Amy Griffin Confronts Her Darkest Secret in “The Tell”

I want you to know this conversation is not intended to offer medical advice.

Psychedelics remain illegal in most states, so I encourage you to consult your own health

care professional before considering any kind of mental health treatment.

Hey, everybody! Guess who this is? Amy Griffin!

Did you see you Chicagoans?

So good.

Say hello to Amy. Say hello to Amy.
Say hello to Amy.

Thank you, Chicago.

I'm excited for you to be able to share this story with the world.

Oprah, when you called, you were in the closet.

I was in the closet. I'd just cut you were in the closet.
I was in the closet.

I'd just gotten out of the bathtub.

I was soaking wet.

Amy, this is Oprah

calling you about the towel.

Oh, my God.

I don't know that anyone ever expects

that Oprah's going to call,

but it was a beautifully,

very validating moment, I will just say. Well, I'm happy for that.
All right, let us begin. You deserve to be validated.
Let us begin. Hi, everybody.
I'm so glad you joined us for Oprah's Book Club, presented by Starbucks. Yay! So I'm in my old Chicago neighborhood at a Starbucks cafe, and for almost 30 years, I lived like three blocks up the street, and I'm in such good company here.
Chicago is truly my kind of town, and you readers are my kind of people, so welcome. Your neighborhood Starbucks store is, I believe, just the perfect place to gather with friends or discuss a good book and enjoy a delicious cup of coffee.
And the pairing for our March book club pick is the anniversary blend, they're calling it. It's a seasonal full flavored coffee with notes of cedary spice and black truffle.
I love some truffle, honey. Me too.
And you can pick up a bag of anniversary blend at your local Starbucks store. Okay, so here is my 112th book club pick.
It is called The Tell. The Tell.
A memoir by Amy Griffin. Amy Griffin is the founder of the investment firm G9 Ventures.
She is a financial visionary supporting female founders of iconic brands like Goop, Bumble, Spanx, and Hello Sunshine. In her new memoir, The Tell, Amy confronts her painful past and unravels a secret she buried deep inside for over three decades, ultimately finding peace and freedom by writing her story.
This conversation contains discussions about child sexual abuse and may be challenging or upsetting for some people. Listener and viewer discretion is advised this is not a subject for young children.
May I say, well done.

The courage it took to put this in writing and to then offer it to the world, you should be very proud of yourself.

And I chose this book because I am so proud of you.

I'm proud of you for having the courage to speak your truth. And I know that your truth is going to liberate so many people.
And you start the book by saying, this is the story, you say, of a secret. A secret kept for decades.
One I had buried so deep, I didn't even know it was there. Many of us carry secrets.
Things that we were told not to reveal or things we simply couldn't for fear of judgment or reprisal or worst of all, for fear that if the people we love found out, they'd see us differently. Sometimes we keep secrets to survive and then a moment arrives when the usefulness of the secret expires, keeping it becomes the thing that hurts us all.
We have to tell. So, what is the secret you've come to tell? Well, first, Oprah, I just want to say I'm so grateful.
I have so much gratitude to be sitting here with you and this audience, because in its simplest form, the book

is about telling. And sometimes it's the hardest thing to do.
It's the hardest thing we do, but

that's what we're doing right here. And that's what the book is.
And I think, you know, the idea

that we think secrets keep us safe, but they keep us stuck. And I really came to understand that.
And make us sick. That's why that phrase, you're as sick as your secrets, is absolutely true.
Only as sick as your secrets. Yes.
And I had so many memories of standing in line at Starbucks when I was actually in the last few years as I was writing this book. And then I was in the process of doing all of this that I was standing in line looking at the cake pops and everything in the background and thinking I'm about to tell someone my story.
Because so many times my story was told over a cup of coffee. And so I have these intense memories of gathering my thoughts as to how I was going to tell someone my story.
And the idea that the secret really, the secrets are really all memories. They're memories that come from the beautiful parts of my book, which is in the writing of my childhood, which I so loved.
I loved writing about doing cartwheels in the field and catching ladybugs in a jar and all these memories that we all have from childhood. And, you know, getting on my banana seat bike and riding off to take all of my friends to the convenience store, which was close to our house, which was the convenience store that happened to be owned by my family, which was our family business and is our family business.
Amy grew up the oldest of four children in Amarillo, Texas, where her family ran a chain of convenience stores called Toot & Totem.

She describes her childhood in the Texas panhandle as free,

but at the same time ruled by order.

This was where I got to be giving.

Toot & Totem.

The Toot & Totem food store.

Because you honk your horn and toot, and then they tote it out.

That's right.

Okay.

That's right.

Yeah.

And, you know, that was where I, in the beginning of my life,

I think that's right. Okay.
That's right. Yeah.
And, you know, that was where I, in the beginning of my life, I got to be giving. I got to be loving.
I got to bring my friends and say, everybody gets to get a Coke and one candy bar and that's it. And then I went in and the memories of childhood that I talk about in part of the book that are very difficult, that are childhood memories about deep childhood trauma that I've had to trust in myself to accept and to write about those too, along with the memories that were so beautiful.
And then I went about this crazy criminal investigation, which you can read about, which talks about the secrets. And can you articulate for the people who, everybody here has read the book and they have questions, but there are millions, thank you for being millions, who are watching us who don't know what the secret is.
So can you tell them what is the secret that you discovered? Yes. Well, the secret that I discovered was the idea that I had been for many years abused in a school bathroom by a teacher.
I decided that, you know, if I went in and I criminally investigated this person and I did everything I could to hold this person accountable, that if I could do that, that I would show that I was right and he was wrong. Okay.
So you were abused by your middle school teacher for

multiple years, even into high school, but you did not have a memory of it until much later in life. And we'll talk about how that memory came about.
And once you discovered that memory of it, you wanted to go after him,

because who wouldn't want to do that?

And you were in pursuit of that and realized what? The pursuit was something that I thought that I needed because for many reasons. One, I knew I had to hold this person accountable so that he couldn't hurt anyone else.
But also, I thought the criminal investigation and this pursuit of that would make me whole. It would take everything away from me, and it would prove, like I'd done in so many other areas of my life, to say, I got this person.
Look, I have validation right here that this person has been put away because of my efforts. And at the same time that I'm pursuing this criminal investigation and the ups and downs of all of it that I'm writing about, I realized I'm also really looking inside myself and I'm investigating what I need from this.
But I was running a parallel track at the same time trying to do both. Okay.
You know, you start the book talking about how you're running, first of all, that you're

a great runner.

We can see.

Not anymore.

Not anymore.

Excelling in academics and athletics, Amy earned a scholarship to play volleyball at

the University of Virginia.

After graduation, she moved to New York City, landing a job in marketing for magazines like

Miz and Working Mother.

Before moving on to Sports Illustrated, she continued to be an avid runner, an athlete. We learn in the book that you're running, running, running, running, running all the time, and that, you know, you were an athlete, and that it was one of the central driving forces in your life.
You were literally physically running, but also running from one thing to the next all the time, often having multiple injuries. And at one point, the therapist said to you, what is it your body is trying to tell you? So what is it that happened that absolutely stopped you in your tracks? Well, I look at that conversation with the physical therapist, and I think about the idea that she was talking about just, you know, asking, why do you push yourself so hard? Why now? Why this? Why that? Why can't you slow down? And I look back at it now and I realize I was finally able to hear her, for her to say that to me, that your body is breaking down.
I've had hip surgeries, back surgeries. I mean, every possible injury you could imagine.
And it was this idea that I then turned to myself and hearing her to say, why am I not listening to the physical cues that my body is trying to tell me something? You know, it's so interesting because people who know you, friends of yours who say, you were not just a runner physically, but that you literally, that they literally were like, why do you have to do everything? You need to just sit down. Why can't you just relax? That you were always the person who was doing all the things all the times.
And in your 40s, you describe in the tell how it looked like, certainly to those of us from the outside, that you were living this picture-perfect life. You were married to the love of your life, John, with four healthy children.
Amy fell in love and married her husband, John Griffin, the founder of Blue Ridge Capital, in 2003. Together, they have four children, 20-year-old Jack, 18-year-old Gracie, 15-year-old Gigi, and 12-year-old Julian.
They live in New York City. Hello, Don, amongst all these women here.
Four healthy children. You had a high-powered career funding female founders, and you should have felt on top of the world.
And yet you write, it was like my body knew something that I didn't.

And as the years ticked forward, my body kept telling me to slow down, but you just couldn't.

And you say at another point in the book, it looked like I had the perfect life.

And yet, and yet, and yet, yes.

Can you describe what was happening?

Well, I was never a sit-by-the-pool girl.

I was never a, let's just sit by the pool and hang out. And I've tried to be that, but I just have never been that sit by the pool girl.
But I think I realized, and I started to see these little glimmers of the idea that I had, and realizations that I had built up castles around me. I'd built up these castles in my life with this moat and this drawbridge.
And there were a lot of alligators in that moat. And I was building and building and building.
And it was much easier to always say, look at that person over there. But I think that I started to realize you've been running really hard, really fast for a long time, and you're missing something.
You're not listening to yourself. Okay.
Not only not listening to yourself, this is what's so interesting to me. So you have this picture perfect life and all of your friends think your life is perfect, yet they know that you're the one who's always running around all the time.
And one night you were confronted by your two daughters, which I thought was so powerful. Didn't you love that moment when the daughters say to her, they were young at the time.
I think it was Gigi at the time, 11 years old, right? And tell us what happened. You know, they say your children are your greatest teachers.
Yes. And in this case, and always in the case of my girls, and they're watching going, yeah, I know.
But I have to say that that night I went into Gigi's room and both the girls called me in. And I went in with Gigi and Gracie said, no, Gigi really needs, she needs to tell you something.
And Gigi looked at me at 11 years old and she said, mom, you're there, but you're not really there. Where are you? And I turned into the child and I stormed out of the room I slammed the door and John said what happened in there and I said well I do everything for her I do everything I do all the planning I do all the packing I have her life is perfect because of me and she but she said mom you're really nice you're nice you're not real but you're not real She said, Mom, you're really nice.
You're nice, but you're not real. But you're not real.
She said, Mom, you're nice, but you're not real. And you're not really there.
Where are you? Which I would think, as a mother, would that not just pull you up? That would pull you up, right? I wanted to take that out of the book. Yeah.
But that's not honest. Yeah.
And that was the catalyst. If your children can't be a mirror to you, then who can? And that was a moment.
You could never take that out of the book. That's a main key part of the book.
I could never have taken it out. But as a mother, do you also know how hard it was to say it? But also, when your 11-year-old child says that, and she's with Gracie, who was, what, 13 at the time? When your daughters call you in for a come-to-Jesus meeting about yourself, that has got to stop you in your tracks and make you think, what is going on and what are they seeing or feeling that I'm not? Is that what happened? A hundred percent.
I mean, the parent-child role had been reversed in that moment. And I actually had to stop and listen and say, you know, I have to go figure this out.
I have to understand why she's telling me this. And it could have been the other way around where the door could have stayed slammed and I could have said, no, you're going to just obey me and do what I say.
But I didn't. I didn't.
I leaned in to recognize there was something within myself. I mean- Well, that's pretty powerful.
I got to say, that's pretty powerful for your daughters to do that. John, when she told you that, what'd you think? I said, you need to listen to Gigi.
She's speaking an important truth. And we have talked about as parents, how we try and meet our children where they are.
And this was a good example. Amy went back in there and met her where she was.
Okay, John, let me ask you this. What Gigi and Gracie brought up to their mom? Had you sensed that or felt that too with the running and the running and the running? Had you sensed that? Yeah.
She's much faster I am. And there was a lot of running.
Yeah. And it was running from something that I observed, but I had no idea, you know, what it was or what it could be.
But there was a relentless motion, a relentless. Restlessness.
Restlessness turns towards perfection. Yeah.
Perfectionism. Yeah.
And around this time, I understand that you had started taking psychedelic assisted therapy for your own reasons, correct? And you suggested that it may be helpful to her. Yeah.
And my way of doing that was just for her to meet the person I'd been working with. And it was like the clouds lifted and the sun came up.
It was an immediate connection between Amy and the woman. And that started on her path.
So you were taking psychedelic assistant therapy to help you with whatever was going on with you. And you thought, well, honey, you should try this, right? And what did you think when he first suggested it? Well, for me, I had a little bit of distance from it because everyone in my life knows that I really, for this need for control and perfection, I don't like alcohol and I don't like, I'd never seen illicit drugs.
And this is something that I stay away from. I like to stay in control at all times.
And so the idea that psychedelic assisted therapy, I had read so much about it for veterans and how veterans had used this. I actually also didn't realize that PTSD could refer to anyone other than someone who'd been in combat.
And I think that was maybe me disassociating and away from that because I just couldn't I couldn't understand that. Well, that's how most of us learned what PTSD was.
So I remember when I opened my school in South Africa and, you know, the girls were going through all this. What I thought was like, what is happening? Dr.
Bruce Perry said to me, I think your girls are suffering from PTSD. And I thought I said the same thing.
Well, they haven't been to war. And he goes, poverty is war.

Trauma is war.

And so that's the first time I realized it around 2006, 2007.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's one of the things I've really come to realize too,

even in the writing of this, that trauma is not just what happened to me,

but there are parts of us and all of us that are broken that we go in, if we can go in and just tell them and acknowledge them. I thank you for joining me for Oprah's Book Club

presented by Starbucks. When we come back, Amy Griffin explains everything you may be wondering

about her psychedelic assisted therapy experience, from who was with her to what pill she took and

how long it lasted. She'll go into detail of how it all went down.
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Welcome back to Oprah's Book Club presented by Starbucks. I'm so glad you're here with us.
I'm with author and investor Amy Griffin, whose book, The Tell, is my 112th selection. Amy is talking about her use of psychedelic therapy and how it helped her uncover a traumatic experience from her childhood.
A reminder, this conversation contains discussions about sexual abuse and may be challenging to hear. This is not a subject for young children.
Since we'll be discussing psychedelics, I want you to also know this conversation is not intended to offer any kind of medical advice. Well, the reason why I think the tell is going to have such a profound effect on so many people is because when people live a life like you live, a very elevated, highly exposed to everything possible in the world life, growing up the way you did in Amarillo, riding around with a banana seat bicycle and going to the Tootin' Totem and having everything look and seem to be perfect, except you didn't win Homecoming Queen.
I did not. It's hard to believe that traumatic things happen to you because people think when you have money that you can't have sadness or trauma or difficulties or challenges.
So what happened during your first session with the therapist? And what psychedelic did you use? So just to also to go back to what we were saying about, I used MDMA. And the idea that I had seen other people in my life that had benefited from it

and seeing how that, you know, I took note of that

and I saw how John had talked about,

we'd always, if we'd gone to dinner

and someone had said, John, do you have siblings?

He would say, no, I'm an only child,

which is true because John lost his sister

to suicide many, many years ago.

And then one night after John had had his experience,

we went to dinner. Someone said, John, do you have any siblings? And he said, no, I'm an only, he said, no, I have, I'm sorry.
I had a sister and she committed suicide. So the party line had changed.
And I saw how he had changed. And I thought, well, I want some, I want that.
I need that honesty. And that is, that is why I decided, I think that there were, there were so many reasons why I decided to do what I did at that moment in time.
And I think that was, whether you believe in the divine God, how it all comes together, I don't know. But in this moment for me, it was the idea that I could no longer live with the secret.
It was eating me up inside. It was killing me.
And so- But you didn't know it. You had the secret.
At the time, you didn't know you had the secret. You just knew it was something.
I didn't know the secret, but I did tell the practitioner that I knew I needed to really explore my childhood and sexual trauma. You knew that.
I knew that, but I actually did not know what the trauma was. So when I went in to have the psychedelic assisted therapy session with a practitioner, there were so many reasons that set the stage.
And I think it's so important for everyone to know this, that one, I had John. I had this incredibly loving, supportive relationship that I'd had for a long time.
So there was safety there. John.
John. Yeah.
Yeah. There was, and this is really important.
I think it's incredibly important to talk about the idea that my daughters were of the ages that I was when all the trauma happened to me. So that was happening at the same time.
And then I also felt incredibly safe with the practitioner that I was working with. And so the setup was such that I was ready to go in and to give myself permission to take that pill.
So it was more that going in to take the pill for me as someone who doesn't drink, who had never seen illicit drugs, to take that pill and allow myself to have the compassion for myself, to explore things I could not talk about on this earth. So what did you see in that session? We want to know what happens when you take the pill.
I know. Explain it to us.
Are you lying down? Are you sitting up? Is somebody talking to you? We don't know what happens. What happens? I was lying down on a couch.
Yeah. There was this beautiful flamenco music playing in the background.
I put the eye shades on and I surrendered. And the therapist is guiding you through it.

The therapist doesn't say one word.

Oh, the therapist doesn't say one word.

She didn't say a word, but I could feel the connection with her. And I could feel that I, the connection with her was so strong and the connection with John was so strong.

And the connection with John wasn't there.

John was not there, but all the people in my life, I feel like all roads led to this moment. Okay.
So you took the pill. You took the pill.
And in five minutes, I turned to the practitioner and I said, why is he here? Why is my teacher here? And then I said, I'm going to tell you everything. And that was it.
That was the moment. So then did you start talking and telling what you were seeing? For eight hours.
For eight hours? For eight hours. I just said it.
I told her every single scenario, every single instance of the abuse, one after the other. It was linear.
It was this. It was if I'm looking at this coffee cup, I would be able to tell you in 20 years exactly what the swirl of my coffee milk looked like.
It was reliving the experiences as I had them, but I was reliving the experiences in a way as such that I had so much compassion for myself. And I think it's so important to also say that I am not a doctor.
I'm not a scientist. I have no medical background, but I am a one of one.
And I could tell this story a thousand times over. And I remember it exactly as it happened.
And I'm so grateful for that. It was like you were put back in the room in the space with the teacher.

Now, what is, so when I was reading that, it,

it sounded terrifying because there were so much violence involved.

I mean, literally him putting your head in the toilet, literally him,

you know, doing all kinds of horrible things to you, including, you know, his foot on your back at one time. How were you able to process this? You're lying there on the sofa with their eyes covered and you're telling this story.
Does it feel like you're back in the space? Does it feel like you're in danger or does it feel like you're the observer of this thing? Well, the first time that I had a session, I was the observer and I did not feel like I was in any danger because I already knew. I knew this.
I was watching it. Instead, I had complete compassion for myself, complete love for that little girl that experienced it.
It was like two sides of me met. That 12-year-old side of me met, the Amy in her 40s.
And it was as if we embraced. And no longer did I have to keep the secret.
And it was also in that session that I realized that in many ways, and this is the real crux of all of it, that the secret is the hardest part. The secrets you're told to keep, they're not yours.
Yeah. So you have since talked to trauma therapists who explain to you why you would block this from your memory and what did they tell you? Well, I think that that's also a part of the journey.
And that's a lot of the writing too, in that along with the idea that I was pursuing this criminal investigation, I'm also pursuing this understanding of how could these memories be there and me not know about them? So I wanted to also perfect that. I wanted to have perfect answers.
I wanted to have a perfect outcome. And so I did.
I said- But everything that's ever happened to us is in here, is in here. Everything that's ever happened, we don't remember all the little day-to-day things that happen.
So what did she say? Over time, and I know that the subject of memory is always changing, but what I know in my memory is that there is storage and recall. And so all I can say to myself is, I stored this memory and then I could only recall it once I was in the setting in a place when it was time that my body was safe enough.
There were 10 years where I really couldn't listen to myself. And I think it was another form of the running.
Four kids, big life. For me, I was surviving.
And that was looking perfect to the outside world. Okay.
One of the things that struck me in the book, and I think a lot of women go through this too, this whole idea of perfection right having to be right about everything and doing everything right and it's perfect um there's a line that you used I recall where you said I mistook praise for love you thought getting praised was the same as being loved and so when you get the trophy or when you're awarded the whatever the award is, and that's why not being homecoming queen was so devastating to you because it's a form of praise and you felt like, what did I do wrong? It was a form of if you could just keep building and keep hiding and keep making everything look perfect, then you wouldn't be found out. Yeah.
Well, listen, I'm no doctor either, but I've done hundreds of shows now on abuse and have my own story of being sexually assaulted, raped at nine, and then continued on sexual abuse up until the time that I was 14. And I remember when I first told the story, everyone was like, well, why didn't you tell?

Why didn't you tell? And I didn't tell because I knew it wasn't safe for me to tell. I knew that if I had told, I would have been blamed for it.
Somehow it would have turned on me and I would have been held responsible. and in reading your book The Tell

I thought you were able to suppress it because you were so, this is just my theory, I don't know what the therapist said, is that you were able to suppress it because your life was built around praise and perfection and that nothing that was happening with that teacher fit in with your idea of who you were as a person. And so that just couldn't be in your world.
And somehow you managed to suppress that. And the striking thing in the book to me is the moment when your sister, there's this party they're having and there's one of your old babysitters is on the tape.
What was that party? What was that party for? It was the night before our rehearsal dinner for our wedding. Okay.
The night before the rehearsal dinner for the wedding and your sister would put together this tape and she's so proud of the tape. And she has one of your old babysitters.
And in that tape, do you all remember this moment? The old babysitter talks about Amy always hiding her underwear. And I thought, whoa, whoa.
And you had a really bad reaction to that in the tape. And you were upset with your sister and said, you know, what you said to your sister about it.
Because during that time, you're hiding your underwear because of all that was going on. So even in that moment where the babysitter says, oh yeah, Amy always used to hide her underwear.
Did that, the reason why it upset you was what? First, can I also just say, I'm sorry for what happened to you. Oh, thank you.
But, you know, I think that that's the realization as I look back, and that's part of the process that I went through in coming to understand that comment from my sister, who is the most loving human on the planet. And even then, the night, two nights before our wedding with all the emotions being high of a wedding, I recognized, why am I reacting that way? Even then, 20-something years ago, but only in the reflection of it, after really diving in to go and do this processing, could I realize that was shame.
That was the word shame. And in many ways, if you had asked me five years ago in the life that I'd built around control and perfection and making everyone else happy, if I knew what the word shame was, I might've said no and turned around and walked off.
Yeah. Right? So I can- Because shame wasn't a part of your story.
Shame was not going to be a part of my story. And also, let me say too, that in doing all this work, I can now go back and also look at the parts of me that I want to keep.
And so I've been able to take those parts and recognize that leadership at its core, for me, was something that I was told I was a leader. I was groomed by this person to use something that was an intrinsic part of me to say, oh, you're a leader, you're a leader.
Well, guess what? I got to go back and reflect on that and recognize who I was before all of this. And the two things that I come to are kindness and I'm a leader.
And I can say that. And you got that from your parents because And I get that from my parents.
You got that from your parents, is what you said. I get that from both my parents.
On both sides, I get that from my matriarchal grandmother who started the business at Tootin' Totem. I get that from an incredible father who is fierce and a hardworking and an incredible businessman.
And I get it from my mother, who is also like my sister, the most loving, wonderful person on the planet. Yeah.
What's interesting too about that and about how you grew up is that you're a groomer and everybody gets groomed. I mean, I was doing the actual Oprah show, talking to men who molested their daughters before I realized it actually wasn't my fault.
When one of the men was talking about how he had worked for six months to be able to get close enough to his stepdaughter to rub up against her breasts and that he had worked on touching her thighs and touching her in playing games. And then one day he was going for the breasts, he said.
And if he got a reaction from her, then he would go to his wife first and say, I don't know why she reacted that way. And the daughter did say, what are you doing? And then he said, I left her alone and I moved on to her sister.
So in that conversation, I realized, oh, there was a plan. It wasn't my fault.
There was a plan. And your teacher had a plan.
And that day that you had lost the election for, was it student council or student president? And he knew that you were a strong leader. And he said, what did he say to you? Well, Oprah, days after I had my first psychedelic assisted therapy session, John was standing in the room with me when I was in the bathtub and I threw a bar of soap

because I was 42 and I recognized and I finally, I describe it as putting a puzzle above my head.

The fuses, it was like the pieces snapped together, the entire, the corners, all of it came together in one place.

And I threw the bar of soap, hurled it across the room because I said, I understand how he got to me. And he said to me, he used the intrinsic part of me that I am a leader.
He told me, he said, you are the leader of this school. And this person, this trust, the word trust is the idea of all of this,

is that I trusted this person. This wasn't a stranger.
This was someone I trusted inherently

and someone who was also supposed to be shepherding me to become the best person that I could version

myself. The truth is he had his eyes on you.
He already had his eyes on you. So when he said to

you that you're the leader of this school, you're the real leader, that made you feel really validated. And so you go out of your way to prove that you are.
So then you start staying later after school and it's just you and him and the volleyball coach or the gym teacher, whoever it was. And he sees that.
and so as I'm reading this now having come from the background that I do he had his eye on you had targeted you and believe me you're not the only one who was targeted but at this particular time you were targeted and he was going after you no matter what and the fact that you come from the background that you come from, he would have believed that you would not have told. And this is what I've learned for myself and having interviewed, done hundreds of these shows.
I think by the time we finished the Oprah show, we'd done over 200 shows on, you know, victims of abuse. If you don't tell the first time it happens, you're likely not to tell.
Because by the time it happens a second and third time, you think you're complicit. You're somehow, you caused it, or it's your fault, or you're making it happen, or, but if you don't tell the very first time, that's been my experience, that it gets

harder and harder to tell. One of the things that's been really hard for me was in the telling in this process in the third part of the book, which is, I say the second part is a crime novel that I go through and it goes up and down all over the place.
But the third part's in the telling. And I think it's really interesting as an observation

that in many of the adults and family members and friends,

when I went to tell them,

their reaction was more of why, how, in the adult brain,

they wanted answers because they wanted to help me.

But one of the most beautiful parts of all of this realization for me goes back to my

daughters, in that when I did go to tell my girls, they didn't say, why, how, why did we not know earlier? Instead, they said, we see you. They just said, we see you.
We understand. We now know why you try to be perfect.

They validated me in the mind of a child.

And I can see that connection now between how the adult brain and any adult can want an answer in one way and how children can just be present in the moment. But let's just say, I recall in the book you say, didn't he tell you that if you told anybody, they wouldn't believe you? Many times.
Yeah. And you believed him.
Then you believed him. And that inherently I wouldn't be loved.
And to be told as a child that you will not be loved, when isn't that the basis of what we all want? Yeah, that's what everybody's striving for. Is love.
Up next, Amy Griffin and I are about to take

some very relatable questions from the audience.

We'll hear from a mother who says,

after reading Amy's book, The Tell,

she sat down with her four daughters

for a serious talk about sexual violence and grooming.

Amy also shares her advice for parents.

That's next.

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Welcome back to Oprah's Book Club presented by Starbucks. Many parents today may worry about how to talk to their children about the dangers of grooming and sexual violence.
That is why I thought it was important to have a conversation with author Amy Griffin, who shares her own experience of sexual abuse when she was a child in her memoir, The Tell. We're taking questions from our readers on how to have these honest conversations with children and with loved ones.
A quick reminder, this subject is not suitable for young children and may be upsetting for some viewers and listeners. Well, the audience has questions for you.
Where's Sarah? Sarah, tell us what happened when you read this book. I have four daughters, and thank you for sharing your story.
It touched me really deeply and terrified me with the statistic that you shared that one in three women experience sexual violence. I have a very open relationship with my girls, but it definitely prompted me to sit down with them, each of them and have a- How old are your girls? 11, 14, 18, and 19.
And I sat down with each of them and had a conversation. After reading the tell? After reading the the tell this is Amy's story made me sit down with my girls and at different levels shared your story with them and talked to them about how this happens and that people can be groomers and as we had the conversation they looked at me and said well that happen.
I would never let that happen. And I thought, okay, this is where I'm stuck.
And this is where I ask you, what would the safety valve have been? What would you have wished that you had had that could have been your trigger to be safe or that someone could have said to you? Because here are my girls thinking this can't happen to them. This would never happen.
I'm too smart for that. But it sounds like you were also and you had loving parents like I see myself.
So I'm curious what your reaction would be. Gosh, thank you for that question.
It also gives me the opportunity to be able to say to my parents that I don't think that there is anything else they could have done in this world to have changed what had happened. But also look where we are now and the hope that I can help other people in sharing my story.
And so I want to make sure that they know that they are off the hook because they try to keep themselves on the hook for this. I'm sure your mother, being the loving, kind person that she is, this would devastate your mother.
I mean, not that your father wouldn't be too, but I'm sure it almost took your mother out, did it not? It absolutely did. And I remember the next morning at breakfast, and I promise I'll answer your question.
When the next morning at breakfast, my mother said to me, I have to say to you, you told me so much last night, but I don't remember any of it. And I said, but that's just it.
That's the whole point of this is that it's too hard to hold. I have to say, though, that your ability to talk about your family and share your family in a way that allows us to see the connection to you, but doesn't expose them in any way,

is that you did a really good job.

That's why I say, well done.

That's a hard thing to do.

That's a hard thing to do.

Because everybody gets to tell their own story

or should be able to tell their own story,

but I felt like we were brought into the family

and understood it.

My best friend always says,

make sure you let everyone tell their own story, like they're part of the story. And that was one of the things I realized in going to tell my family.
And it was the hardest part too. I had to say to them, I'm gonna tell you something, but also I can't hold it for you.
So I can't then come and mourn and grieve it with you. You have to mourn and grieve it, and then we can grieve in the relationship together.
And that's part of the separation that I think that happens with the abuse. And so when I said, I don't know how I'm going to tell my parents this, this is the hardest thing I can ever tell my parents.
And I thought that would be the worst day of my life. But my dad turned to me and he said after all of it, just stoic-like, and I think you all read it, but I love saying the line, we might've missed the first part of your life in this way, but we're not gonna miss the second half.
I love that. I love that.
And what I would say about your daughters is my children are right about the same age. And I would say that the word vulnerability comes to me and comes to mind in this idea that as parents, we think we have to be this authoritative figure, but really it's breaking down those yes sirs, yes ma'ams, that obedience piece of parenting to just have those honest conversations with your children about vulnerability and giving them agency so that they know in those moments when something, they have a flicker in their brain that's not right, that they can come tell you.
And also I would say this, that over the years, what I've learned, the word grooming is, you know, obviously a word that's a part of our culture, but I have found in so many cases, and certainly in mine also, that it's more about seduction. And so you are seduced before you know you're seduced.
That's the thing, those of you with young children, and particularly if you think, oh, my child would tell me, it's challenging when you have been seduced and lured, particularly by somebody that you know, and you trust. And that's why you need to have the conversation about it's not, you know, in Amy's case, there was a lot of violence involved and, you know, crudeness and horror.
But in many cases, it isn't. It isn't.
It is more of a seduction and the child is lured and before they know it, they think it's their fault because they're lured.

And so you need to have that conversation also.

Thank you, Sarah.

Casey, you have a question?

Hi, Amy.

Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.

I'm honored to be here and to talk to you today.

One of my favorite parts of the book was the gesture of wanting John's hand on your back during these

moments of reckoning was just so powerful to read on the page. And so I'm wondering, how did the important life decision of choosing John as your partner impact your healing journey? And what advice would you want to give your readers about being vulnerable with their partner? Oh gosh.

Thank you.

Well, to simplify my relationship with John is to say he puts his hand on my back and he just knows. There's a part about the book where I talk about long no and short yes.
Oh, I love that part. I meant to bring that up.
Long no short yes in making decision making. And this is, it's John's phrase, so I'm actually stealing it.
But, and with us, and I write about this, there's not a long no of dating and then, okay, I guess we should get married. It was instantaneous.
And I feel like I am so grateful that in this world that I've been given John, because through this relationship that we've built over so many years, I truly believe that was maybe one of the only reasons I was able to come around in this lifetime to be able to say what happened to me. And so I think instinct, though, and leaning into instinct is something that's so important, even in just finding that right partner.
Thank you. John, can you explain to us the long no, short yes philosophy? Because when I said that, I go, I'm going to remember this.
I remember at one point, because I had the same thing, problem that you had. Anybody who's abused has had this issue of boundaries.
Like you don't know how to set a boundary and you spend your lifetime trying to set the boundaries because you're trying to please everybody and make everything okay. So at one point when I was here in Chicago, I had a little sign on my desk that says, remember what yes feels like.
Because there is a feeling you get instantly from a yes. So when I read that your philosophy is long no, short yes, I thought, I love that.
Well, the no part is just you keep putting it off and it doesn't feel right and it just doesn't fit. And it's just a very long journey to get to no.
But the short yes is exactly what you said. I call it a full-bodied yes.
Yes. Like it's not just here.
Where you don't have to think about it and let me call you later. Yeah.
I'll let you know. You're not doing pro-con charts.
Yeah, I do that. Let me pray on it a minute.
I'll get back to you. Yeah.
You feel it. Yeah.
And you feel it throughout your body. It's both an emotional and intellectual thing.
And I've actually used it in various aspects of my life. But yes, this was a full body yes when I met Amy.
Full body yes. Maria? Hi.
Here's the story that I think is so interesting. And it's this theme of perfection.
So for me, from the very beginning of the story to the very end, it's this thread of perfection and the difficulty of perfection. And I have the privilege of working with some extraordinary women leaders in Chicagoland.
And I see this thread in all of them, this level of everything looks perfect sometimes from the outside, but everyone is dealing with various levels of trauma. And it doesn't have to be as profound and tragic as your trauma was, But people are dealing with experiences and trauma.
And it's such a reminder of we cannot judge others. We have to remember that everyone has experiences.
And the experience is what gives them life, is what makes them have a powerful and impactful life. But to give us grace.
And so thank you. Thank you.
I think a lot of working moms relate to what you were saying, that you wore your busyness, you said, like a badge of honor. You all relate to that? You wore your busyness.
That's what you're talking about too, right? You wore your busyness like a badge of honor. Has that changed for you? It's definitely changed.
I think John could tell you better, but I'm going to say, I've asked the people in my life, I think that there's more stillness. I can't run anymore, which is all for the better.
But there are things that I've slowed down to recognize when I do something. I can understand why I do the things I do, why I am the way that I am.
And I think it gives more of me. There's more of me for my relationships and my friendships and my parenting.
And so the girls, as you said, the girls didn't question why didn't you tell or all the other things that so many other people look at, but they were just there for you and saw you as a full person in that moment. They never questioned.
And I think the most important part about this book and in writing this book, that was when I wrote this book, I never knew that anyone would ever read this book. I never had an inkling that it would see the light of day.
I wrote this book in my closet, on the bathroom floor, for myself. And I could say that in the early part of the writing, as it all unfolds, and with trauma like this, I'm sure you probably agree, it unfolds in layers

in a way much like a book, like a chapter. And my book is not about just what happened to me.
It's not the story of what actually happened to me. It's the processing of it.
It's the telling of all the people in my life, which were in many ways more difficult than experiencing the trauma for myself to have to go in and be honest with each person in my life and to recognize that every time you go to tell someone, they may be in a very different place than where you are. So in the cultivating of relationships, I talk about my life as this tapestry, and I have taken what was a tragedy and turned it into this tapestry of relationships for which I'm immensely grateful.
But in each one of those relationships, as I was building this quilt, I had to go and pull those threads and tell people what had gone on. And that was a real blessing.
Chantel, it's your birthday. And I know you have a question.
First of all, let's all say happy birthday to you. Chantel, that was beautiful.
Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing your story, Amy.
I truly feel empowered. And it was really just reading your experience and how you continually process it, understanding that healing is a journey.
I just want to know from you, how do you manage everyday triggers? Well, practically, I listened to Fortnite by Taylor Swift on repeat a thousand times. Anything by Taylor Swift.
And then I will say also, I still, movement is still really important for me. And, but it's slow, it's gentle.
It's maybe back to what that therapist, that physical therapist said to me, why do you move so fast? And so now in this recognition, there is movement. There are lots of hot baths.
I think that everything that I come up with creatively comes from being in the bathtub when the water is running and my brain is sort of- Me too. Really? Yes.
So when the bathtub gets filled, I even open it up a little bit and let the water keep running. Yes.
And it's like it opens up that valve of creativity for me. I had to do something recently and Gail goes, go sit in the tub.
Go sit in the tub, run some water. It's true.
My mom would either say, go take a bath, or could you please go for a run? Because my mom knows me so well. And so I would say that.
But I would also say that when there are those everyday triggers, that instead of going, why did I do that? I go tell someone. And I share it.
And it's not as scary once I go and I tell someone and then I can see in their eyes, you know, they can hold it for me. And that's how I've coped.
Thank you. Happy birthday.
Shannon. My question as I was reading through the book is what is something that you gained that you did not expect from writing the book? Good, Shannon.
What did you gain? Well, one, just from the writing, vulnerability, just purely understanding that vulnerability is actually equates to me as powerful now. I like, I sense so much power in vulnerability and I appreciate that because it makes me so much more reachable with everyone in my life and both in my business and the founders that I get to work with and my children and my husband.

And the other thing from the book piece of it, I have to say that another author friend said to me, Amy, the publishing of a book is one thing and your ego can get involved and you can care about the book coming out. But you have to remember that book is all about the people that you will meet along the way.
Now, never could I have imagined. There I was along the way.
Oprah, but as I sat, the woman who was my practitioner when I had my MDMA session, she would say often to me, Amy, the end is glorious. There is something glorious waiting on the other side of this process you're going through.
This was the glorious ending that she would have never anticipated that I was sitting here with you, able to tell this story and share it with so many other people. coming from the words that I put on the page just for myself, and then in realizing the deeper connection that I could have in telling one person and another person.
And then she's now telling her daughters, and then they're telling their friends, and that is what it means to pass it on. Maggie? Thank you.
So I am a survivor as well. So thank you so much for sharing your story.
It was deeply impactful for me. In the first few months following my assault, I think what would have been so helpful is to understand how much self-doubt would play a piece in all of this.
And really, I think what would have been helpful is kind of something that I could hold on to, to really work through that self-doubt. And I'm just curious what you would tell somebody who's maybe in those first few moments after their abuse or their assault, and they're really trying to focus on this healing journey, which is lifelong, of course,

but they just want something that they can do

to really instill that trust in themselves again

and trust their intuition more so too.

So I'd love to know your thoughts on that.

Well, first, I'm focused on saying I'm sorry

and thank you for being here in the front row

to look me in the eye and share and tell.

And I would say that I think

one of the most important things is, which is in all the running, you know, in the book, I talk

about this lawyer that I had to work with in Amarillo named Duke, who kept saying, you need

to slow down, you need to slow down. And it infuriated me, even though he was responding to

the criminal investigation. He was saying I needed to slow down.
And as mad as I was at that process,

I don't know. that infuriated me, even though he was responding to the criminal investigation.
He was saying I needed to slow down. And as mad as I was at that process, I think the idea that it is a process and that for, you know, you see me in this dress today and you see my husband and we're sitting here, we have prepared to come on the Oprah show, but there are many, many moments where it was bleak and dark and it's okay.
And in a way, I would never say I missed those moments, but I'm grateful that I had them because it makes me understand myself better. And I'm so connected to myself and those memories of those days where it wasn't going so great.
So it's slow, just take it slow. And that's what I would say, that to take it slow and to write it down.
I have to write it down. Hi, Amy.
My name is Heather. And thank you for sharing your story and being so vulnerable.
As a mom, I have three daughters and they're actually the same age that you were when you went through this, 17, 15, and 12. And I'm raising them in the South in a suburb.
And so I saw a lot of terrifying parallels in your story. The expectation of perfection, how you should behave in society, Southern bells, all of those things.
So my question to you is to shift those perspectives. It has to start with our young men as well.
How has your story impacted your sons? And have you shared your story with your youngest son yet? Wow. That's a gift of a question.
Because two nights ago, I went into our youngest bedroom and I said, Julian, you know, I just thought about something. And I thought about the idea that the word that I went into his room thinking about was consent.
And I said, you know, I realized that you were seven when I started writing this book. And like any parent, a few years ago, I did tell him my story and I did it.
I had consulted every parenting manual and I sat, you know, they say, do it where you're sitting at a deli counter or where you're driving or where you're doing something with them. And in my case, I told him the story when I was doing a puzzle with him and he kind of shook his head.
Okay, got it. Do you want to ask any more questions? No.
And then I left it. And two nights ago when I was back in his bedroom, I went and I said, you know, I have to tell you something.
I'm about to go on the Oprah show and I just want to make sure that you know that has anyone asked you about my book? Because it's coming out. People are talking about it.
And he said, yeah, a few of my friends have. And I said, well, what do you tell them? He said, I tell them it's about memories and your life.
And I looked at him and I said, but guess what? You can tell them whatever you want. You can tell them all of it.
You can tell them everything I told you. You can tell them how you feel about it.
And you can tell them that maybe this story might help them. And he said, okay, mom.
And then he said, and now I'm ready to read it because he's old enough to read the story. How old is he now? He's 12.
Wow. Jessica.
Yeah. Okay.
Hi, Amy. I want to thank you so much for telling your story.
You are so brave for so many reasons, but to not only tell your story, but to write a book about it and share it with the world is truly courageous. It's inspirational and gives a voice to so many survivors.
I myself am a survivor of sexual assault. I am a clinical social worker, so I work with many survivors.
And I also have so many close friends because of how pervasive this issue is and oftentimes more often than not survivors are shamed or discouraged from coming forward and telling their story and in the book you mentioned how fortunate you were to have such a strong support system and to have the means to access the resources that you needed in this process on this healing journey. And so my

question to you is for survivors who don't have strong support systems and don't have the means to access these resources, what advice would you give to them on where to begin and how to really embark on this journey? Well, thank you. And thank you for the work you're doing to also now pay it forward after your experience.
You know, that's what also in writing this book and realizing that I have so many resources and I tapped into all of them. I read every possible book.
I tried every possible therapy. I was going to work my way out of this in many ways.
And I think what came down to the writing of this book and the whole meaning of this book is that it's in the tell. And so resources or not, I just hope that every person who's been through something like this or has any kind of broken part of them can find one person in their life.
And to know where that person is in their life, but to be able to go to them and trust them with their story

and have them hold it and repeat it back

and have the conversations back and forth,

that's the start, and that's what has to happen.

And I think when I envision this book,

I envision that people take the book

and they pass it openly to a friend at a cafe at a Starbucks. They don't have to hide it anymore.
They pass the book and they say, just read this. And then I hope that this book will sit on nightstands and then people will read it and refer back to it.
My dream is that in 10 years, someone will write me and say, hey, I just have to tell you something. This book helped me so much.
It changed my life. And they pulled one passage out of it.
And then that will be reason enough for me to have written the book. I think you have reason enough already.
I think the fact that she's sitting down with her daughters and having the conversation.

And everybody leaving here who has read the book is going to have a conversation with somebody else.

You're already doing it.

And I thank you so much, as I said in the beginning, for having the courage.

And I just want to second what you just said, that every time you tell the story, you find somebody who is worthy of your trust, who's worthy of your trust. And I know that if we have this many women in a room and the stats are one out of three, there are a lot of us who have stories to tell about what has happened.
And you find just one person, as Amy was saying, just one person. And the more you tell it, the more you release.
And the whole goal is freedom for yourself, is liberation. The tell is about liberation.
And I wanted to ask you, do you finally feel free? I feel so free in this moment. I felt free since the minute I said the words to John when he came down after my session.
It was the most liberating moment of my life, Oprah. It was other than the days that you go into a hospital room

and you have a baby and you come out with three people. Or the day that I jumped up and down at the altar for my volleyball days, I was jumping up and down to marry him.
It was while on one, the hardest day of my life, it was also the most liberating day of my life. and so I feel so much freedom

and I want to say that

you know the person who the most liberating day in my life. And so I feel so much freedom.
And I want to say that,

you know, the person who really cares about this freedom is the 12-year-old me. And the real conversation, the telling that has to happen, that happened along the way in the writing of this book was the telling to my 12-year-old self, he did not dim your light.
And for that 12-year-old self to then say back, you didn't let him dim your light. You don't have to show up sad at the Oprah show.
Yeah. And that is pure freedom.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for the gift of liberation, Lainey Griffin. The Tell, a memoir, is available wherever books are sold.
And I hope this episode inspires all of you who are watching or listening to read The Tell and share it with a loved one. Audience, thank you for your really thoughtful questions.
And thanks to our extraordinary partner, Starbucks, for supporting us. I love the idea of good coffee and good books and good company all coming together at your neighborhood Starbucks cafe.
And the pairing this month, as I said, is the anniversary blend. And we hope you all join our community and become a part of all of our conversations on the Oprah podcast.
Subscribe to the show on YouTube and follow us on Spotify or Apple podcasts or wherever you listen or watch us here on YouTube. Go well, everybody.
Thank you, Amy. Thank you.
I want you to know this conversation is not intended to offer medical advice. Psychedelics remain illegal in most states.
So I encourage you to consult your

own healthcare professional before considering any kind of mental health treatment.