- [Mark] All right, Star, Star, Star, where'd you grow up? Where are you from originally? - [Star] East Tennessee. - [Mark] And tell me about your family. You had both your parents growing up? - Not the whole time. I grew up in like the first 12 years of my life had two moms,
it was my sister and I. And then they split up
and I moved in with my dad to another town in East Tennessee with my father and my step
mother and my two brothers. And that's when my dad became like a bigger presence in my life. He and my mom split when I was two, because he was pretty
violent with all of us. So yeah, she moved on and
found happy, I suppose. - [Mark] And left you with your dad? - No, I mean like she left
him and the first 12 years of my life were like blissfully happy. It was my choice to move in with my dad and probably the first
worst mistake in my life. - [Mark] Why do you say that? - He was very physically and verbally abusive, emotionally. But I guess, it took me a long
time to stop being so angry, now that I'm, when I became a mother, I've got four kids now, my parents were really
young when they had me, they were 16 and 17. And I think that they both made the best out of a bad situation and did their best. And something about me just
tripped my dad's trigger. Out of all four of us kids on
the only one he laid hands on, to the best of my knowledge,
he never hit my step-mom. It's kind of a common thing growing up, like my first boyfriend in high school, middle school and high school, it was four years long, that turned physically abusive too. He beat the crap out of me. And then my husband, 11
years, we were married. He had never hit a
woman before in his life but it took less than a year for him to start lashing out at me. So (coughs) excuse me. So like, I'm not some like
fragile victim that thinks that everything's my fault but I do think like three
completely different men, I'm the common denominator. Like there's gotta be something about me that I guess like at a minimum
brings out the worst in men. - [Mark] So the abuse from
your father was mostly physical or was it sexual or anything else? - No, it was physical mostly,
but it was pretty bad. I remember when I was like 16 being called into the
principal's office at school. I was taking a CNA course at the time and I guess my teacher, the
nurse saw bruises on my face even though I tried to
cover them up with makeup. And there was a counselor
and a principal in there and they asked me what
happened to my face. And I lied and said that
a big bin of ketchup fell on it at work. I don't know why, but I always wanted, I never wanted to see him in trouble. I guess some part of
me, even the first time that he ever hit me in the face, I was 12. Even then I didn't tell anybody. I didn't want to see him in trouble. I just didn't want him to do it again. And I guess I thought like,
I mean, I loved him too. I didn't want to see him in trouble and I guess I thought, like, if I said something that
maybe I'd get taken away from my family or things would get worse. So I'm not nearly as angry
now as it was back then. But one thing that does
fuck me up pretty bad is I have my oldest child,
my son, he about a year ago, at almost exactly the same age I was the first time dad hit me, did
exactly the same thing I did to get hit. And it was so very easy not to hit him. Oh, I was angry and disappointed, but all I had to do was look at his face and no part of me wanted
to strike him or hurt him. And that kind of sent
me back at square one. Like I thought it was done
being angry, but I'm not. Cause I made excuses all this time. Like I was just a difficult teenager and I wouldn't listen and I
was rebellious and whatever, but I have one of those at home. And like I said, it's
so easy not to hit him. So I don't understand why
it was so easy to hit me so much and so hard I guess. Okay, so yeah, I had my bags packed about a month before I turned 18. I was ready to leave and I left and I got my own apartment, got pregnant with my son when I was 18. By the time, he was about nine months old, I was working full time at a nursing home, going to school for nursing full-time and I was a single mom. And then the drugs
started, I got hurt at work and they put me out of work for six weeks and gave me pain pills. I remember when I ran
out of the pain pills, I thought I was losing my mind. I didn't realize what
was actually happening. I didn't know anything about withdrawal, even though most of my
family members were junkies, that just wasn't part of my world. I was going to be a nurse
and be somebody, right. So my aunt, I guess, recognized
what was wrong with me and handed me a much stronger pill. And she was like, "Here take this and I'll
make you feel better." And I remember it did,
in a matter of minutes, I was in the floor playing with my son and cleaning the house. And I felt like super woman and quickly within probably three or
four months of that day, I went from just taking
pills to snorting them, to slamming them. And then it was heroin
because it was cheaper. Then my son's father filed
for emergency custody when he found out and I went
to 90-day inpatient program because it was that or lose
my son and I completed it, came out and got high like two days later. Started stealing from the
people that I love the most and screwing everybody over. And it all pretty much caught up to me. So I took off for Oklahoma, which is where my biological grandfather and his wife, my Memo, and my aunt lived. And my baby cousins,
my plan was to run away and get better and come back from my son. And it didn't exactly work that way. I knew from an early age that my grandfather was a pedophile, but he was allowed in our home until I was probably,
looking at the pictures, probably six or seven and then mama cut off all contact with him. And it just so happens that the neighborhood
that my father lived in, my grandfather's best
friend also lived in. And when I met him, he put
me in contact with my family from Oklahoma and from like 12 until 18 had a relationship with
all of them by phone. And I would meet up with them, sneak and meet up with them
when they come to Tennessee. And he seemed like he was changed. Like he was just a great
big, he was like six foot six or six foot seven something, he was huge. And he played the guitar and he sang and he was a comedian and
like super charismatic and just the kind of person that you want to be around. So I looked forward to his visits, even though I think it was 14
and it was in the front yard of his best friend's
house in my subdivision. He was going to leave
and everybody was inside but there were neighbors outside. And he said, "Let me get
one more hug from you before you go." And leaned up against the tree and he kissed me and I went
to kiss him on the cheek but he turned his head and
he caught me on the mouth. And I remember it, the
kiss lasted way too long. And he stuck his tongue in my mouth and I just kinda just kinda
pulled away and jetted. I was like, "Bye Pepo, see you later." And didn't speak to him for a while but stayed in contact with
my grandma and my aunt. And when I did like get
back in contact with him, he acted like it never happened. And I guess in my head, I guess I made myself believe that it was an accident or a mistake. Like he didn't really
mean to do it or something but by the time I was
20 and I lost custody of my son and gone through
rehab and it didn't work. And then got out and screwed
up again and felt desperate and like I had nowhere else to go. I was getting drug tested regularly and I knew I was gonna fail the drug test. And at that point probably
lose all access to my son. It was worth the risk
going out to Oklahoma. And I was an adult by then. So I thought like all
the appeal would be gone for my grandfather, that there
was nothing to worry about. And they welcomed me with open arms. I still very much regret going out there, but I guess just like
with anything in life and with anybody there's good in most bad, there was a lot of good
and a lot of healing that came out of that situation. But the bad definitely
outweighed the good. I stayed there for
three, three and a half, maybe four months. I know it turned 21 while I was there. And for the first month, month and a half, nothing happened at all with
him, everything was fun. I got a job. I was working and I
was part of the family. Memo made me go to church even though I was like a hardcore atheist, pissed me off, didn't want to go but I did it out of respect for her and quickly got like the hang of things and started to feel like
a normal person again. Even the kids pretty much
just breathed life into me. Like every day they told me they love me. And he would do like on
Sundays when it was time to go to church, I never wore dresses ever. And I hated my name because it was such a, what the word is maybe masculine name, and everybody back home in
Tennessee had a nickname for me that was even worse. So he would take pictures. He'd be waiting on the front
porch when we left for church, he'd take a picture of me in dresses and say, he turned the camera
around and make me look at it. And he'd say, "That's a lady right there. Like you're lady. Remember that you're a lady." And I started to believe him,
I started to feel like one. We also had a lot of conversations. He was really open about, he never denied anything
that he did to any of us. I guess I forgot, I should back up. When I was five, my sister was four, was the first time that he crossed any lines with us. Mama had to took us to
Oklahoma for a visit. And we woke up one morning, really early before everybody else. And we went to the bathroom,
my sister and I together, and their bathroom instead of a door, it had a shower curtain
hanging as the door, one of the clear ones that
you could come and see through and we could see him sitting on the toilet and my sister opened the
curtain a little bit. We saw him and he jumped back
where we were like, "Oh no." And you know, went to
go back to the bedroom. And he was like, "No, no,
it's okay, come here." And we turned around and
he had opened the curtain all the way. And he was standing
there, looming over us, like six and a half feet tall, butt naked, just steady jacking it, like we were his wife or something standing in front of him. And he grabbed me by the wrist
and pulled me closer to him and put my hand on his penis. And well, that lasted for
what felt like an eternity. He had a sick smile on
his face the whole time. I guess eventually I unfroze, my sister, I remember
the look on her face. She was just frozen like with this horrified,
terrified, look on her face. And I guess when I
finally snapped out of it, I jerked away and I turned
around and I took off running and I made it almost back to the bedroom and I realized she wasn't with me. And I went back to get her and she was standing
there in front of him. He didn't grab her. He didn't make her touch him but he was doing the same
thing in front of her. And she was standing there watching, like with her little jaw
dropped open and I grabbed her by the arm and I pulled her
and we ran back to the room my mom and we were sleeping in and I thought we just hit under the covers and went back to sleep. But when we went to trial a few years ago for my baby cousin who
testified against him, who prosecuted him, we went
to testify on her behalf, Mom told me that she was like, "Oh my God I can't believe you remember that." We actually had told her what he had done. And I don't remember this, but she said that as soon as we came
in there and told her she packed our stuff when we left. And I think she let him come
over maybe one time after that. And that's when it ended. So going back and there was
some funky shit in between but nothing like horrible, like what my mother went
through or my aunts. He did some unspeakable shit
to them, their entire lives. So it was about a month and a
half into my stay in Oklahoma. And he took me to meet a friend of his to see about buying a house there. My goal, I, like I said,
I had gotten a job. My goal was to move my son out there. I signed the papers on the first house and he took me up in the woods behind the house to show me around. I remember you had to
unlock a chain on a gate and drive the car up aways. We got out, we were walking and I remember walking and walking and walking and thinking,
where are we going? Like, this is Oklahoma,
it's not Tennessee. There's nothing to see,
shit's flat and ugly. Like where are we going? And I didn't hear him walking anymore. So I turned around and
he always did this thing. Even whenever I was a young teenager that day in his neighbor's yard, he would always put his arm up on a tree or like the post on a
front porch or something. I don't know. Now, looking back if it
was to try to make himself look bigger or what, but he didn't need to be
any bigger, be intimidating, but he had his arm up on a tree and he had that look on his face again. And I remember, again, I
was 20 or 21 at this time. I remember thinking, run. Something in my gut told me that something
bad was about to happen. I never imagined it was that. But then I knew it was
something that I didn't need to stick around for, but I froze like I was
five years old again. And he went in for the kill. I think it must have been a
Sunday because I had a skirt on. And those were the only days
I wore a dress or a skirt. He was never violent at all. Just imposing, if that makes sense like he didn't have to be violent. You just knew you didn't have a choice, like the way he moved with you. It never even crossed my mind
to try to like fight back or scream or holler. Later on when it started
happening regularly, I did try to fight back
some, wriggle away, whatever, but it did no good, but
that day, I didn't cry, I just laid there and kind of just took it like I did back in Tennessee
when I was on dope. When I had a needle in my arm, slept with some pretty disgusting vile men for drugs and money. And it's not like in the movies like where they make it look
like you can completely leave what your situation was going
on, but you kind of can. So I kind of did. I just waited for it to be over. I remember thinking it felt like a dream. Like this isn't really happening. Not because I didn't think
he was capable of it, I just thought it wouldn't
happen because I was grown. I wasn't a little girl and didn't have that same appeal anymore. And in the time that it
took for him to get done doing what he did, every bit of the positivity and the encouragement and
the love that he had shown me to that point, it just left, I was angry. It felt like he was fake
and phony and it felt like, I felt like I was the
same dope sick junkie that pulled into his
driveway 900 miles from home a month or so earlier. Like it was nothing but lies and I think the only reason it stopped is because he heard a car coming and it was the landowner. He jumped up real quick and he was like, "Hurry, hurry get your clothes back on. Hurry up, come on, let's go." And I couldn't hurry. I remember everything was in slow motion But I got up and I started to
follow him out of the woods. And he had given me a
ring like a week earlier, that looking back, looked a
lot like an engagement ring. But he said again, I
was a lady and I deserve to have pretty things. So I was walking out
of the woods behind him and I took the ring
and took it off my hand and I threw it down in the woods. I walked out with him
to meet that man again and acted like nothing had ever happened. Like he was just showing me around. I don't know why I didn't leave that day. But at this point, everybody back home was
still furious with me and made it clear that I
wasn't welcome in their homes. And with good reason, I deserved it. I was a horrible person back then. I can't think of anybody I love today that I didn't hurt in some way back then. The second encounter with him. We stayed in a tiny house, very poor. I slept with my baby cousin
in the same bed with her, in the same room, in a tiny little bed. She was a tiny little girl. I thought she was seven,
but doing the math now, I think she was five
years old at the time. And they had custody of her. He was molesting her from
the age of like two to 13. And that's what the trial was over. I thought I knew what to look for. And I thought, I thought
that he wasn't messing with her but he was, but
in my mind that night, she was still completely naive. And I wanted to keep it that way. I'd also remembered my
Memo saying that she slept with one arm on him at night to make sure if he got out of
bed, that she would wake up. And if he was gone from the room too long, she'd know to go look and check and see if years ago if her daughters were safe or now if her granddaughter was safe. So when he came in our room that night, I panicked, he came in in nothing but fucking raunchy old tighty whities. And all I could think was, my
baby cousin's gonna wake up and she's gonna see this. And if she does it, Memo will wake up and she'll walk in and see this. And she'll think that
I'm this horrible person that's doing this because I want to, that night I cried, because
like I said, she was laying, my cousin was laying in
the bed right beside me. Like her body was touching mine. We were so close. He climbed on top of
me and I never hit him. But I was pushing him,
trying to push him off of me and pulled my knees up to my chest trying to get him off of me
but he was so he was so huge. There was no getting away from him. His hands were so big that you could drop a quarter
through his pinky ring. He was just a massive man. I didn't want to make any noise, 'cause I didn't want to wake anybody up. And ultimately he got what
he wanted that night again. The next day I woke up furious and I went out to a shed
where he was working. He was building hammered dulcimers by hand and I told him that he was never, I basically said on my terms only. Like, if this going to
happen while I'm here, it's going to happen when
I say and where I say and that means not with any
chance of my baby cousin being exposed to it or my Memo
getting her heart ripped out. So he pretty much adhered to my rules and I know that to most people, this is going to sound ridiculous. And they're going to be
like, you were 21 years old. Why didn't you just leave? Why didn't you go to the cops? Why didn't you tell your grandmother? Why all these things? I can't answer those questions. I don't know. I only know that I really
truly felt like I couldn't. And like I was stuck and a big part of me still felt like a child inside. And you have to understand too, that to this day I've never met a more, like I say this every time I talk about it but I don't know how else to put it, stealthy predator in my life. He was the best of the best in terms of being like a
predator and a sociopath, he would bend grown men to his will just with a few words,
there was no telling him no. And I guess, if you don't
know somebody like that in your life it's probably
hard to understand, but that aside, he never came in my room again
with my baby cousin in there. And he generally always
let me know it was on whenever my grandmother was gone. So this started to be a regular thing. Can't tell you how many times
I had sex with my grandfather, my biological grandfather, or I allowed him to have
sex with me, probably, probably 50 or 60 times while I was there. I was able to get my son for two weeks during the time I stayed in Oklahoma and on the trip to go get
him, my grandfather took me. And he said that it had
to be just me and him that he had business to take
care of back in Tennessee when we got here and he stopped to get a
hotel, which wasn't necessary 'cause he used to brag about how he didn't
need to stop and sleep. He could do the drive
round trip, no problem. And it was during that trip that in the hotel room for, I
don't know, close to 24 hours it was nonstop over and over again. Like this man was in his late fifties. I think maybe I want to say he
was born in '42 or something. He was an old man, but like the
sex drive of an 18 year old. He did things that if I was
super uncomfortable with him, if it hurt, whatever, if I tried to get away again, it's not like he hit me or anything, but he would just pull me back and make me do it anyway or
flipped me over or whatever. And I remember during that like
24 hours in the motel room, it just went on and on and on. And I think some part of me just caved in. I tried to, it got to the point where I
couldn't escape it mentally. So I had to be present for it. And it's so fucking hard to say, yeah, the first orgasm I ever had
was with my grandfather. And I guess I got so used to the fact that this was happening
and it wasn't going to stop that I got kind of numb
to the horror of it all. And there were times that I did my, I guess both my body and my mind, I guess, liked what he was doing. And I hated myself for
that I think I still do, was revolting and disgusting. And that's a wild thing, to like what somebody's doing to you but be repulsed by it at the same time. Sorry, can you ask me a question? - [Mark] So the childhood abuse that you had with your father, do you see a connection with the, certainly you indicated before there was a connection with that and the abusive relationships
you had after that, but I'm just wondering, would this happen? This is in your twenties
or early twenties. How has this affected your later life? How old are you today? - I'm 33, and was there really a
connection with my father, no, the man I'm married, yes. As soon as I got back from Oklahoma, it took me close to two years but I got custody of my son back. I've had him ever since. - [Mark] Let me ask about his wife, she was aware of this? - She suspected and she was very angry then I think, now she, she feels responsible and guilty. We've had a lot of talks about it. I think she forgives me. I know she still loves me, but to have gone through
what all she's gone through, she's one of the most
beautiful people, I know. I don't think I could still love me, but my husband I came back to Tennessee and just a few weeks into being back, met the man that I married. We've been married 11 years
and now currently presently and for the last few years, well he always has worn overalls and he's a giant man. The only difference is he's
brown and my Pepo wasn't but he's got the long gray beard now, he's 27 years older than me. I didn't care then I thought, I did think he was beautiful. He didn't look his age
and I wanted stability and I wanted normal. And for a little while I had that. So I do see, I guess like,
like a tie between the two they're very much the same. The overalls, the gray beards, the narcissistic bullshit. In a lot of ways, they're the same person. And I think the fact that
neither of them liked each other from the beginning probably
should have been a big red flag. We let him, it gets sicker, I get sicker. I left Oklahoma and you would think that I would have never looked back but he came to Tennessee
when I was pregnant with, I didn't know it was a girl
yet, but my second child and I was with my husband he
stayed with us for one night. It was supposed to be a few days. And he sang a song right
in front of my husband about one he had written about
a girl with long black hair and green eyes kissing
her under some trees in a like back creek or some stupid shit. And my husband wasn't stupid. He picked up on it quickly. And the straw that broke the camel's back was the next day he walked in, my husband. I was there alone with my grandfather. He, my grandfather, never tried anything during that trip in Tennessee
when he came to see us. But I was sitting at the
kitchen table doing something. And right when my husband opened the door, my grandfather walked up
behind me and he put his hand around the back of my
neck and he leaned down and I didn't realize I was
making a face, but I guess I did. And my husband saw it and he pulled me in the back bedroom and
he said, "What's going on? Something's going on." And I told him nothing. I just didn't want to be
there if he was there. So long story short, Pepo left that day and I never saw him again because I went on to find
out a couple months later that I was carrying a girl and not my kids. Then I had another little girl. I never spoke to him
through all these years. And then three years ago I
got subpoenaed to testify for my baby cousin against him. And I was pregnant with
my third little girl. All of us came from all over the country to testify against him. And I was the only one on the stand. The defense attorney asked me how I felt about being there that day. And I said horrible, because
I loved him very much and I didn't want to see
him put away in prison and hurt because I felt like
he was just a very sick man. Especially given the
conversations that we had had about why he thought he
didn't things that he did. I testified against him
because I loved my baby cousin and his potential future
victims more than him but I still loved him. And I didn't want to see
anything awful happen to him. I don't love him now. He was convicted. He got seven years for what he did to her. And he died after only
two years in prison. He actually died a couple of weeks before I had already gone
through all the loops. I had to go through all the hoops I had to jump through to go see him. Being a victim they don't
generally let you have a visit with the perpetrator in Oklahoma but I wanted him to see me now and see that, I knew
that he accepted my visit when he denied everybody else's because he thought he could still play one last game maybe, but I needed him to see that I'm probably still pretty sick in the
head, but I'm not his anymore. And I'm not under his spell anymore. And also tell him that I love him and I forgive him. I love the good in him. And I forgive the bad in him that hurt me so bad and
the people I love so bad but I never got that chance. He died before I could go, so... - [Mark] This was how many years ago? - [Star] He died in
December almost a year ago. - [Mark] So it's still fairly fresh. - Yeah, been disowned by his whole family, except for two cousins. They're all very angry
with us, for testifying. And they're all very, very angry, that myself and my aunt speak about it. Cause like I said, he
was super charismatic and nobody could really believe that he was capable of
the things that he did. But I guess I need, I
need to make it clear that I understand that
there's a big difference in what he did to all of us as children especially what he did to my baby cousin, my aunts and my mother. And then what happened
when I was an adult. And I guess that's why I'm
here today because nobody, it's a lot easier to say
that things were done to you when you were an innocent child and you couldn't fight back or say no but as an adult at any age, when you can and you just don't, there's like a huge
amount of like self hate and guilt that comes with that. And it's damn near taking
me out a couple of times. So like court, the D.A. told
me that this is so common that she hears about it so often. I had to take her in a
back room and tell her, look just in case I don't want
a curve ball thrown at you. And my cousin's whole
case get blown wide open in case he decides to say
that this happened between us. And she said this happens all the times. So if it happens all the time, that's news to me because I
never hear people talk about it. And well, I think it
needs to be talked about because it does happen, especially here in the mountains, anyway. I do feel responsible for my part in it? But I also feel like people like him are really good at what they do and I know the guilt that I live with, there's gotta be so many
other people out there living with the same. And I guess my hope, like, what I hope for with this interview, is maybe start a conversation about it where it's not so taboo to talk about. Maybe people like me
reach out for help sooner. And I also hope that maybe it would set me free 'cause he's gone, but I'm not. And it's all still here and very real. - [Mark] So you were having
sex with your grandfather, who was also at one point having sex with your mom, his daughter? - Yes, but I need to make it clear that that was actual, honest to God, rape. Like she fought back and said no. The last time that he
raped her, she was 16, which is when she fell pregnant with me. And for much of my life,
she told me when I was, I want to say I was about 15 or 16 that he could be my biological father and I lived in horror of that fact which also kind of, I don't know, if catch 22 is the right
word, but it felt disgusting. But at the same time I thought, anybody but my dad at the time, you know, I was an angry teenager. And I thought, even if it has to be this funky old backwards bullshit, at least I have maybe a shot at a dad that loves me
and says he loves me and tells me I'm beautiful
and et cetera, et cetera. And then whenever I moved to Oklahoma and I asked him about this, his take on it was that it was consensual
sex in the back of his van. Even though my mother was
16, his biological daughter. And yes we know for sure it's biological, 'cause we've, my mom and I
both taken a 23andMe test and many of his family
members are on there. He said that it was consensual and he went into graphic
detail about what happened. And then he scoffed and he giggled and he
said, "That's ridiculous. I had a vasectomy after
your aunt was born. I never could have been your father." And then I remember also
probably several weeks into what do you call it? Our sexual shit, him saying that he would love nothing more than to be able to come
back home to East Tennessee and live in a cabin with me and have babies and spend
the rest of his life living like a mountain man. Like he was meant to be,
which was all a facade. He played this mountain
man character in Oklahoma but he wasn't, he was
from a moderately big city and the straw hat and the
cowboy boots and the overalls were all just a bullshit
character he played. But yeah, there was
something really broken and really sick inside him. Thank God he did have a vasectomy or he probably would have been my father and I probably would have
had at least one of his kids, just being honest. - [Mark] If you're 20 years old, how do you let your
grandfather get away with this? How does this happen? It seems like you'd be old
enough to protect yourself. - I was, and I don't have like a black and white answer for that. But I think it was like
a multitude of things. Number one, it was the memories of him. So only had a couple of bad
ones, but the rest were good. The memories of this big
giant Santa Claus, Pepo, all that played the guitar. And he'd sing this sneaky snake song. And like everybody wanted
a Pepo like that, right. And then my mom spending years telling us no, no, no, no, no,
you can't talk to them. We'll like I said, I
was rebellious as shit. So of course I'm going to
do the opposite, right? Not realizing how dangerous it was and why she was saying no, no, no, no, no. Then I think that being with my father and I'm not trying to
bash him by saying this, but being with my father
for so many years, if I hadn't have lived with him, I think it would have definitely
gone down differently. But six years of 12 to 18, some of the most formative
years in my life, I was taught every day that
I had to submit or else, and that I didn't have a choice. And having a male figure's
will imposed on me and it was just a fucking way of life. It just was how it was. And then add on to that
the four-year boyfriend and it was the same shit. And there was nobody in this world, I wouldn't fight. In fact, I stayed in trouble
constantly in school and out for fighting, usually females. But when it came to men, even if I had to fight
them, I still in the end, ended up submitting and
doing what they wanted. So by the time I got to him, I've gone through all
these years of conditioning from my father and this shit boyfriend, and then the learning how to, I guess the word is disassociate, through my drug years or year-ish, sleeping with strangers,
old men, whatever. So by the time I got to him,
he was like the ultimate. He was physically the biggest and personality-wise the biggest. And he had the biggest
presence and the strongest will and it was almost like being, hypnotized is not the right word, but there was no saying no. It just never really crossed
my mind as an option. And even when it ended, it wasn't like I found the
courage to do it myself. I got very, very sick
and was in the hospital for over a week and they didn't
think I was gonna make it. So my paternal grandparents drove from Tennessee to Oklahoma and I miraculously started to get better. And once I got better, they asked me I reckon they got tired
of being angry with me they asked me if I wanted
to come home and man, we drove to that little house and I just threw all my shit. I grabbed shit left around
and threw it in my truck. And I followed them back home. And that's where I stayed with
them until I met my husband. If I hadn't gotten sick, I
probably would have stayed, truth be told for years,
and he took your power away. He took any choice you had away. There was no choice. And then, and I also felt like I had probably gone wrong somewhere and done something wrong by
continuing to speak to him when I was like 14 after
the whole kissing thing. And after all this shit,
when I was a little girl maybe I'd given him the signal, like a, oh it's okay, thing. Like maybe I had said or done something to make him think that I was okay with it or
that it was wanted or whatever but it very, very much wasn't. And I think it was very
obvious that it wasn't, from the first time that
he ever tried anything. I don't know why I couldn't
kind of fight him off, I fought back with my dad. I fought back with boyfriends. I fought back with my husband after. I'm not sure, but he definitely did
a good job of grooming also like from childhood onward, always, always there to say, no, there's nothing wrong with you and no, you're doing great. And I love you and I support you in whatever you do and answering the phone anytime I called and kind of
rushing in to save the day and sending me gifts and writing songs for me and about me and just doing anything you could to, like it was flattering. And I had never heard from a man in my entire life that I was beautiful or that I was a lady or that I could be
anything I wanted to be, even my good Pepo here in Tennessee. Like he was just different. He was my very best friend,
but a different breed of man. Like they just don't, here in my family, they just don't say things like that. So to hear that from him and to get the gifts
and to get the attention and to get all the things that I think he knew I was starving for, it was intoxicating, I don't know. And maybe that played a role in why I didn't say no because I could have, but I didn't. Told you it took me two
years to get my son back. It was a lot of trial and
error, methadone, suboxone, fucking up, falling off the wagon. Now I take benzos for sure. But that's it. You don't knock on wood. Some days, a lot of
days I want to get high, but I'm not. Losing my son for that couple of years and that even completely,
almost destroyed me. I can't imagine losing my girls and my son they're my world, I
would die if I lost them and trying to escape the girl's father. It's probably not a good idea
to go to court dirty, right? So I'm good right now, but who knows? People stay clean for
decades and then fuck it up. Secrets keep you sick, right? So. Thank you - [Mark] Took a lot of
courage for you to do this. - I appreciate it. Thank you very much. - [Mark] Thank you.
That was such a heartbreaking thing to watch. Anyone reading this who has the time, watch it in its entirety. She deserves to be heard and have her story witnessed.
I also struggled with painkillers and heroin as a cure for trauma and even though our traumas were different I very much related to a lot of what she said. She did a very good job of communicating the emotions behind what she was saying.
One thing that really stood out to me was a point she made about age, responsibility and guilt. When a child is traumatized, no one (besides monsters) blame the child, but, when an adult is traumatized, blame, guilt, and shame get forcefully thrown in the mix. My trauma started in childhood, but it lasted into adulthood and I acted out as a child and as an adult. Where is that line when one stops being a blameless victim and becomes a participant? Could I have stoped myself from being traumatized more as I got older? Could I have not acted out in such destructive ways? Should I feel guilty and shameful that I couldn’t/didn’t do either? The empathetic, caring person would say no, but it never assuages the guilt and shame. The second guessing and repeated relivings don’t stop. It can never take back the hurt I caused other people. It’s an experience that everyone who lives with trauma knows well, and I wish I knew a way to make it stop; for others if not for me. There’s so much hurt in the world and I wish I could make it go away.
I got a little long-winded, there. It was a great interview that shines a light on a taboo topic that gets swept under the rug more often than not. It is also a great think-piece about trauma in general as you watch her struggle with her own trauma in real time as she’s reliving it, having all of those emotions and images come up all over again. On camera. This is a video I’ll remember.
Tl;dr: watch the video, all of it. It’s very good and she deserves to be seen.