The 57 year-old incest survivor talks about growing up in a family “where being born female was considered a moral failure”. She also talks about her struggles with repressed memories and possible DID (Dissociative Identify Disorder)

Episode notes:



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Episode Transcript:



Paul: Welcome to episode 215 with my guest Roxanne. This episode is brought to you by Square Space. Square Space is the easiest way to create a beautiful website, blog, or online store for you and your ideas. Square Space features an elegant interface, beautiful templates, and incredible 24/7 customer support. Try Square Space at SquareSpace.com and enter the offer code “Mental” at checkout and you’ll get 10% off. Square Space – Build it Beautiful.

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. It’s more like a waiting room that doesn’t suck. The website for this show is mentalpod.com. Go there; check it out; join the forum; read blogs; take a survey; see how other people responded to surveys. You can also donate to this show which is greatly appreciated.

What do I want to share with you? My brain is going downhill. I have no idea how the intros and the outros to this show are going to go because my brain feels like it is filled with gray scrambled eggs. Since the Abilify stopped working and I went off it, it is just… conversations have become more and more difficult. I don’t even know how to describe what it is. I feel like there is a tumbleweed in my brain, my soul, and my throat, and I just want to lay down. I don’t know how else to describe it. Caffeine is like the only… It’s like caffeine is my salvation and I get to have it twice a day and maybe one of those times I feel something for about an hour. And, it’s basically 23 hours of joyless existence broken up by one hour of desire to own a box-set of a band I barely care about because I just had a cappuccino.

[SHOW INTRO]

Paul: I’m here with a listener named Roxanne and you contacted me a couple of days ago. You gave me some broad strokes of what’s involved in your story, and I said, “well, let’s go record something”, and here you are a couple of days later. I mean, you live locally so it certainly makes it a little easier.

Roxanne: It does. It’s very convenient.

Paul: And you were just saying that you are a little nervous.

Roxanne: A little bit. Not bad though… it’s a happy nervous.

Paul: Good, good.

Roxanne: It’s a rollercoaster.

Paul: Where would be a good place to start? Can I ask your age? I get shit from people that are like, “you should never ask women how old they are.” But I think it’s…

Roxanne: I don’t mind. In about 2 weeks I will be 57.

Paul: Ok. Wow, you look great.

Roxanne: Well, thanks. I did my hair today. [laughs] That helps.

Paul: I always feel like age is kind of something that when we’re talking about somebody’s mental illness and where they are on their path to recovery… I don’t know. I think I want to know people’s ages and I want the listeners to know their ages.

Roxanne: I feel like as long as society is still hard on people for actually growing old, that’ll be a problem.

Paul: Yeah, it’s kind of stupid.

Roxanne: Yeah, it’s like the least of my worries.

Paul: Yeah.

So, where would be a good place to start? Where were you raised?

Roxanne: I was raised in Altadena in California.

Paul: Oh ok.

Roxanne: Not far from here.

Paul: Yeah. What was home life like?

Roxanne: It sucked. That’s why I’m here. [both laugh] I was the youngest of five children in a family where it was a moral failing to be born female. It was like—

Paul: In whose eyes?

Roxanne: Everybody’s.

Paul: In your mom’s and your dad’s?

Roxanne: Yes. Everybody was misogynist. So I had 3 older brothers and an older sister and it really sucked to be a girl in our family.

Paul: So you were the baby?

Roxanne: I was the baby and, um—

Paul: How did your mom treat you—or how did your dad treat your mom?

Roxanne: They were both bullies. My mom was I think a little smarter than my dad. She could outsmart him but… yeah, my mom was an alcoholic and that’s how she handled it. She was very intelligent, creative, and funny but she, you know, she just stayed in a bottle. That’s where it was safe and comfy for her.

Paul: Was her drinking always a problem?

Roxanne: I didn’t even know it was a problem. Hold on. I’m just gonna… my voice is getting nervous. It’s making me nervous. okay. I didn’t know she was an alcoholic till she had surgery when I was in fifth grade on her back. They had dig… took a piece of bone out of her hip and screwed it into her back. There were screws, actual screws, in the x-ray of her back. I took the x-ray to show and tell. [both laugh]

Paul: And an empty bottle of Jameson. Here is what my mom is made of – booze and screws.

Roxanne: I love that! It rhymes! It’s lovely. Wow! That’d be a good name for a bar. Maybe…

Paul: A bar/whorehouse – booze and screws.

Roxanne: That’d be a fun logo to make actually.

Paul: Yeah.

Roxanne: okay. So, she went into withdrawal on the surgery table and apparently almost died because they didn’t know she was an alcoholic. My dad didn’t tell. He claimed he didn’t know but I think that’s bullshit, you know. And, so, I heard a little bit about that but I didn’t understand what I was hearing. I didn’t understand the ramifications – what that would mean or anything. She lived. I was glad about that. My life would have been much worse had she died.

Paul: Boy, that’s a fucked up family when you’re like, “Thank God my alcoholic mom was around!”

Roxanne: I know! but it was true.

Paul: And you know, I think it highlights too the complexity of parents that carry some type of you know monkey on their back is there’s parts of them as I’m sure your mom is one that is fun to be around sometimes, that there can be energetic and empathic and you know…

Roxanne: No.

Paul: Not your mom? She was never empathic?

Roxanne: No. That wasn’t it.

Paul: Ok. But, well with some people, there is that other side. There is the light side to their dark and I think that’s one of the hardest things to reconcile – the parent that contains both. So, talk about some of the light with your mom.

Roxanne: She always made birthdays, Christmas, 4th of July, Halloween a lot of fun. She was a very generous woman. She really put a lot of thought into gifts. You know, she gave gifts that meant a lot and she spent a lot. Both make me feel really good and so we had wonderful birthday parties and Christmas fun, picnics. One nice thing about her is when it rained, she would get really excited and she’d say, “Everything is going to get green. The flowers are going to bloom.” And she would want to go out and play in the rain.

Paul: Really?

Roxanne: It was really nice. Yeah. And so I feel that way. Every time it rains, I still feel that way.

Paul: Really?

Roxanne: “Oooh, gotta go out and play in the rain!” Yeah, I’m happy about it. It’s great. So that was a good side to her. There were a lot of good things about her. She was a Girl Scout leader for my sister and cub scout leader for one of my brothers. PTA… what else? I don’t know. She did a lot but she was a stay-at-home mom and I think she resented it. She didn’t like it. She did like kids. Isn’t that a weird thing to say? We celebrate holidays, you have a wonderful holiday, you think about your kids, but the rest of the year it was very clear that she didn’t like us or love us. It hurt.

Paul: Wow, I’m not a parent so I don’t know what it’s like but I know after being around friends’ kids for 2-3 hours, I’m like, “thank God I’m going home to an empty house.” or to dogs that are so easy to be in charge of.

Roxanne: Dogs are so wonderful. Aren’t they?

Paul: Yeah.

Roxanne: Love dogs. Well, I don’t know. That is hard for me to reconcile in my mind because there were some really, you know, hateful horrible things that she did, but at the same time, I have nice memories and one thing I’ve discovered is there are a lot of things from my childhood that I really don’t think I want to remember. You know, it’s still erased and I kind of would be happy if it just stayed that way. But, when I remember the good things, the bad stuff opens up too. It’s like, “Oh, here. That is…” It’s not as devastating as I think it would be. I guess because I’ve grown enough. You know? I’ve had enough therapy and enough supportive…

Paul: What’s not as devastating as you think it would be? To go deeper?

Roxanne: Some of these memories.

Paul: To go deeper into these memories?

Roxanne: Yeah. They just come back and it turns out, you know, just like people say. It’s so hard to understand because it was always there and you know, I thought I couldn’t remember but part of my brain is just keeping me safe from it. You know?

Paul: Isn’t it weird how our brains do that or minimize it?

Roxanne: Yeah. It’s really weird.

Paul: You don’t think of it. You could so easily point to somebody else if they describe what happened to them. You go, “oh my God! That’s horrible.” but if it happened to you, you’re like, “yeah, but you don’t understand. That’s just how they were.”

Roxanne: I don’t defend them. I used to. I used to think I was from a fantastic family. It was like the best family ever! Really.

Paul: Isn’t that amazing?

Roxanne: Yes. It’s insanity actually. Because… I don’t know… I was just positive. They were a great family and I didn’t understand families where they showed each other “like” and “I like you”, let alone “I love you” or “I’m gonna hold your hand” or “I’m gonna pat your head” or say something nice. It didn’t make any sense to me. It sounded to me like 2-dimensional, I don’t know, phoniness. It really looked phony to me.

Paul: I always feel this sense of envy when I see families especially siblings that are like falling all over each other and laughing or holding hands and running around. I just think there was no template for us as kids to… I mean, yea, we were fun, loving, frolicking kids in a certain way but it was never from the place of love. It was more from place of mischief or competing at sports or something like that.

Roxanne: Yes, mischief is where we had fun too.

Paul: Yeah.

Roxanne: I think that was my favorite part of the childhood.

Paul: Talk about that.

Roxanne: Well, thank goodness my mom’s dead, so she doesn’t have to hear this, but we used to go under the house and build little log cabins out of wooden matches and then build and then burn them down.

Paul: Wow!

Roxanne: Yeah, that was just one of many kind of things we did. Yeah.

Paul: And did you do this with your siblings?

Roxanne: Yes, my sister and brother that were closest in age to me. The other two older brothers were too old to play with me but, yeah, we could get into all kinds of trouble. But it was fun. Fun kind of stuff…

Paul: Did your dad have any light…

Roxanne: light side?

Paul: Yeah, did he have a light side before we get into the dark side?

Roxanne: I thought every once in a while I saw it. My mom wouldn’t allow him to be in a bad mood in the holidays so that was nice. And, yes, but still the stuff that made him happy kind of is cringe-worthy. And, she would say…

Paul: Well, you know I’m not gonna let that go by! That’s my favorite stuff.

Roxanne: Like a big python chomping down on a capabary or whatever. And, he would love that. He’d have a lighthearted chuckle through the whole thing. He would love watching it on TV.

Paul: Watching what?

Roxanne: Like a python swallowing a…

Paul: Oh! I see. A snake!

Roxanne: A snake! You know when do these nature shows for the… I don’t really care for those but you know.

Paul: That made him laugh?

Roxanne: Yeah, he had a really lighthearted chuckle when he saw stuff like that. That’s weird. Creeped me out.

Paul: Is that like the lightest thing you can remember? He chuckled at pythons eating…

Roxanne: No, I can think of something better than that. Lighthearted, lighthearted. He was great with the boys. He like the boys. He took them to ball games, played baseball with them, and football, and basketball, and…

Paul: That would light him up?

Roxanne: Boy Scouts, and, yeah, yeah.

Paul: Especially if they did well, I imagine.

Roxanne: From my prospective just being male made him happy. Like, they were male. You know?

Paul: What did that feel like? Being female?

Roxanne: I really, really felt (and there is probably a part of me that still does) that I failed. Like, at some point before I was born, somebody asked me, “what do you want to be? Male or female?” And, I chose female, and I was wrong. It’s like I chose the wrong one. It’s bizarre. It’s bizarre to me now. When I hear other people talk like that, I just, I shake my head, but that’s my life. It’s weird.

Paul: That breaks my heart.

Roxanne: It breaks my heart too because there is still a part of that believes that and I don’t know how to dislodge it. I work at it.

Paul: Like it’s your fault.

Roxanne: I’m really happy I was born a female now, because, boy, that is something to fault somebody for, right? Not just my fault… but why would you fault someone for a 50/50 chance? But, when you hear the history in my family, I think you’ll see why I’m happy now that I’m female because I think I would have been, if I had been male… I would have been a rapist. I don’t think there are two ways about that and I’m so glad that I’m not. You know? I’d rather be the scapegoat that I was and take all this shit. Ahhh, I can’t imagine trying to go life with that. You know? It’s bad enough what I got but…

Paul: To be on the other side…

Roxanne: What my brothers have to live with… yeah.

Paul: Were they rapists?

Roxanne: Yeah. They were. All the men were. So, most of my childhood was erased. Like, I would erase it regularly maybe at least once a week. I would erase my memories. So, my first clue that something happened was I went to a dream analysis class and this woman… it was two weekends in a row, and she said that on the first weekend you will dream about a car and that car will represent how you see yourself in the world. And, when you wake up you can drive that car into a dealership and trade it in and get a little sports car, and then be the best like a zippy little fun car that doesn’t carry a burden. You know? There is no room for the burden. Sure enough I went home and dreamt that…

Paul: You can make yourself dream things?

Roxanne: Well she just suggested it and everybody did. She said, “It’s like… You’re going to dream about a car.” And I dreamed there was a secret service vehicle. It was a big heavy black thing with black windows that you couldn’t see in. You couldn’t get in, and it was sitting right in front of our house. There was blood all over the street and I woke up going, “oh shit! There is a secret.”

Paul: My car is not so good. [both laugh]

Roxanne: There is a big secret I don’t have access to. Yeah, my car is not too good. And, so, I tried to think of my childhood and I realized I couldn’t remember anything. I knew what my bedroom looked like, where it was. I knew a lot about school. Part of me knows all about school. I have a lot of memories about school. I focused on that. That’s where I felt good, safe, and happy. And, so then the next clue… I just let it go. I didn’t know what to do with that information. It felt like it’s a secret I can’t get in there. Let it go. And then one time I was having…

Paul: What did the person in the course… what did they say when you shared about that there was a secret?

Roxanne: I don’t think I told her. I don’t think she asked each person. I think she just gave us direction on what you can do if you have a car that carries a burden because apparently a lot of people dream about trucks and the truck is loaded down, or a big bus full of people, or something.

Paul: Or the car won’t start.

Roxanne: [laughs] That’s my car! My car runs backwards. But, yeah. It was kind of interesting. So yeah. Whenever I dream about a car and I don’t like the car, I do what she said. I visualize myself going to the car lot and picking out a sports car and taking off. It’s fun. It does help.

Paul: So, that was your first clue that something was being repressed?

Roxanne: First clue. Yes. The second clue…

Paul: So, if someone would have walked up to you and… how long ago was this?

Roxanne. It was a long time ago. Probably 30 years ago.

Paul: So if somebody had come up to you at that point and said, “are you an incest survivor?” you would have said no?

Roxanne: No. And my brain, funny, whenever that word came up – didn’t really come up that often – but when it did, I immediately changed it to insect in my brain. Insect… when I would be thinking about incest. Which didn’t… I didn’t really think of that till you just said that just now.

Paul: It’s amazing how the brain will… things it will do to distract itself from…

Roxanne: Despairs.

Paul: … you staying in your body and feeling your feelings. It’s amazing.

Roxanne: It is! It’s… I feel very lucky for being a creative person because my brain found all kinds of creative places to survive and I’m actually pretty happy in my life right now so that’s pretty amazing.

Paul: How do you express your creativity?

Roxanne: I think paintings and I paint oil on canvas surrealistic paintings.

Paul: Oh, that’s gotta be a great place to let your imagination go wild!

Roxanne: Yeah.

Paul: Who are your favorite… Are you a Dali fan?

Roxanne: I like Dali! I like a lot of them. Kandinsky, Miro, I like almost all artists. I like all impressionists.

Paul: Did you paint as a kid?

Roxanne: Don’t think so… hard to know.

Paul: Yeah. So take me there to the next step of the…

Roxanne: Next step, when I had my son… My husband and I had a son.

Paul: How old is he?

Roxanne: He now is 26. He’ll be 27 soon. And, he is a great kid. Lucky mom I am! But, I started having these intrusive visions of a knife cutting my tongue off after my son was born. And, I thought that was because I gained weight when I was pregnant. And, I thought that’s my body’s… my brain’s way of saying, “don’t eat so much.” But, it wasn’t that. And, so, that was another disturbing thing that I kept pushing to the back. Then, one time I was in a Mexican restaurant in Pasadena having margaritas and Mexican food with family and friends, and a lot of people left to go to somebody’s house. And, I stayed to finish my margarita. And here I am sitting with two of my brothers and two of their good friends, and one of the guys says, “you know… you always acted like you didn’t want it but you know you did because your nipples were hard.” And, I’m like dumbfounded. My mouth was hanging open, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. What are you talking about?” And he repeated himself, “you know you wanted it. Your nipples were hard.” And, I’m like… I’m looking at my brothers. Well, my brothers are both looking down into their laps, you know, embarrassed, and ashamed. And, this guy is saying… he is… Now I’ll say he is a bit of sadist, I think he wanted me to remember so he could enjoy watching me suffer.

Paul: I’d say that’s an understatement… “that guy is a sadist.”

Roxanne: Yeah. He and one of my brothers both. And, both my brothers are looking at their hands in their lap, and won’t acknowledge anything, and he is going, “you’re shitting me! You’re shitting me! She doesn’t remember?!” And they are both shaking their head no. They weren’t even speaking and they wanted him to shut up and he is just… too something to shut up. And, I said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” And he is just acknowledge…. he is now dumbfounded, right? And, he is like, “you’re shitting me! You’re shitting me! You don’t remember?!”

Paul: Now he is insulted because his sadism isn’t memorable.

Roxanne: Well, yeah! And he didn’t get to enjoy my face of shock and shame and horror and… He didn’t get to enjoy all that so I guess I disappointed him in that way. I guess I should be happy about that. And, so I erased that too. I pushed that out of my mind too. And it wasn’t until much later (my son was teenager) that I started therapy and I was just filled with shame. I didn’t know why. So I called a therapist and said, “every cell in my body is full of shame.” And he says, “why?” And I said, “I have no idea why.” So, we worked on it and I started remembering things. It was just hideous. The youngest memory I have… well, it gets dark very fast. I think you’re ok with it.

Paul: I’m totally ok with that. I guess I have some questions.

Roxanne: Ok.

Paul: So it was this guy and your two brothers that participated in this? Did your memories…

Roxanne: They were at the restaurant talking about it. There were more people than that involved but…

Paul: Ok, but, the incident that they were referring to… your brothers were involved in that?

Roxanne: oh, Uh huh.

Paul: They participated in the memory of…

Roxanne: There was more than once incident. More than one incident. Yeah.

Paul: And how old were you?

Roxanne: I’m guessing it was like 6 years old to maybe 9 or 10. And, it’s like being a detective trying to figure out the details.

Paul: That’s gotta be really frustrating.

Roxanne: Yes and no. I’ve remembered enough now, and I know the process of remembering to know if I really wanted to know I would so I think there is a big part of me that is still scared to know.

Paul: I never thought about that.

Roxanne: The details….

Paul: But you see I’m somebody that wants to know…

Roxanne: I trust my subconscious because it knows better than I do. It really does. It’s like, lucky… I’m lucky that it’s gentle on me. Really.

Paul: So, go ahead. Continue.

Roxanne: Okay. Well, at this point I’m going to go chronologically, and I think I was about 4 years old. My first therapist thinks I may have been a little bit younger and my dad raped me by fucking my mouth in the bathroom by… off my bedroom. And, I thought he was killing me. I thought I was drowning. Thought I was dying and I dissociated. I left my body and I went outside, went out the window, and then to the side yard, and I sat in the dirt. You know, in my mind I sat in the dirt. And, when he was done, he just tossed me on the floor like a rag doll. And, I know that evil exists in the world but it was my entire childhood. It’s just appalling.

Paul: What feelings are coming up for you right now?

Roxanne: I just can’t reconcile it. The big feelings that come up for me now, I mean besides being upset and angry and hurt, are for justice. I everyday am thirsty for justice. Thirsty, thirsty, thirsty, and I will never have it.

Paul: So frustration?

Roxanne: Everybody tells me, “you won’t have it. You won’t get the justice.” But it doesn’t make the thirst for it go away. I’m still justice-thirsty maybe more so because you’re telling me it’s not possible. You know?

Paul: If you had your father here restrained, what would you say or do? And, I apologize if the way I follow up with these questions is triggering or unhealthy or feeding into the darkness.

Roxanne: Oh, no, no, no. It’s alright. You can ask me anything Paul. Anything. I’m good. Don’t worry.

Paul: Ok, what’s your favorite color?

Roxanne: Purple. Thanks for asking.

Paul: So what would you do?

Roxanne: I would like grab him by the feet and I would swing him around. I would start spinning/pivoting in spot, swing him around, and bang his head against walls and chairs and doors and everything. I would slam him around.

Paul: What would you say? Would you say anything?

Roxanne: Well, if he had his hearing aid in and the battery was working, you mean? [both laugh]

Paul: Is he still alive?

Roxanne: He is dead. He died a few years ago and sucks for me. I didn’t have a job and he was getting Alzheimer’s. He had one day caregiver but he needed 24-hour care so I moved down to the house I grew up in and took care of him for a little while.

Paul: Oh my God!

Roxanne: He had a regular caregiver during the day. She was great and… but I was like rested at times around the clock. He actually used to… 92-year old man… I luckily sleep lightly. I could hear him coming up the hall to my room at night sometimes, like once a month, and he’d be trying to come in my room to rape me again.

Paul: At 92?!

Roxanne: 92. And, he shuffled. I could hear his feet shuffling for a long time so I actually had plenty of time and to get up and lock the door. Anyway, and he’d start pushing it open and I would just push it back closed, and I was stronger, thank God. I just like push him out, push the door shut, you know, and he would try to push it open, and I would hold it shut, and eventually he would get tired of it and go back to bed. So, I never, never got any kind of shame or anything like that out of him. He was never sorry.

Paul: So, obviously the memories… you had dealt with the memories at this point? Remember that he was…

Roxanne: Yeah, I knew when I was dealing with then. Yeah.

Paul: What made you want to be in the house with him and take care of somebody who did all those things to you?

Roxanne: I needed a job for one. I felt like he owed me.

Paul: So you were being paid to do this.

Roxanne: Yeah.

Paul: Okay.

Roxanne: My brother was in charge of my dad's finances and he didn't want to pay me but I made him pay me. I was there for a... I was doing the work of a nurse for, you know... many hours every day.

Paul: How hard was that to interact physically with the person that did those things to you? I mean my skin is crawling.

Roxanne: I hated it. I prayed every night, "God, kill him. Why is he still alive? Why don't you kill him? Why is he still alive?" And, he was very astute with money. He was very good with money and he earned three retirements and he lived in the house we grew up in and he loved the house. He loved the yard, and he was pulling down six grand a month in retirement. The house was paid off and that's like, "God, I want to have justice and I never will!"

Paul: When did your mom pass?

Roxanne: She passed many years before that. Probably 17 years before that. She had a lot of health problems.

Paul: Okay. And how long ago did your dad die?

Roxanne: That's about 3-4 years ago.

Paul: Oh, okay. So, this is pretty recent.

Roxanne: Yeah. Well, that he died, yeah.

Paul: And other than therapy, were you in any other kind of recovery for incest?

Roxanne: At the time, I wasn't in therapy because I had moved down from... I used to live in a Bishop for quite a while and I moved down here. I prefer Southern California. I love the weather, the climate, flowers blooming all year around. I'm an artist and my brain revolves around color. There is nothing that comes second. It's just like colors first and everything else last. And, flowers blooming all year round here. I'm always happy so...

Paul: I was just watching...

Roxanne: I thought the good would outweigh the bad.

Paul: By being back down here?

Roxanne: Yeah, and it did. It still... I'm still glad to be here.

Paul: So, I'm confused then what... I thought it was therapy that helped these repressed memories come up, but when this happened with your dad, you weren't in therapy. Did you mean that you're in therapy currently?

Roxanne: Yeah, at the time...

Paul: So you had been in therapy.

Roxanne: I had been in therapy for probably 12 years now and when I moved down here I wasn't.

Paul: I see. But you knew what you were dealing with then.

Roxanne: Yeah, I knew. I knew.

Paul: Because stuff had been... the attic had been opened.

Roxanne: Yeah. I remembered plenty of stuff. Yeah. Plenty of stuff, and he was still a creep, still an asshole. I don't know. What are you gonna do? I mean he was such a respected man and that galls me. He hid it so well and he was respected in the community and everybody thinks he is a... you know people tell me... I think they tell you, "oh, your mom is such a great person."

Paul: Yeah.

Roxanne: You're like, "yeah, thanks!"

Paul: She has great qualities but yeah.

Roxanne: My dad would had some really good qualities. He really knew how to handle money well. He knew how to set himself up for retirement.

Paul: You know, I always think...

Roxanne: He liked fresh flowers in the house. I think that's a lovely quality, right?

Paul: Whenever I'm in a country club and I see the line of pictures of all the guys that had been the head of the country club, you know, it's usually like 30 pictures in the row of out-of-shape white guys in their 60s, I always think how many of those guys rape their daughters. I always think that because it's always the respected guys...

Roxanne: Science has to find a way to get the answer to that question. I would like to be a research scientist. If I could do life over again, I mean not that I can, but, I would like to be younger and make that my field of study for my lifetime because they still... they're still kind of baffled like, "well, we don't know how to find that out." And it's true. How are you going to ask women who erase their memory?

Paul: And men.

Roxanne: And men. Lots of men.

Paul: Lots of men.

Roxanne: I'm in a group, a 12-step group for incest survivors, and there are lot of men in that group. And as a matter of fact I had... I didn't realize how damaged I was just being around men in the same room as men until I went into a meeting where half the people in the incest group were men and I was panicked. I mean I was... my heart was pounding. I was holding my breath. And, I thought there was about to be a gang rape.

Paul: Wow.

Roxanne: Right now. And one of the guys looks at me and goes, "are you okay?" I told them exactly and I'm so proud of myself for being strong. I said exactly what I was feeling.

Paul: What did he say?

Roxanne: They were all great. They were like, "yeah." Nobody overreacted. Everybody's like, "yeah, join the club."

Paul: That's what's so awesome.

Roxanne: And they have to put up with all the women in the group too, you know.

Paul: I've been so triggered by women in support groups sometimes especially the ones that remind me of my mom where I'll just... I feel like I'm coming out of my skin.

Roxanne: Like what kind of things remind you of her?

Paul: Controlling behaviors where they'll guilt you and try to... My mom would do this thing when I was a kid where she would want you to do something, you know, go straighten out the basement or whatever, but she would... she had a way of making the most simple things really complicated and she would... it was almost like you were a little prisoner of what she was doing where she would stand over you and you know say, "you do it this way or do it that way." It wasn't sadistic or mean or anything but I just felt controlled. I felt like a puppet.

Roxanne: I was just gonna say I'm picturing her as a puppet master. She's gotta pull every little string and it makes you feel like, "I'm not even a human being."

Paul: Yeah, it just felt like under the microscope. I just felt like under the microscope and like somebody... like she is trying to stretch this out and there is a woman in my support group who a couple of times has needed assistance with things and I'm not gonna do it again. I'm not gonna volunteer to help her because the last two times that I've done it... there is this feeling that she is almost getting off on seeing people run around and... I don't know how to put my finger on it but there has been a... like a lack of preparation that if somebody was genuinely grateful that you were coming to help them do something, you would have prepared so that... what they were helping you with would have gone more smoothly and taken less time, but there was none of that. And there was almost a relishing having these bees buzzing around her helping her and it just suddenly... I was like, "I have to go. I have to go." Just... you know. And, I left and I was like, "I'll never be in that person's proximity again" because it's just too triggering.

Roxanne: There is a vibe they give off. Isn't there?

Paul: Yeah.

Roxanne: And it makes you wonder what are they doing in the group.

Paul: Yeah, I don't know. It's just... she's somebody like when I shared the details of stuff that my mom did to me, the women I'm really close within the group, I looked up and it was so touching because they were all sobbing, and I felt so seen and felt and heard. And, she was one of the ones that was crying so it's like, I don't fault her for it. She is like my mom. She has this side of her that is light and this side that is dark, but I have to protect myself from the dark if it crosses... If the meter goes beyond a certain level.

Roxanne: Yeah.

Paul: And her meter goes beyond the certain level for me and so I have to protect myself, or you know, extricate.

Roxanne: I'm glad that's what you do because a lot of people would try to push that feeling down.

Paul: And say I'm a bad person. I have to... This person needs help. It has... no.

Roxanne: And you don't. But that's not valid. You gotta take care of yourself.

Paul: You gotta take care of yourself. So,...

Roxanne: I've learned a lot about taking care of myself from listening to your show. Your compassion for yourself when you make little mistakes gives me compassion for myself. It's awesome!

Paul: That makes me feel so good.

Roxanne: I love it when you say, "well, I fucked that up. I'm gonna leave it in." It's great.

Paul: I had no idea that perfectionism is so common in survivors of incest and... or just having an narcissistic parent which all... any parent who sexually abuses their child or incests them emotionally is a narcissist. But, I had no idea that that was so common. Do you struggle with perfectionism?

Roxanne: I used to. I'm much better than I used to be. Much, much better because since I've been able to embrace my flaws, I like myself better. I'm more real. I'm not pretending to be something that I'm not. But, I understand where it comes from. You know, part of your brain is trying to survive by being what it thinks your parents needs you to be. Just trying to fill that role and yeah. What I didn't get in my family is that role was scapegoat. I thought they first made it seem like if you were talented enough in some way that you would be golden, and actually smart and creative and clever and that never panned out for me getting any attention for it. And then it became you have to be smarter than the rest of your siblings even though you're 10 years younger than your older brother, right? And, it turned out I was really smart, and so they just changed it again. They just kept changing it. So whatever the older brothers were that's the goal and whatever you're... I mean, even in elementary school I saw the pattern where I'm like, "ok, I'm supposed to be an older brother. I get it."

Paul: How so?

Roxanne: Well, it's just like you need to be male, and we could have a good chuckle watching you bend yourself into a pretzel to win our attention and love but it's kind of enjoyable watching me twist myself up I think.

Paul: How would you try to win their love when you were a kid?

Roxanne: I'd get straight A's in school... not hear a thing about it.

Paul: That had to have been...

Roxanne: Yeah. I was proud.

Paul: ... so hurtful.

Roxanne: I was proud of it. I knew a lot of stuff, you know?

Paul: Because I suppose it their mind it was like you're just gonna be like, "okay, you get... you're just gonna be a housewife so who cares what grades you get? You're not gonna be the one who runs the world like we do."

Roxanne: I don't even know. Yeah. I don't even know if they saw me as the housewife. I mean this sounds really bizarre to say but in our household we had pets also. And, the sons were in the upper echelon of our generation and then dogs and then cats and then daughters so we were below the animals.

Paul: Have you ever...

Roxanne: So, it was not even like you're gonna be a wife. That would be...

Paul: So what were the things they would say to you that were expressed this or actions that they took aside from the sexual abuse?

Roxanne: Well, both my sister and I... it didn't matter what we accomplished. It was zero. It doesn't matter. I mean the goal would be setup, "you should be this," but when you reach there, that's not the goal anymore. We changed it instead of being smart, now you're supposed to be really funny and you're not. And, if you're funny - you make a joke - you're supposed to be athletic. And, it was always the things that the guys already were naturally. You know? They were funny and athletic and they were smart by being older, you know? And so it was obvious the pattern and just the way we were spoken to... spoken down too quite a bit, you know? Run down. Always looking for a reason to attack. You know? A lot of parents are that way and siblings.

Paul: I've noticed in the surveys it seems like there is two types of the predatory caregiver. The sexually predatory caregiver - those that try and make up for their predatory behavior by doing nice things for that kid you know? Making everything special, etc., etc., and the ones that can't get enough of the sadism and they also verbally abuse the child outside of that and then it's basically it's an extended rape of that child's soul. It sounds like that your...

Roxanne: Yeah, the devastation is that your brain is wired to have a community with these people in order to stay alive. And, so, the tricks that I had to play to feel like I was a member of the family and that I would be safe and that I could live in the house (because a few times my dad threatened to kick me out on the street, you know, if he didn't like how I was behaving or something he threatened to send me to the orphanage) and so, I always felt like I have to be the kind of person that deserves to live in this family and I would kind of make myself the new version of Roxanne that deserved to live in the family and I was constantly trying to read their signals and determine what I would exactly need to do in order to feel like I fit in, you know? And I think that's where the perfectionism comes in if you really believe it's life and death on subconsciously, your brain will be desperate...

Paul: Focus.

Roxanne: ... to try to find the answer there and try and make you what they need you to be. So I... and eventually subconsciously I realized they really do need a scapegoat and I just became that and it was a lot easier to accomplish.

Paul: What do you remember about... because you were uniquely positioned in history for the irony of women's lib movement happening at the time when

Roxanne: Yeah, in our household that was evil.

Paul: I can't imagine how much your dad must have felt threatened by that.

Roxanne: That was evil in our household and the word "love" was evil and the word "peace" was evil. we were above that.

Paul: Your dad must have loved Nixon, huh?

Roxanne: Oh yeah! [both laugh]

Paul: My dad did too but my dad I think was a kind person. I think he was just fiscally conservative. He didn't... I don't think he had a problem with hippies and...

Roxanne: I'm fiscally conservative.

Paul: So am I.

Roxanne: I'm like more libertarian but I just... I still undermine myself in ways so I cannot support myself but I believe in those values and I want to be successful. I was for a while when I had all the memories blocked out, I was very successful.

Paul: What do you remember feeling about women's lib movement when you saw it happening? Did a part of you... were you secretly rooting for it, or were you brainwashed... or did your family have you brainwashed that this was a bad thing?

Roxanne: There are different levels that I appreciated it on and I was a very intelligent child and a very clear thinking... I mean I read magazines, newspapers, and everything on politics. I followed world politics and stayed current on everything local. And to me it was a curiosity but the women grated on me because I had an idea in my head on what I was supposed to be as a woman and they were being loud and obnoxious and their voices kind of grated on my nerves. And I just got this impression that they just... that a group women without a sense of humor and now looking back I can say oh, I had to have a sense of humor about how I was treated. I had to say, "oh, I have a sense of humor. I can laugh it all off." And they didn't have that. And, at some point, I did realize I want that. That they can stand up and say, "that's not right." Excuse me, my voice... So, at some point I did appreciate the strength that they had to speak the truth and that was awesome to have that role model, but first it was just burning bras and that was weird. [both laugh]

Paul: It's funny when movements start for people that have been downtrodden or oppressed, it's so rarely expressed in a way that as a viewer you think, "oh, that's the perfect way to get to the people you're trying to convince." Like when I see a gay pride parade, I think it's awesome that they are able to fully express what they're feeling without shame, but if you want to convince the conservative people who are afraid of gays, you know, having a sparklers in your pee hole on top of a float may not be the most direct route to national acceptance with them. [both laugh] God bless ya for you know, letting your freak flag fly but...

Roxanne: Well, truthfully though it's always a matter ultimately in society when you have new movements like that of convincing individuals one at the time and that should be done with people saying, "well you know, we've been friends for years and I'm gay. What do you think of that?"

Paul: Yeah, I'm your child and I'm gay. That seems to be the one that...

Roxanne: And, I think that then they are forced to sit back and think about it a little bit and say, "well, you know, that person is a good person. What am I worried about?"

Paul: And, in my views affect a human being, not a, you know, a conceptual group out there I will never meet.

Roxanne: Yeah, or I will never meet.

Paul: Or don't want to meet. [both laugh]

Roxanne: But, yeah, my family was very homophobic even though I think the guys participated in weird circle jerk stuff. Isn't it typical? It's like typical.

Paul: I've never participated in a circle jerk or been invited to participate in a circle jerk.

Roxanne: I have some extremely vague memories of the intensity of these boys in a room all being really turned on. And, I felt like...

Paul: By you? Or like...

Roxanne: It wasn't me. It was like this is like a tradition with them like there is a pattern... like this is some kind of regular thing maybe.

Paul: It sounds to me like there was something done to them.

Roxanne: And, there is this one time I was there and saw that. I mean, there were more than one time that I was involved with their sickness but it just very impactful in my brain this intensity of their sexual arousal with each other like they were egging each other on. I don't know.

Paul: I've never... I'm shocked that I've never witnessed that because I hear about it so much and I never saw that among the groups of guys.

Roxanne: Good for you.

Paul: Yeah, there was a guy that molested me and molested other kids in the neighborhood but that was always a one-on-one thing and I've always... I always wonder what when there is that dynamic of, you know, was one of them abused? Were they all abused? Is this just a natural thing that I just personally didn't experience or see.

Roxanne: I think most people don't. I was in a really like unlucky situation. Our neighborhood, these guys were similar ages and they all coming into puberty egged each other on and nobody said no.

Paul: To masturbate in front of each other or what?

Roxanne: I'm not sure what all they did. But I have a very strong memory of one time just being insanely aroused as a group. And, I just assumed that they masturbated or whatever. I don't know. Because why else would a bunch of guys be sitting around horny?

Paul: Well, we would, you know, we would always have a stash of Playboys or whatever and we would go into for it, but we would just look at them and talk about it.

Roxanne: My mom put Playboy magazines in their Christmas stockings.

Paul: In theirs?

Roxanne: Yeah.

Paul: How old were they?

Roxanne: Well, the year I saw that I think I was maybe 7 or 8, so my oldest brother would have been 17 or 18, and the next brother 14. Something like that...

Paul: Do you think something was done physically to your brothers?

Roxanne: Yeah. I'm sure of it.

Paul: Do you think your father raped them?

Roxanne: I think so… I think so. They would never talk about it. When they are around me, I’m something to be contained and they’re all hyper vigilant to control the conversations.

Paul: Oh, really? Since you’ve been in recovery?

RoxanneL Yeah. No, just like… yeah, period. The more I blow them off, like pshhht, whatever. Because they used to try to tell me what to do and what not. I’ve just… I’ve always had an independent streak, so… Makes them very uncomfortable, but I’m sure that they were. I’m positive. I think my dad abused them all, and I think they abused each other older to younger, and I think my sister got it too because when… she was always weird. She is three years older than me and when she got to take my brother’s… my oldest brother’s bedroom when he went to college, I went to look into her room to see how she decorated it, and she had string taped up all over the room like a giant spider web like floor to ceiling, wall to wall, wall to floor, wall to… just… like a spirograph around her bed. I’m like, “wow, she is insane.” Because I didn’t remember what happened to me. She is trying to protect herself or something. And, she would go around at night with this big army blanket over her shoulders and this mud mask on her face, and she’d come creeping around the hall and scare the crap out of everybody, but I think that was her way of making herself, like, unattractive as possible, you know?

Paul: Wow!

Roxanne: She kind of thought she was bionic woman. She had a little fantasy going. So, I know. You know? It’s like obvious to me. It must have happened and even today, I guess she’s sixty in April, she still wants the brothers’ approval. She still rolls over like a puppy like showing her weaknesses saying… [sighs] I don’t know. It’s really hard to accept so I don’t have anything to do with any of them.

Paul: She is clearly not in any kind of recovery.

Roxanne: No.

Paul: Yeah.

Roxanne: No… Not since I’ve last heard anyway. So… Yeah, it’s sad. I miss my family. I miss the fun stuff we used to do. You know? We used to play cards and Scrabble and Risk and Monopoly and play out in the yard. You know? That’s a nice memory and I miss doing that. I miss that interaction with the family.

Paul: Talk about the aspects of recovering from that… that the average person doesn’t realize a survivor experiences.

Roxanne: It’s hard.

Paul: Especially in playing the events back in your mind.

Roxanne: Well, as you said, it’s like things can trigger you when you’re helping the woman and she wasn’t prepared and she wanted to micromanage you, and that’s a trigger, but I’m sure you know a smell can be a trigger and a sound and a song and an expression on somebody’s face, and especially since I had so many people abusing me, I had my dad, my brothers and my brothers’ friends, there is no end to the triggers. No end. Like different facial expressions are just different people, you know? That many people really fucks up your brain. Your brain looks for… I mean, it’s been fifty years and my brain is still always hyper vigilant looking for the rapist, and, or the murderer. For some reason as a child, I thought I was being murdered. You know? So to me, it’s like the same thing.

Paul: That incident you described when you were four years old, you know, doing this podcast for three years… that…

Roxanne: I often, I mostly don’t feel it on a feeling level. I kind of keep that in a… like a on a shelf. Like on a store shelf, you know? Thinks stocked on a shelf. I don’t feel a lot of feelings about that at all or any of the incidents. I remember one time being in my dad’s bed, and I don’t know if it was my dad with me or one of my brothers, but whoever was there was saying, “don’t say anything. Don’t say a word!” and they were behind me and they penetrated my vagina. It was very, very painful but they said, “if you say anything, you’ll get in trouble!” and I still don’t know who that was. And, that upsets me. That memory… I’m not sure why. I mean of course… [both pause, then laugh.] Spoken like a true survivor! Oh my God! Why does that bother me?!

Paul: By the way, I was talking to somebody else in my support group and she had been incested by her father and I shared some of the stuff about my mom and there was this pause, and I went, “ahhh, man, incest is a motherfucker!” [both laugh]

Roxanne: That’s the best!

Paul: But I didn’t say it intentionally.

Roxanne: I know!

Paul: I didn’t mean it, but then we both started laughing and that to me is recovery in a nutshell. That laugh…

Roxanne: That’s why survivor groups are awesome!

Paul: Yeah.

Roxanne: We just this last Saturday I was at a meeting and for some reason, every one of us was in a goofy mood. No explanation and we just kept bursting out laughing, you know… probably in a group you should do the reading, just like at the beginning before you start sharing… and whoever was reading didn’t get to join in the fun but we all were laughing so hard we were crying! and that is most healing thing in the world.

Paul: It’s so healing!

Roxanne: Most healing. It’s like all these stuff like me… they’re laughing; I’m laughing. Like it’s not as bad as I thought, you know? Life isn’t so bad!

Paul: It’s not! and it isn’t the template that made me dream of doing this podcast was like I want to take that intimacy and healing, you know, by taking it out of the textbook and out of the academia and out of the therapist office, and get that peer-to-peer laughter, sometimes crying together…

Roxanne: Yeah, crying, a lot of crying and laughing…

Paul: And the awkwardness, you know?

Roxanne: It’s the best! I like the awkwardness it’s the best! I was in a meeting last night and somebody read something and I was supposed to comment and I said, "you know? I didn't listen to a word you said!"

Paul: I have said that before too.

Roxanne: "So, why don't we just talk about this thing over here?!" and everybody's fine. Nobody cares. Nobody cares.

Paul: Nobody! Nobody can tune out like a sex abuse survivor. I mean, or PTSD.

Roxanne: Well, for the first few months, I took that stuff in. I soaked in every word and there was so much healing each time. Ahhhh! It's the best, and now, I just want to hear how other people are doing. You know? How they're progressing and stuff, but stuff happens. Sunday, I had two friends go with me back up to the house where I was raped in up in Altadena because stupid PayPal shipped something there - something I ordered. It told the shipper to ship it to that address even though I had gotten... erased it. I changed it a few times. For some reason... anyway, if I wanted this thing I ordered... I didn't know who lived there; I had to go, and they went with me and it was really great having friends that totally understood. I didn't have to explain I can't breathe, my heart is pounding. When I got out of the car, all the muscles in my face was twitching like all over. It was the weirdest feeling - just the weirdest sensations.

Paul: Wow!

Roxanne: And I'm like, "that's the tree I used to hide in! I used to hide up in that tree when they would be looking for me." There were a couple of times when I was up there and my brother and a couple of his friends were looking for me. I assume to rape, and I'm sitting in the tree watching. And, yesterday... no Sunday, I looked at that tree and it was a great tree. Nice tree. Good tree. And, it wasn't so bad. I went in and I felt my feelings and overall it was a positive... it was a positive. I'm a lot stronger than I know. A lot stronger.

Paul: And having those people... two things strike me - number one, clearly recovery is taking hold in you because...

Roxanne: Yes!

Paul: ... you had the foresight to have your friends come with you and you believed that you are worth having your friends come with you.

Roxanne: They talked me into it. I kept... I kept erasing it from my brain that this package I ordered went to that house and that it had to be dealt with. I kept erasing it, erasing it, and I blurted it out on lunch on Saturday and the person I said it to said, "I'll go with you. I'll take you up there tomorrow." I'm like, "God, you're awesome!" Somebody else said, "I'm coming too!" So, I had that support.

Paul: And don't you think though that that was your subconscious way of asking for help - the fact that you blurted that out?

Roxanne: I think so.

Paul: Yeah.

Roxanne: I... and I was just trying to remind myself because I didn't want the thing to be shipped back to the shipper. Anyway... I haven't gotten the package yet, but I was there and I felt like the ghosts aren't there anymore. It's not haunted anymore. It's not full of monsters. It's just a house and that was a really good feeling. I loved the memories of my group. I'm so glad that you kept saying you gotta go to group. That got me to go. I'm so thankful to this show.

Paul: I can't even tell you even Roxanne what that means.

Roxanne: I feel like living every day... almost every day now where I used to feel like killing myself every freaking day several times a day. You know? I had one psychiatrist say, "it's not acceptable that you feel like killing yourself three to five times a day." and I said, "that is a huge improvement! It was fifteen to twenty. I'm down to three to five." and he is on my ass. I'm like, "God dang it!"

Paul: When I gonna get credit?! They keep moving the goal!

Roxanne: I know! I'm like, "this is good! This is a good thing."

Paul: Pretty soon he'll say you don't feel like killing yourself and you have to be athletic!

Roxanne: AND.... and another thing is... But, you know, on the subject of suicide, I mean, I wanted to kill myself every day for years and never...

Paul: Did you want to kill yourself before the memories flooded back?

Roxanne: Yes! yes, I can look back on several time when I could have easily died by my intentional bad judgment. I didn't know what the empties was but now I do. You know? So many times... and I'm just lucky. Lucky that I wasn't serious enough I guess - I don't know. But one time when I was down taking care of my dad when he had Alzheimer’s and my brother... one of my sadist brothers was there and he started a lovely conversation. We sat out in the yard and we were doing tequila shots and he saying, "I know you've been depressed. Did you ever feel like killing yourself." And I'm like, "yeah. I felt like that a lot in my life." And he said, "well, like I tell my son, why don't you get on with it?"

Paul: Kill yourself?

Roxanne: Yeah. He... my brother says that to me! "Like I tell my son, why don't you get on with it?!" I was like totally baffled. This is just like four years ago. You know?

Paul: Wow!

Roxanne: I don't even know what to say in the face of that kind of evil, and he is charming. All my brothers are charming. People love them. Feels like such an injustice. This is my justice. What I'm doing here with you... because I've told the story to so many, you know, incest survivors and a few of my closest friends, but none of them are gonna repeat it. This is just putting it out in the world. This is great! I had a fantasy of making a newspaper. It might be fun to do. Make a fake newspaper and put in articles about a fantasy scenario of me getting justice so like there was a loophole found in the law and they could go back and arrest my brothers and they got this information and now they're going to court and you know, the get a series of articles and of course, they're guilty in the end and punished. Maybe the death penalty... I'm not sure, but just looking at the series of articles and having a stack of papers to look at, it would make me feel like something happened. But this is the closest thing I'm going to get and I appreciate being here just putting it out in the world. You know? This is what happened and still happens. And the sad thing is like the taboo is talking about it. Not as much like doing it. You don't hear people pressure other people not to commit incest. They are pressured not to talk about it. Not to... It's like the burden is on the victim to bear the burden for keeping the family intact, keep the father working, ...

Paul: Yeah, and the injury to me that in many ways is worse than the physical rape or molestation is the back being turned by the caregiver.

Roxanne: Oh yeah!

Paul: Because you can almost understand the person who commits the act. It's clearly there is some type of compulsion they are dealing with because they know it's morally wrong - what they're doing. I don't think there is any illusion about that. Yeah, maybe some of them... it's twisted.

Roxanne: They can find a frame of mind where it's okay. You know what I mean?

Paul: Yeah. But you know that they're dealing with some type of mental illness - some type of trauma that... but the parent that turns their back when they hear that...

Roxanne: They may assist that.

Paul: Yeah! Yeah, that's the one I find myself feeling more rage for.

Roxanne: You know, I had the biggest rage just a few weeks ago. It dawned on most of my life I have these big jolts of my body - I don't know if you get that but it's like big jolts and I become alert. I become like energetic and I'm like, "whoa! What is that?" and I finally realized... Just a few weeks ago I was jolted awake and I'm like, "I know where that's from!" My dad, a couple of times grabbed my shoulders and shook me so hard my head was whipping back and forth, and it was because he didn't like that I noticed something about the family. I just made an observation and he shook me so hard till I became somebody else so I believe I have dissociative identity disorder because I have lots of parts in me and I think he started it with that event and that enrages me! Even more than the rape that he would shake me so hard like an Etch-a-Sketch. I feel like I was an Etch-a-Sketch.

Paul: Wow!

Roxanne: And he didn't like the bit he saw and he was going to shake it out of me, and I think he... doing that like built the foundation for figuring out how to be somebody else really fast. Somebody who doesn't have that same opinion and same memories. You know? And so for a lot of the events of the abuse, there were a few instances where my brothers and their friends organized gang rapes of me in different locations and stuff, and I had to... It took a long time, and I had to keep erasing my personality and putting in a new one again and again and again, and it's very hard to find therapy for that. It's really hard. I'm still working on it because I don't know... I had one therapist tell me, "well, can't you just put it in a jar and put the lid on it and slide it away?"

Paul: Is that what you want to do?

Roxanne: I... I mean we never got to the DID... dissociative identity disorder but I have problems like I found out I have a safe deposit box in Bishop that I don't remember opening and I'm supposed to pay the bill on it. And, I'm like, "I don't even know what's in there. I don't know where the key is!" I have a lot of things like that though.

Paul: That's got to be frustrating.

Roxanne: It's scary. It's really scary. And, I find clothes in my closet and it's like, "I would never wear that." But, for years, not only would I say I wouldn't wear it, I wouldn't acknowledge that it was there because I didn't know where it came from and it scared me that I had clothes in my closet I didn't know where they came from so I wouldn't erase my brain again and again and again, and it's very bad for an identity...

Paul: What do you mean when you say, "I would erase my brain?" You would make a conscious decision to just block that out?

Roxanne: Subconscious. It's all subconscious. It's just like trying to survive and now I have so much support, so many good friends, and so much... and I'm always pursuing therapy that I have the foundation and now I can go, "somebody else bought that. I was somebody else when I bought that. I will never wear that. I'm throwing it out." Instead of ignoring it in my closet, I'd throw it out, but like I was reading a book last week and the same book I was reading came in the mail. I'm like, "what is this?!"

Paul: That makes total sense to me.

Roxanne: And then I thought about like, "when did I order this?" I couldn't remember ordering neither of them. Neither, you know? Stuff like that going on all the time and I need help, but I can’t find help.

Paul: I will watch entire documentaries twice and not realize, even after the second viewing, that I had already seen it before. My wife will say to me, “you watched that last year.”

Roxanne: I wonder if you have a little bit of dissociation going on.

Paul: Or just a horrible memory – one of the two. But, I don’t know.

Roxanne: That’s like one of the main symptoms is like far-worse-than normal memory. You think always… So, for me I have different personality inside of me, you know? I read… I’m just being my own therapist. The great thing about having multiple personalities is you can be the therapist AND the patient.

Paul: Really?

Roxanne: Yeah. I got a great book. It’s expensive; it’s like $80 for used book. But, the guy is dead-on with what I have so I follow the direction he used for the therapists and I do it and I get relief. Isn’t that wild?

Paul: What’s the name of the book?

Roxanne: Dissociative Identity Disorder by Collin Ross. It’s excellent. Really excellent. I have a few books on the topic because I can’t find anybody to help me.

Paul: I would imagine the ideal thing though would be to have a therapist lead you through with that book.

Roxanne: Yeah.

Paul: But I suppose in the absence of not being able to find a therapist, that works for you too.

Roxanne: I’d like somebody to give me the clear reason why they’re afraid of the diagnosis because it is a valid diagnosis, but they’re all… they won’t go there. They’ll say like a first time I bring it up, I’ll say, “do you evaluate for this?” “Yeah, yeah, we can do that.” and then next week they’ll be, “ummm we can’t really do that. We can’t talk about that. We don’t do that here. We’re not prepared. We’re not something or other. We don’t have…” and I keep getting passed around I feel like.

Paul: I would imagine in Southern California you will find somebody. You will find somebody.

Roxanne: Well, the great thing is almost everybody in the 12 step group I go to has multiple personalities. They all understand and we just support each other listening to the stories. That’s all you need to do – just listen. But, it scares therapists. It scares them.

Paul: One of the things you mentioned in your email was when you outgrew the age range that your father prefers for his victims… talk about that.

Roxanne: Oh, it’s… Here is something, I mean, for people who aren’t familiar with like the damages of incest. When you’re feeling courageous enough, you have to admit that part of you was in love with the parent. Like it felt like love was the closest thing. My family didn’t hug; they didn’t say I love you; they were cold and always tried to find the flaw. You know? And, so, part of me was… I felt like I was in love and like my dad really loved me romantically. And, when he stopped, I was devastated. I was devastated because I felt like almost like in a kingdom I was the queen. I was the, you know, the main of the king and that gave me status. And, then he stopped and I went from queen to nothing. And, I was devastated. Oh my gosh… I remember my mom picking me up one time in my bedroom throwing me on the bed and saying, “he doesn’t love you! He doesn’t love you!” Like she is trying to be helpful, you know? “Get this in your head!”

Paul: Why was she saying that? Did she know?

Roxanne: Because I was jealous of their relationship.

Paul: Oh I see. Did she…

Roxanne: I felt competitive with her.

Paul: Do you think she knew about the abuse?

Roxanne: At some point, she found out because at some point it was very clear that she started paying attention to where I was and what I was doing. Because I could wonder off at 5 years old and go to the park for hours by myself. But, I had my best friend with me because I would be two people. And, had great conversations. Anyway, yeah, I would come back and nobody would say, “where were you?” No one really cared. But at some point she started paying attention. She started being diligent and she started asking me, “do you want to go to summer school?” I always did because school felt safe. And, summer camp, you know, Girl Scout summer camp or… She’d get me a little craft projects in the mail to do so she knew what I was doing and where I was. It’s weird because that’s where my memories start back up again. You know? It’s like somebody told her something or she found out. Or, maybe I told somebody… I don’t know.

Paul: Did your dad say why it stopped to you?

Roxanne: No, no.

Paul: You just figured it out?

Roxanne: No, it just stopped. It’s just like now there is not contact at all.

Paul: In your mind what was the reason for it at that age? You had done something wrong?

Roxanne: My mother stole him from me!

Paul: Oh, ok.

Roxanne: How’s that?! I was five years old. You know? I was devastated. Mad at everybody. Mad at the whole world.

Paul: How old were you when you had grown beyond his age range that he preferred?

Roxanne: I think it was like five. I’m not sure. It’s really hard to nail it down because my memory is still spotty. It’s just baffling to me that the whole neighborhood can be doing this and people don’t pay attention. So, one time I was feeding the neighbor’s pets while they were on vacation in the backyard. I had a thing for going into other people’s backyards when I knew they were away. I felt safe everywhere except home, right? And, so this one neighbor around the corner, I would go and feed their animals, and crawled in their doggy door because I was little. And, that was the first time I remember feeling totally safe. It was in somebody else’s house by myself and I felt happy, safe, and that was just like wow!!! This is awesome! And I didn’t touch a thing. I didn’t touch a thing; I didn’t look at anything; I didn’t, you know, invade their privacy except for being there – just standing there, and it was a very lovely feeling. I wish I could stay there for a month or two.

Paul: Do you think you get a little bit of that now being in recovery and being in the support group?

Roxanne: Yes.

Paul: That’s how I feel in the room with my support group.

Roxanne: Safe… ahhhhhh!

Paul: That’s what I feel like the safe… the four safest walls in the world to me and I can just close my eyes and breathe deeply and listen.

Roxanne: Listen and say anything! Anything I say is fine! Anything! That’s just… I guess it’s kind of like what parents are supposed to do but I have people that are way better than my parents like they’re awesome. Stuff they’ve been through tears my heart out. It makes me find compassion for myself hearing their stories and every one of us is like, “well, I don’t know what I did to deserve that.” Like… they’re monsters. You didn’t do anything, you know? And, if I feel for enough people, I have to feel for myself.

Paul: Yup!

Roxanne: You can’t avoid it. It’s just like wonderful. I’m at the point where I love myself just the way I am, so, sometimes I think maybe I’m ready for a relationship. I don’t know. I don’t know. If I meet somebody really great, I would pursue that but it’s kind of scary thinking about. Like, I know how to do sex but I don’t know how to do the relationship part but I think I’m learning it. I think if I just find somebody, I’ll just treat them the way I treat the people in my group. A 12-step group and it will be good. And I think I have better judgment now, you know, can tell where people are coming from, so, but I’m not anxious… I’m not pursuing it. It’s too scary. It’s way too scary. Because what if I find somebody I fall in love and they’re wonderful, they love me, and the sex triggers these memories every time. What am I going to do? Then, we’ll end it.

Paul: Can’t you work it through with them?

Roxanne: I don’t know.

Paul: I get so many emails from people who have a loving spouse where if they break down in the middle of sex and they pull away and they say that they’re being triggered, their spouse is like, “it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here for you. We don’t have to have sex.”

Roxanne: I can’t even imagine somebody being that kind, you know?

Paul: Oh, there are tons of people who would be that way. Tons. You just have to find them.

Roxanne: God, to me, I’m so afraid that I keep that off as a fantasy. You know? Suppose they are in the clouds and they’re floating away in the clouds. I’m scared to pursue it but I’m lonely, you know? I’m lonely and I want to share my life with somebody.

Paul: And, in my opinion too, that spouse being there for you if you go through that can actually make your relationship even better.

Roxanne: Yeah. The history of what turns me on sexually through my life has changed dramatically as I got healing. Gotten healing?

Paul: Done healed?

Roxanne: Done healed? [laughs]

Paul: Can you talk about that progression?

Roxanne: Yes, well, to start off with, I just thought sex was what my brothers and dad did. I didn’t… And since my family thought love is a bad word, and peace is a bad word, and you know, the women’s movement is a bad movement… I really had no idea what it was that people did. I thought what I was doing was what people did and I was just being a doormat. I was just… well, part of having a dissociative identity disorder is that you don’t have a clear idea of what you are, who you are, what your self is. You just don’t. So I can give… If I can tell you my story and you can see it, then I’ll believe it. And, I can go out in public and have a conversation with somebody and what I show them of me, if they believed it, then I can believe it.

Paul: I totally get that.

Roxanne: And after a couple of days it fades away and it’s gone. You know? And I’ve been telling therapists I need help with this. I need to… – know who I am. And, so, at that time, I was just being a sexual object and that’s what I thought I was, and I thought that was a good thing because that’s what got me attention, and it got me touched, and it got me out to dinner. You know? And, but, yeah, it has changed from I… the stronger I get, and the more I value myself, then my arousals are more around just being valued and treated like a human being and respected, and then just making that emotional connection with somebody, so it’s really improved.

Paul: So, there was a period of time when you were aroused by the idea of – I’m not talking about when you were a kid, but talking about when you were an adult in your own sexuality when you were aroused by fantasy of being objectified.

Roxanne: Yeah.

Paul: Ok, good. I do too.

Roxanne: Yeah. It’s just part of it.

Paul: Yeah.

Roxanne: And, it’s embarrassing.

Paul: It’s really embarrassing.

Roxanne: And, it’s embarrassing to say there would… that I had to become the person when my brothers and their friends were raping me, I had to become a person to survive that found some pleasure in what was happening to me and it’s like shameful but it’s how I survived mentally had to happen. I didn’t really get a choice, and part of my brain has called myself a fucking cunt whore most of my life, and I think it’s relationship to that… like responding to that role that I had to play at that time. Now, I made friends with that part and I’m like, you know what? You got me through the worst shit – the very worst of it and I’m grateful. You are not a whore after all! [both laugh] You’re not a cunt. Good girl.

Paul: You should put that on your gravestone. [both laugh]

Roxanne: I’m not a whore after all! You were wrong!

Paul: I will be eternally grateful to our guest, well, first of all, a guest like you I will be eternally grateful…

Roxanne: Thank you!

Paul: to, but our first guest to share what we’re talking about was Lia McCord. At the end of her story (she had been molested by her father) and we finished recording and she said, “you know, there is one more thing that I would like to add. Can we add this?” And, she added that she… there were nights when she initiated the incest with her father and…

Roxanne: I did that one time. I remember doing that. Not with my father but with my brothers. I was really, really lonely and I could hear them next door in the neighbor’s house and they were laughing and the boys were together. They were laughing and roaring and having a great time, and I was so lonely and heartbroken. I went over there and presented myself. And a rape took place, but I wasn’t alone. But, I’m not ashamed of it anymore, you know? It’s really hard to get through that stuff when you’re beating yourself up at every step. And, it’s just like accept it. You were a human – lonely, lonely.

Paul: And you were a child, and you didn’t know…

Roxanne: Yeah, yeah. I was a child.

Roxanne: Now, they were monsters. You know? Your brother ten years older than you doing that? God… that’s just… So, you know, I used to be ashamed. I used to blame myself, but now it’s like… I read a quotation the other day that if you fool somebody, if you trick somebody, don’t think less of the person you tricked. They trusted you more than they should have.

Paul: Wow!

Roxanne: And, that’s what I did. I’m not blaming myself for going over there. I’m blaming myself… I mean, I don’t blame myself at all. I trusted them and I’m supposed to be able to trust my older brothers and dad. I’m supposed to! So, I didn’t do anything wrong.

Paul: And it was the closest thing you knew to love. It was attention.

Roxanne: It was. It was physical attention and it felt good – that part. But it was devastating that really they treated me like a just a tool… you know? And, at one time, my brother tried to get me to remember something. We were driving, he and I, and he said, “do you remember that time up in the camp ground? There was you and so-and-so, and so-and-so” and he named all these friends, and I said no, I wasn’t there. And, he said, “no, you were there.” I said, no I wasn’t . You must be thinking of my sister. You know? our sister… He says, “no, it was you.” And I’m like, “no, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” But, now I can look back and say darn it. Another example of a sadist wanting to enjoy reminding me of that experience. And, now I have a little bit of memory of it and none of it is good. I mean, for them… God, they suck. I’m so glad I’m not them. Go through life like that? What would that be like? It’s hard enough.

Paul: I like to hear you describe the day you decided to go to your first support group, what you felt like that morning, what your anticipation of it, the dread, whatever, take me through that 24 hours from start to finish.

Roxanne: I was thrilled. I lived in Bishop for a long, long time and they have no support group or that kind of thing, and I had a therapist say, “you know there is a support group for that.” And she found out the location and the time and wrote it down for me, and that was a day of the week and a time of that day that I always met a group of friends for breakfast – Saturday at 10:30 and they’re not very good friends because they are kind of cruel and mean, and so I had to choose. I was like, this or that? And I chose the group. And, I was so proud of myself for just deciding that, and I went and I spilled my guts. It was great. Just great. And, I cried for everybody hearing their stories. Oh man…

Paul: What did those tears feel like when they came out?

Roxanne: They felt really cleansing. It’s hard for me to cry sometimes. But I liked it. I like it when I can and I like crying for the people and what they’ve been through. They deserve it. You know? The recognition and the honoring.

Paul: Can you describe the faces and the eyes of the people if you made eye contact with any of them in that first support group? Describe that feeling.

Roxanne: They were looking at me like checking me out like who is this girl? Girl… you know, old lady, gray hair. I still in the mirror, I expect to see a little blonde girl. Isn’t that weird? I don’t even have a identity visually of myself. But, they were curious about me and I was curious about them, but we were all on the same plane and all trusting and it was profound how great… I mean and I tell them almost every week… I’m so sorry about what you’ve been through but since we all have, I’m so glad we found each other. I’m so, so glad we support each other and encourage each other, and man, I see a lot of growth. I’ve only been there maybe like 8 or 9 months. I see people growing and improving and healing.

Paul: Isn’t that awesome? Seeing the light come on in their eyes?

Roxanne: It’s amazing! How do you heal from something like that? But people do. And, it’s worth it. It’s worth it and I get triggered it and now I don’t avoid triggers now. I go into them like I’m going there because I’m going to heal a little bit right now and it’s awesome. They’re the most courageous people and profoundly forgiving. Everything is forgivable for each other. We don’t forgive our abusers though. Hardly ever… I never want to.

Paul: Would that be a bad thing to ever forgive?

Roxanne: Yeah. I don’t know why but it’s like a thing with the incest groups that I go to that we all agree. I mean we all say it on our own that we never tell anybody else to feel this way, but we all say it to somebody else that would be betrayal of myself if I were to forgive them. I would be betraying myself. It’s like trying to have a meeting of the minds with your abuser and it’s no! No, no, no. Not going there. All of us, every time we have a therapist suggest, “well, have you forgiven them yet?” We’re just like, “all done!” [laughs]

Paul: Why don’t you have your father fuck you and get back to me?! [both laugh]

Roxanne: Yeah, you know? it’s like God… There are some things you don’t have to forgive and I feel sorry for people who feel pressured that they need to. And, I went to an anger release group too. We have anger release. It’s awesome. Take a bat and you just bash the boxing bag and screaming and yelling and bashing and it’s just a great release. It’s the best.

Paul: I bet.

Roxanne: Somehow I get… I used to go… I had a book… When I lived in Bishop, I had a book on anger and I read something I had to try. So I went and bought a baseball bat at Kmart – an aluminum bat – went next door to Vons. I bought cantaloupes were on sale and I’m checking out. I have my Kmart baseball bat, and I’m paying for cantaloupes and my ex-husband walks up. [both laugh] He goes, “what are you doing?” I said, “anger therapy” and left. And, I got in a desert and I just smash and scream the whole time. If you scream the whole time without stopping, it’s the most… it’s the best feeling ever and then I can feel what people feel normally. It’s like oh, I guess I was really angry. Now I feel really good and it lasts a few weeks. I feel that good. Then I go and buy more, but watermelons are better because it’s red and it’s like brain matter. Watermelons are better. And I took my son out too because he has some anger and he gets it out and he loves it and now I do it in a group and it’s really connected me like I finally can reach my anger inside and I can express it and I can tell my therapists off when they’re not helping me and I can do things. I’m a much stronger person but I needed to get to it.

Paul: Yeah.

Roxanne: And forgiveness is almost like… Forgiveness feels to me like you’re locking the door on your anger like refusing to go there ever again, but that door blew down long time ago. I can’t block it off anymore.

Paul: You know? In my mind forgiveness is only possible once the anger has come out and it’s… I think there is layers…

Roxanne: They have to be sorry, don’t they?

Paul: No, I don’t think so.

Roxanne: No?

Paul: I think it helps. I think it helps but no.

Roxanne: I don’t… I think they’re horrible people but I hardly ever think about them anymore. Isn’t that wonderful? But, I’m afraid that they’re going to try to get back at me when they find out I did this show. If they do. And, they may never… they probably don’t actually.

Paul: We’re just using your first name and who gives a fuck.

Roxanne: I don’t.

Paul: You know?

Roxanne: I don’t. I don’t have anything to be ashamed of.

Paul: Roxanne, thank you so much! This was a really moving episode. Thank you so much.

Roxanne: Not too dark?

Paul: No! Nothing is ever too dark for this show or at least for me, maybe for other people but…

Roxanne: Okay, I don’t have that prospective. To me, it’s just my life so…

Paul: It makes me feel less alone and while I’m sorry people had to experience what they went through when is see somebody like you who is healing, it’s just… to me, it’s like Rocky running up the stairs and pumping his fists. You know?

Roxanne: Yes, yes, it feels tremendous.

Paul: Without the awful five sequels after it.

Paul: Haha, yeah, just skip those! Actually some of the sequels were alright, but anyways, thank you so much Roxanne.

Roxanne: Thank you!

Paul: Many, many thanks to Roxanne and we recorded about a year ago and I got an update from her and she writes, “I was evicted, homeless for a few weeks and then got very lucky and had a person I hardly knew take me in. Living in his house is the safest I ever felt in my life. I’m experiencing a tremendous amount of healing. I decided to try forgiving my abusers by going through a visualization process where I imagine holding their hands, telling them how horrible they were, and then releasing them to be sucked out into space through eternity. Ahhhh, so much peace. I hardly think about them anymore. My thirst for justice is partially quenched.” And, she also wanted to clarify that she said that when she had said that everybody refuses to forgive their abusers in her support group, she said that’s not true. It’s true for many, but not all. And, she also said that she had said you can say anything in her support group but that’s not true because she said abusers are not allowed and abusive words and behavior are specifically forbidden. I think that’s pretty much common sense but I want to send her some love and gratitude for talking about so much stuff that’s so incredibly difficult and you know as I read that update that I got from her I think what a great snapshot that interview with her is because she was at a certain place where you can tell her anger was really still weighing on her and you know, I was kind of secretly hoping that she will get to a place in her feeling where she doesn’t feel that weighed down by her anger and that forgiveness might be a possibility. Anyway, as I told you my brain is… maybe I’m just judging myself too hard but I feel like I’m going about a mile an hour and I’m boring and I just want to go to bed. I’m not tired right now- I just… everything feels overwhelming. Everything… every decision feels like it’s the wrong one and it’s draining. I think that’s why bed feels so… I fucking hate feeling like this. I just hate it. I hate it. I’ve been through it before; I’ll go through it again, but I fucking hate it.

Let’s read some surveys. This is from Struggle in a Sentence. This is by a guy who calls himself FruitsyColumns and friend of a show. About his depression he says, “empty – like I lost my soul and my body is just a husk of chemicals and nerve endings and interacting with the whole world like a billiard ball moving across the table.” Very much relate to that one by the way. This is filled up by a guy who calls himself The Fuck? About his PTSD he writes, “learning to crawl again but expected to fly.” About having a racial bias, he writes, “I can remember his face and now everyone with his skin puts me on edge. I hate myself for it.” About being a sex crime victim, “he took my safety and memory. I forget what it’s like not to forget.” Snapshot from his life, he writes, “the consummate southern boy. The day after I survive rape, I went to my friend’s house. She knew the details. She got a cold. I cleaned her apartment as she slept. Just being nice. It was 3 pm. I’m always there for my friends and I hate them for it.”

This is filled out by Cali and she writes about her anxiety, “in meetings every time I have to be the focus or the subject, I stab myself relentlessly with a pen in my palm. This is the only way to turn down the screaming in my head.”

This is an awefulsome moment filled out by MoonSenders, and she… I’m just going to condense it a little bit, but she… a lot of darkness in her past and her mind and she writes, “I went back to community college to become a medical lab technician because I thought I may be good working in a lab with test tubes and machines where I wouldn’t have to be around people much. During this training I discovered that we had to learn how to draw blood but I also I had not known this. Part of the way through program, I had to quit because of my depression. The only skill I had learn so far in the program was learn how to draw blood, so I got a job as a phlebotomist taking people’s blood all day long for a living so now instead of just cutting myself to draw my own blood to survive all my inner pain and keep myself alive, I now poke others drawing their blood to give me the financial means to let myself survive.” Thank you for that.

She calls herself I’mCrawlingOutofMySkin. About her anxiety, “I’m losing my mind and this time it’s going to go away for good.” She writes, “this is how I feel every day. I wake up in the middle of the night to my heart beating out of my chest. Oh God, help me. I’m not okay. I’m not okay. Someone help me before I completely lose it. People are going to see my problems but at this point I wish they did because it’s so bad - I don’t care.” I’m feeling that feeling right now where I want somebody to just come in and save me. I want somebody to just come in and say, “you are going to go do this at 3 o’clock. You’re going to meet with this person at 4 o’clock. You’re going to take this pill. You’re going to do this, and if you do all these things, everything is going to be ok.” I mean, I am… My decision that I… I’m just… I’m paralyzed. I’m fucking paralyzed because I don’t know if I’m afraid of making the wrong decision, or I just don’t have the energy to make decisions. The only thing I know I enjoy doing is going and getting my caffeine first thing of the day and sitting with my laptop. That’s it. That is it. I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m whining. I’m just trying to be honest. This is… and right now I’m afraid I’m losing half listenership and they’re like, “I don’t wanna listen this fucking downer anymore.” And, now I’m beating myself up for beating myself up because people tell me to stop beating yourself up so much. It’s just… It’s… It’s… I’m just… I’m caught in a whirlpool that I cannot… I feel like I’m trying to climb out of a whirlpool and my arms are numb and I can almost taste the ground because my mouth is right on it, but I can’t… I can’t… there is no strength in my arm to pull me out of it.

This is struggle in a sentence filled out by a transgender female to male and he call himself SadTrashCan and I think… I don’t know if I said… he is a teenager and about sexual bias he says, “I must play the show to be the man society wants.” About being an abuser he writes, physical and emotional abuser, “this makes me feels like a weak man who thinks that he is strong.” Snapshot from his life, “as I watch my girlfriend’s self-worth grow smaller while her bruisers get bigger, I felt a deep rage. I hated myself for what I did. I was so angry at myself that I had hit her so I hit her again.” I know today’s show is very very dark and I’m just going to not be commenting on it because it’s just going to come out as apologetic and this is just what it is, and if you don’t like it, you can turn it off. And, you know, go fuck yourself.

This is… and by the way, my wife has been so incredibly supportive to me through this entire thing, and my friends have been supportive, and it’s nice to know they’re there even though it feels like they’re on the other side of Plexiglas from me and it’s nice to know that you guys are there and I get so many supportive emails from you and I apologize if some of them I don’t return, or some of them you just get a smiley face or a one-sentence reply but it’s… that’s just kind of where… Ah, shut up!

This is filled out by a woman who calls herself N and about her anorexia, she says, “You can do anything.” Snapshot from her life, “going away to university and thinking I won’t have eyes on my eating habits and I would reinvent myself not fully realizing the difficulty of the situation. Not drinking any fluids for a week because it was the only way I could think of getting out of that situation then feeling like I had to continue that because people would think that I was a fraud and use this excuse to get out.” Thank you for sharing that.

Mango writes about her anorexia and depression, snapshot from her life, “If I tell my mom I’m blue, she just says stop thinking too much and get out and make new friends. Well, I’m not very adapted to that and I don’t think being a local barista counts. I struggle with the fear that no one will want to be friends with the real me.” And then any comments to make the show better, “interview more folks like myself who are socially isolated.”

Nick Lakers writes about his OCD, “if I don’t do x then y will happen. Even if y has never happened ever. Or do I x if z situation occurs?” Snapshot from his life, “I was so made because I was being talked down to/yelled at for not being able to find work that I locked myself in the bathroom and punched myself in the face repeatedly (it made sense at the time I guess.) I was just so angry at the person but even more mad at myself and so consumed with self-loathing that I just felt like I needed to do it.”

This is a shame and secrets survey. This is filled out by a guy who calls himself LLCtoBe. He is in his 20s, raised in a slightly dysfunctional environment. He was the victim of sexual abuse and reported it. He writes, “I was forcibly raped by two girls older than me. I was fifteen at the time. They were sixteen and eighteen. They put various objects in my anus taking turns holding me down. When I reported it to the police, immediately I was told to stop wasting officers’ time and accused of making up the story. The only other survivor support group was for women only and I was prohibited from joining. There were no other resources accessible to me at the time. I didn’t even tell my parents for over ten years.” Ivy, you want to chill out? He has been physically and emotionally abused. He writes, “after my rape, with totally screwed up notion of boundaries and my body’s autonomy, I started dating a girl that treated me as a fashion accessory at the best of times. She was manipulative, controlling, slapped me if she thought I would look better if I take off my hat.” Any positive information with your abusers or abuser? He writes, there were parts of the relationship I enjoyed. The consensual sex made me feel valuable and attractive. I don’t think she was malicious. She just didn’t know what proper relationships were supposed to look like and I suffered for that ignorance. It doesn’t get her off the hook, but it did allow us to have some half-assed semblance of a postmortem after the relationship imploded.” Darkest thoughts? “I think I’ll never be good enough to meet my goals and dreams and the higher I aim, the harder I am going to fall. Sometimes I think suicide is a sensible choice when I see my involvement in other people’s lives is taking away more than I provide.” Darkest secret? “I sometimes exaggerate the strength of my moral compass to better fit people’s expectations. I care about right or wrong, but I have stolen things that I didn’t need because my desire to have the thing was stronger than my value that theft is wrong.” Sexual fantasies most powerful to you? “I’m vanilla and boring. My fantasies go as far as having a threesome with my partner and another woman, and that’s the extent of it. My partner does not believe me and I feel on trial she tries to find out what my (real) kinks/fantasies are.” What if anything you would like to say to someone you haven’t been able to? “I wish I could tell my father and my brothers that I loved them, and I wish I could I know for sure that I do love them.” That’s pretty heavy. And then, what if anything you want to share with someone who shares your thoughts or experiences? He writes, “rape is a human issue not a women’s issue. Some people will misrepresent themselves as feminist will say your suffering doesn’t matter because of the patriarchy. Fuck those people and know that you are valuable and worthy of love and compassion simply by virtue of being human.” Amen, thank you for sharing that. Sending you some love.

This is an awefulsome moment filled out by a guy who calls himself DingDong and I’m going to condense it, but he was at a party with some people he barely knew – basically only knew only one of person and he was feeling very socially awkward. Doesn’t really usually get high because he gets paranoid, but he decided since this group of people were on this side of the house getting high, he decided to join in, and he writes, “when we finished, my friend went back in the house, but I was becoming more self-conscious about the smell and being high at a stranger’s 60th birthday party. I waited five minutes standing still and hoping to air out. When I became restless and made my move, I was following behind some people making my way to the door. Suddenly, wham! I had run into the closed sliding glass door! The entire party inside and outside heard the noise and there I was completely visible, higher than I even knew, in fact, if I wasn’t that high, I may have panicked. I smiled and did a bow and still felt like an ass who had committed the one mistake that I wanted to avoid above all. I walked out the front door and around the empty block almost ready to pass out wondering if I was real.” You sounded high!

This is filled out by Cat who she is a gay teenager, and about her anxiety she writes, “I’m terrified of school and I’m terrified of not going to school. Mostly I’m just terrified. Snapshot from her life, “I’m sobbing in the car begging my mom to let me stay home from school. I’m threatening to kill myself and accused her of hating me. She cries and says she doesn’t know how to help or what to do. We hug and cry against each other. I didn’t go to school that day.” Sounds like your mom loves you though, and that’s huge. That is huge.

This is filled out by Rebecca and she writes about her dysthymia with waves of major depression, “being underwater looking at the “happy” people on land then wanting to be up there with them but scared that I won’t be able to breathe up there. It’s hard to breathe down here but at least I’m used to it.” About serious health issue, she had a serious traumatic brain injury in her 20s and she writes, “I had to learn how to walk, talk, and read still not back to normal.” About PTSD she writes, “you can’t have flashback when the trauma is continuous.” And then a snapshot from her life, she writes, “getting sick in my family was seen as a personal and moral hygiene failure.” That’s so weird that that’s similar to what Roxanne had described. “If someone caught what you got, you would be guilty of biological warfare. When I was eight, I had the flu. I was really sick – couldn’t get out of bed, sleeping/unconscious 24 hours a day. Begrudgingly, my mother took care of me because taking me to the hospital was out of the question. I eventually got better and she came down with the flu. Then my 90-year-old aunt with Parkinson’s who lived 500 miles away died. My mother was too sick to travel to the funeral because I had intentionally got her sick because I wanted her to miss her favorite aunt’s funeral. I’m in my 30s and she still brings this up in arguments as evidence of what a horrible selfish person I am. Just one of the many ways I’ve been trying to ruin her life.” And then any comments to make the podcast better, she writes, “yes, more PTSD. Well, not more PTSD, but more talking about PTSD.” Thank you for sharing that.

This is struggle in a sentence filled out by a guy who calls himself BrokenToy, and this is a heavy one. About his depression, he writes, “the weight of everyday life is somehow like the boulder ofsisyphus and I don’t even deserve to be pushing that boulder.” Anxiety, “the mistake overwhelms. It twists itself into a thousand possible consequences and futures, and the futures weave into a noose that leaves me desperate for air.” About his codependency, “all I can do is stay here with my adopted family. They saved me. This house is safe. I know what’s wrong, but I need them to function.” About his PTSD, “flashbacks more real than reality hold me captive as it all comes back. I hide in closets and under beds where the world can’t find me but the past never leaves.” About being a sex crime victim, he writes, “when you were utilized as a sex slave you’re less than a victim. I’m an object, a toy people keep saying is alive. All the sexual thoughts make me feel physically ill as if I’m as sick and twisted as my old owners were. I’m addicted to wedding shows because I know I will never be enough of a person to get married and I cry every time I watch every episode of anything. Why did I make it? Why was I saved? Why me when so many others are still out there being used and deserve this life more?” Snapshot from his life, “it’s just school but it’s so much more than that. I can feel the eyes on me and I don’t want to think about how many of these people will turn into rapists and monsters or how many already are. I don’t want to take on school work when I know it will put me one day closer to graduating and losing any sense of safety. Someone goes on by blonde her and for a second I’m seven years old again giving my first blowjob. The world turns into ice and I shake unable to take another step towards first period. The bell rings and the spell shatters and I run. I bolt out of the school, tear down streets until the blurbs become familiar and I reach home. Throwing open the door, I lock myself in before collapsing on the floor and wait for the will to get up to come to me. I just want it all to stop.” Buddy, I’m sending you some love. Sending you some love. And, he asks if we could… if it’s possible to have someone who is a sex slave survivor on the show. I don’t know how I would go about that but I’m open to all… any voices that haven’t been heard by our society, I’m always down for.

Let’