Afraid to Look: The Moth Radio Hour

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Speaker 5 This is the Moth Radio Hour, and I'm Catherine Burns.

Speaker 5 I'm usually a problem solver, someone who isn't afraid to jump in and talk something through until I figure it out.

Speaker 5 But occasionally, I find myself overcome by a vague angst that permeates everything, and I'm afraid to look at things too closely, out of fear of what I'll uncover.

Speaker 5 Moth storyteller and beloved meditation instructor Sharon Salzberg says that fear and worry make it impossible to see our situations clearly. Without clarity, answers are hard to come by.

Speaker 5 If we want to fix things, we have to deal with our fears because they keep us from seeing the solutions.

Speaker 5 So this week, we're going to hear from storytellers who were afraid to look, but somehow managed to muster the courage to peek through their fingers and try to find their way through.

Speaker 5 First, we're going to hear from the writer Amanda Stern. Amanda's story was recorded live at St.
Anne's Church in Brooklyn Heights.

Speaker 5 This was during the pandemic, so we had a very tiny audience made up mostly of our masked and socially distant staff and crew.

Speaker 5 I just want to mention that in this story, there is some discussion of thoughts of suicide. Here's Amanda Stern live at the mall.

Speaker 6 Since I was a child,

Speaker 6 I've been held captive by this nameless, invisible dread.

Speaker 6 The feeling was so all-encompassing, it made routine things like coming and going feel like I was putting my life in danger.

Speaker 6 It convinced me that if I wasn't watching her, my mom would die or disappear.

Speaker 6 I felt responsible for her safety.

Speaker 6 And this made leaving her every single morning to go to school feel unbearable, and leaving her to go to my dad's every other weekend feel like I was walking towards my own kidnapping.

Speaker 6 The only way that I could alleviate my apprehension, calm myself down, and find relief was just to avoid the hard thing

Speaker 6 and stay at home with my mom, where I knew I would be safe.

Speaker 6 Nobody knew what was wrong with me. They called it homesickness, this feeling of mine, but I knew that couldn't be right because I felt it even when I was home.

Speaker 6 All I knew was that I felt defective and broken, and I secretly worried that I was crazy.

Speaker 6 I didn't anticipate

Speaker 6 that the dread would grow as I grew and that I would bring it with me from childhood into adulthood. But that's exactly what happened.

Speaker 6 The year is 1995. I'm 25 years old.
I live in a small apartment with a shower in the kitchen. Elena Smorissette is my generation's current soundtrack.

Speaker 6 I haven't left the apartment in three weeks. I don't have a job, so that's not a problem.
I don't leave the house to see friends or go to bars or do anything a 25-year-old should do.

Speaker 6 When When I get hungry, I order in, but I don't get hungry because I'm thinking of killing myself.

Speaker 6 You see,

Speaker 6 now I'm an adult, but instead of my mother being the central thing around which my dread has organized itself, it's my apartment. My apartment has become my mother.

Speaker 6 Only now just the thought of leaving sends me to the bathroom to throw up. I worry that any small movement will set me off, so I stay as still as I possibly can.

Speaker 6 But then I worry that I'm running out of air, so I race to the window and I open it, but as soon as I stick my head out, I can feel the dread in the wind rushing towards my face, trying to murder me.

Speaker 6 And I slam the window down and I race back to the bathroom to throw up.

Speaker 6 But this doesn't stop me from worrying that I'm running out of air. So every now and then I check.

Speaker 6 I open the apartment door, I take a couple of steps out, but nope, nope, nope, I can feel that black cloth of dread wanting to drop over my head and pull me to a grave and bury me alive in cement.

Speaker 6 And I race back to my apartment and I always end up throwing up in the bathroom.

Speaker 6 I can't even have friends over because I'm so afraid they'll breathe all the available air and I'll die from socializing.

Speaker 6 I want a big life.

Speaker 6 I want to perform and be on stage. I want to write books and do readings from them.
I want to host dinner parties and actually attend them.

Speaker 6 But how can I do any of this when I can't even be around people?

Speaker 6 The only way out, the only thing I can figure to do

Speaker 6 is just just to end my life. It just makes the most logical sense.

Speaker 6 But before I do that,

Speaker 6 I need to know the name of the thing that wants me to kill myself, and I know the person who knows that is my mother.

Speaker 6 I know that my mother has been keeping a secret from me.

Speaker 6 I know that she believes and knows that I'm crazy.

Speaker 6 But she somehow managed to keep it from me, to tell all my friends and boyfriends and teachers, and she managed to tell everybody in my life that I would ever meet to keep this fact from me, to humor me.

Speaker 6 But I need to know. I need to know the name of this thing that wants me dead.
So I call my mom.

Speaker 6 I tell her that I'm not doing well.

Speaker 6 And I tell her that I need to know what's wrong with me. I need to know its name.
And she says she doesn't know.

Speaker 6 And no one knows. And I tell her, it's okay.

Speaker 6 I'm prepared. I'm ready.
I'm actually calling you for this information. I need it.
I'm ready. Give it to me.
Tell me I'm crazy. But she won't do it.
She denies it.

Speaker 6 She tells me that if I were crazy, she'd tell me. Totally don't believe that, but she says it.

Speaker 6 Anyway, she

Speaker 6 She doesn't like the way that I sound, so she tells me to, she tells me she's going to call a cab and I should take it and come over to her house, which is five blocks away.

Speaker 6 Now,

Speaker 6 the only thing that could actually get me out of my apartment would be the promise of being close to my mom.

Speaker 6 We're not even, you know, we don't even really get along that well at this point, but the umbilical cord between us has never been cut.

Speaker 6 So being near her,

Speaker 6 I feel

Speaker 6 will just be the thing to get me out of my house. So I race down the hall and down the stairs and into this cab.

Speaker 6 And the second that I shut the door, I look at the lock on the cab and I put my fingers in a V and I put them on either side of the lock because

Speaker 6 I want to be ready for when the cab driver depresses the lock because he's going to kidnap and murder me. But I'll be fast and I can flick the lock back up and race out of the cab.

Speaker 6 Now,

Speaker 6 even in my suicidal despair, I can see how absurd this is. Because here I am wanting to kill myself, but I'm afraid this guy's going to do it for me.
Like, wouldn't I want him to kill me?

Speaker 6 But the truth is, I don't want to die. I just don't want to feel like this anymore.

Speaker 6 If only

Speaker 6 I could feel differently.

Speaker 6 If only I could not be filled with dread all the time. If only I could feel relief.

Speaker 6 And in that moment,

Speaker 6 my body somehow calls up the feeling that I want and I can feel it across my chest and it is so delicious. It's so perfectly perfect.

Speaker 6 It gives me a third option.

Speaker 6 Because the truth is,

Speaker 6 It's not the absence of feeling that I want.

Speaker 6 It's the presence of relief that I long for.

Speaker 6 And I know that the only way to feel this feeling, to fill my body with it, is to conquer my fear. And the only way to conquer my fear is to face it.

Speaker 6 And I understand in the back of that cab that the thing that is hardest for everyone in the world to do, which is to face your fear,

Speaker 6 actually

Speaker 6 feels easier and less exhausting to me than continuing to live my life the way that I've been living it.

Speaker 6 And so that's it. That's what I decide.
I am going to live my life facing my fears because I cannot continue to live my life beholden to all my terror.

Speaker 6 We pull up in front of my childhood home and I remove my fingers from the lock and I race inside. the promise of being close to my mom.

Speaker 6 The next morning, my mom sends me to her therapist, and I find myself sitting in front of him, and he asks me for all my symptoms, and I tell him.

Speaker 6 He asks me, how many weeks I've been feeling this way, and I say, I don't do that kind of math. I've been feeling this way a thousand weeks, I don't know, since I was a baby.

Speaker 6 And he's shocked that I've gone this long without being diagnosed or treated. And he tells me that the name of my condition is a panic disorder.

Speaker 6 Only my panic disorder grew up, got married, and had babies. And now my body is home to five or six different anxiety disorders and clinical depression.

Speaker 6 He puts me on medication, I start seeing a therapist, and I slowly get better and better and better.

Speaker 6 My 25-year-old self was right.

Speaker 6 Facing my fears is easier than avoiding them. Avoiding them gave my fears power, but facing them gives me power.
Now I can get into a cab and not be afraid he's going to kidnap me.

Speaker 6 I can write books and do readings from them. I can have dinner parties and actually attend them.
I can be afraid.

Speaker 6 and do it anyway because I know that facing my fears won't kill me, but running from them almost did.

Speaker 6 Thank you.

Speaker 5 Amanda Stern is the author of the novel The Long Haul, the memoir Little Panic, and 11 books for kids written under pseudonyms.

Speaker 5 Amanda is working on her next book and can be found on Facebook's Bulletin, where she has a newsletter called How to Live.

Speaker 5 Coming up, a man's repressed feelings cause physical problems in his body. An anxious bride introduces her fiancé to her Armenian traditions, and a stressed-out new mom struggles to cope.

Speaker 5 That's when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

Speaker 9 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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Speaker 1 The moth is supported by AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca is committed to spreading awareness of a condition called hereditary transthyroidin-mediated amyloidosis, or HATTR.

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Speaker 5 This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Catherine Burns.
In this hour, we're hearing about times we put our heads in the sand and try to hide from life, even though that doesn't work.

Speaker 5 Now we're going to hear from three people we met in our Story Slam competitions starting in New York City where WNYC is a media partner of the Moth. Here's Tim Manley.

Speaker 11 It was a spring night in 2008 and I'm lying underneath the covers next to my best friend Ben.

Speaker 11 This had become kind of normal for the past few months that we slept next to each other with this like one foot space between us.

Speaker 11 We were pioneers of a new masculinity.

Speaker 11 Comfortable expressing our platonic care for each other. No concern for homophobic social norms.

Speaker 11 And I was totally in love with him.

Speaker 11 Not like a friend love, but like a love like when I like felt alone, I thought about Ben and it made everything

Speaker 11 And I decided that tonight was the night I was going to tell him. And he's lying next to me, but he's facing the other way.
So all I can see is the street light on the curve of his shoulder.

Speaker 11 And I start to say something, but the words stop in my throat. And so I reach out my hand, but no matter how much I will it, I can't move my hand closer to him.
And I can feel the words inside of me.

Speaker 11 They're like physical objects that are like all piled up and like pressing against me, but I can't say them and my body is immobile.

Speaker 11 In the morning, go to bed, wake up, Ben makes us some granola and yogurt, and I sit at the kitchen table silently.

Speaker 11 And underneath the table, I'm massaging my own hands because when I woke up, I had these weird tender nodules like on my palm and in between my fingers.

Speaker 11 These like red bumps that hurt when I pressed them, but I kept pressing them.

Speaker 11 And when I went home, I had to lie down in my bed because my legs hurt so bad.

Speaker 11 When I lie down, I look at them, my legs were all swollen and they had these red splotches on them, and on my thighs were those like bumps again.

Speaker 11 My roommate came in, and she said that the bumps were my emotions trapped inside of me.

Speaker 11 And if I could just learn how to say the things that were stuck inside of me, my body would show that.

Speaker 11 My rheumatologist felt otherwise.

Speaker 11 She like, you know, felt around a lot of my arms, she cut out a big chunk of my leg, and she, not a big, a little chunk, a little piece of my leg, I should clarify.

Speaker 11 And it wasn't that crazy. And she explained that

Speaker 11 the skin tells you a lot about what's going on beneath it, that it's sort of like the communicator between the inside of your body and the outside world.

Speaker 11 She also told me that I had this rare thing called cutaneous polyarteritis nodoza.

Speaker 11 Right? Totally.

Speaker 11 Seeing the BuzzFeed article about it.

Speaker 11 It's an inflammation of the blood vessels, but only in the skin.

Speaker 11 And she said that I'm actually, I was actually very lucky that it was only in the skin because if it moved to my internal organs, which sometimes it did, it was often fatal.

Speaker 11 And I asked her, how often does that happen? And she replied very casually, oh, there's not enough research.

Speaker 12 I'm like, all right, well.

Speaker 11 And

Speaker 11 she gave me a prescription for a medication that's usually used to treat gout in the elderly.

Speaker 11 On my way home, I passed by the drugstore, and for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to go in and get it filled.

Speaker 11 Instead, I went home and I worked for a long time on an email to Ben, which of course I couldn't send when I was done. All the words seemed cliche, all the sentences started with, I feel like

Speaker 11 that's a lot,

Speaker 12 and

Speaker 11 I needed instead sort of like a more, a more, like an email wasn't right. So what I did then I opened up the drawer next to my bed and I took out a black pen and I wrote on my hand, Ben.

Speaker 11 And the ink shimmered for like a heartbeat and then it dried.

Speaker 11 And I continued to write a message to him. I wrote,

Speaker 11 Ben, when I feel stuck or when I feel frozen by my fears and by my doubts, I think of your face and you're telling me yes.

Speaker 11 I took a photo of it with the camera on my laptop, but I couldn't email him the picture because it felt like it'd be too vulnerable.

Speaker 11 And it wasn't just Ben that I had these things inside of me that I needed to say to them. You know, there was also like my brothers and my sisters and my mother and my father and my stepmother.

Speaker 11 There were so many people in my life who had so many things to say to. And so I decided that I would write a message to someone in my life every night on my hand.

Speaker 11 And I took a photo of it every night and I started a blog called I Need You to Know How Much I Love You.

Speaker 11 I didn't tell anyone about it.

Speaker 11 And every night I'd write in my hand and I'd post the photo and in the morning I'd wake up with like phrases like tattooed on my face backwards and they'd become righted in the bathroom mirror. Like,

Speaker 11 I don't know, but, or I wish I could, or you are so,

Speaker 11 and I was taking those things that were trapped inside of me and I was communicating them to the outside.

Speaker 11 And as I started to do this, um,

Speaker 11 I did it for like a well, as I did it for months, the stuff on my arms and my legs totally cleared up.

Speaker 11 I was also like exercising more and eating better and drinking more water, and I started wearing these like knee-high anti-embolism compression stockings that grandmas wear, but it was definitely all about letting the feelings out.

Speaker 12 And so

Speaker 11 once my body looked good, I knew I could call Ben. And I called him from the window of my bedroom and I told him, Ben, I have this idea about me and you.

Speaker 11 It comes to me the way that ideas for drawings come to me. Me and you swapping t-shirts, me and you holding hands, me and you like brothers.

Speaker 11 And he said to me, Tim, I think you know, and I did know, and it felt so good. And he said, I think you know that I'm only attracted to women.

Speaker 11 And that's how I was so sad in a way because I knew I just lost the thing that made me feel less alone.

Speaker 11 But also, my body felt so good because I'd learned how to take this stuff that was inside of me and I put it outside of me. And in the process, I'd transformed who I was on the outside and the inside.

Speaker 11 And then that night, I wrote on my hand, Ben,

Speaker 11 thank you for helping me become the person I wished I could be.

Speaker 11 Thank you.

Speaker 5 That was Tim Manley. He's the creator of the Emmy-nominated web series The Feels, a show about a bi guy with way too many emotions.
You can watch it on YouTube.

Speaker 5 His friend Ben is an artist living in Los Angeles, and I'm happy to report that Tim and Ben are still best friends. Tim says he's very happy to be an instructor in the Moths Education Program.

Speaker 5 Tim, we're so so grateful to have you.

Speaker 5 Now we're going to hear a story from a New York City Grand Slam, again for our media partner is WNYC.

Speaker 5 I think many brides will agree that planning a big wedding is an anxiety-ridden affair, especially when you add intense cultural differences and expectations into the mix.

Speaker 5 Speaking to that is Anush Frunjan, Live at the Moth.

Speaker 8 It's one thing to tell someone that you're Armenian. It's a completely different thing to explain to them just how Armenian you are.

Speaker 8 Because there are levels.

Speaker 8 First level Armenian is: hey, I'm Armenian. My last name ends with an IAN.
Yay!

Speaker 8 Second level is, hey, I'm Armenian. Are you going to the church picnic? I'm going to the church picnic.
Okay, great. We'll see you at the church picnic.

Speaker 8 Third level is, sir dud guide dare, mika baitari, asking parabans. La la la la la la.
So, and it's important to know where you are and all of that,

Speaker 8 whether you're by yourself or whether you're around other Armenians or whether you've been proposed to by the man of your dreams who is not Armenian.

Speaker 8 How do you explain this to someone from Baton Rouge, Louisiana?

Speaker 8 And let me just say, Justin knew I was Armenian from the start.

Speaker 8 He knew from the beginning that I went to an Armenian day school, that I spoke a different language, and that I'd sometimes go to social events where people would spontaneously grab pinkies and whip handkerchiefs in the air.

Speaker 8 But there's more.

Speaker 8 If you walked into Holy Martyrs Armenian Day School, which is a school that my grandmother founded, and pulled little Anushrinchan aside and said, one day you're going to marry a normal man with a normal last name and like in a real American last name, like the kind that starts with an M and a C and who knows how to do normal things like play pool and play poker and who understands American football, she would have said, gente sinces which means which means what are you crazy

Speaker 8 because I still knew even at a young age that there is a big world out there full of people with names like Lindsay and and and

Speaker 8 and who and who and full of people who who who didn't care that Cher was Armenian and and and

Speaker 8 And I knew that I had to keep this all a secret, you know, in order to be safe, you know. So,

Speaker 8 but as the wedding got closer and closer, I had to start coming to terms with a couple of things and admitting some things to myself, like, I don't think I can get married in a converted barn. I

Speaker 8 need to get married at Holy Martyrs in Bayside, New York with a peace priest with a beard and a nose who's going to put gold crowns on our heads and where the best man will hold a cross over us and where we'll exit the church to the sound of celebratory Armenian hymns with the accompaniment of cymbals, which is offered as an option.

Speaker 8 in addition and after which our family will dance in circles for hours and hours and hours and when I and I when I told asked Justin his reaction was sure

Speaker 8 yeah just let me know where I gotta be because

Speaker 8 because he's kind and decent, but he also didn't know what he was getting himself into. I mean,

Speaker 8 this is the Armenian church we're talking about here. It's old-fashioned, it's sexist,

Speaker 8 and it's Christian, but like the old kind of Christian, like the kind that's dark and smoky and all the men have beards like Frank Zappa. And

Speaker 8 when they hold that little cross out to you, you're going to have to kiss that thing.

Speaker 8 And

Speaker 8 he says, what,

Speaker 8 am I going to have to get baptized for this?

Speaker 8 And I said, no, no, God, he's scared already. I said, no, no.

Speaker 8 No, because you've probably been baptized before, right? And he said, I don't think so.

Speaker 8 And he says, because his family, religion wasn't a part of his childhood.

Speaker 8 I mean, the first first big tradition that his family celebrates is the one that he created, which is the annual pool tournament.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 8 he pulls out his phone and says, I know, I'll text my mom. So he texts his mom and says, hey, mom, quick question.
Was I ever baptized? And she responds, no, you're a heathen. So

Speaker 8 we get on the train to meet with Father Melchasian at Holy Martyrs, whose first reaction to Justin is, you're not Armenian? Oh my God. Oh, because Justin looks really Armenian.

Speaker 8 I mean, he's got the eyebrows and the the face and more handkerchiefs than God.

Speaker 8 But the questions get more and more intense. Like,

Speaker 8 do you believe in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? And then, do you know that the Armenians were the first people to accept Christianity?

Speaker 8 Then whipping out names like Saint Gregory the Illuminator and Vartan Momigoni, and I'm going, slow down too fast, too fast.

Speaker 8 And we eventually plan for an April 14th baptism in addition to several one-on-one sessions that Justin will meet with the priest for to prepare for the event. And on the ride home, it's quiet and

Speaker 8 I feel this shame and embarrassment. But what I'm afraid of, what I'm really afraid of, no, what I need is for him to not find this whole thing ridiculous.

Speaker 8 Because this Armenian thing, it's pretty goofy.

Speaker 8 But it's mine.

Speaker 8 And it's really important that I not be laughed at right now.

Speaker 8 And out of nowhere he says, you know what, I like talking talking to the father.

Speaker 8 And he goes, look, I just want to marry you. If I have to renounce Satan for that, fine.

Speaker 8 I'll walk over hot coals. I don't give a fuck.
Which is all I or any Armenian bride could ever hope for. Thank you.

Speaker 5 That was Anoush Prunjan. She draws cartoons for Anoush Talks to Stuff, her webcomic about a girl who talks to inanimate objects.

Speaker 5 Anush and Justin currently live in a house in Connecticut next door to her parents.

Speaker 5 To see a picture of Justin's baptism and of the two of them wearing their glittering wedding crowns at the big event, go to themoth.org.

Speaker 5 We're going to turn now to our Los Angeles Story Slams, where we partner with KCRW.

Speaker 5 Here's Cheryl Murphyn live at the moth.

Speaker 2 I work with new parents, brand spanking new parents who are very tired. And are there any new parents out here or parents in general who've gone through this?

Speaker 2 You know what I mean.

Speaker 2 When you have a new baby,

Speaker 2 it's a form of insanity.

Speaker 2 You're up all night, you're tired, your boobs leak,

Speaker 2 if you're the mom.

Speaker 2 And so one of the benefits of my job, or one of the things that happens with my job, is I'll often get calls or texts from new parents. Usually, it's a new mom,

Speaker 2 and she'll tell me some catastrophic thing that has happened.

Speaker 2 Oh my god, I forgot to change the baby's diaper in the middle of the night, and she probably has a diaper rash, or oh my god, the baby fell off the bed,

Speaker 2 or

Speaker 2 the most recent one I got yesterday was: the baby is looking at me skeptically.

Speaker 2 And so every time this happens,

Speaker 2 I get to reassure the new parents, you know, you are the best mom this baby ever had,

Speaker 2 which is true, and that makes them feel better.

Speaker 2 And then I'll follow up with

Speaker 2 a story. And I'll say, you know what, I'm going to tell you something that's going to make you feel really good about your parenting, because you really are the best parent your baby ever had.

Speaker 2 And I tell them a story about when I had my baby 22, 23 years ago, I was one of those very tired moms and I didn't listen to my midwife when she told me I should stay in bed with my baby for a week and not do anything else.

Speaker 2 I should not get up. I should not go shopping or anything like that.
I decided that on the fourth day after my baby was born that I needed to go grocery shopping.

Speaker 2 Even though my mother was there and she'd gone grocery shopping and she'd rearranged my linens and the closets and everything, I decided I needed to go grocery shopping. Now,

Speaker 2 as somebody who's in the birth field, I know that it was my hormones going up and down that caused me to want to go shopping.

Speaker 2 But I did. I packed my baby up in the car seat and I put her in the car.
And we drove off to the grocery store. And we went through the grocery store aisles and everybody oohed and awed at the baby.

Speaker 2 And I thought that was great. And we got through the

Speaker 2 checkout line and back out into the parking lot and I put all the groceries into the car and I drove off and I put on some music and about 10 minutes later I realized the baby wasn't in the car.

Speaker 2 So you can imagine with a little bit of panic

Speaker 2 I did an illegal U-turn over four lanes of traffic and gunned it back to the parking lot and I actually left when I looked there were tire marks because I came screeching around into the parking lot and I came to a stop and I just looked out of the window of my car.

Speaker 2 I'm hysterical.

Speaker 2 There's a circle of people all around. I can't see the baby, but there's a circle of people.

Speaker 2 I get out of the car and I'm shaking and I'm crying and I walk over to the circle and it kind of breaks open and there's the baby looking happy as a clam in her little car seat, you know, googling up and standing over her is a rather large elderly police officer.

Speaker 2 And I thought, oh my God, I'm going to be taken away. I'm going to be arrested.
She's going to call CPS.

Speaker 2 She looked at me and she said,

Speaker 2 is this your first baby? And I said,

Speaker 2 and so she walked over to me and she picked up the baby carrier and she walked over to me, the police officer, and she put the baby carrier in my hand and she said, I'm going to walk you to your car.

Speaker 2 And she walked me to my car. She made sure that the car seat was adjusted right in the car.

Speaker 2 And then she said, I'm going to follow you home. And I said, okay.
So she followed me home and I'm hysterical. I drew very slowly, very slowly, all the way home.
We got home.

Speaker 2 She came into the house and made sure that it was my home and there was a place for the baby.

Speaker 2 I walked down to

Speaker 2 the door and I was terrified she was going to call CPS. And then I was terrified about what I was going to say to my husband.
And she took my hand. And I think she was...

Speaker 2 She must have been

Speaker 2 maybe 60. She looked like she was close to retirement.
She took my hand at the door and she said, I want you to know I'm not going to call CPS and I'm not going to call your husband.

Speaker 2 And I broke down in tears and I said, oh, thank you so much. Is there anything I can do? Can I call your commanding officer and just say thank you? She said, no, I don't think that's a good idea.

Speaker 2 She said, but there's something that you can do. You know, someday you're going to run into, you're going to meet another parent or another young mom who's having a really hard day.

Speaker 2 And you're going to be able to tell that person they're really doing okay, that you know what, that worse things could happen, because you're going to be able to tell them that you have won the worst mother in the world award.

Speaker 2 And so I get to share that story with every new parent that texts me about her baby rolling off onto the bed or all these things.

Speaker 2 And then I get to follow up and tell them that babies are resilient and new parents are resilient and

Speaker 2 that they're going to be just fine. So thank you.

Speaker 5 Cheryl Murphy lives in Seattle, Washington, where she writes and edits for Seattle's Child magazine.

Speaker 5 She told us, Despite the incident, I went on to start Nesting Instinct's Parinatal Services, providing birth and postpartum doula support, childbirth and new family education, and other services to clueless people like I once was.

Speaker 5 Cheryl tells us that both her kids live to grow into happy, healthy adults. In fact, the baby in the story was in attendance the night she told this story.

Speaker 5 Coming up, a young man finds the courage to ask about a painful time in his family history. That's when the Moth Radio Hour continues.

Speaker 9 The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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Speaker 14 What's up, world? It's Von Miller, Super Bowl MVP, chicken farmer, and now host of Free Range. This is a show where I go off the field and off the script.

Speaker 14 We're talking what's hot in music, film, trending news, and everything blowing up your feet. If you love football, you'll feel at home.

Speaker 14 But if you're here for the vibes, the internet deep dives, the conversation, this is your podcast. Join me every Wednesday.

Speaker 14 Follow and listen to Free Range with me, Von Miller, everywhere you get your podcast.

Speaker 5 This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Catherine Burns.
In this hour, we've been hearing stories about things we're afraid to face.

Speaker 5 There's been a lot of discussion in recent years about how trauma is something that can be passed down from one generation to the next through our physical bodies.

Speaker 5 Our last storyteller has told many slam-winning stories at the Moth, and this was his main stage debut. The show took place outdoors at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Speaker 5 This was in September of 2020, so except for a a handful of staff, the vast majority of the audience were watching from home. You also may hear the occasional plane fly by.

Speaker 5 Here's Devin Sandeford live at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

Speaker 12 It was in the craziness of events in June that I made the decision. I'm sitting in my apartment in Brooklyn, New York.
There's a global pandemic. I'm at home.

Speaker 12 I just finished a late night of work after helping my five and eight-year-old sons with their remote learning.

Speaker 12 And now is when I've made the decision decision to do the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life.

Speaker 12 Call my mom.

Speaker 12 See, it's kind of weird being a 35-year-old who's afraid to call his mom, but I'm the youngest of three in my family, and I kind of just took on the role of the peacemaker in my family.

Speaker 12 So whenever my brother and sister would start arguing, I would try and find ways to joke and make everybody back to being peaceful and happy.

Speaker 12 And anytime my brother wasn't being a good listener, I made sure to always listen to my parents and pick up things around the house because I just wanted to bring everybody peace and happiness.

Speaker 12 But I'm afraid to talk to my mom on this particular night in my apartment because I know the conversation I have to have with her is not going to bring any peace. It's only going to bring pain.

Speaker 12 Because I have to talk to her about

Speaker 12 her brother that died when I was little. I don't really know this story because no one's ever told me.

Speaker 12 But I've pieced together little pieces and what I know is that when I was six years old, my mom's brother was shot and killed on the front lawn of my grandparents' home by the police.

Speaker 12 And I can't really blame my mom for never telling me this story because I know it's really painful.

Speaker 12 And I have a lot of painful memories and painful moments from my life that I've never shared with her. So I can't really blame her.

Speaker 12 And there's especially this one painful moment that I have that I never really shared with her. And it happened when I was 21 years old.

Speaker 12 When I was 21 years old, I transferred to a new university in Southern California where I'm from. And the university was out along the coast in Long Beach.

Speaker 12 And I had this roommate situation set up, but my roommate kind of just fell through. And even though I was working 35 hours a week, I didn't have a way to pay for my own place out in Long Beach.

Speaker 12 So I had to drive all the way from my parents' place, which is an hour and a half away if there's no traffic. And in Southern California, there is always traffic.

Speaker 12 So I had to wake up from my parents' house and get out of the house by like 4.30 or 5 o'clock.

Speaker 12 If I left my parents' house even one minute after 5 o'clock, I'd be sitting in like three hours of traffic. And this was like my daily commute.
I would drive to work.

Speaker 12 I would sleep in my car for a little bit. I'd work for a few hours and then I'd go to school where I was double majoring in biomedical and electrical engineering.

Speaker 12 And then after my late night engineering classes would end, I would usually stop by the gas station, grab myself an energy drink, and these nutter butter bars, which were just delicious.

Speaker 12 And that's the only way I could get home. I would just be way too tired.
And I was doing this for a long time. And I decided to tell my parents that I was staying with a friend.

Speaker 12 But I started sleeping in my car next to my work.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 12 just in this random parking lot, it wasn't so bad, though.

Speaker 12 I could, you know, park there in a little secluded area. And the only things I would have to worry about really are the bugs getting in and biting me.

Speaker 12 I'd have to worry about rolling up the windows so that people wouldn't know that I'm there and rolling down the windows so it wouldn't get all fogged up.

Speaker 13 And that's kind of what I did.

Speaker 12 And my parents didn't know that I was doing this, but they knew that it was starting to get taxing to drive, so they decided that they wanted to get me a hotel.

Speaker 12 And the first night I sat at the hotel, it was just wonderful. I had this big room to myself and a bed to myself, and I could watch ESPN until I fell asleep and ESPN would just watch me.

Speaker 12 It was just great. But my parents raised me and my siblings to be responsible and independent.

Speaker 12 And I didn't like to just use my parents' money, so sometimes I preferred to just sleep in my car still and not tell them.

Speaker 12 And I would do that, especially on nights when I knew that I would have a long day at school. I would do it.
But every once in a while, I would treat myself to the hotel.

Speaker 12 And on one night after my late-night engineering classes, I left the school at around 10, 10.30, and I pulled into the hotel parking lot.

Speaker 12 And to my surprise, I saw a parking spot right by the door of the hotel entrance, and I passed it.

Speaker 12 And I wanted to back up and get into this spot, and I see a car coming from the back, and I slowly back back into the parking spot and I grab my backpack and I step out of the car.

Speaker 12 And as I step out, I see the car rolls up and it's actually a police car.

Speaker 12 And the police officer flips on the lights and steps out and asks me for my license and registration. And I'm like, that's a little weird.
Like he came from the other direction.

Speaker 12 I know this can't be traffic related. And there's been several times where I've been stopped by the cops before for nothing, so I know exactly what he's doing.

Speaker 12 When he tells me to sit on the curb, I know it's a routine racial profiling stop. He's going to take my information.
He's going to check it against his database.

Speaker 12 He's going to come back when he finds out that I have nothing on it. And he's going to give me my stuff and let me go.

Speaker 12 And as I'm sitting on the curb there, waiting, I hear these tires rolling into the

Speaker 12 parking lot. And I think to myself, oh my gosh, how embarrassing.
Like another guest is going to come in, and they're going to see me here, and they're going to think I'm a criminal.

Speaker 12 And I look over my shoulder, and I see it's not another guest. It's another cop.

Speaker 12 And this cop car pulls up and it shines its lights directly on me, and two officers step out and stand behind the door. And now I'm like a little worried, like what's going on?

Speaker 12 I've never even had a speeding ticket before. I've never had any traffic tickets.
I come from a really really religious family. So I actually have never had alcohol even though I'm 21 years old.

Speaker 12 So I'm like, I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 12 Before I can process this, I see the lights of another car coming in and it's another police car and it pulls up behind me and it's shining its lights on me and another officer gets out.

Speaker 12 And finally the first officer comes back and he's asking me all these questions. He wants to know where am I coming from and what am I doing here? And then he asked me if he can search my car.

Speaker 12 And I pause for a second because I know my rights and I know I can tell him no, but as a black person, I also know that that could make me look more suspicious that I'm hiding something.

Speaker 12 I'm not hiding anything. So I tell him, sure, you can search my car.
And he begins to search my car and he looks all the way through with his flashlight.

Speaker 12 And when he finishes, he asked me if he can search my trunk. And

Speaker 12 I think to myself, no, like, don't search my trunk. Like, I haven't done anything.

Speaker 12 And as I'm thinking this, I see another police car pull up. And now there's four police cars and six officers all surrounding me as I'm sitting on the curb.
And I feel like the scum of the earth.

Speaker 12 And I tell him he can search the trunk, and he searches through the trunk.

Speaker 12 And he eventually goes back to his police car, and I'm just sitting there. And I'm so frustrated because I had been doing everything I was supposed to be doing in my life.

Speaker 12 I was double majoring in biomedical and electrical engineering. I was working 35 hours a week to put myself through school.

Speaker 12 And I was even thinking about my parents' money and easing their minds to not have to do these long drives. And still I'm sitting here on the curb surrounded by cops like I'm a criminal.

Speaker 12 And finally the officer comes back. and he hands me my license and registration and he says, you're good to go.

Speaker 12 I just, somebody called about about a suspicious person, and when I saw you park your car, I thought you might be trying to get away from me, which makes perfect sense because usually when people are trying to get away, they take their time to back their cars into a parking spot and step out slowly and wait for you.

Speaker 12 That's how you get away.

Speaker 12 And I know it's complete, a complete lie.

Speaker 12 And what strikes me in that moment is it doesn't matter if it's a lie or not, that this police officer is in a position of power and he can say anything he wants, and I can only just sit there and take it.

Speaker 12 And I'm so ashamed that I just sit there, and I don't fight back, and I don't resist, but I also don't want to

Speaker 12 end up dead.

Speaker 12 And as I'm sitting there, I think about my uncle, and I visualize what I've always thought about, even not knowing the story, that his face is face down on the ground, dead somewhere.

Speaker 12 And I just say, whatever. I got to get back into the hotel and just let go of this.

Speaker 12 And as I'm walking away, he looks, the police officer looks at me and says, you know, you had that nutter butter in there. It looked like you had a really great dinner.

Speaker 12 And this really throws me off because he laughs to himself. And I'm like, this was a joke to him.
And this is not a joke to me.

Speaker 12 And I walk inside the hotel and all the people who know me from the days before, they're like, oh my goodness, I can't believe that happened to you. Like, are you okay? Like, can we report this?

Speaker 12 Like, what should we do? And I tell them, no, I don't want to report it. I just want to get to my room and I want to get in my bed and hide and pretend like this never happened.

Speaker 12 And so that's what I do. For my whole life, I pretend like this didn't happen and I don't tell anyone.
I tell my parents just small details.

Speaker 12 But every time another black man comes into the news with a death, I picture myself on that curb and I picture my uncle and I know that I have a lot of pain and so I want to call my mom and find out what has happened to my uncle.

Speaker 12 So I finally get the phone in my apartment and I call her.

Speaker 12 And as I get a hold of her, we talk and I tell her about all these dehumanizing moments in my life, and I open up to her, and I tell her all the pain that I have, and I ask her, finally ask her, to tell me about her brother and what happened.

Speaker 12 And she tells me about his life, them growing up, and she tells me about the dress that she was wearing.

Speaker 12 She was wearing this red dress on the day, and my uncle was kind of going a little crazy, and the cops had gotten called. and they had calmed him down.

Speaker 12 But when he walked outside, the cops were out there with their guns drawn all around him. And my dad was there saying, don't shoot, don't shoot, don't shoot.
And they shot him anyway

Speaker 12 and said that he had a weapon on him. But when they searched, they didn't find one.

Speaker 12 And as my mom tells me this story, she's getting a little emotional.

Speaker 12 But it's not until she gets to the part where she's talking about my grandma and how my grandma used to always just retell this story anytime a visitor would come over to the house.

Speaker 12 And every time my grandma told the story, my mom had to relive the moment all over again.

Speaker 12 And for the first time in my life, I'm seeing tears fill into my mom's eyes. And I can just feel her pain.
And I feel so bad that I've brought her this pain.

Speaker 12 And I thought I was supposed to be the peacemaker, but all I have done here is bring her this pain. But I know that I had to do this.

Speaker 12 Because I know there's so much pain inside of me and I haven't been able to give my heart to the people that I love and to bring peace to anyone from the pieces of my broken heart.

Speaker 12 And as my mom continues to tell me more things, we talk for three hours.

Speaker 12 I realized that what I'm really looking for was a connection to my mom and to break the silence that I've been holding on to and to break the generational trauma that my family has gone through before it passes on to my sons.

Speaker 12 And now all I can do is hope for healing as I continue to share my story and to share about the things, the pains from my life.

Speaker 12 And I think that begins as I speak my uncle's name for the first time. My uncle's name was Roland Edwards,

Speaker 12 but I called him Uncle Ron.

Speaker 12 Thank you.

Speaker 5 That was Devin Sandaford. Devin is a writer, storyteller, and workshop facilitator who lives in Brooklyn.

Speaker 5 His stories have been featured in The Washington Post, Speak Up Storytelling, and many other places.

Speaker 5 Devin is also the founder of Unrealing Storytelling, a Brooklyn-based community providing a platform for the repressed perspectives of people of color, women, and anyone who has felt pushed to the margins.

Speaker 5 After Devin talked to his mom, he realized that the day he had randomly decided to call her was the anniversary of his uncle's death.

Speaker 5 Devin is working on his memoir, which he says is about how he lost his humanity and his voice until he learned to dance with the skeletons in his closet.

Speaker 5 He and I recently sat down to talk about why he finally felt compelled to tell this story and what's happened since.

Speaker 13 In terms of starting to share these stories that aren't just hard for me, but I see them as ways in which I could cause pain to my family.

Speaker 13 I don't want them to have to relive these moments. It's very difficult for me to have done that, but also to know that I have a reason behind doing it.

Speaker 13 And I realized that how much I had been like hurting my sons.

Speaker 13 I either can hurt my parents and my family, or I will hurt my sons. And I had to make the choice.
And obviously being a parent, it was like, there's no way I'm going to purposely hurt my sons.

Speaker 13 I can't pass them. I can't pass this on to my sons.

Speaker 5 That night,

Speaker 5 something happened at the end of your story, and you mention saying your uncle's name. And so, do you want to talk about what happened up there?

Speaker 13 Yeah, I got to the place where I had planned to say my uncle's name, and I began to say his name and said the wrong name.

Speaker 13 Instead of saying Ronald, I said Roland, and then I like heard myself saying it. And so

Speaker 13 it was done. I didn't feel like I could say, like,

Speaker 13 oh, sorry. I messed it up.
Like, I was just like devastated

Speaker 12 that

Speaker 13 for me, a part of telling the story was like giving my chance, my uncle a chance to like reclaim a bit of his humanity.

Speaker 13 And after talking to my wife and my best friend, it was like very clear that I hadn't just slipped, but that the reason that I had forgotten his name is because

Speaker 13 he wasn't somebody we talked about and I didn't say his name.

Speaker 5 Do you want to say his full name so everyone on the radio can hear it?

Speaker 13 Yeah, my uncle's name is Ronald Edwards. We called him Uncle Ron.

Speaker 12 A lot of people called him Ronnie.

Speaker 5 That was Devin Sandiford. To see photos and videos of Devin and his uncle Ronald Edwards, go to themoth.org.

Speaker 5 That's it for this episode of The Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time.

Speaker 9 This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Catherine Burns, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show.

Speaker 9 Co-producer Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch, additional Grand Slam coaching by Jennifer Hickson.

Speaker 9 The rest of the Moth leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janesse Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Cluche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Gladowski, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Caza.

Speaker 9 Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift.

Speaker 9 Other music in this hour from Stellwagon Symphonet, Chad Lawson, Michael Hedges, Richard Higopian, Blue Dot Sessions, and The Westerlies. You'll find links to all the music we use at our website.

Speaker 9 We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

Speaker 9 Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Rhys-Dennis.

Speaker 9 For more about our podcast, for information on Pitching Us Your Own Story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.

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