0:00

Hey, Heart listeners, I have a new

0:02

series for you to listen to.

0:04

It's called Expectant. I

0:07

just listened to the first two episodes and

0:09

I'm hooked. Is the climate crisis

0:11

a reason not to have kids? It's

0:14

a beautiful new series that sits on the fence between

0:16

imagination and reality, between

0:19

becoming a parent during the climate crisis and

0:21

staying child-free. You

0:23

can listen to Expectant wherever you get your podcasts.

0:27

Check it out. Dating is difficult for

0:29

everyone, but it can be especially difficult

0:31

when you're my mom. I can't go 30 years

0:33

looking for somebody. She's 73

0:37

and has recently divorced after 42 years

0:40

of marriage. But my mom loves love.

0:43

He kissed me. I felt like I

0:45

was on cloud 999. And

0:48

she's determined to find the love of her life before

0:51

her life is over. So she dives

0:53

into the online dating world. But

0:55

online dating is not easy. Men

0:58

lie to her. All of a sudden he

1:00

tells me, oh my gosh, I

1:02

was robbed. Men

1:04

don't call her back.

1:06

Why would a man who kissed you not

1:08

call you right back? Men break

1:10

her heart. And then he called

1:12

me up and said, I don't want to see you anymore.

1:15

Luckily, she has me, her daughter.

1:18

Have you ever had a vibrator? No.

1:21

Oh my God, Mom, you're going to, okay,

1:23

I'm ordering you one. Done.

1:24

And a few experts

1:27

to guide her. Make a decision

1:29

that you're changing your belief and

1:31

your new belief is love is

1:34

possible for me.

1:35

It's about discovery and

1:37

experimenting. If you let the

1:40

relationship develop slowly over time,

1:42

then you can really see who someone

1:44

is and you can see how you feel

1:47

about them. We're going to help her find the love

1:50

she's been looking for. I'm Megan

1:52

Tan, and this is Now or Never, how

1:54

to find love when love feels impossible. Only

1:57

on Audible.

2:09

All right, it feels like my job here is

2:11

done. If

2:14

you want to listen to the full series, go

2:16

to audible.com slash

2:18

now or never. You can buy

2:21

the series or you can sign up for

2:23

Audible and get the first 30 days for free.

2:27

From CBC podcasts,

2:29

Mermaid Palace, and Radiotopia,

2:33

welcome to

2:35

the heart. I'm

2:39

Caitlin Prest, and

2:43

this is Dad. The

2:48

series is serialized,

2:50

so if you're just coming in now, go

2:53

to the first episode of Dad, which is

2:55

called Forgive and Forget, and

2:58

start there. In this

3:00

episode, we go back in time to

3:03

before I do the interview that turned into

3:05

the episode that you heard last time,

3:09

the one that's from my dad's point of view. We're

3:12

going back

3:14

to the beginning of the pandemic. He

3:18

said, do you really want to leave a country that has

3:20

public health? That shifted me. It's

3:22

a weird situation. Never in

3:24

any kind of crisis, global or

3:27

personal, would I have considered going

3:29

home to my parents as an option.

3:31

I feel you need some space

3:34

from that life that I'm living. Especially given

3:36

the fact that I had been contemplating putting

3:39

distance between me and my dad since the

3:41

conversation we had at Christmas just

3:43

a few months ago.

3:47

Yeah, what about all your friends that say, wow, you're

3:49

communicating with your family so you don't

3:51

even talk to them? I'm not, that's

3:53

the thing is. So there's something good. I

3:56

never said

3:56

there wasn't. I never said there wasn't. Okay,

3:58

so elucidate me. Show me the darkness.

4:02

Trump has said no. Ireland

4:06

or UK flights will

4:08

be accepted. It was the serendipity

4:10

of taking an ill-advised flight.

4:13

In that moment, we made whatever decision we could with what

4:15

we had. To follow through on my

4:17

first extravagant present. There's nothing to do. Everyone's

4:20

closed. Everything's closed. To

4:22

celebrate St. Patrick's Day with

4:24

my mom in her homeland.

4:27

And

4:29

all you have wanted.

4:32

Instead,

4:34

we're doing St. Patrick's Day at the kitchen

4:36

table in Ottawa. Sick

4:40

and kinda scared. Because she reminds telling

4:43

everybody that you and I protested positive

4:45

for COVID.

4:46

And we're dying. Who told that?

4:50

You put your cards away. I

4:56

listen to the news, wondering

4:58

when the border will be open, and I'll go back

5:00

to LA.

5:12

My life in LA was at the loudest

5:14

part of a long and slow

5:17

crescendo of crisis. My

5:19

therapist keeps telling me that I've

5:21

been on a repeating cycle of chaos

5:24

since the chaos of my teen years. And

5:26

that it'll keep going until I heal.

5:29

I keep telling her that I'm just living

5:31

a crazy artist's life and she doesn't get it. Romanticizing

5:35

my ability to thrive in chaos was the way that

5:37

I'd learned to survive. I

5:42

still wasn't quite able to clock

5:45

how bad things actually were with my mental

5:47

health. But

5:58

I could clock that being

9:59

your smoking habit.

10:02

Right? Yeah I'm ready.

10:06

Nooooo. Why would

10:08

Pat's write the test? Yeah

10:10

I think so. What's wrong Caitlin? Don't

10:13

you want to watch the pleasure? Now I'm thinking

10:15

about how even

10:18

though people say that they're feminine. So

10:20

what are we doing dad?

10:21

We're riding our bikes. Where?

10:25

The Bruce Pitt. I

10:28

want a beautiful

10:30

pass. I haven't exercised

10:32

in about three years. Okay I'll go ahead

10:35

and do that. Every

10:38

afternoon he lets

10:40

me have the good bike that rides easy

10:43

even though he's over 60. And

10:46

I am 33 and by all rights

10:48

should take a hard to drive one. You

10:52

know I remember being one

10:54

years old. One

10:57

year old boy. I remember you putting

10:59

me in that bike seat. Oh

11:01

god that's a bit terrifying.

11:04

It did not seem safe.

11:08

Yeah looking back on it it

11:11

doesn't seem safe

11:11

to me.

11:16

My dad and I both have a really

11:18

low attention span and so

11:21

every single day we take a different

11:23

route. There are so

11:25

many bike paths that he's discovered in

11:27

Ottawa that

11:29

we never have to take the same path twice. And

11:33

we don't. We

11:37

bike longer than our bodies can handle. We

11:40

push ourselves to our limit and beyond.

11:43

It's

11:43

10k to go up to where

11:46

the War Museum is. The

11:48

bike ride becomes the

11:51

foundation of my shaky life. Because

11:53

the water falls yeah. Dad

11:57

is nursing me back to health. He's

12:02

not doing it because he's trying

12:04

to compensate for the past. He's

12:08

doing it because he loves

12:10

me. Not

12:12

on the highway, but like, you know that parkway

12:14

part? Oh yeah. What's happening

12:17

tomorrow? Tomorrow, I don't know. It's action packed, fun filled day.

12:19

Looks like all the rest of them. And what about

12:21

how's it been going? Well,

12:34

it's been a bit

12:37

difficult with Kayla, you know,

12:40

but she expects me to make coffee

12:42

in the morning and I do so, and the

12:44

deal was that she would make the bed if I did that.

12:46

After a couple of weeks of coffee in the morning,

12:49

dad turns it into a trade.

12:52

He'll bring the coffee on one condition.

12:55

What? I didn't make the bed? It's me. Can

12:58

I send a picture to whatever this link is of the bed?

13:01

The bed? What? I

13:03

did it. Okay.

13:05

Can we? Let's take a walk here.

13:07

In the adult redo of my teen years, a conversation

13:10

about the bed is yielding laughter.

13:13

So we're going down to the bed. Okay.

13:15

The bed that is me. Yeah, it's great. Because

13:18

we had this deal that if I made the coffee and brought

13:21

it, she would make the bed and there

13:23

it is. Oh, that's an

13:25

art. Yeah, that's

13:27

a new kind of made bed.

13:29

One that is very, very,

13:34

very, very random. Very,

13:36

very excited. That's an excited made

13:39

bed. Yeah, I think

13:41

so. Let's take a closer look. Yes,

13:44

I can see how even the pillows

13:46

have been arranged to have

13:48

that sort of fatigued and grumpled

13:51

look.

13:52

There's

13:54

the part of me that finds his shtick

13:57

absolutely hilarious. Anyways,

14:00

no more coffees for you. You just bring it every day.

14:04

And then there's the part of me that's trying to hide

14:06

the part of me that is uncomfortable

14:10

with the subject matter of the joke. There

14:13

were some days in there when you didn't bring it and I

14:15

made the bed anyway. The

14:17

part of me that is surprised that

14:20

he can make light of this topic and

14:22

not think about the way that

14:25

conversations about the bed used to end. It

14:28

seems trivial. I realize that.

14:32

It seems like the regular kind of thing

14:34

that a dad and his daughter

14:36

would fight about. The problem

14:38

was that the bed was never

14:41

really about the bed. It

14:44

was about obedience.

14:49

And obedience only mattered sometimes.

14:58

Sometimes if he was in a good mood or having

15:00

a good day, I was the

15:02

apple of his eye. The straight A student

15:05

with a big heart, big feelings, and

15:07

a lot of intensity. Intensity

15:10

that he was proud of. And he would do anything

15:13

he could to accommodate my wildest

15:15

dreams. Other

15:18

days he would be in a bad

15:20

mood, having a bad day.

15:22

Those were the days that obedience

15:25

mattered. A

15:28

command. Commands weren't really

15:30

how we did things. As

15:33

an 11 year old, I would note

15:35

it seemed kind of absurd. He was not

15:38

the principled man I grew up believing

15:40

him to be. But I would immediately surrender.

15:43

As a 12 year old, I started to resent it. As

15:45

a 13 year old, I started to

15:48

roll my eyes when this would happen. And

15:50

this is when things began

15:52

to escalate.

15:55

As a 14 year old, I would verbally dissent.

15:58

As a 15 year old, I would verbally dissent.

16:00

I descended wherever I could, however

16:03

I could.

16:04

I would fight loud and I would fight quiet.

16:07

And the more I fought, the more

16:09

he forced, the more he forced, the

16:12

more I fought, the more I fought,

16:14

the more he forced, the more he

16:17

forced, the more I fought. Until

16:19

that day, when he stood in the doorway

16:22

and gave a command,

16:24

when I rejected the command and he thrashed

16:26

me aside to rip the computer cord from the wall, I

16:28

tried to stop him. And when I tried to stop

16:31

him, the animal that lived inside of him tried

16:33

to stop me. And this time, for

16:36

the first time, I was going to do more

16:38

than fight back.

16:39

I was going to attack. I

16:42

told myself I would use all of

16:44

the strength in my hundred pound body.

16:48

And it was then that I realized

16:50

that all of my strength would never

16:52

be enough to force

16:54

him into submission.

16:59

When I broke the surface of his skin with my nails,

17:02

the wound etched itself into his memory.

17:05

It would be the one that he never forgot.

17:08

I remember wishing I could unknow that

17:12

the full force of my physical strength would never

17:14

be enough to overpower a man.

17:16

15 years old feels too

17:19

young to realize that. I

17:26

remember being afraid, watching

17:28

him reprimand the dog when she would

17:30

pee on the floor, grab her by the collar and

17:33

drag her across the floor forcefully. He

17:35

would hit her nose with his

17:37

index finger, jamming it into

17:39

the puddle on the floor. I remember hearing

17:42

the echo of the inside of her snout. I

17:44

remember her yelping and

17:46

squealing would echo throughout

17:48

the whole house.

17:49

He wasn't kicking her. He wasn't

17:52

hitting her. But it was

17:54

violent. And it

17:56

made me want to save her. I

17:58

would scream and yell at him. him to stop. When

18:02

my yelps and squeals were so loud

18:04

that they filled the house, nobody

18:06

screamed or yelled at him. And

18:09

so often it would all begin

18:13

with an unmade bed. The

18:15

house was always messy. We

18:18

were messy people. He

18:21

would isolate my bedroom and

18:23

begin to get angry about whether this

18:26

particular corner of a house

18:28

full of a mess

18:29

was messy. Maybe

18:32

he was punishing me because

18:35

I was starting to see his flaws. Maybe

18:38

he thought if he could tell

18:40

me to do something and I would do it

18:43

the way that I would when I was five that

18:46

somehow we could go back

18:48

to the time when all I saw

18:50

in him was magnificence.

18:58

A story about a dog told

19:01

to me by a psychologist that

19:03

I met at a party. If

19:05

a dog gets kicked by its owner every time

19:08

the owner comes home,

19:10

it can come up with a stable

19:12

world view. The owner

19:14

is dangerous. Avoid.

19:18

But if the dog sometimes gets kicked by its

19:20

owner and sometimes gets a

19:22

loving pat, the

19:24

dog can't come up with a stable world view.

19:27

The randomness means that the dog begins

19:29

to expend all of its energy trying to come up

19:31

with a reason for why there's sometimes

19:34

a kick and why sometimes there's a loving pat. Trying

19:36

to predict what might happen. The dog is hypervigilant

19:38

of the owner's emotional state

19:41

and hypervigilant of itself.

19:46

In the adult redo of my teen

19:48

years, I'm treading with

19:51

caution. I make

19:53

a strained joke. I

20:01

can hear that there's a slight baby

20:03

voice vibe to the way that I'm delivering

20:06

the joke. I can hear that I'm laughing

20:08

a

20:09

little extra hard. In

20:11

therapy, I learn that there's more

20:14

than two defense responses.

20:17

There's four. Fight, flight,

20:20

freeze, and fawn. I

20:23

know that any time I feel threatened,

20:26

I laugh a little bit extra loud. My

20:28

voice pitches

20:29

up several tones.

20:34

My heart opens and

20:36

I reach to connect.

20:39

Hello. Okay. Dad

20:41

interview. Um,

20:44

okay, so

20:47

it's May. It's

20:50

been two months of coffees in the morning,

20:52

bike rides in the afternoon, card

20:54

games in the evening, and an episode

20:56

of Star Trek at night. Now

20:58

that we've come up with

21:01

our agreement, I'm much more comfortable.

21:03

So what's the agreement? The agreement is you

21:05

don't use anything unless you talk to me about it. Right?

21:09

Yes. Yeah. I

21:12

sit down with the mic in our basement

21:14

on the same pull out couch I cried and fell asleep

21:17

to Dirty Dancing on a few months

21:19

ago at Christmas. My goal is

21:21

not like sensationalism. I'm

21:23

working on a project about

21:26

power,

21:27

my own pursuit of power,

21:29

my need for control. And.

21:32

You had that since you were born though. Do

21:36

tell. He believes it was nature.

21:38

Do tell. I believe it was nurture.

21:40

Well, you've always been driven,

21:43

let's say. It's like, I'm

21:45

in control here. Okay.

21:47

And we're, we're going to do it my way. Yeah.

21:51

But I'm not here to challenge you. And

21:53

yeah, no, you can't make me make my bed.

21:57

I'm not risking the fact that you've been

21:59

making your bed. better now. But

22:03

we're older and we do things for each other for

22:05

love out of love, you know, and I don't know. I'm

22:08

here to

22:09

understand. Tell me more about that.

22:11

Well, you've been self It's

22:14

my favorite defense mechanism.

22:16

It's the one that always makes me feel

22:18

better. At

22:20

this point in my life, I wouldn't call

22:22

it a defense mechanism. Oh, yeah,

22:24

I would call it what I believe

22:26

in. You are a power dynamic. And

22:29

you always have been

22:30

in the family. Like, the thing that

22:32

it will take me years after this moment to learn

22:35

is that as I open my heart and

22:38

seek to understand, I leave

22:40

myself behind. And there's

22:43

something about that, that feels very

22:45

good to me. Caitlin attacked

22:47

me literally basically attacked

22:50

me, you know, started clawing me and when

22:53

he says things that contradict my

22:55

own experience of what he's talking about, what

22:58

happens inside of me is

23:00

a moment of resistance,

23:02

grabbing and then a moment of surrender. I

23:05

dissolve thrashing.

23:08

And I'm not judging. I'm not comparing

23:10

it to what I think or what I lived.

23:13

I don't make any sound. But my facial

23:15

expressions are mirroring.

23:18

When he talks about things being painful

23:20

or difficult, I'm feeling

23:22

the pain and the difficulty of them. This

23:25

is what I do in all of my interviews.

23:26

And realize then that, okay,

23:29

this was abuse. This was physical

23:31

abuse. When he uses that word, abuse,

23:34

the word that I've been afraid to use

23:36

my whole life, a word that means

23:39

I took advantage of your helplessness.

23:41

Suddenly, I'm me again. I'm inside my body

23:44

again.

23:44

And I was responsible.

23:46

It's acknowledgement,

23:50

twisted knots of tension

23:53

gnarled by decades of

23:55

neglect,

23:56

begin to unravel. that

24:02

was abusive losing

24:05

it all the time. The fact that we had

24:08

takes two to fight. And then he yanks

24:11

the twisted knots tight again. So I

24:13

was an active participant in all that fighting

24:15

and yelling and screaming. And

24:19

the acknowledgment made me feel so good

24:21

that I jump out of listening mode

24:23

and I push. I want him to undo the undo

24:26

he just did. Undo, undo. But

24:30

it seems like you still think that it was my fault. It's

24:35

more complicated than that. No, I don't.

24:38

I mean, it's

24:41

more complicated than that. It

24:46

was my fault too, let's say. But

24:50

I feel like it's your fault because

24:53

you're the adult. He

24:59

almost said everything I needed

25:01

to hear. And then he took it back. Losing

25:04

the temper thing. Yeah, that's my fault. But

25:06

I think that I didn't lose

25:08

my temper all the time.

25:09

And then I go back to my safe place,

25:12

dissolving my own sense of

25:14

the truth. And there would be those times that I

25:17

did that I was rational. Well,

25:20

I don't blame you. No, no, you were just a teenager

25:22

or an ornery teenager. You know, and in fact,

25:25

it's all part of growing

25:27

up, all part of life. The reason why you have stick

25:29

to it, if this right now is because you did then.

25:31

I pivot. So

25:34

going back to tell me about

25:36

wanting to be a dad, you

25:38

know, like going back to like when,

25:42

you know, talk about when

25:44

I was a baby and then

25:46

we wrap it up. Okay. Do

25:48

you have anything else that you want to say? No,

25:51

I think we're good. I'm hungry.

25:53

Yeah, I'm hungry too. Okay. Thanks, Daddy.

25:55

I love you. Okay, you're welcome. When

25:57

the interview is over, I focus on the gains.

26:00

I don't focus on the fact that my therapist

26:02

was right about the moment in the car when I

26:04

was 20. What made you ask me

26:06

that?

26:07

There's a possibility that I was trying to

26:09

exonerate myself, you know, or... I

26:12

focus on the fact that this conversation was

26:14

so different from the one

26:16

that we had at Christmas.

26:19

I focus on the moments of acknowledgement

26:21

that were scattered across

26:23

the past hour of us talking about it. Overall,

26:27

it feels like

26:29

a huge step forward. Progress.

26:35

And I hold on to that.

26:37

I tell myself as I pack up my gear that

26:40

we'll have another conversation. And

26:42

in that conversation, I'll explain to him

26:44

why he owes me an apology. May

26:50

goes by.

26:52

June goes by. July

26:57

goes by. And a moment

26:59

where we're sitting down alone together, setting

27:02

out to talk about the hardest stuff in our relationship, doesn't

27:06

come again.

27:24

August. I

27:28

end up in Toronto

27:31

doing the final push of one of my company's shows, appearances. Time

27:35

printer. I didn't

27:37

see any milk in the fridge.

27:40

Now that I love my family again, I reach to them for support

27:42

in every way I feel like I need to.

27:47

I hire my sister to work with me. Yeah, the front

27:50

of the lock. Oh, this is

27:52

so nice. I was starting to finally know that I wasn't

27:54

doing okay. Well, you're not doing okay.

27:59

I'm not gonna like this, but I took more than I was

28:02

supposed to take of my anti-depressant yesterday. Oh,

28:04

KP. Not too much more. Changing

28:07

one's behavior. What a little

28:09

bit. Why? What does it do? I don't know.

28:12

It's fucking hard.

28:12

It makes you feel like you're taking something? Yeah.

28:16

Changing one's behavior is about looking

28:18

nakedly at all of the trauma responses

28:20

and defense mechanisms you've accumulated, as

28:23

well as all the bad behaviors you've normalized

28:25

as a result of your pain. Oh, Daddy. I'm

28:29

getting better. Yeah, yeah. I'm good. Little

28:31

by little. You made the

28:32

right decision to stay here and relax

28:35

yourself. It's really nice having Natalie. Have

28:38

you guys talked to her about it? What?

28:41

What? What? She's hating it? No,

28:43

no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Mom and Dad are the unofficial

28:46

HR department for me and Natalie working together,

28:49

and I've called in a lot of other different kinds

28:51

of support to make sure that this goes well. We

28:54

have the official HR person. I

28:56

work with an equity organizational

28:58

consultant, a company arts therapist, and

29:00

Natalie has found us

29:02

a family therapist. Sibling

29:05

rivalry develops in response

29:07

to the resource, which is a parent. Mm-hmm.

29:11

We do it as a family. This

29:13

is not about Caitlin and

29:15

Natalie and them not going out of community.

29:18

And it isn't very long in the sessions before

29:20

they pivot. If Dad is angry

29:22

and presenting as an angry parent

29:24

or reactive or impatient. To

29:27

everything that happened with Dad.

29:29

The distress that one feels because

29:31

of Dad's stuff goes out

29:34

to the sibling that is more

29:36

in physical stature

29:38

to you. When this happens, I put my

29:41

foot down and say, we need to stop. What

29:43

are we really talking about, right? And

29:45

like, I don't even feel like I want to even say what we're

29:47

talking about right now. I think I'm actually

29:50

afraid of talking

29:52

about it, honestly, about in the way that I

29:54

really feel about it. I have no desire

29:56

to

29:57

make the one area of my life. that

30:00

has been easy into something

30:03

difficult. This

30:05

reminds me of something else I learned

30:07

in therapy. As a kid,

30:11

because you rely on your parents for survival,

30:14

if dad is bad, then

30:16

the world isn't safe. So instead,

30:19

what your child brain does is it

30:22

makes you bad. If I'm demonic

30:25

and I deserved it, then my survival is

30:27

secure and all I have to do is change myself.

30:30

But if I'm good and I

30:32

didn't deserve it, then I'm not safe

30:35

and the world is not safe and

30:37

I have nowhere to go.

30:45

2021 was a year dedicated to

30:48

looking nakedly at all the trauma responses and

30:50

defense mechanisms I've accumulated as well

30:52

as the bad behaviors I've normalized as a result of

30:54

my pain. And even though in family

30:56

therapy, I said I didn't want to talk about the

30:58

dad stuff, all

31:00

of the different ways that I'm trying to heal myself

31:03

are pointing back to the dad stuff.

31:08

What I've learned is that I

31:10

do have trauma and I have been

31:13

a victim of a lot of different

31:15

painful things.

31:17

You know, that's not my fault. But

31:22

what I do

31:22

with that is with my control. The decision

31:25

to ignore it is

31:27

my fault. And

31:31

I haven't been doing anything about it. It's hard

31:34

to have to do this much work to undo what

31:36

he did and not be angry at him.

31:39

You're a survivor of childhood trauma,

31:41

Caitlin. I've just been kind of pushing forward

31:44

and pretending like I'm fine.

31:47

Yeah, so you meet most

31:49

of the criteria for borderline personality

31:52

disorder, something like 90% of

31:55

people with this disorder

31:57

have childhood trauma.

32:02

And as I do the healing work, I

32:05

still have to do my work work. All

32:08

of the episodes that I try to make in 2021

32:10

are

32:11

elaborately designed and sophisticatedly

32:13

written presentations of my thesis that

32:15

I'm a depraved piece of shit. Piece of shit boss, piece

32:18

of shit collaborator, piece of shit friend,

32:20

piece of shit sister, and a piece

32:21

of shit daughter. A

32:24

year has gone by. It's May 2021

32:27

now, and it seems a better time

32:29

than ever to listen to the interview I did

32:31

with dad. Oh yeah, that happy that you're all

32:33

here. I love that. Happy that you

32:35

are all here.

32:38

I enjoy crafting it into a

32:40

story. A lot of the times joy

32:42

and anguish come together. Oh my gosh.

32:45

You know? Yeah, like the idea that you have

32:47

to go down to come up, you know, like, and that

32:50

they are related in that way. Okay,

32:54

well I had a great day.

32:57

I hope you had a good day too.

32:59

We're gonna fucking make the Greg episode. Yeah,

33:01

I think it's gonna happen. The part of me that

33:04

sees only the good. He's such a special

33:06

person. Oh my god. And

33:09

the part of me that

33:10

knows all of the bad is

33:13

a split that was forged in my psyche when

33:15

the abuse was happening. That

33:18

split is one of the quintessential

33:21

elements of borderline personality

33:23

disorder. As I work on the

33:25

episode, there's the

33:27

part of me that believes that

33:29

his pain and my pain are equally

33:31

valid. And then there's the

33:33

part of me that knows how vulnerable

33:36

I was. Now that I'm

33:38

not in a room having a conversation with

33:40

him, it's easier for me to access

33:43

my own reality.

33:46

He talks about how excited we all were

33:49

to go invent to the family counselor. That's

33:53

not what I remember.

33:59

It's the air

33:59

of low-rise jeans

34:02

and fluffy pink Britney Spears

34:04

inspired hair elastics. I'm 15

34:08

years old. I remember

34:11

expecting that

34:12

this was an intervention.

34:15

Mom, dad, Natalie

34:17

and the psychologist were

34:19

gonna exercise the demon that

34:21

was the person I've

34:24

grown up to be. I remember

34:26

sitting down in her office. It

34:28

had a window but not enough light

34:31

to illuminate the whole room. Carol.

34:35

I was getting ready for her to tell me what's wrong with

34:37

me but she just asked

34:39

me questions. She asked me how

34:41

things were going and

34:43

she's

34:45

troubled by the things

34:47

that I'm saying. That there is something

34:50

wrong with how things are going

34:52

and that it's not my fault. She's gonna want

34:54

to have a session with my dad.

34:59

This is an intervention on dad. It was

35:03

the first and only moment

35:05

where what I felt and what I was experiencing

35:08

was meaningfully validated by

35:10

an adult or by anyone

35:13

at all. My raging need to resist the status

35:15

quo of my home was understandable to

35:17

this one woman. We

35:20

stopped going to see Carol.

35:22

I don't think it was because my parents heard things that

35:24

they didn't want to hear. They took what she was

35:26

saying to heart even if they didn't know

35:29

how to translate that into action. It was

35:31

probably just

35:32

too expensive. The

35:36

computer cord fight was not the last time.

35:39

I don't remember exact events.

35:42

It's because they became so normal to me

35:44

that I wouldn't separate them out from other

35:47

normal and therefore forgettable things like

35:49

going to the grocery store. What

35:52

I do remember is that once he

35:55

went on a band trip and

35:57

when he came back he was so happy.

36:00

that we didn't fight for ten

36:04

days in a row. I

36:07

counted because things went back to

36:10

what we all considered normal

36:14

on day 10. It

36:20

was more than just that one time. It was the

36:22

whole time. It was like from age 13.

36:25

I create an epilogue that explains these things.

36:27

In the epilogue I describe

36:30

the second conversation that I was planning to have.

36:32

Then I'm going to say the thing

36:34

that I need the most is for you

36:36

to to

36:39

own it. You just need to say

36:41

I'm so sorry and

36:44

we'll see how that goes. We play

36:51

it for my friends and

36:53

everyone loves the episode. They

36:55

like it the best out of everything I've played.

36:57

Maybe this is really cheesy. It's the unfinished apology.

37:00

That's actually just a placeholder right now.

37:03

Hearing it now, that may be the only apology

37:06

I ever get. That's incredible. As

37:09

a listener I'm craving the same thing that you

37:11

do and I'm just like, just say

37:14

you're sorry. Instead of like you're sorry

37:16

but like you were pretty difficult.

37:18

Yeah like so many two ditangos.

37:20

So close. I know. He's

37:22

renting it. He's renting it regularly

37:25

but he's not owning it.

37:30

If we apologize for saying something

37:32

that hurt someone's feelings, if we apologize

37:34

for being late,

37:36

if we apologize for encouraging the family to

37:38

take a flight overseas at the crest of a global

37:40

pandemic,

37:42

why would we not apologize for

37:45

rug burning a skinny 14 year old girl's

37:47

tender skin by dragging her across the carpet

37:49

by the wrist? Why would we not apologize

37:52

for twisting someone's arm behind their back until

37:54

it hurts so bad that they cry out in pain begging

37:57

for it to stop? Why would we not apologize

37:59

for throwing a chair down the floor?

37:59

down the stairwell in the direction of a teenage

38:02

girl standing at the bottom. Why would we not apologize

38:04

for shattering a wine glass right beside a teenage

38:06

girl in a way that makes her afraid that

38:08

the next one will be shattered not on the floor but

38:10

on her head? Why would we not apologize for breaking

38:13

one's own salad bowl and anger at the dinner

38:15

table and then declaring that the teenage girl

38:17

sitting across the table was the one who broke

38:19

it and then demanding that she clean it up?

38:21

Why would we not apologize for making

38:24

that girl believe that

38:25

all of these things were

38:27

things that she was responsible

38:29

for?

38:31

Because of an eye roll?

38:33

Because of a messy room? Because

38:36

she talked back?

38:38

Because she disobeyed the constantly fluctuating

38:40

rules of the house?

38:43

Especially when all

38:46

that girl wants from an apology

38:48

is to

38:52

have a good reason to forgive

38:55

you for it. Should I have

38:57

a beer? Should I have a beer? Am I

38:59

worth it to show the sisters episode too? Harry

39:02

stays to listen to an episode that Natalie

39:04

and I made about us. Natalie worked

39:06

so hard on it this week and I really did. And that

39:09

turns into the plan to make a series. Sisters.

39:12

About sisterhood.

39:13

Sisters. Instead of all the hard stuff. It

39:17

feels like kind of like the rose glasses are

39:19

shattering. You know like kind of the bad parts like overwhelmed

39:21

me this month. It

39:25

turns out that there was actually a

39:27

lot of hard stuff to talk about between Natalie

39:30

and I too. We

39:33

work through all the ways that my psychology and our

39:35

history have been hard on her.

39:41

And then it's done.

39:46

It's February 2023. We

39:49

celebrate. We go to New York and perform

39:51

at a festival. We fall asleep together

39:53

in the king size bed of a boutique hotel. And

39:57

then

39:58

we get home. and

40:00

prepare to make the remaining five episodes

40:03

in the contract.

40:06

We're so exhausted that the prospect of using

40:09

the episode we made way back when,

40:11

about Dad, seems

40:13

like a great idea. Why?

40:17

Because it's already finished. So we dig

40:19

the Gregisode out of the deep pit of

40:21

the hard drive. We go to Ottawa

40:24

and we take the first step, which is

40:26

reminding Dad that we're even doing this and

40:29

fulfilling my promise, which I now kind

40:31

of regret. The agreement is you don't

40:33

use anything unless you talk to me about it. Right?

40:38

Yes. That he could hear everything before we

40:40

put it out into the world. So I'm supposed

40:42

to tell you all the parts that

40:44

are embarrassing and shouldn't be

40:47

included in the final draft?

40:49

Well, what I didn't realize until

40:52

this moment that we're all sitting

40:54

here in the basement in front of the 5.1 surround

40:56

sound system that's about to play the

40:58

episode. Playing this episode means that

41:00

we're talking about it. We are talking about the abuse

41:03

as a family. This is what I've been saying

41:06

for the past three years that I was

41:08

not ready to do.

41:10

And I've put myself in a position

41:12

of letting Dad's comfort with how

41:15

the abuse is described

41:16

be the deciding factor of how the story

41:18

of the abuse is told. This is not

41:21

a good situation. Ready?

41:24

Yep. And

41:26

I didn't want to say this at first because I didn't want that. And

41:28

just like in the doorless Airbnb, my

41:31

entire being is focused

41:34

on his emotional state. When did you do this?

41:36

When did you put this? All day every day. Dad!

41:40

This is one thing that I feel totally comfortable calling

41:42

out about my dad. He's the kind of person who talks and

41:44

makes comments while you're watching a movie.

41:47

We've got to nip this in the bud. No running

41:49

commentary. No questions,

41:51

man. No questions. OK, we're going to pause every

41:53

time. Yeah, you have to request

41:56

to speak. So...

41:59

We

42:02

did the interview in the pandemic when I lived

42:04

here. I'm not where I was three years ago

42:06

when I did this interview.

42:08

I'm not even where I was two years ago when

42:10

I cut this interview into an episode.

42:13

At this moment in 2023,

42:15

I've done an absurd amount of therapy,

42:18

all of it focusing on these events.

42:21

The primary goal of the trauma therapist

42:23

I've been working with for the past year and a half

42:26

has been to get me to self-validate,

42:29

to get me to stop dissociating, to get

42:31

me to stop making other people's realities

42:33

and feelings more real to me than my own.

42:36

This is how you heal the split.

42:39

You have to make it so that there aren't always two versions

42:41

of reality fighting inside of you.

42:44

So I feel a sense

42:46

of failure. The only thing that's real to me right now

42:48

is my dad's reaction to this episode. When

42:51

he laughs,

42:51

waves of relief come over my body. When

43:03

the episode ends, everyone

43:06

makes mistakes line, that

43:09

I ended on on purpose as a way of problematizing

43:12

it, I immediately want to play happy stuff

43:14

of him at his best. I think that's what

43:16

I want. I

43:19

have to ask Natalie what I want.

43:21

Maybe Natalie knows. And

43:27

then I stop myself. He

43:33

doesn't even need to say it. I already know that he's uncomfortable

43:35

with the way that it ended. The split

43:37

is there. There's the part of me that's getting stronger

43:40

and stronger that knows how this should have

43:42

gone. She's like, he

43:44

should be people pleasing you. He should listen to that and

43:46

be like, shit, I sound like kind of a

43:48

dick. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I

43:51

said that. I'm sorry for all the things I described in this.

43:53

I'm sorry. Are you okay? Having

43:55

listened to that? How do you feel? That part of

43:58

me is watching me

43:59

fawn and being. very disappointed.

44:01

And then the other part of me, the one that's

44:03

fawning, is like, do you want

44:05

to get into a big, nasty altercation right now?

44:08

I don't think you do. So we're gonna

44:11

move through these waters and keep them still

44:14

in whatever way we need to.

44:15

Or if you went after, as long as

44:17

you were forgiving at the end. No.

44:22

Well, should

44:24

I play more? You know, some of the

44:26

other stuff? You

44:28

mean what you made this week? Just a

44:30

little bit. I mean, it's like, I have recordings

44:32

of us during

44:35

the pandemic and stuff. Maybe

44:39

I wish that the whole

44:41

throwing you on the ground part and all that was

44:45

followed by a little more mirth, I

44:47

guess. Well,

44:50

I think that's my instinct to play what

44:53

might come next in the next episode.

44:55

Like, if we didn't really think about the ending. Now

44:58

I'm making myself seem stupid to

45:00

make myself seem small and unthreatening. It's

45:02

one of my go-tos.

45:03

Whatever it is quick before I have

45:06

to go. Well,

45:09

I'm sure there's instances of

45:11

those kinds of things happening in other households

45:14

too. Well, because you guys have more- I mean, you guys were

45:16

the generation in between

45:18

corporal punishment and not. Now

45:21

I'm making it seem totally normal, totally

45:23

understandable, you know? No, so it's,

45:25

I know most of my friends got spankings

45:28

when they were kids. Or making it about how many spankings

45:30

other people got.

45:32

My therapist tells me that doing

45:34

this, justifying it

45:36

isn't healthy for me. Most baby

45:38

boomer men would

45:40

not be honest like that. And

45:43

now I'm giving compliments. The worst kind of compliment,

45:46

the compliment that is to a man for doing something

45:48

emotionally evolved, but also basic.

45:51

Okay, good night, my sweeties. Good

45:53

night, daddy. Love you, dad. And now he's going to bed.

45:57

Bigger to 1030, I think he is. I'm

46:00

glad this worked out the way it did.

46:02

As dad lumbers up to bed, mom

46:05

and Natalie are on their phones. Natalie

46:08

is scrolling, mom's checking

46:10

train times. And you said, oh, I think you're gonna actually check

46:13

train. And I am sitting still,

46:15

ruminating.

46:17

I was so afraid of playing this for

46:19

him. And that fear makes me sad. Why

46:21

should I be afraid of playing something where

46:23

he is talking about things that he did

46:26

to me. I'm so worried about how he's feeling.

46:28

He's not worried about how I'm feeling. Nobody's

46:30

worried about how I'm feeling. I'm arriving, there's like a link.

46:33

Oh, I didn't see that. They're worried about WhatsApp. Oh,

46:35

and the WhatsApp? Oh, okay. He

46:37

wants the ending to be forgiving, but he's

46:39

never asked for my forgiveness. I made an entire

46:42

piece of radio victim blaming myself.

46:44

I failed therapy. I spent 26 years thinking

46:46

about this. Talking about it to therapists, talking

46:49

about it and then not thinking about it. He hasn't thought

46:51

about it really at all. So

46:55

what's wrong Kate? Are you not happy with his

46:57

reaction? No. I

47:02

mean, it's all emotional. There's

47:05

no joy. I was worried when

47:07

the moment came in therapy

47:09

that we started working on training myself

47:11

to know when I'm distressed and

47:13

dismantling all of the defense mechanisms

47:16

which allow me to be in immense states

47:18

of distress without even noticing.

47:20

Well, I had a, I was, my body was,

47:22

that was, I had

47:24

no reason to say. What do you

47:26

think of him?

47:27

I knew that I was opening the door to

47:29

constantly being in distress. And that

47:32

is what is happening right now. Yeah, I don't know. I

47:35

am in distress

47:36

and I know that I'm in distress. I'm not disappointed.

47:39

I'm not disappointed. I'm in distress. I

47:41

guess it, I'm, I

47:44

guess it's hard that no one

47:46

asked me how it made me feel listening to

47:48

it. And the therapy voices tell me

47:51

everything in this moment is

47:54

about the past. Yeah, it's just hard

47:56

cause it's like feels like it's connected to everything.

47:59

I guess for me. This isn't just

48:01

about dad. This is about every

48:03

bad situation that I've gotten myself into

48:05

because of the way that I learned how to cope with

48:07

dad. It's about the time that a man who had

48:10

some mental health issues knocked on my door He

48:12

was living on the street and I let him crash at

48:14

my place for a few nights and in the middle of

48:16

the night while I was sleeping he smashed the window

48:18

and spray-painted the walls red alongside

48:21

all of my original Handmade art and took all of the

48:23

food in the entire house and boiled it on the

48:25

stove in one big pot Instead of telling him to

48:27

go away when he knocked on my door a week later.

48:29

I opened the door I went on a walk

48:31

with him I looked in his eyes and I said I

48:34

love you I care about you and I hope you get

48:36

better instead of saying you broke all

48:38

of my shit and you need to fucking pay For that window.

48:40

It's about the time I said I love you

48:42

to a man who low-key assaulted me and then gaslit

48:45

me for an hour when I tried to talk to him About I love

48:47

you no

48:47

matter what it's about the time My best friend

48:50

slept with the person I was seeing while I was sleeping

48:52

in the other room and when he left and she looked

48:54

Shamefully up at me. I said the words. I understand

48:57

why you did what you do I know it comes from the ways that

48:59

you are when I already forgive you. It's okay

49:01

Don't worry about instead of that was really fucked

49:04

up. You owe me an apology all of

49:06

these moments are moments

49:08

where I feel a resistance

49:10

and then I dissolve

49:13

a Resistance

49:16

and then about all the times as I was working

49:18

with broke our contract agreement Resistance instead

49:21

of calling them on it. I would simply say to myself.

49:23

It's understandable why they're breaking that part of the

49:25

agreement I can work around it forgive

49:27

and forget instead of saying hey,

49:29

this is not what we agreed. What's

49:31

the deal? It's about my lawyer telling me that I

49:33

negotiate against myself before

49:36

the negotiating has even started preemptively

49:39

Accommodating instead of advocating for my own

49:41

needs and trying to accommodate myself It's about

49:43

the ways that my non-existent sense of self-worth

49:45

translates to unnecessary hardships

49:48

that I endure Without even notice the

49:50

handle of a suitcase that I had broke and instead

49:52

of getting a new one I tied a scarf around it I

49:54

dragged it for years across the floors

49:57

of airports because the small distress

49:59

of dragging

49:59

it was something imperceptible

50:02

to me. Or the small

50:04

distress of dragging it felt

50:06

comfortable to me and even

50:09

kind of good. My therapist and

50:11

I call it sugar cubing. It's

50:13

like I'm a cube of sugar dropping into

50:15

a hot cup of tea and I've created a whole

50:18

ideology around it. Benefits of doubt,

50:20

good hearted nature of all humans. The physical world

50:23

is not actually real. That's my favorite one. The universe

50:26

is the tea and our human form

50:29

is the sugar cube. The connection between

50:31

all of these things is finally dawning on

50:34

me. I'm freaking out. I

50:36

feel like I'm afraid of saying what

50:37

I'm really thinking because I feel like it's

50:40

too much trouble. I'm

50:43

looking to mom to tell me what's real. Is

50:46

it real that he was violent towards me? Is

50:49

it real that we've never talked about this properly

50:51

as a family? Is it real that there has never

50:53

been any effort to set the record straight about

50:55

what happened and repair the damage?

50:58

Is it real that this matters? What

51:02

troubles have we wound up? What do you mean the troubles?

51:04

What's too much trouble? What's too old to

51:06

know? To

51:09

talk about. For you

51:11

guys. Mom's indifference in

51:14

this moment is about mom's

51:16

indifference then. I only want to tell the truth.

51:18

Is that dad's ear? No, if

51:20

you care. And then that hurts

51:22

because it's like, well, I'm

51:25

worried that you don't and like.

51:28

That we don't care about the truth? Do

51:30

you hear about health? Exasperation

51:32

or is it just me? I wouldn't

51:36

say I didn't care. Her

51:38

tone of voice tells me that it's not real, that this

51:40

matters. Let's put a timer on for seven

51:42

minutes and you can have the floor for seven

51:44

more minutes and we'll just listen. The part

51:46

of me that is extremely frustrated

51:49

at the time limit and the part of me that's really

51:51

proud of her for practicing all that we learned

51:53

during our time working together, setting her limits for

51:56

how much of Caitlin's emotional drama she can handle.

51:58

Would that feel?

51:59

Okay, if we put time

52:03

around for 20 minutes even. Yeah.

52:06

Were you okay with that, Mom?

52:10

Now, because Mom's reality

52:12

is more real to me than my own, I begin questioning

52:14

everything. I begin to spiral. This is

52:17

every parent's worst nightmare. Being tortured 25 years later

52:19

for the inevitable ways that they are important. I'm making

52:21

the nightmare come true. If

52:23

I'm being wrong, if I'm being dramatic,

52:26

if I'm not existing boundaries and people please... Really? ... all

52:29

point back to Dad? Or am I blaming him because

52:31

he's someone I have access to? Because it's

52:33

on vogue to unearth the imperfections of your

52:35

parents in therapy. Settle in for 20 minutes. Maybe

52:37

all the things that are wrong with me have nothing to do with

52:39

Dad.

52:40

Maybe it's just my DNA. It's

52:42

my fault in the most fundamental way. The fundamental

52:44

way that is the genetic code that my body

52:46

is with. I was really intense. I was really

52:48

emotional. Everything did feel like life and

52:50

death, and I did have really big reactions to things. They didn't know how to deal with

52:52

that. There were no resources for that kind of thing.

52:55

It was just, you know, seen as abnormal behavior.

52:57

It's just some sadistic thing that I'm choosing to do. And

52:59

a 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17... Because in my core,

53:01

I'm sadistic. I've had that since I was

53:03

born. Maybe therapists or children... As Dad's nine-year-old be

53:06

abusive to a father or figure or parent. Is that

53:08

a thing? Maybe there's a

53:10

way that I'm talking about it. Basically abuse

53:12

if there was no malicious intent. Making a mountain out of a mole

53:14

of bad saying. What is the equivalent

53:16

of manslaughter when it comes to abuse? Why don't we have a

53:18

word for that? I mean, I don't think it'll cause any

53:20

trouble. Like, we... Trouble's already been

53:22

caused. I don't know. For a moment, I wonder

53:25

what life would be like if I was born 50 years

53:27

ago and therapy wasn't something that was normalized.

53:31

And I yearn for it.

53:33

Like, minimizing it is something

53:36

that I have done for most of my life.

53:39

And I think... Like...

53:46

It feels unhealthy. What

53:48

does the therapist say to do about that? It's

53:51

the grief process. The

53:53

denial phase has been most of my

53:55

life. Yeah. Nothing

53:59

can happen until you... say it wasn't okay. And

54:01

that is the heart that's it that might

54:03

take 10 years. For

54:06

you? Yeah, because I still can't. For anyone,

54:09

for you to accept that it's not okay? Yeah,

54:12

because explaining it and giving reasons

54:14

for it and like,

54:16

and tell and saying reasons why it was

54:18

okay is my whole life. You

54:21

know, it brings up for me what dad has

54:24

said in the past about accepting his

54:26

father as well. Like where he just had to like... Natalie

54:28

wants me to accept dad the same way that dad

54:30

accepted Dito.

54:33

Part of the healing is

54:35

being able to think about that but still hold the person

54:37

responsible for what they did. How

54:40

do you put your foot down while

54:43

there's still be compassion? Right. Mom's

54:45

tone changes when I say the word compassion.

54:48

The

54:48

version I've always had is

54:51

like compassion means not having the foot down.

54:55

That to have compassion is

54:57

to forgive and

55:00

to accept someone in their fullness

55:03

and to not judge them. And

55:05

to like see the ways they're wounded

55:08

and the ways they're broken and the ways that they're

55:10

sharp, they have sharp edges and

55:12

look underneath those sharp edges and see

55:14

the vulnerability and the fragility that made those

55:17

sharp edges.

55:18

But like there has to be, it has to be both. That's

55:20

the thing. Like it has to be the compassion

55:23

but also the firm line.

55:27

Pivoting?

55:33

Let's pivot. But I do feel a

55:35

lot better. Thanks Natalie.

55:39

We've gone far beyond

55:41

the 20 minute mark. It's been an hour.

55:43

Thanks Natalie. Yeah.

55:48

Can we talk about your bottom? I've

55:54

been thinking about it for the past hour wondering that

55:57

very question. Earlier today dad

55:59

and I both had to get posterior

56:02

stitches for completely separate reasons.

56:04

I've been putting rubbing alcohol. Okay, is

56:06

this basically the same thing as talking about dad, Natalie?

56:09

Talking about my butt wound? I don't know.

56:10

I think I'm just tired. Natalie

56:13

told me that mom texted her saying

56:16

two pains in the butt. The

56:18

part of me that really feels that that was a hilarious

56:20

joke and the part of me that is insulted. I

56:22

cry and write in my diary before I

56:24

go to bed.

56:26

One of the lines that stands out to me

56:28

is this one.

56:30

February

56:30

3rd, 2023.

56:34

I'm realizing that I was almost

56:37

in the anger stage of grief. And

56:40

then the pandemic happened. You know,

56:42

I was like, why do this? Why

56:45

do this? You know, like being like, I'm back in

56:47

Toronto. You may not have the tools

56:49

to do this in a way that is actually reparative.

56:52

So why disrupt things?

56:54

Why not just enjoy the next 15 years

56:57

and be mad at him when he dies?

57:00

That sounds pretty bad. Getting advice

57:03

from my friends. I think you're looking for

57:05

a queer femm apology out of a

57:07

straight man born

57:09

in the mid-20th century. It's

57:13

unrealistic, but

57:14

I don't think it's

57:18

realistic to expect that. But

57:21

if he's able, the next 15

57:24

years could be incredible. Like

57:27

I could have a real, like an honest

57:30

relationship with him. But

57:32

like the journey is you realizing what

57:34

you need. Like that's

57:37

for you to move forward. Totally. Because

57:39

it's like, I don't like for my mom, for instance, like I don't

57:41

need her to like be proud of me anymore.

57:45

You know what I mean?

57:47

And for me, it's just a realization that like, even that

57:49

what I need and don't need from her is

57:51

enough for me to keep going. Even

57:54

if she doesn't want maybe ever

57:56

say the things I want her to or whatever.

57:59

home thinking, oh, there's this apology book

58:02

that I read. Maybe I should

58:04

send it to him. Right. You know? And

58:07

it's like, I'm doing all the work. Yeah.

58:10

But also, like, if you don't do any of the work, like,

58:14

and I hate saying that, the

58:16

whole, like, meet him halfway, but, like,

58:19

they are older. They

58:21

don't have the tools. They don't have the mechanisms.

58:23

And, like, like, I don't know, this week he's

58:25

like, as long as you forgive me.

58:28

And then

58:28

five weeks from now, it's going to

58:30

be a different sentence. That's going to sound a little bit better. Yeah,

58:33

true. And that's like, he's not going to

58:35

figure it out by himself. Like, you can't

58:37

expect that. That's it. Because it's just

58:39

not you. It's so scary, I

58:41

guess. I can't believe how terrified

58:44

I am of, like, actually telling him. Without

58:46

being like, but don't worry, you know? Like,

58:50

terrifying. Caitlin, if what

58:52

you share blows up your family system, then if

58:58

the family dynamic or the family system only

59:00

works by you bearing the burden,

59:02

are you needing to self abandon?

59:04

Are you needing to be in pain

59:07

so everyone else cannot be in pain? It's not

59:09

working. And it needs to be blown up. So

59:13

it's my thought on that. With love.

59:16

Marcyon.

59:25

It's Easter weekend, 2023. It's

59:27

the Jesus holiday.

59:29

I'm on the train home to Ottawa,

59:32

and I write my dad this

59:34

letter. Dear dad, I

59:37

feel a lump in my throat this

59:40

time.

59:41

Maybe it's because I know the purpose of this

59:44

trip is to work on this project, which

59:48

is supposed to be about us. Since playing it for

59:50

everyone and having a mini-meltdown afterwards, I have been nervous

59:52

and afraid that my opening this up would result

59:55

in some kind of rupture between us.

59:57

It's for you. It's

1:00:00

true. I've been scanning your messages, fearfully

1:00:02

searching for possible resentment. Mom

1:00:05

sending me Instagram platitudes suggesting

1:00:07

I should let it go. All

1:00:09

of this and feeling sure that you taking responsibility

1:00:12

is something that you don't know how to do. That

1:00:15

even an apology will feel precarious,

1:00:19

conditional.

1:00:21

On me accepting it the way you want me to.

1:00:25

But if I don't immediately absolve you of guilt,

1:00:28

it will turn ugly. And

1:00:30

once again, I will have to be the bigger

1:00:32

person.

1:00:34

I didn't want to come this week.

1:00:36

In a text message you curtly demanded

1:00:39

that

1:00:39

I come. And

1:00:42

so here I am on the train. If

1:00:45

I wasn't making this into a story, how

1:00:47

would I feel about all this? If

1:00:51

the pressure of creating a portrait of the truth

1:00:53

wasn't there.

1:00:55

I suppose I would go on as I have

1:00:57

been,

1:00:59

forgiving you.

1:01:01

I would leave it in the past and I would look forward

1:01:04

to the warmth, the care and the love

1:01:06

that always awaits me at home and

1:01:09

in our relationship. If I forgive

1:01:11

and forget, laugh it off. I

1:01:14

know what it does to me.

1:01:17

It turns me into someone who is fine to be

1:01:19

treated that way. Someone who has extremely

1:01:22

low standards around what constitutes acceptable

1:01:25

treatment. And so

1:01:27

dad, all of this is underneath

1:01:29

the surface as the train takes me closer

1:01:32

and closer to home.

1:01:33

This

1:01:59

has been

1:01:59

episode 3 of

1:02:02

Dad, a mini-series

1:02:04

on the heart

1:02:05

by me, Caitlin Prest.

1:02:08

If you haven't listened to the sisters series, which

1:02:10

is the one that comes before this one, I highly

1:02:13

recommend. There's a lot of context

1:02:15

in the sisters episodes that help

1:02:17

frame what you hear in this one. Our

1:02:20

researching producer on the series is Alexandra

1:02:22

Pinel.

1:02:23

Our associate producer is Natalie Prest.

1:02:25

Our editor is Jennifer Custer-Giroche.

1:02:28

I could not have done this series without her.

1:02:31

On this episode, specifically,

1:02:34

she told me to cling to my spine

1:02:36

for dear life

1:02:38

and I tried my best.

1:02:41

Thank you, JCJ. You

1:02:44

can follow her on Instagram at JCJtattoos.

1:02:47

She is an amazing tattoo artist and

1:02:49

artist artist. If you are looking

1:02:52

to get a tattoo and you live in New York

1:02:54

or you're passing through New York, highly,

1:02:57

highly recommend. If

1:03:00

putting art on your body is not

1:03:02

your thing, you can also buy her art and

1:03:04

put it on your wall. In this

1:03:06

episode, you heard my friends,

1:03:09

all of the friends who supported me through

1:03:12

making this.

1:03:14

The great wisdom about self-abandonment

1:03:16

and family systems came to

1:03:18

you from Rachel Ricketts. Rachel

1:03:21

Ricketts is a writer,

1:03:25

genius, revolutionary. I

1:03:27

highly recommend buying her book.

1:03:30

It's called Do Better, spiritual

1:03:32

activism for fighting and healing from white supremacy.

1:03:35

It's one of those ones that you read once a year

1:03:38

and continue to learn and grow

1:03:41

and unravel

1:03:43

more things each time you read it. One

1:03:45

of the things I love about the book is that it speaks specifically

1:03:48

to queer femmes and also

1:03:50

because she narrates the audiobook, it's

1:03:53

a real pleasure listening to her speak

1:03:55

for hours and hours and hours. Rachel,

1:03:58

I am deeply grateful.

1:05:59

something that you can look up on the internet. Number

1:06:02

one, naming and showing that you understand

1:06:04

what you did. Number two, apologizing

1:06:07

for what you did. Without

1:06:09

an explanation, it has to just be

1:06:12

an apology. Number three, repair

1:06:15

the damage. And number four, the

1:06:17

most important and the hardest

1:06:20

step, change

1:06:22

your behavior. Her name is spelled

1:06:25

M-I-A-M-I-N-G-U-S.

1:06:29

She also has a beautiful graphic that breaks it down

1:06:32

very simply on her Instagram. If

1:06:34

you go to her Instagram, me and Mingus, and

1:06:36

look up how to give a good apology.

1:06:38

Almost all of the knowledge

1:06:40

that I have about accountability and

1:06:43

healing and repair and transformative

1:06:47

justice, this is

1:06:49

knowledge and practices that have been developed

1:06:51

by black and indigenous activists and organizers

1:06:54

working to create ways of transforming culture

1:06:56

and healing harmful behaviors in

1:06:59

a way that doesn't create more violence and

1:07:01

isn't punishment-based. These

1:07:03

conversations around accountability entered

1:07:05

the mainstream consciousness in a bigger way

1:07:08

in 2020 when the BLM revolution

1:07:10

was happening.

1:07:12

These frameworks look at the way that intergenerational

1:07:15

trauma and trauma general is

1:07:17

often at the root of damaging behaviors

1:07:20

and positions healing as

1:07:23

the way to resolve things and continue moving

1:07:25

towards less violence in the world.

1:07:27

The link between fragility and abuse

1:07:30

is actually a really strong one. If

1:07:32

you're a parent or in any other position of

1:07:34

power where people depend on you, heal your

1:07:37

shit,

1:07:38

we all have it. If you're trying to instigate

1:07:40

a healing process around a traumatic

1:07:43

event or abusive behavior,

1:07:45

there's a workbook that was shared with me by Freedom

1:07:47

Versus, the coaching for liberation organization

1:07:50

I work with.

1:07:50

The workbook is free on the internet

1:07:53

and it's called Turning Towards Each Other,

1:07:55

a

1:07:55

conflict workbook

1:07:57

by Javeda Ross and Wayem

1:07:59

Godbyam.

1:08:00

It's a transformative justice-informed workbook

1:08:02

for moving through damaging behavior as a group,

1:08:05

whether

1:08:05

it's a group of friends, a community,

1:08:08

or a

1:08:09

family.

1:08:10

Renee Brown, in her episode, Shame

1:08:13

and Accountability

1:08:14

on Unlocking Us, her

1:08:16

podcast,

1:08:18

talks about the way that accountability starts

1:08:21

in our families.

1:08:23

How we hold ourselves accountable for harms we

1:08:25

cause and how we hold other people accountable

1:08:27

when we see violence happening is something

1:08:29

that we first learn or don't learn in

1:08:32

our families.

1:08:33

Hearing her say that in that podcast episode

1:08:36

was actually a big reason why I decided to do

1:08:38

this series.

1:08:39

More apology resources. The

1:08:42

episode of Renee Brown's podcast interviewing

1:08:44

Harriet Lerner.

1:08:45

Harriet Lerner wrote a book called Why

1:08:47

Won't You Apologize? I highly recommend

1:08:49

it.

1:08:50

And she gets interviewed by Renee Brown

1:08:53

on Unlocking Us, and the episode is

1:08:55

called How to Apologize and Why It Matters.

1:08:59

As with almost every series I've ever done, the

1:09:01

work of Belle Hooks informs all of the ways

1:09:03

I think about power, patriarchy, healing,

1:09:05

and love. All about love and

1:09:08

the will to change men, masculinity,

1:09:11

and love is about the way that patriarchy

1:09:13

impacts men.

1:09:15

Let's be real. This story is actually

1:09:17

at its core about the way that a patriarchal view

1:09:19

of fatherhood caused a lot of pain, ruptured

1:09:22

a relationship that could have been beautiful, and left

1:09:24

a blossoming, strong young woman

1:09:26

with cracks in the foundation of her being.

1:09:29

Highly recommend that book, The Will to Change

1:09:32

Men, Masculinity, and Love. Okay,

1:09:36

that is the bibliography section.

1:09:39

If you are moved by what you hear in this series,

1:09:42

please help me promote

1:09:44

it. If you're a writer, write

1:09:46

something about it. If you're a journalist or a critic

1:09:49

or a producer or a comedian or an artist

1:09:51

with the following, post about it. Write

1:09:53

to me to interview about it on your podcast or

1:09:55

TV show or Instagram Live. Start

1:09:58

a listening group where you discuss what comes up.

1:09:59

up as you listen. Making this was

1:10:02

harder than anything I've ever made before and

1:10:04

I just didn't have the bandwidth to do

1:10:07

the extra work of mobilizing the marketing teams

1:10:09

and pushing for press and all of that.

1:10:11

But now that I am

1:10:14

finished, I desperately

1:10:16

do not want all of the hard work that I did to

1:10:18

create this to go to waste via it

1:10:21

getting lost in the vast ocean of the internet. So

1:10:23

thank you for your help. Thank you.

1:10:25

This show and my company

1:10:28

survive on donations. So

1:10:31

if you liked this series and

1:10:33

you want to support, go to mermaidpalace.org

1:10:36

and set yourself up with a

1:10:39

monthly donation. It would really help us

1:10:41

make more stuff. You

1:10:43

can follow me at CaitlinPrest on Instagram

1:10:45

and

1:10:47

you can follow Mermaid Palace Art at Mermaid Palace

1:10:50

Art. Thank you to my

1:10:52

family for consenting

1:10:55

to be a part of this.

1:10:58

And I think that's it.

1:11:00

This season of The Heart is in partnership

1:11:02

with CBC Podcasts and Mermaid Palace

1:11:05

and The Heart is a proud member of

1:11:07

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