of you want updates on how my depression is doing. It’s been lifting, so I’ve been having some really, really nice days.) Um… continuing…. This is Well-worn’s Awefulsome Moment:
Well-worn: My psychopathic, sadistic father showing up at my work demanding to get access to me. I told him to get lost, but had to pop him in the voicebox to get him to back off. He then says, ‘Ok. Now we’re going to have to do this the hard way.’ Half hour later, two sheriffs roll up. I have to go out in front of my employers and colleagues and tell them that I am, in fact, not being held against my will, as my father is claiming. I’m 35 years old at this point and had similar experiences as my father has tracked me, including working abroad, where he will often call my employer at home sometimes more than once a week, trying to explain to them what a psychopath he is, and that I am happy to pay for Caller ID so they don’t have to take his calls. It is truly awful because none of them get it. Why would anybody keep checking up on me unless they really cared about me? It couldn’t be that he is a deranged, sadistic nutjob who wants to make sure that I know that he is keeping tabs on me, and I can’t stop him. Yet, it’s kind of funny to be stalked by my 80-year-old father.
PG: [chuckles] Oh… thank you for that. I love how just one sentence can completely change the vibe of the whole thing. This is an email that I got from Alison, who is a trans man. And I’ve corresponded with him before—er, with her before—and its, um… her emails just always touch me so much. And she writes:
Alison: As you may have noticed by now, I usually get the urge to email you when transgender topics come up on the podcast. I’ve been sort of putting off listening to Episode #206 because I knew you were discussing Leila, and when I read the news reports, I couldn’t even go back to work. I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t know her, but I knew the pain. I listened to your episode tonight—probably a bad idea while at work. It got to the point where you said you were going to read her note. I almost couldn’t do it, but I listened on. It hit closer to home than I thought it would. It broke my heart in a very personal place. I once again started crying at work. It made me remember where I was just a couple of years ago. I was so fucking scared and afraid of my moving forward with my trans identity. I’m lucky to have friends that pulled me forward while my family drug me down. I know not everyone has that; I wish everyone could. Hearing your words really meant a lot to me tonight. My goal for the year has been to be living as a woman full time—with or without hormone therapy—by 2016. I’m currently looking into legally changing my name and trying to find a doctor who will help me transition, not just for myself but for Leila, too. Anyway, I know you’re far too busy to read long-winded emails that aren’t actually leading up to one cohesive point, but I felt compelled to thank you for that segment at the end of the episode.
PG: And I wrote Alison back and said: ‘You’re so welcome. I can’t imagine how emotional Leila’s story must be for you. I’m a straight, cis guy, and it brought me to tears. I think your point was completely cohesive, and I’m cheering you on in your brave move forward to express the little girl that has always been inside you. Let her out.’ I think one of the reasons I’ve always felt connected to trans people is that having survived incest, I know what it’s like to have the little kid inside us retreat at a young age because the truth is too painful to express. My own little kid has started poking his nose around in the last three years, and every day I feel him getting more confident. And your little girl deserves to walk freely and fuck what anyone thinks who doesn’t understand. And, ironically, it would probably be because their little kid is probably trapped inside by being raised by bully parents. And now I’m getting too meta, so I’m gonna wind up my rambling.
PG: This is a Happy Moment filled out by Carol. She writes that her mother had killed a kitten of hers… [chuckling]and I’m sorry there’s so much darkness in this episode, but I really wanted to read these surveys. Um, her mother had killed a kitten of hers when she was a kid, and she writes:
Carol: I always felt so sad that I couldn’t save my kitten. Not that I’m in survivor mode, I went to the Humane Society, and adopted a six-year old deaf cat whose owner had died. No one wanted him, so I didn’t even have to pay a fee to adopt him. I love him so much. I’ve had him for several weeks, and I snuggle and hug him to pieces. I could not save my own kitten, but I saved this poor, deaf unwanted kitty. He wasn’t perfect, so he wasn’t wanted. I know just how he felt. I’ve been there. Now when I’m feeling down, he is always there for me. I like being labelled a survivor. I like my kitty’s unconditional love. Life is good.
PG: Thank you for that. [shuffling surveys/papers] Uh… oh… I don’t think I’m gonna read this one, even though I’d like to. Put that one over there… I’m feeling a little, uh… This one is filled out by a guy who calls himself Dog Boy. It’s a Shame & Secret survey, and he writes… uh… he was endlessly ridiculed and humiliated, courtesy of ‘Mommie Dearest’ while Dad watched and did nothing. And Darkest Thoughts, he writes:
Dog Boy: I used to fantasize about strapping Mommie Dearest into a hardbacked wooden chair with duct tape and beating her living brains out of her skull with a sledge hammer. Don’t worry—I would never do such a thing and don’t imagine it anymore.
PG: And then under his Darkest Secrets, there is buried an Awefulsome Moment. He writes:
Dog Boy: I guess being told by my mom, when she found out I am gay, which I was only just beginning to come to terms with myself, she said ‘I would rather you had died in that car accident because that would have been easier for me to deal with.’
PG: Ohhhh… my god. That is awefulsome. Awfulsome. This is a Shame & Secret Survey as well, and just an excerpt I wanted to read. This is filled out by a woman who calls herself Tracer. She’s straight and in her 20s. Raised in a slightly dysfunctional environment but… um… darkest secrets, she writes:
Tracer: Last year when I was particularly depressed, I didn’t shower for 7 days. My stove is broken, so I boil eggs, vegetables, etc. in my kettle instead. I used to cut myself, but I stopped because someone I love asked me to stop, but I still keep a whole pack of razors hidden in my room. I can’t throw them away. I’ve been trying to for months. I still feel like I need them.
PG: And then she writes, to the question: Anything you’d like to share with someone who shares your thoughts or experiences?
Tracer: You’re going to get better. If your circumstances don’t change, then you will eventually. In the meantime, get your stove fixed—kettle broccoli tastes really bad.
PG: [chuckling] Kettle. Fucking. Broccoli. Uh… this is an Awefulsome Moment, a truly Awefulsome Moment. This is filled out by Jelly Blue, and she’s in her 20s and she writes:
Jelly Blue: I was just at work recently, a customer, drunk, who was old enough to be my father approached me while I was rolling cutlery behind the counter. He was with his soccer team having some post-game beers. Since his group had been served by the other person working with me, I’d had no interaction with him up to this point. This did not deter him from approaching me to tell me I look like a Disney princess, while rubbing his nipples. Shocked and incredibly uncomfortable, I can’t come up with any words to say. He then repeats it, again several more times, while still rubbing his nipples through his thin, sweat-stained t-shirt. While trying to find a way to tell this guy to fuck off that won’t get me fired, all I can think of were those two episodes where you started off the show confessing that you were subconsciously rubbing your nipples as you spoke. And I started laughing uncontrollably.
PG: Thank you for that. This is an email I got, and it is from Edith, and she writes:
Edith: Hello! It is my pleasure to have contact with you today. My name is Edith. I will like to be your friend. Contact me back, though. Have a nice day. Thanks.
PG: You know, she writes ‘Honestly it is my pleasure to have contact with you today.’ I hope she’s not being dishonest because her pleasure would be deceitful, and I would like—very much like—to have a fruitful relationship with Edith because she does sound very polite. But, uh… I’m gonna have to take things slow. So I will write Edith back and will let you guys know how it goes, but she sounds like a terrific woman. [shuffling paper] This is… a Shame & Secrets survey filled out by Felicia. And she is gay and in her 20s, raised in a totally chaotic environment. Um… she… to the question Have you ever been a victim of sexual abuse? She writes:
Felicia: Some stuff happened, but I don’t know if it counts. Growing up my relationship with my mother was always incredibly codependent. She treated me more like her spouse rather than her child. She told me about all of her feelings and fears, and it put an incredible amount of stress on me. But what I never noticed until recently was the incredible lack of boundaries and privacy in our household. My mother would do things like coming in the bathroom while I was using it or pulling back the curtain while I was taking a shower. She would make sexual comments about my body and how desirable I was. She’d touch me, but also preface it with how she wasn’t being fresh. One time when she was incredibly drunk—she’s an alcoholic—she crawled into bed with me and started cuddling with me. While I don’t remember anything explicitly sexual happening, I remember being incredibly uncomfortable. There was a gut feeling that this wasn’t right—that things like this weren’t supposed to happen. There are giants chunks of my early childhood missing, and I have an incredible aversion to touch, so I can’t help but wondering whether anything else occurred between us that my brain, for the sake of my sanity, just won’t let me remember.
PG: I would say that what you have remembered is enough to qualify as full-on incest. There doesn’t have to be penetration for incest to happen. And this is as incestuous as anything I’ve read about, and really, really common—sadly. Incredibly common. She’s been emotionally abused. She writes:
Felicia: My mother was manipulative and neglectful, but for most of my life, she wasn’t physically abusive. Because of this, it took me a long time to recognize there was abuse. She used to tell me what a good mother she was, everything she sacrificed for me, and I believed her. It wasn’t until I was 18 that any actual violence occurred between us. She came home drunk one night and passed out on the kitchen floor. And to wake her up, I poured cold water on her, and when she regained consciousness, she was furious. We argued, and when I finally called her out on her alcoholism, she slapped me. Time seemed to freeze in that moment, and somehow I knew that my life as I knew it was over. I tried to step away from her, but she grabbed me by my hair, threw me on to her bed, and began choking me. I began to black out and honestly thought I would die. I don’t know how I managed to fight her off, but I did and I ran from her and our home. To this day, she claims that she’s not sure if this incident actually occurred.
PG: Any positive experiences with your abuser?
Felicia: My mom was my best friend growing up.
PG: You know, that always sends red flags off to me when anybody says my parent is my best friend. I’m sure there are ones that there is a healthy connection there, but I don’t know, man. To me, that’s usually a person’s way of unconsciously saying there were no fucking boundaries in our house. She writes:
Felicia: We shared everything. Clothes. We watched the same shows. We even came up with our own language of inside jokes. As a teenager, I would sleep in her bed—a huge king—and feel so much better. I don’t speak to my mother today, and though I know that logically I’ve made the right choice, I feel like there’s a hole in my life. Some days I just want my mom back.
PG: Boy can I relate. I just want a different mom back, but I very much… I want a mom. I can relate to that hole of just wanting a fucking mom. Uh… Darkest Thoughts, she writes:
Felicia: A lot of intense, unwanted sexual thoughts. I’ll be around other people and suddenly I’ll picture myself having sex with them. I’ve had this issue since I was young, and I don’t understand it. I’m not attracted to these people, I don’t wanna have sex with them, but I have these thoughts, and they disgust me and embarrass me.
PG: I say be entertained by them. Thank your brain for sharing. Say ‘Well, thank you. That was an interesting little short film you showed me. Thank you. I’m gonna go over here and read a book.’ Uh… Sexual fantasies most powerful to you.
Felicia: Truth be told, I’m terrified of sex. The idea of someone trying to touch me and gain pleasure from it makes me sick. I have no sex drive to speak of and I have no desire to have sex. I don’t even masturbate to anyone because of how repulsed I am about having sex. The idea of kissing, hugging, even a casual hand on the shoulder makes me tense up. I hate being touched. And even when people touch me without my consent in an innocent fashion, it feels like something slimy has crawled under my skin. I’m so uncomfortable, I just want to run.
PG: That’s how I feel when I touch my mom. And what you have described is textbook… um… ripple… textbook ripple of being incested. Or any kind of sexual trauma. So you’re not alone in that and that doesn’t… there’s not something weird about you. That’s trauma. That is how your body is dealing with trauma. Uh… this is a Happy Moment filled out by a guy who calls himself Key. And he writes:
Key: The past year has been horrible for me. A major hospitalization. Seven more minor ones for a shoulder problem. Being treated as a pin cushion for months to find out what’s wrong. All night after getting dumped. So, for the past seven months after going broke and living at my dad’s house, I’ve been smoldering and the most depressed I’ve ever been. Today I’m feeling enough motivation to go get a cup of coffee, a major feat lately, I randomly asked, ‘Hey, are you looking for help around the store?’ Turns out someone had just gotten fired, and I was hired on the spot. Three days a week. It’s not much, but today I feel like I’ve climbed a mountain. Three days a week I have a reason to get up and to go out and interact with people and be excited to go home at the end of the day. It will not cure me of my depression, but now that I have a place to be, somewhere that values and appreciates me, the other four days I’ll be glad that I’m not working.
PG: I love that. I just love that. I love when people appreciate the little things in life. [pause and sigh] Uh….. This is Shame & Secrets survey. And this was filled out by a… let’s see… sorry, my brain… This is filled out by someone who calls himself—spent 30 minutes trying to pick the perfect name. And let’s see… he is a transgender man who is pansexual queer. Twenty. Raised in a slightly dysfunctional environment. Ever been the subject of sexual abuse? He says:
[Name not mentioned]: Some stuff happened, but I don’t know if it counts. A boy in 1st grade put his hands down my pants and rubbed my butt without my consent. He then later that year held me up against a wall and told me he wanted to rape me. I told my parents that both of these things happened, and they told the school both times, but he just got a slap on the wrist. I had to be in the same class with him as well. I believe the handling made me believe the world has no justice. I did what I was taught to do by my parents, and no real consequences came of it. I become anxious and afraid knowing people would hurt me and get away with it. I’m also still angry that it bothers me. I want to be over it.
PG: Darkest Thoughts:
[Name not mentioned]:I worry that I’m transgender. Not feminine. Not attracted to masculine men and don’t have a high sex drive because of what he did to me. Basically, I worry he fucked me up.
PG: Darkest Secrets
[Name not mentioned]: I’m so afraid of everything that I’ve never done anything bad.
PG: Sexual fantasies most powerful to you:
[Name not mentioned]: I get turned on by domination, by being the bigger, stronger person in the relationship. It makes me feel awkward because I’m very passive in life and would never want to hurt anyone.
PG: Have you shared these things with others?
[Name not mentioned]: Only my therapist. She’s very supportive.
PG: How do you feel after writing these things down?
[Name not mentioned]: A little sad and a little dumb for letting it all bother me. But I feel heard and empowered, too.
PG: Anything you’d like to share with someone who’s shared your thoughts or experiences?
[Name not mentioned]: Go to therapy! It will help! It took me four therapists before I found the right one. But keep trying!
PG: To which I would say, “Fuck yeah.” This is an Awefulsome Moment by a woman who calls herself Spiderling.
Spiderling: When I was younger, I used to feel really guilty for masturbating. I grew up in a Catholic household and felt stomach-churning guilt for enjoying something so much, but at the same time I couldn’t stop. In grade school, they would test us each year for scoliosis tracing our spines to see if they were crooked. Every year I would see my doctor because my spine seemed off. When I went to the doctor, her said the issues was that I had more muscle on the right side of my torso than on the left. Then he looked at me and asked, ‘Do you do a lot more with your right hand than with your left?’ I froze and muttered something about brushing my hair, sure that my secret was out and that everyone would know I was some kind of masturbating freak. Every year after that I would dread the scoliosis test and having to explain to yet another person who might guess my scret.
PG: That’s so fantastic. Uh… this is from the Shame & Secret Survey and this is filled out by a woman who calls herself Gargle, and she is bisexual in her 30s. Never been sexually abused but has been emotionally and physically abused.
Gargle: The physical abuse was in middle school. I was hit, slapped, humiliated, and stomped on by a boy a year older than me. It lasted for about two years. I think it’s pretty minimal compared to what others have experienced, but it has left a lasting impression. The emotional abuse was the worst. I experienced it most severely from my mother. She was always suspicious of me, critical, cold and dismissive. She had a lot of emotional swings, which cause a lot of pain. Mean and cold to irrational and oppressive. I also experienced a lot of emotional abuse in the fundamentalist Christian religion I grew up in. It would amazing to hear you interview someone who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household. It is a completely different, wacky world that leaves its own scars.
PG: If you want to hear an episode—and I know we’ve done more—but the episode that springs to mind is the one with Julie J. Um, listener Julie J. And it’s a great episode just on its own, even without that topic. But yeah, she had a mom who was a religious zealot, fucking whack job. And the other issue that Julie touches on is that she was adopted, and definitely had some strong feelings about that and her place in the world. Uh… Any positive experiences with your abuser? She writes:
Gargle: I can’t think about the positive experiences with my mom because I’m still so angry about what she did to me. I’m not ready to see her as a complicated human being with good sides and bad sides, although it’s happening slowly. The more I learn to forgive myself, the easier it is to forgive others. There weren’t any good experiences with the boy in middle school. A few years later I heard he had died in a car accident. I felt like he got what he deserved. All the feelings I had in middle school came back though.
PG: Darkest Thoughts
Gargle: When I’m depressed, I imagine myself going through a meat grinder. It’s not about dying really. It’s more like an extremely violent massage. My emotions and thoughts are so strong I want to strangle them. Does that make sense? I’m not ashamed of these thoughts, but I don’t want to frighten the people I love.
PG: It sounds kind of soothing to me ‘cuz sometimes I want a massage that is like so deep in my muscles. I was picturing myself going through a meat grinder, and I was like, yeah, it does seem like a certain part… like there’s no way that your muscle [laughs] wouldn’t be more relaxed after coming through the other side of a meat grinder. So, yeah, as fucked up as it sounds, I kinda get it. Darkest Secrets:
Gargle: I am extremely vengeful. I always fantasize about getting even with people. Maybe they have harmed me in some way, or if they haven’t, I almost expect them to. I would never act these out because when the situation arises, it’s never as dramatic as I had imagined it would be. I think it comes from all of the crazy bullying I had to endure in school and with my mom. I felt powerless then. I also have bipolar disorder. I am so, so ashamed. I can’t face it yet. I’ve told my husband and a good friend, but I’m afraid now they will see me through that lens only.
PG: Thank you for sharing that. This is by a guy—it’s a Shame & Secrets Survey—and it’s by a guy who calls himself Corvaday. [sp?] And… he is asexual. He’s in his 30s. He was raised in a totally chaotic environment. He was the victim of sexual abuse and never reported it. He writes:
Corvaday: My mother had this boyfriend named Doyle. He had two sons. The younger one molested my little brother, who couldn’t have been much older than 4, and the older son raped me, starting at the time that I was 7 and he was 13. I’m not a 40-year-old man. My memory of the ordeal is foggy, but I know I was penetrated, and he tried to force me to fellate him. I don’t remember if I actually did. I don’t know how many times this happened or for how long, but for a while, I suspect. This went on under my nose. She spent entire Saturdays in Doyle’s bedroom while my brother and I went hungry and fended for ourselves watching television and playing in the basement and yard. In those long interludes, I would sometimes be abused. He was only six years older than me, but that made no difference.
PG: Yeah, only six years older than you. That’s a big difference.
Corvaday: He might as well have been a man. I can’t remember fighting back at all. He took me to a room in the basement that was separated from the rest. I remember there was a flimsy wooden door that opened into the room and that if you pushed on it, you could get quite a bit of flex. There were no lights in that room, and I can recall that there was nothing in the room besides an old mattress. That dark and shabby room was the entryway to the shambles of the life that I live today. I won’t say that that exploitation in the basement is the whole reason that my life is what it is today, but it has a lot to do with it. I feel like I was robbed of my life in those formative years. I feel like who I was going to be was permanently warped on that day of the first rape. I have uncontrollable body shame and am probably asexual in the strictest sense. I think I basically folded myself into that box over decades of sham and dysfunction. Consensual sex was mostly unpleasant when I was still having it. It’s been 20 years since the last time. I’ve had one serious girlfriend in my time. I am obese. I had a nervous breakdown in ’07 and stopped teaching for good in 2010. I now live on a disability pension and waste my days aimlessly surfing the web and always preparing to be, but never actually becoming, a writer. I live alone in a small town that is cultureless and charmless. My friends have become increasingly busy, to the point where I spend nearly all of my time alone. I’d probably kill myself, but the devastation this would cause my parents would be so overwhelming them that I cannot go through with it.
PG: Hold on one second… Um…
Corvaday: But I’m at a loss what to do since I’m stuck being alive. No matter what I set my mind to doing, I overcomplicate it, stealing it of its joy, hung up in a tangle of self-loathing and dread. Each of my days is the same as what came before. I’m frustrated and angry and sad and ashamed and approaching hopelessness. Buy hey! Spring training will be upon us in three short months.
PG: [chuckling] Hahaha… I think you would make a good writer. Um… He’s also been physically abused. He writes:
Corvaday: Does physical neglect fall under the umbrella of physical abuse?
PG: I would say absolutely. There’s…
Corvaday: Does emotional neglect fall under the umbrella of emotional abuse?
PG: I would say absolutely.
Corvaday: If so, I can answer yes to both. My mother was depressed for the entirety of our childhood, and we lived in a shabby railroad apartment in the small town where I still live.
PG: You know, as I’m reading it, I’m thinking of all the people saying, ‘Oh, look at the side effects of taking meds.’ Look at the side effects of NOT taking meds. Look at that. The last two minutes I’ve been reading are the side effects of his mom not taking meds and not having her mental illness treated. Maybe not with meds, but it could have been something else. As I read about his mom, it’s so clear that she probably could have been helped by meds. Um…
Corvaday: My mother was depressed for the entirety of our childhood, and we lived in a shabby railroad apartment in the small town where I still live. It was filthy—like reality television show filthy for the seven years we lived in it. The kitchen sink was filled with the grossest ad mixture of food stuffs and sour water—
PG: You are a good writer.
Corvaday: Trash was all over the floor and there was no naked space on the kitchen table. You couldn’t go to the refrigerator and get a snack or cold drink. Unspeakable things were inside. There was no carpet in the living room. The coffee table was covered in Pepsi bottles and trash. Each room was more of the same. I slept on a love seat. My mother slept on one end of the couch and my little brother curled up on the other. We spent 95 percent of our time in that room, mom watching television. I created a clean spot and a no-man’s land in the corner behind the confluence of the love seat and an end table. It was there that I was able to exert some level of order on my chaotic life. I had a spot for all of my favorite books, my Lite Brite, my stuffed animals, my baseball cards, and my Viewmaster and disks. My mom loved us and was so often proud of me and my academic achievements, but she was the human equivalent of a wounded, little bird. There was no aspect of our lives that was in any way proactively addressed by Mom. I remember mostly her needing us to be quiet because she had a headache or because she was tired. Every once in a while our landlord decided he wanted to inspect the property, and we spent the next four or five days feverishly cleaning up our hellscape of an apartment. When we were done, there would be a mountain of trash bags in the alley. When we’d finish one of these marathon cleaning sessions, I dreamed that going forward, things wouldn’t fall into disrepair again. But they always did before we’d go through the same routine where mom would cry uncontrollably about how we might be taken from her and she’d freak out about how we were ever going to be able to clean up such a terrible mess. My mother was so fragile that I knew I shouldn’t be causing her any extra distress. I knew she had far more than she could deal with. I shouldn’t have problems, and if I did, I should just deal with them quietly on my own. I felt tremendous shame about how we lived. I knew that if anyone found, we’d be taken from her and she’d become even more fragile and weak. I couldn’t stand to see that happen, so I just buttoned it all up—the sexual abuse as well—and tried to cover up that we were such freaks. Shame and secrecy and denial were the primary aspects of my childhood experience.
PG: Any positive experiences with your abusers?
Corvaday: Sean, the sexual abuser? No, I haven’t seen him since my mom and Doyle broke up. I actively hated him when I was spending time with him. Mom? Yes, I love my mom, though she’s just as fucked up today as she ever was. Once she found out I was abused when I was in her care—I told her when I was in my 30s—she has never been able to be in my presence for any extended period of time. Her shame about what happened means that taking in the shape and contour of my life is too much for her to hear. Darkest Thoughts:
PG: Darkest Thoughts:
Corvaday: I sometimes fantasize about killing Sean and I often think about suicide.
PG: Shame & Secrets. I’m just going to read a few of them because there’s a bunch.
Corvaday: I’m mortified by the gaze of other people. I don’t like to sleep in spaces where other people will be. Anything to avoid having my photo taken. When it’s posted on a social space, I will ask that it be removed. Can’t look at myself in most mirrors. I have 14 grey t-shirts and 2 hoodies that I rotate. I wear the same thing every day. The clothes are clean, but I rarely vary them. I try to physically blend into the background and hide. I don’t want anyone to look at me. I bristle when other people touch me, whether it be a hug or a friendly jostle. I’m obsessed with my body and how flabby it has become. But even when I was working out 6 days a week and pretty damn fit, I was horrified by my appearance. I have obsessed over the size of my penis since I hit puberty and will probably never let myself by intimate again because I have a baby dick when it’s flaccid. Sometimes when I’m in the presence of a cooing type of motherly type of tenderness that’s being given to a tiny baby, my skin will secretly crawl. I can find myself actively loathing the tenderness a mother gives her child. Sometimes I actively root for agents of chaos. I call that aspect of myself the Hard Man. I stole that from an essay I once read in Harper’s. I’ll find myself rooting for the beheading that’s being carried out, for there to be more people inside the burning building, for the mysterious death to be the result of a suicide. Sometimes I worry that I’m a sociopath.
PG: Sexual fantasies most powerful to you?
Corvaday: I don’t really have any.
PG: What, if anything would you like to say to someone you haven’t been able to?
Corvaday: I would like to tell the woman I fancy that I do, indeed, fancy her, but that I have no interest in ever being intimate. I would like to be able to pitch the idea of living together in a loving partnership, but never having sex.
PG: What, if anything, do you wish for?
Corvaday: A life of daily writing and reading with a woman who understands me and my limitations, who loves me even though I’m really fucked up and probably always will be.
PG: Have you shared these things with others?
Corvaday: No, because how do you even begin to try and explain these things to a woman who might be showing interest in you. Like if things are heading towards intimacy and if she’s waiting for me to make some sort of move, and I simply never initiate anything. These things tends to arise far earlier in the relationship than I’d like them to, so I’m put in a position of having to try to explain my oddness far earlier than I’m comfortable with. I would have to explain some things to a person whom I don’t even trust yet. So, I either violate the societal norms of a burgeoning relationship but say nothing about it (sending mixed signals or pushing a person away) or have to be honest about things that will freak most women the fuck out.
PG: You know, as I’m reading that, I’m thinking there have gotta be some women who not only understand that, but feel asexual themselves. There has to be. In fact, I think somebody recently talked about there being bulletin boards for people who are asexual or identify as asexual. Anyway, it may be worth googling. Um… How do you feel after writing these things down?
Corvaday: As hopeless as I always do. I have a therapist. I’ve been in therapy for years. None of the things ever improve. I just keep going through them and never coming up with any ways to make progress that feel realistic.
PG: I would… I wonder if your therapist is doing any kind of deep trauma work on what happened to you with Sean and your abandonment from your mom because those are—man—those are some deep, deep wounds. But we’re sending you the… the biggest fucking hug that we got here. And um… don’t give up. Just don’t give up. [pause] This is a Happy Moment filled out by Maureen and she writes:
Maureen: The other day, I went home for lunch (as I always do during the work day to let my dog out). It happened to be a gorgeous day out, so I took my leftover tomato soup (I made the night before for dinner) and ate it out back. My dog spent the next half hour or so rolling around the grass while I ate my soup surrounding by our small herb garden smelling of fresh basil, etc. It dawned on me how amazing this scene was, and I couldn’t believe this was my life. I’d been such a mess a few years ago, and now I was happily married with a dog that I absolutely am in love with. Even something as simple as making tomato soup would not have been a reality a few years ago for me. I almost had to pinch myself to believe that this was, in fact, my life.
PG: Let’s see… what do have next…. You know, we have a dark one next, and I honestly don’t think I have the energy to read another dark one, so I’m just gonna read two more Awefulsome Moments and a Happy Moment. This is an Awefulsome Moment—this is filled out by Brew, who we read a… I think we read a Struggle in a Sentence from. And Brew is a transmale who is 16, and he writes:
Brew: One time I was walking down the street in my town, and some obnoxious teenagers yelled, “Fag!” at me as they drove past. The funny thing is I wasn’t really upset that someone just yelled slurs at me. I was happy because if they thought I was a fag, at least they thought I was a boy.
PG: That’s awesome. [pause] This is a Happy Moment from Melanie and she writes:
Melanie: The other day I spent an extra 15 minutes putting my three year old to bed. Usually by the time bedtime comes, I’m so exhausted I can’t get her to sleep fast enough. But my depression and anxiety has reached new and discouraging levels lately, and I’m worried it’s affecting my parenting. Just laying there next to her while we talked about school and family and things that make us happy, for a little while I felt like a really good mom. I realized that no matter how bad it gets, I could never really leave her. Holding her hand and stroking her hair and hearing her say she loves me, it was one of those sweet moments that you want to remember forever.
PG: Mm. I can tell as somebody who never got to experience a moment like that, um… it means a lot. It means a LOT to kids. Just taking that extra 30 seconds and just looking in their eyes… um… ‘cuz that just seems like it would have been heaven to me as a little kid. To feel that safety that I never got to feel. I imagine that would be… even if you were ‘fucking up’ as you wanna call it in other ways, as a mom, having moments like that would be so repairing. Um… so… I just wanted to read that. That just warmed my heart. And finally, this is an Awefulsome Moment by a guy who calls himself Casper and he writes:
Casper: At the age of 20, I hit a wall. There weren’t enough drugs and alcohol in the world to kill the pain. In the previous year, I had been kicked out of school, had a gun held to my head, and been convicted of felony drugs charges involving $15 worth of pot. While still on bail awaiting sentencing, I entered a two-month Buddhist meditation retreat. After 2 weeks of sitting in silence for 10 hours per day, my brain just snapped. It started out as unrelenting self-criticism, but built up to an all-out war with several voices screaming in my head. I ran outside in the pouring rain, imploring the voices to stop. They laughed at me. I felt like I would explode—like I had been constipated my whole life, and I had to take the biggest psychic shit. Then it got quiet, and I suddenly had this intense emotional realization—something that had never occurred to me: I hated myself. It was a sickening feeling. I cried and cried. I could not fool myself any longer. What a loser. I did not even like myself. Why would anyone else like me? And as I sat there blubbering like a baby, one of the voices in my head said in a soothing tone, “Hey, Casper. That was very brave and honest. We like you better now.” Aw… I cried even more, but I was laughing as well. I went back into the meditation hall and sat for another two weeks, watching my entire psychology unspool before my eyes. I remembered everything that I’d tried to blot out with drugs and alcohol: the beatings, the shame, the drunken fights, the head fucks, the complete and utter lack of nurture and safety. Oh my god. I’d been carrying around this lost and wounded child, and we were finally talking. It was heartbreaking. But over time, before I even started any therapy, I was learning to love and to care for that child, and to really appreciate this amazing and vulnerable survivor. He taught me everything I know about the human heart. I don’t think I would have survived the next year that I spent in prison without that experience. That was the start of a long and often difficult journey—but a journey that made sense.
PG: What a beautiful note to end on. That was really, really profound, and all the people that filled out these surveys. And thank you to Renee and anybody out there that’s feeling stuck, you are so, so, so not alone. And just see tomorrow if you can get up the courage to do one tiny thing. If you’re having trouble gettin’ out of bed, just get up and make yourself some toast. If you’re having trouble with social anxiety, just say hi to somebody in front of you in line for coffee. And if you’re afraid to reach out and get help, call a therapist, and then when they answer the phone, hang up. Just start there. Just start with a little tiny sliver and see how that works. And just remember that you’re not alone. You never have been and you never will be. Thanks for listening.
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