00:00:00
00:00:01
Guest: Performer Kailin Kenerly
60 Plays1 month ago
This week, we talk with actress and singer Kailin Kenerly. Kailin lives with PTSD and bi-polar disorder, and shares her experiences with self-harm, relationship violence and its aftermath, and what happens when police are better at protecting property than protecting women. We talk about why the demographic of your therapist matters, my moment of sociopoliitcal shame, and the difference between nurturing and co-dependency.
We also talk musical theatre, Night of the Living Dead, and how lucky i feel that the internet didn't exist yet when I was in undergrad.
Transcript
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to The Mentally Oddcast, where we talk with creatives about neurodivergence, trauma, addiction, and all the other things that impact and inform our art. Our goal is to show everyone that no matter what you're going through, you are not alone and you can make art about it.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hi, friends. It's me, Wednesday, Leave Friday, and you are listening to The Mentally Oddcast, brought to you by Sometimes Hilarious Horror. This week, we have Kalyn Kennerly, who is an actress, singer, and all-around performer. ah They live with borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, and PTSD.
00:00:58
Speaker
Kalyn is currently the lead vocalist of the metal band Split Soul, which is difficult to say. I'm not even going to try to say it two times fast. Hi, Kalyn. Thank you so much for being here. Hey, Wednesday. Thank you for having me. Truly a pleasure.
00:01:15
Speaker
Oh, well, thanks. um Full disclosure, I know Kalyn because I went to undergrad with her parents. And and that that's how we know each other. And ah it's it's funny because I talked to you way more than I talked to either of your parents. Right? Wednesday helped me when I was just a wee lass.
00:01:36
Speaker
It's true, it's true. um So, you know, before we get into the heavy stuff, I'd like to start out by hearing the story of the first horror movie that you remember seeing. Oh, buckle up for this. um It's a combo because I can't remember which one came first. I want to say it's this one. So have you had the pleasure of meeting my pappy, my dad's father, Renee? Yes. Okay, so Renee Kennerly.
00:02:06
Speaker
huge horror movie buff, movie buff in general, right? But he and I were hanging out in my grandparents' dining room, which was essentially the living room. Nobody ever actually sat on the couches. And and the TV was in the dining room, and Night of the Living Dead came on. And he said, we are going to watch this. I probably was about eight eight years old and I fell in love with it. It didn't scare me at all and it made me like really appreciate that time with my Pappy and he put me on other movies after that. um But I will tell you the horror movie that really got me.
00:02:53
Speaker
So I was spending the night at my childhood best friend's house. And her dad was also a huge horror movie buff. And so by proxy, she was. We were nine years old and they decided, let's watch Candyman while Caitlin is having ah over here. Wednesday, it scared the shit out of me, dude. um I had nightmares for at least about a week. My mom said she was furious.
00:03:22
Speaker
um Oh, I'm sure. to this because your mom Your mom is not a horror person. So she probably thought your horror intake should be about zero. And and yeah, Candyman is a harsh one. And I have to think that that is going to, ah that's the kind of movie that's going to hit harder if you are more immersed in black culture, which I am not. Well, I mean, I kind of am now, but like at the time that I saw Candyman, like when it first came out,
00:03:51
Speaker
It was very like, I was very cognizant of like, oh, those ladies don't belong in that neighborhood. Like what? Nobody's going to like that. Oh yeah, no. What are you doing up here? ah Oh, you're here for educational purposes. you're You're an academic studying us. Like you're Jane frigging Goodall. Like that shouldn't have gone well under any circumstances, even if there was no candy man. Like how fucking rude is that?
00:04:19
Speaker
gentrify inner city more and like, fuck around and find out. that's That's the moral of that story is fuck around and find out.
00:04:31
Speaker
with a side order of don't cheat on your wife. um But but I don't know if you know that I actually have like Night of the Living Dead is is an enormous film for me as well. um And I actually when I was first writing for zombies on news when I first started trying to be an internet writer, that was who I reached out to first I reached out to George Romero because he was alive at that point. I reached out to Russ Streiner and John Russo, Kyra Shawn, Judy O'Day, who played Barbara. I'm gonna get you, Barbara.
00:05:08
Speaker
Right. And it turned out that all of those people, well, George never hit me back, but everybody else was super gracious. And, uh, you know, Russ Treiner, let me interview him and, and Judy O'Day and Kyra and I developed like, you know, a, a chatty relationship online. Um, I absolutely adore that.
00:05:29
Speaker
I started buying her jewelry. Now, you know how H made me that logo? It's a W with knives. Yes. Like my main W logo. She is who turned that into a necklace for me because she's a user. Yeah. Yeah. So Kyra Shawn actually made that. She has a, her her Etsy store used to be called Stonehouse, Stonehouse Arts. I don't know if that's still what it's called because it's gone through a few iterations, but if you get near her jewelry, it is fantastic. The thing about Night of the Living Dead is not only did it invent like the classic, the the modern zombie.
00:06:04
Speaker
You know, because people will say, oh, white zombie, that's the first zombie movie. That's a completely different kind of zombie. Okay. The the modern zombie where the zombie is a reanimated dead person who wants to eat you. That is that singularly from Night of the Living Dead. And dude, my Papi, the last thing that he said to me about this movie was the black man made it all the way to the end.
00:06:30
Speaker
And his one fault was that he did not say something. And then that shot. So. Yeah. I mean, it's one of the most infuriating endings in film history. You know, right up until the mist, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm so excited to hear that. That was that was your first horror movie. Very, very first.
00:06:56
Speaker
So we talked a little bit about your diagnosis that you have borderline personality disorder, um depression, anxiety, and and yeah yeah PTSD happening there. So how did you come to get your diagnosis? Okay, so I'll give you the basic background of my mental illness as it slowly started to progress or I guess quickly progressed. um A lot of people don't really understand or at least they didn't you know nowadays there's way more um god what's the word i'm looking for uh awareness and you know but when i was a kid let's see i was 11 years old so this was 2002
00:07:42
Speaker
Um, I would, I was in the sixth grade and I would go into the cubby room of my classroom for the first hour and just weep uncontrollably. Um, my mom and I were arguing a little bit more frequently. And I think it was just because I was really sensitive and she was a young mother. Um, and see, she had me when she was 22.
00:08:07
Speaker
um And I don't think that she really understood the full symptoms of mental illness. And so when I was crying in that cubby room, my teacher literally thought that my mom was beating me, which is not the case at all, never was. And she called CPS. Wow. Yeah, not happy about that. And I remember vaguely her just being like, what the hell, dude, like your teacher thinks I'm beating you. And I was like, I don't know why. um And then when I was 12, I was in the seventh grade. And I just started, you know, losing weight because I wasn't eating, which is not like me. I love food.
00:08:58
Speaker
and I wasn't talking as much and my grades were kind of starting to fail and that's when I started getting bad at math. um Up until my sixth grade year I was actually really good at math and I kind of noticed that like that's around the time that like the only things that I really excelled in were ah history you know social studies and anything that had to do with English or lit. And I was just getting tired all the time and sad. And then um I discovered my chemical romance was three cheers for sweet revenge. And it was just everything that my little 12 year old heart needed in that moment. They're still my favorite band to this day. And I'm 32.
00:09:45
Speaker
So 20 years strong. um So around that time is when I started self-harming. I was cutting myself. I was, you know, if my mom noticed, I would blame it on the dog jumping on me and scratching me because that's when we got our first puppy. um And I had multiple journals and my mom just couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. Like as far as my attitude and my grades and general malaise, I think that's the right word. And one day my grandma told her, Jeannie, right? You've met my grandma Jeannie as well. She told her that she should check my room for drugs. Wednesday, I had never done a single drug in my life. I was such a straight edge kid.
00:10:36
Speaker
um The closest I got was like doing some yellow shots when my family and I would go canoeing every year. And that was like with parent supervision. um So my mom, this is the first time that I remember any actual trauma coming from my mother. um She tore apart my room.
00:10:59
Speaker
every single dresser drawer, my jewelry boxes, under my bed, in my closet, in my clothes that were folded, um my memory boxes, my books. And eventually she found my journals and read them. ah And then she looked at me and also, you know, she took the wooden spoon to my butt because I was trying to block her from you know, doing well. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it was like a huge invasion, especially considering that I repeatedly told her, mommy, I'm not on drugs. I'm just sad. And I don't know why. And she didn't believe me. Um, and then after she was done tearing apart my room, she said, clean it up and walked away. And, um, I've never talked to her about that. Like since it happened and, um, she,
00:11:55
Speaker
never found any drugs because I wasn't doing them. And she didn't see anything in my journal about drugs because I wasn't doing them. But that's when she found out that I was cutting myself. So she took me to a child psychiatrist and a therapist who I saw until I was 18 years old because she specifically was just for children. um At which point I found, let's see,
00:12:25
Speaker
backtracking. I think I was 17 when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder specifically. Um, it's the less severe one. I think that's bipolar one. no bipolar what is the Okay. That's the one I have. and Okay. Whoo. Bipolar buddies. Um, then yeah, I have bipolar too. Um, so I had this terrible,
00:12:53
Speaker
psychiatrist said, you got bipolar disorder and put me on some meds and sent me on my way. But all of the meds that he kept putting me on were making me ill or weren't helping. And then at one point he gave me Zoloft and that was it. And it made me want to die.
00:13:18
Speaker
And so when I got taken off the Zoloft, he didn't taper me off slowly enough. Have you ever gotten the zaps from SSRI withdrawal? Oh yeah, absolutely. God. Yeah, I went through a situation where I couldn't get refills. My insurance decided that they needed a second opinion as to whether or not I required my medication. And during that time, I had run out. And that was when I was working a service job.
00:13:47
Speaker
So I had to like get dressed and go to a place and be on my feet for eight hours and smile at people that were talking to me like I was an idiot. So that didn't go well. But yeah, I definitely have made the rounds with medications. And they've given me things that were just wildly inappropriate. Like if if someone is a manic depressive, you don't give them an antidepressant alone. Oh, you sure do not.
00:14:14
Speaker
They put me on Well Butrin and I swear it made me want to murder people. Like I was so tense and freaked out all the time. It actually reminded me of my mom being on Sudafed all the time. She'd be like, why am I so tense? But yeah it was all Sudafed and Mountain Dew. um But no, I don't agree with the use for meth. Exactly. Like it's like over the counter meth. So but but no, I so feel the my mom used to just go into my room and trash it just just to see like, I don't think she ever really thought I was on drugs. But she would get angry. She would decide I had too much stuff. So she would just take away a bunch of my stuff. She'd just say, Oh, I, I don't I never see you using that. We're gonna throw that away. Like, what do you You never see me using it. I use it in this route, which is up the stairs, which is where you don't go. The the hardest part about that was never the violence. It was always the the betrayal, the having to look over your shoulder, the constant anxiety of like, so not only do I not know what's going on with me, but I have to be careful because whatever is going on with me is being mistaken for,
00:15:28
Speaker
you know, laziness, defiance, apathy, you know, oh, you're just a smart ass, like all these different things that are like, no, i yeah I would also like to figure this out. Would anyone maybe help me instead of judging me and treating me bad for it?
00:15:44
Speaker
Yeah, and it didn't really help my case ah that I've always been a very defiant person, even before my mental health ah started to decline and my mental illness started to ah peek around the corner. You know, the first time that I went to the principal's office, I was in the second grade and my mom got a phone call in the middle of the day while she was at work. And it was like, Hey, this is the principal from Parkwood-Uptown Elementary.
00:16:13
Speaker
And I just wanted to let you know that your daughter is in the principal's office because she's trying to tell me how to do my job. So when you get to a point where um you're already known for being a little, you know, pushing buttons or just questioning authority, and then you mix that with The crying and the silence and the attitude and the flip flop of emotions. It's just rough, but also, you know, I started my, uh, menstrual cycle when I was nine years old. I did oh oh my gosh physically very early. Um, I had B cups in the fourth grade. Um, and I was already getting body hair and I was all stinky and like, just blah.
00:17:05
Speaker
And that's when we, well, it wasn't until I was 16 that we found out that I have polycystic ovary syndrome, PCOS. And I'm sure that that did not help with the ah bipolar disorder either. We've just got all of the the stuff thrown at us. But yeah, um so eventually I,
00:17:33
Speaker
went to a new therapist named Pam, this badass 60 plus year old lesbian who just owned a bunch of parrots and really saved my life. um Nice. And she eventually we got to a point where we realized that we had done our work together. And she recommended recommended um dialectical behavioral therapy.
00:17:58
Speaker
And when I ah started doing DBT at ah this office out here in Kalamazoo, I met Rashida. And the way that it went about was I said, I want a black female therapist because I had had a brief stint with a male therapist who I got into an argument with about the police.
00:18:25
Speaker
Oh, geez. This was right after um one of the many murder porn videos of a black man getting shot ah while he was just trying to live his life and follow orders of, you know, a white male cop. And I came into my therapy session and I said, hey, you know, David, I'm feeling really unwell today. And he asked why I said, you know, I watch this video when I shouldn't have and it's causing me a lot of trauma. And I said, fuck the police. And he was like, that's a very judgmental statement. And I said, Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I said, I stand by what I said. And he said, Well, what if I told you my dad was a cop? And I am like, that's a big no, no, you don't bring your personal life into your session. No, you sure don't. But Wednesday, I looked him straight in his face, I lean forward and I said, then fuck your dad.
00:19:22
Speaker
And he oh no he was so not happy about that. T.S. Yeah, he was so upset. And I immediately fired him as my therapist. So I found Rashida, this badass mother of a Muslim black woman from, you know, the south side of Detroit. And she was just so cool. And I saw her from 2014 to 2022.
00:19:56
Speaker
And that woman saved my life. No doubt about it. She walked me through a lot of my substance use and um my ah you know, suicidal ideation and help me become just a happier, healthier person with a lot of communication skills. I want to actually follow up on something because we talk a lot on the show about finding the right therapist and finding someone that shares some of your life experience so that they are relatable to you. Could you maybe talk a little about how like,
00:20:35
Speaker
ah things like race and gender and gender presentation play into that for you personally? Yeah, so i let's start with um kind of gender and we'll even throw in the fact that I'm like super queer, right? um My parents were both theater people. I didn't have to come out to them.
00:21:00
Speaker
I have so many friends that have the come out stories. I literally, one day, my sophomore year of high school, I was just like, hey, I have a girlfriend. They were like, cool, can can we meet her soon? And I was like, fuck yeah, you can. And so i've I've always just been able through my my mother and my father and my friends ah to really express myself as far as my sexuality goes.
00:21:27
Speaker
Um, the older I got the more, um, I kind of felt some of the oppression, you know, but from like peers that weren't my friends. Uh, I got called a dyke a lot and you know, shit like that, but I'm over here like I'm gay as fuck. And I just make out with my girlfriend in front of them. And you know, all this all half those people were probably just repressed homosexuals anyway. Um, but.
00:21:57
Speaker
Um, my therapist, Pam, uh, the one that I had before Rashida, uh, you know, just this bad-ass lesbian woman who, um,
00:22:10
Speaker
I admired so much and who showed me, uh, that it's, um, it's not a hindrance, right? And you know, to be, she was a successful person who was openly gay and that just really like made me happy. um So as far as like the queerness aspect of it, um it was like pretty chill. um I will note that a lot of the people that made fun of me for my ah ah sexual orientation were people of color.
00:22:55
Speaker
and And let's see, that can lead us into the but struggle that we find ourselves in with the Black community as a whole and access to mental health services. A lot of my friends who are Black and Hispanic even, it's one of those things where Oh, you know, you're just acting out kind of like how my mom thought when I was younger, but um you're just acting out. We're gonna punish you with corporal punishments. We don't talk about this and that and this, right? That stays in the family.
00:23:41
Speaker
um And Yeah, it's ah one of those things. And it it gets tied up with religion to some extent and and things having to do with like you know privacy as as part of morality, which is how a lot of different kinds of abuse ends up getting covered up because somehow the abuse itself is is not as as great a sin as exposing the abuser and making things happen and making people look and change their minds.
00:24:12
Speaker
I don't want to get like too far off topic, but I think a lot of that feeds into each other because there is a stereotype of the affluent white person with too much time on their hands dashing off to a therapist to complain about you know how difficult it is to be wealthy and pampered and shit. And I mean, of course, people exist. so I'm not going to sit here and pretend they don't exist. But I think that that stereotype can limit people outside of white culture who say, well, that's white people shit. How would anyone get past that, past the idea that like therapy makes you weak, therapy is self-indulgent, therapy is, you know, all the things that that people say to keep from admitting that they could probably use some therapy. Because I'm sure that you, like I know people who would
00:25:08
Speaker
greatly benefit from therapy, but who would not even discuss it? Oh, yeah. So when I was younger, first going to see a therapist, I didn't want anybody to know, right? It's kind of like, um when I was younger, if my bra straps were showing, I was like, this is how I go. I am mortified.
00:25:32
Speaker
Right. And now I'm over here like wearing crop tops with my titties out and no bra half the time. And it's the same thing with therapy. You know, it it took me a while to realize that not only is it good for people with mental illness, but it's good for everybody. You know, like,
00:25:57
Speaker
Yes, the the people in the community of neurodivergence definitely are the ones that truly need it, but ah mental health services are so important for people who don't have depression yet, but might from any life you know problem, loss of a parent or a family member, um sudden homelessness, houselessness, sorry. um you know, any sort of injury, financial problems, like everything that could possibly happen in life that becomes a huge stressor. It's kind of like going to the doctor, right? Like you go for tech ups, that way if something does change, you know how to nip it in the bud. It's the same thing with therapy. And I think that everyone really should benefit from having a therapist regardless of whether or not they have a mental health diagnosis.
00:26:57
Speaker
Well, yeah, and that's that's a great point that people are supposed to go in for an annual physical. How difficult would it be to get just an annual, hey, how are you doing? it have you you know Do you still like the things you used to like? Do you still like the people that you live with? How's all that going? just ah well and my My doctor's office actually has that every time ah I go in for my annual physical. They do have a questionnaire about um You know, have you lost interest in things that you used to love or how often do you think about death or how often do you think that the world would be better without you, etc. Do you feel safe at home? That one is a really important question. I think I was playing parenthood the first time someone asked me that. Are you saying do you feel safe at home?
00:27:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's ah that's a really big important question um because that really factors into the other aspects of the previous questions. Yeah, I mean, I just think about what would have happened or what could have happened if someone had asked me that when I was 10. Because at my last doctor's appointment, I have H come in the room with me because I have issues. so um And the doctor, there was a point at which the doctor said, I'm sorry, I need your husband to step out. And that's when he asked me the questions about, do you feel safe at home? Are you you know are you safe where you are? Is anyone making you do anything you don't want to do?
00:28:31
Speaker
You know, all that sort of stuff. And obviously my husband treats me like I'm the queen of everything, but I was so appreciative that that was the standard to say, no, I want the doctor and this patient. And I could have had a nurse if I'd wanted one, but like no one in my life was allowed in the room so that they could speak to me privately and know that anything I said would be kept in confidence.
00:28:56
Speaker
Yeah, which like when they first say, okay, you know, you're, um, essentially, you know, patient advocate or, you know, security buddy, you got to get out of here. Right. It can be so nerve wracking, especially if it was your first time, like hearing those questions in a doctor setting. Um, and then there's that as, as a assigned female at birth, you know, a fab person.
00:29:22
Speaker
It's one of those things that I appreciate so much, not to say that men and ah young boys don't get abused either because that's a whole other subject that we could go on about all day. sure sure But, you know, predominantly it's, ah you know, every woman or AFAB person I know has a story about some form of trauma um associated with men or their parents.
00:29:51
Speaker
uh well and and almost as many people have the story of the time that they needed help and were not believed you know which is something that is so avoidable that we could be doing so much better about as a society and i'll tell you like we were talking about race issues earlier and one of the things that gives me considerable shame as as a white person is that I never, I don't think that I thought people were lying about police violence, but I did think that people were exaggerating. The idea that cops would just beat the hell out of someone because the person said the wrong thing or would even kill someone for reasons that were not necessary. Like I could not get my head around that because I was very much raised with the officer friendly stereotype.
00:30:46
Speaker
And then to find out that like, ah just just to, to have to sit with the shame of like, Oh, and people tried to tell me that. And I just straight up didn't believe them. And I took the word of these people that we now know are professional liars, you know, and even now like, cause I mean, I'm sure you've worked jobs like as I have where there's a camera on you all the time. Oh yeah.
00:31:12
Speaker
If I pretended that the blockbuster camera mysteriously malfunctioned, I would not be welcome to manage at the blockbuster anymore, you know, because that's that's not how it works. You don't like, oh, whoops, of course, you know, if if ah there's an altercation at a blockbuster, you have to deescalate it or you lose your job. You can't just open fire on people. Lucky for people. Yeah, so lucky.
00:31:39
Speaker
We're all lucky. But you know, I actually, I would like to talk ah about, I know that you are a fan of of theater and performance, not just because you kick ass at it or because i your parents are both theater people, um but I think theater um as a collaborative art and a community, you know, situation that,
00:32:05
Speaker
people who are neurodivergent, people that that deal with depression and anxiety, often find a home among theater people because of the tremendous empathy, the community, the understanding, and and the sort of, I mean, a lot of otherized people do tend to be drawn to ah the theater arts. um whats What's your take on that? Okay, so my dad, ah this it immediately makes me think of my dad,
00:32:36
Speaker
So when I first told my dad that I wanted to be an actor like him when I grew up, because he's an actor at a very um successful Shakespeare Festival. yeah ah He looked at me and said, are you crazy? And I was like, kinda. And he was like, okay then. He said, you've gotta be crazy to be in this business. You have to be crazy to be in theater.
00:33:06
Speaker
And that always resonated with me. And the more that I did theater, the more I realized that that man was very right. yeah um So yeah, that's that's my hot take on that. Words to live by, are you crazy? Then you're going to do great.
00:33:27
Speaker
Well, they say that if in theater books where you're supposed to be deciding whether or not you want to go into theater, they say that if there is any other discipline that you would rather get into than this and you're trying to decide between two things, do the other one. Don't do this one and because theater is too hard. It's too thankless. Like I got a job in theater because after um I worked for Acorn, which is another lovely tale and why I hate yeah Right. But, um, but, uh, my paychecks, my last two paychecks before Christmas bounced from the theater. Shut the front door. That was a new experience for me, having a paycheck bounce, being like, wow, this is fucked. Yeah. How did this get like this? That they were missing. You know, it's like um if um' yeah bullshit. You better give me my money.
00:34:23
Speaker
Well, and that's the thing about theater people is they're like, well, you know what? We can't afford to pay you yet, but we still have three more performances. You going to be here? Yes. like i Because theater people are, you know, we're like like writers, you know? It's like, well, maybe I'm not going to make any money at it, but I think it's important and I'm going to do it and I don't want to let anyone down.
00:34:46
Speaker
Yeah. Our lives for the theater. Well, you know, well, and it's so funny cause I just saw recently where, you know, Trump people were putting out Craigslist ads to get people to go to rallies and they were offering to pay people.
00:35:02
Speaker
Which is so stupid because it is and it makes them look so bad that they're just outright saying that. And what I was saying was that if they would list it on Craigslist as a casting call and say that they were like filming a political movie or something, how many people would show up? And even when they find out what it is, a lot of them probably wouldn't leave.
00:35:27
Speaker
You know, it's like, well, it is an acting credit and I'm already here and they're going to pay me. So, you know, maybe Jordan Klepper will show up. I don't know, bro. I got to draw the line somewhere.
00:35:41
Speaker
Somewhere. You know, somebody has to, has to put up some form of a line. No, but really you're, you're probably right. A lot of people probably would stay because they're like, I need the money. Right. Because.
00:35:55
Speaker
With my my dad, he's been working at that Shakespeare festival since I was four. And my mother runs an auditorium for um a university. And she's been working in ah that theater since I was four as well.
00:36:17
Speaker
and It started with her working in the ticket office at the student theater attached to ah yeah the auditorium. right And then once she got out of the ticket office, she started ah to be the marketing director. Well, first marketing, then marketing director, and now she hearts the whole building. And I'm so proud of her. right um My stepmother is a director, and that's how she and my dad met.
00:36:47
Speaker
um And ah she goes where the money is. So she's, I mean, as so many actors, any theater person does, but ah she has been to, let's see, she goes to l LA ah frequently and Seattle and uh, you know, Ashland, Oregon, and just, she's all over the place and I am just in awe. I was like, I'll call her on FaceTime and be like, Desmona, where are you this day? Right? Not even this week, right? It'll be like, you know, she's in like three different places in one week and it's, uh, it blows my mind, but it's not the norm to have such successful
00:37:33
Speaker
careers or I wouldn't even say such successful because like I find them all to be successful. If you're doing your work, you're doing your work, but to be in the same place for so long or to have your name in so many ah different spaces to the point where you do have the opportunity to travel all over the country to do your art. That is just really beautiful to me. It is, that's huge.
00:38:03
Speaker
and it's something to be very proud of. um I am gonna plug my dad for two seconds again, because on top of working at this Shakespeare Festival for so long, he was on Broadway for a short amount of time um in his early fifties, right? Which like most people when they get their start on Broadway, they are, you know, these,
00:38:28
Speaker
fresh, you know, late teens, yeah early twenties that can, you know, sing and dance eight shows a week and all of this stuff. Right. And then you've got, you know, Kevin fucking Canterly out here working with Uso Aduba. Right. Right. This is a really great play that I had the pleasure of being able to see. And so like, yeah, my parents are an inspiration to me every, every day. Right on.
00:38:55
Speaker
Actually, you know what I love that your dad does is, uh, audio books. He is dope with the audio books. It's so funny. I, uh, I had multiple friends when he did love craft country. I had multiple friends, uh, call me and be like, Caitlin is this your dad? And I'm like, yeah, that's my dad. Um,
00:39:19
Speaker
So yeah I didn't even know that he was doing them for a while. The only reason I was at audie Audible was to check on my audio books and they recommended to me like, Oh, you should listen to talented Mr. Ripley. And I'm like, wait, I know that dude. College with that guy.
00:39:36
Speaker
And, and the running man too. And you know, it's funny because I, I bet your dad is going to listen to this and I bet he is wondering if I'm going to tell any ridiculously embarrassing stories about him. Cause we did for like two years. Well, you know, it's a funny thing because in undergrad there would be stuff going on that people would say, well, that that was my nickname, WOD.
00:40:01
Speaker
They say, what? That's, that's tacky. Come on. That is tasteless. That is utterly tasteless. What if you want to run for office someday? And I'm like, not a concern, but The thing is that at the time I was like, there is absolutely nothing that I have said or done here that would embarrass me in any way. And I can tell you, I am so fucking lucky that Olivette got the internet the summer after I graduated. Because if there was any visual evidence, I mean, it's bad enough that every picture of me that has survived from my under but undergrad days, I am either giving someone a the finger or I'm too drunk to stand up.
00:40:40
Speaker
It is. I have my fair share of the profile pictures. I mean, there's there's a media theater. Because I think there's there's a picture of me from Top Girls um that when I was in the play Top Girls, which the most well, the most amazing thing about being in Top Girls was that like I was saying earlier, I got to interview Judith O'Day, who played Barbara in Night of the Living Dead.
00:41:07
Speaker
And yeah when she was in grad school, she was in Top Girls. So she was so excited that I, and i I didn't know that, obviously, I found that out when I was doing research on her for the interview. And so I was so excited that I got to bring up that I was also in Top Girls. Cause you know, that's, that's not, you can like, when you can nerd out with, ah you know, theater people or, you know, like, yeah, people that we look up to.
00:41:33
Speaker
um and be able to like have those like oh my god you did this i did this and just start talking about all the intricacies of the play um or you know whatever hobby or job it might be um right my favorite is when i meet a new person for the first time and we immediately geek out about something while all the people around us look at us we're fucking batshit insane which we usually are but that is neither here nor there
00:42:01
Speaker
But like it's actually harder usually for me to geek out with theater people because I'm not a great fan of musicals. There's like three or four musicals that I kind of like, but I've never seen Rent, I've never seen Wicked, I've never seen Cats, you know like all the the major things that people see. like I didn't see Hamilton until it was on Disney Plus and then I sat there like, why am I crying?
00:42:24
Speaker
Why does this whole thing make me want to... This is so emotional. Why am I giving a fuck about Alexander Hamilton in the first place? He's like, got milk commercial. This is an important one. so And by the end, you're just like, he should be on all the money and you're so great. So here's my take on the musicals that you just mentioned. Rent.
00:42:49
Speaker
ah is the first musical I remember seeing. I know it's not the first musical I saw, but it was, I saw it when I was nine years old and I was like, I'm going to be in this play one day. And last year, I wasn't like in it, in it, but I was. I was an understudy for the two female ensemble members. So like all the work of being in it without ending up in it.
00:43:16
Speaker
Yeah, it was great. But I got paid $150 a week for like two and a half months just to sit there and write notes and learn music that I already fucking knew. And let's see, what was the second one you said there was rent?
00:43:36
Speaker
Wicked wicked, right? So we're trying to defend so into two things wicked I absolutely adore and every time I hear defying gravity I get goosebumps on nipples get hard, but I can understand Why some people don't like wicked or just like I love the book I read I read the book and I thought the book I love like flipping the perspective, you know, cuz that was kind of new people weren't really doing that like taking old characters and then, you know, giving us another side of the story. Like that was before like Maleficent and Cruella and all these things happened. So I was really taken by that concept. And I do like some musicals. I loved Annie when I was a kid. Annie was like the musical. Well, Annie and Grease were the big musicals when I was a kid. So I absolutely love Grease. Annie, I could like
00:44:30
Speaker
I could like live with or without it. And the main take that they have from everyone that they've ever interviewed is that if you were the little girl that played Annie on Broadway, your voice is fucked as an adult. Because again, yeah, because it's it's loud and it's high. So yeah, I guess I could see that actually. Yeah. And then as far as cats goes, I fucking hate cats.
00:44:58
Speaker
It's like two plus hours of just like, the first song, I don't remember how long it is, but it's called like Jellicle Cats or something like that. And that's the whole thing. be Because Jellicles can, Jellicles do, and Jellicle, and it's like, okay, we fucking get it. You're Jellicle Cats.
00:45:19
Speaker
and
00:45:22
Speaker
oh um because that's cats That's another thing where like I've read the written material and was like fine with it. um But I think my my issue with Cats is that it seems too mainstream to be as vague and experimental as it is. Because there is no plot, really. It's like, wait, why do you? I mean, I get why they're doing it. Like, I get why theater people like it. But why do housewives that don't like anything good, like, why do they, like, lose that? Like, you know, like the live, laugh, laugh people that are just like, oh, Cats. Yeah. ah
00:46:01
Speaker
Yeah, not my scene, but- Yeah. No, I will say one thing though, because I've seen Cats twice. The set and the costumes are really fucking cool. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, like the set and the costumes are really cool. Because I've seen some world class makeup for Cats, certainly. The movie I refused to watch because what the fuck was that shit show?
00:46:30
Speaker
And then as far as Hamilton goes, I saw Hamilton once in Chicago the day after Trump was elected. oh ge And I went with my mom and a couple of her employees and ah there's a scene where the King gets a message, you know, somebody's like whispering in his ear and you just hear the king go, they elected who? And entire audience just lost it. Like it was a combination of cackles and just the most defeated groans I've ever heard in my entire life. And then I went again in Detroit ah with my auntie, my dad's sister.
00:47:20
Speaker
um My Nana, my dad's mom had no interest in going to see this musical and her employer had bought her two tickets to a a private gala um and the viewing of Hamilton where like a lot of very prominent politicians were there and it was hard for me to not walk up to one of them and be like, what's it feel like to be a boot maker?
00:47:48
Speaker
They won't tell you. But then also, like, do you know who Big Sean is? No. Okay, Big Sean is a rap artist. ah His most popular song that I know at least, I guess it would be more like his most popular song with me because I don't listen to any of his other views. It's called I Don't Fuck With You.
00:48:10
Speaker
And it's my mom's favorite rap song. ah It's, I don't fuck with you, you little stupid ass bitch. I ain't fucking with you. um He sat in front of me for that entire ah showing.
00:48:27
Speaker
And yeah, so I saw it twice and it's just very long. That's why I have two complaints. It's very long.
00:48:38
Speaker
And Lin-Manuel Miranda, out of all of the people throughout history that you could write a musical about, you chose Alexander fucking Hamilton? Like, I want a musical about Nat Turner. I want a musical about Frederick Douglas. I love what it did.
00:48:58
Speaker
for the theater community. I love the music. Don't get me wrong, when the Skyler sisters come on, I'm like, oh, there's nothing rich folks love more than going downtown and slumming it with the poor. like I could sing the whole thing. And then um I recently actually did a miscast cabaret for your listeners. I don't know what that is. It is a collection of people that do different songs from different musicals.
00:49:25
Speaker
but it's specifically characters that you would never be cast in if you were actually auditioning for the show. So I am a very curvy, busty, thick, ah black, female presenting person. And I sang You'll Be Back, which is the king of egg England song from Hamilton.
00:49:53
Speaker
as well as I believe from Book of Mormon, which like I'm quite the opposite of a white Mormon man. So yeah. Dude, I get you and Andrew Reynolds confused all the time. What are you even saying? We're both going to be like, wait, weren't you on girls?
00:50:14
Speaker
We got so off topic. I love you Well, here's the thing at at the risk of like deflating the mood There is a question that I have been asking guests recently with permission. I don't throw this to people unannounced but um We ah we ask about a time in your life when you felt that your life was threatened by another person that it was a sincere threat on your life and It turns out that This has happened to a lot of people, that they were in a life, a literal life-threatening situation because someone, often someone in their life had threatened them in a way that seemed credible. Can you talk about that, please? When I was 17, it was the senior year, yeah, my senior year of high school. um I started dating this guy named Jordan, who I'd had like this huge crush on since middle school. And I was like, oh my God, it's actually happening.
00:51:10
Speaker
um He was like the super hippie dude with like long hair and played the electric bass, which I thought was so hot. and yeah So when Jordan and I first started dating, he um didn't smoke weed, he didn't drink, he was going to school, and he had a part-time after-school job. And then slowly those things started to disintegrate.
00:51:37
Speaker
Um, he started smoking pot and then he started drinking and then he dropped out of high school and then he quit his job. And then he left the band that he and a bunch of my friends were in. Um, and hindsight, it was very clear that he was on drugs, but my young naive ass had had the privilege truly, and I will call this a privilege of never knowing what true addiction looks like up until the age of.
00:52:09
Speaker
18 Because the first year was like totally chill and fine um And then it just it got so so bad um It was let's see cocaine and then eventually meth and also he was an alcoholic and jesuses Yeah, bad bad combo and then um But at the time, it was just like he was losing a lot of weight and he was just getting so mean. It was it was the anger and just the pure, it felt evil. um The way that he would just speak to you sometimes and it was just so flippy floppy. um He just became this completely different person and everybody around me knew. And he was stealing from our friends.
00:53:08
Speaker
And his mother, you know her electric got cut off once because he had ah withdrawn all of her money from her bank account to buy drugs. He sold his electric base, which is why he quit the band because he wanted to buy drugs. you know And I just, I didn't know. And I lost so many friends.
00:53:33
Speaker
because all of those people just assumed that I knew because how could you not know? But I truly didn't. um So after a while, I was just like, I can't do this anymore. ah He was leeching my joy. It was the first time that was the first time that I
00:54:02
Speaker
that I was changing to be something that somebody else wanted. you know I thought that it must be me. like why Why would somebody treat me this way if I wasn't you know responsible? And I felt like my light was just being shadowed. And so- Yeah, I mean, it's ah it's oppressive. It's an oppressive thing to live with.
00:54:30
Speaker
Truly. And so I broke up with him. It was my freshman year of college. My grandmother, who was my best friend, died two weeks into my freshman year of college. And we had had to put my dog down earlier that year as well. She was my very first dog. And so I was going through it. Plus I had 17 credit hours as a declared theater major. And I was just stretched so thin.
00:55:01
Speaker
And between all of that and the verbal abuse um and emotional abuse that I was receiving, I finally had had enough and I broke up with him. Well, he decided that he was just gonna stalk me. He started stalking me. It turned into um unwanted phone calls and just showing up at places he knew I'd be because we had some friends in common who then I learned were not my friends. One of them would actually call him and tell him when I was going to be at their house just so that he could laugh at my reaction to when he showed up. And shit. Yeah, it was evil. It was just
00:55:57
Speaker
a really dark time in my life. And so it turned into, you know, the unwatched phone calls showing up where he knew I would be. And he would just say the most vile shit.
00:56:15
Speaker
He threatened to kill my new puppy. He threatened to cut my little brother's head off and leave it on my dad's doorstep.
00:56:28
Speaker
He threatened to burn my house down with me, my mother, my pets, my stepfather, all in it, and then shoot himself in my backyard.
00:56:40
Speaker
ah Yeah, and he just told me that I was going to be nothing, that I was nothing. And that he never loved me and that the all the years that we had been together that will be here and some change that we had been together that he just kept me around because he wanted to fuck me.
00:57:04
Speaker
And that just between the the friends that I had lost and the abuse that I had endured, I sank into this terrible depression and, uh,
00:57:19
Speaker
started cutting myself again, which I hadn't done in years. And um one night I was hanging out with some friends in their dorm room and we were all hanging out in our pajamas and Jordan started calling me and threatening me and saying that he was going to, you know, show up to my dorm and break my friend's teeth with a hammer.
00:57:47
Speaker
because my friend was telling him to chill out. He called me over and over and over again. I can't even tell you the obscene amount of times that I received a phone call from him in a one minute period.
00:58:02
Speaker
um I had had enough. I had reached a point where I had had enough and I called the police and they said, we can't go to his house. We can only take a statement from you.
00:58:18
Speaker
And I had gotten to this point where like, I wanted to do something for myself because the police just felt useless, which as we just discussed, they often are. So I went to his house and the way his house is set up is he's got a basement main floor and a second floor. And his mom and his siblings sleep on the second floor and he slept in the basement. So.
00:58:48
Speaker
He was drunk and high when I got there. And, uh, I went down to the basement and I looked at him. I just screamed, why won't you just leave me alone? You know, and I was like, if you hate me this much, if this is really how you feel about me, why don't you just leave me alone? And he looked at me on my face. He walked over and he just got this look of just.
00:59:16
Speaker
foulness in his eyes and he said, cause fuck you. That's why. And then he started, you know, poking the bear. He was like, you look really mad. You look like you want to hit me right now. And I was like, no, I just want you to leave me alone. And I'm sobbing, which brought him joy. You could see it on his face that he was just so amused and he spit in my face Wednesday.
00:59:43
Speaker
he And it wasn't just, he hawked a loogie and spit in my face, which one is foul and two is legally assault. So I reared back and I slapped him, open hand slapped to his face so hard that I broke one of his teeth and I watched him spit it out.
01:00:10
Speaker
And that's when he was like, you came into my house without my permission. You just assaulted me. I can do whatever I want. And I was, that was the first time that I truly felt fear for my life ever. It wasn't just the first time that I've been like, yes, it wasn't like, Oh, I once walked into the middle of the road and a car almost hit me and I jumped back or, you know,
01:00:36
Speaker
whatever that This traumatic experience was the first time that I had ever feared for my life. And I tried to leave and he decided I wasn't leaving. And he grabbed me by the back of my hair and pulled me back towards him. And I got away and I'll i'll preface the rest of the story with this. I'm a black belt in Taekwondo. And that was not enough.
01:01:06
Speaker
to stop him from attacking me. Because if, I don't know how much common knowledge this is, but when people are on meth, enough meth and drunk enough, one or the other already, you can take a lot of pain and a lot of, you know, yes punches before you're actually like down, down, you know what I mean? And and he was on both. So,
01:01:35
Speaker
He ripped my sweater off of me and I got away and then he grabbed me again and I was stomping on his feet and like back kicking him in the nuts and digging my keys and my nails into his arm and biting him like literally fighting just so that I could get up the stairs out of his basement to get to my car.
01:01:58
Speaker
And when I got to the top of the stairs, he was underneath them and he grabbed me by my pant leg and my pants fell around my ankles. So not only am I at the top of these stairs with my pants around my ankles, but he's trying to yank me down this full flight of Michigan basement stairs. And um the only thing that's keeping me from falling is this door knob that I'm holding onto literally for dear life.
01:02:27
Speaker
And I'm screaming for his mom, but she's two stories above us sleeping because it's like 4 a.m. on a fucking Tuesday. And finally she starts banging on the basement door and going, what what is going on? What's going on? And he he let me go. So I open the basement door and I pull my pants up and I run out and I just apologize to her profusely, which I don't know why I felt like I had to apologize to her, but And then I just ran to my car um and I drove away. I went to my friend's house and he's holding me while I'm just sobbing and telling him everything that happened. And you know he was friends with Jordan as well. um We all you know went to middle through high school together. And this is a friend that I've known since the fourth grade. So he and I are very, very close. We still are to this day.
01:03:27
Speaker
And he's holding me, I'm inconsolable. And his little brother comes into his room and says, Hey Kalen, did you park on the street? And I was like, yeah. And he said, do you hear that noise? Oh my God. And it was like this rhythmic something. And I said, yes. And he said, that's your car. And I'm just like, what? So.
01:03:55
Speaker
I go out into the living room which looks out into the front of the house and I look through the window and there's Jordan just swinging away at my car with a baseball bat. The neighbor was out walking her dog and she was like, hey, stop that. So he ran at her and started threatening her with the bat. So then she called the police and so they were already on their way and then they just knew where to go, right?
01:04:25
Speaker
So the whole time, and at this point, my friend's mom is up and it's this whole thing. And he's standing on the hood of my car, taking the bat straight down onto the hood. So it's all these little circular spots when the cops show up. Right. So it's not like he did it and then got away and then the police showed up. They watched him do this. Um,
01:04:51
Speaker
He broke every window, hit the body of my car. Luckily, you know I guess not luckily, but you know at least he didn't slash my tires or fuck with my headlights or tail lights, but every window had to be replaced. And he didn't stop when the cops showed up and they almost tased him. um I'm gonna say right here and right now that he is a white man. And if it had been a black man doing this,
01:05:18
Speaker
I was going to say that's why he lived. That's why he lived. And, um, yeah, they threatened to tase him and they threatened to pepper spray him. And that's when he got off the car, dropped the bat and, you know, allowed them to arrest him. He didn't struggle. And I opened up my phone. Oh, and his mom showed up to my friend's house and she was looking at me.
01:05:45
Speaker
and apologizing for her son. And that just really broke my heart because she was one of the just sweetest, funniest, witty women that I've ever met in my entire life. She made a really good impact on my life and it's such a shame that her son made the worst impact on my life.
01:06:05
Speaker
honestly, probably on her life too. Oh, I think that's, that's why you apologized because she had to be aware that this is the person she raised and this is what happened to them. That, yeah that is a terrifying story. Yeah. Where is Jordan now? but So, um, before I tell you that I get these, um, messages on my phone, the first one's from his mom saying, Hey,
01:06:33
Speaker
Kalen, uh, Jordan just left the house with a baseball bat. I don't know where you are, but please be careful. Right. The second one is from my mom saying Jordan just called me, uh, calling me a fat bitch and all of these other terrible things. And I guess you're messing around with him again. And, uh, I don't know what's going on. wow She didn't think, are you okay?
01:07:03
Speaker
She thought, there you go, once again, going to this person that treats you this way. Yeah, I've been there. Boy, have I been there. Now, when I told her what happened, that's when she was like, oh, I'm sorry, right? But she just assumed. um The third message was from my friend Allison, who said, hey, Kaylin, Jordan just called me asking if you We're with me and you're not. um He told me to tell you that you have one more chance. I don't know what that means, but I hope you're okay. Click. who And yeah, I got all these messages after the cops had taken him away already. So he went to jail and ah I you know had to go to this court date
01:08:00
Speaker
and nobody would go with me Wednesday. oh Not a single friend, not even my mother. What? That is horrifying.
01:08:15
Speaker
i mean ah Well, of all the times when you would need support, man even going to court for when people aren't trying to kill you is is taxing and and difficult and and you need support. but yeah Yeah. I'm, I'm horrified to hear that you did not have the support that you need. I'm so sorry. So I wish, I wish I had known because I, I like to think that I would have accompanied you. That's, that's not an alone trip. My Papi said to me, I wish that I had known this was happening because I have friends all over Michigan and other States and he would not have been a problem for you anymore. Yeah. My father had just been visiting.
01:08:59
Speaker
And he left the day before this happened. And I keep thinking about how that night would have gone completely different had my father been there. um And yeah what ifs, but the main thing is, is I went to the YWCA and ah so gave them my statement so that they could help me fill out Sorry, I don't know if I hit the mic just now. They gave me, ah they helped me fill out my statement to give to the courts so that I could get a personal protection order, a PPO. And usually it takes like a week, sometimes even two for a judge to look at it and approve it. I turned it in at like 4.30 PM on a Thursday and it was approved at nine in the morning on Friday. Nice.
01:09:58
Speaker
And so I, because nobody would go with me to the court date, I didn't go. Oh. Which you're not supposed to do. I got no legal repercussions from it, but all that they had to work with were witness statements ah and the PPO ah paperwork that I had filled out.
01:10:28
Speaker
So it's not like they didn't get my statement, but I didn't get a chance to tell my story because nobody was there to support me. Um, and he was 19 at the time, but got some like, you know, lucky white kid with a future ahead of him, uh, nine months in jail, um, on some sort of like a minor.
01:10:56
Speaker
as in like underage technicality, even though he was a year above 18. Wow. I've, I've never even heard of that. That is nuts. Yeah, it's cray cray. And so, uh, he went to jail for nine months. Um, but what he did was a felony. It was his, I later found out second felony. Um, the first one was him trying to, you know, make a false check because drugs, right? Um, but.
01:11:26
Speaker
I don't know if a lot of people know this, domestic violence, um, that isn't actually like murderous and all of that fun stuff is only a misdemeanor. Typically yeah malicious destruction of property. Like what he did in my car. That's over $1,500 in damage is a felony.
01:11:54
Speaker
Well, sure. so We might not worth nearly that much under the eye of the law. Exactly. So my life is worth less than a car. And that will blow my mind forever. um I'm not shocked, but i I just, I can't wrap my head around it. It's impossible.
01:12:15
Speaker
Yeah. Well, and then you know women go through these things without help, without support, and then are chastised when they suggest that maybe the police are not all they're cracked up to be. um If I may bring that around to its logical conclusion,
01:12:33
Speaker
um I could tell you as as a ah white lady that I have never in my life called the police to help with the situation and had police arrive and improve the situation. Oh, I did find out that he was diagnosed with bipolar one. Yeah. Well, that that they they forced him. Yeah, they forced him to go to a psychiatrist.
01:13:00
Speaker
ah because of the behavior that he was exhibiting, ah which I thought was like a luxury. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, how many people do you know that don't do crimes and don't hurt people and still can't get the therapy they need? yeah Exactly. And let's also talk about how most criminals don't just get sent to a psychiatric unit when they're acting some type of way, they just get sent into gen-pop or isolation. yeah And they either, you know, continue that behavior and cause problems, or they're just locked in a cell by themselves, making things worse. And here's this kid that just committed these horrible atrocities. Not even kid, young man, right? Committed these horrible atrocities. And he had that opportunity.
01:13:57
Speaker
to get the help that he needed, which I'm simultaneously thankful for and bitter about. And that's something that to this day, I'm still working on figuring out where that comes from. i mean But yeah. You can be simultaneously sad for someone and know that they are just a garbage person that you don't want in your life anymore. Like those things can exist simultaneously, certainly, especially when it's someone that you used to be a ah good friend to.
01:14:28
Speaker
Yeah. It's, it's just such a shame. You know, I, I every once in a while feel empathy for him, but then I have PTSD flashbacks, um, that just completely erased the empathy. Uh, once when I was working in retail, I had a woman, I have amazing, thick, giant curly hair. You've seen it in all its glory. Oh yeah.
01:14:58
Speaker
um And one day this woman, this white woman walks up behind me, grabs my hair from the back, goes, oh, great hair. And then just walked away. You didn't have to tell me that it was a white woman. No other shade of woman would do that. And I had a millisecond to remember that I am in a public place.
01:15:26
Speaker
and that I am working and that no one is attacking me. And so, because like I said, he grabbed me from behind by my hair. And I didn't see this woman walk up, all of a sudden there's just somebody grabbing the back of my head and my, you know, there's fight, flight or freeze and I'm fight. I've had many a person startle me and get elbow to the stomach before. Well, people don't have a right to touch you.
01:15:55
Speaker
I mean, at that point, i like, yeah, you're allowed to do what you need to do to feel safe. Well, maybe not. but in that Maybe not. I mean, you, you you that there would have been and some meetings, but um I would argue that it would not be in keeping with the ADA to fire you under those circumstances. I think they would have lost my job and then sued. Yeah, you could be a wealthy woman. but yeah
01:16:26
Speaker
Um, yeah, so I just, um, it took me a minute, but by a minute, I made a millisecond to realize that I'm not being attacked. Uh, somebody who's just a, uh, a racist, creepy person yes who, you know, fetishized my hair, didn't introduce herself or see me as a person, just saw me as great hair.
01:16:55
Speaker
and then just kept walking. I didn't even see your fucking face. But all this to say, my my eyes closed and all I could see was what I saw in front of me the night that he grabbed me by the back of my head and attacked me, right? And if I hear loud metallic noises, um I immediately think about the noise that the baseball bat made hitting ah my car. And there are certain types of drunk people that I can't be around. Like I can handle drunk people. If you're a married drunk or a goofy drunk, even if you're sloppy-ish, I can handle it. Angry drunks I refuse to tolerate because that, and I also had another partner later in life. I didn't date anybody from the ages of 19 to 21.
01:17:54
Speaker
because of the trauma that I had ah you know yep yeah received that I had been gifted with. um But ah the person that I dated when I was 21 was also really abusive ah because he was an alcoholic. And when he got drunk, he would just be so mean.
01:18:24
Speaker
Right. And it's, it's the look in their eyes when they're thrown that I can't handle. And so if I'm around a person who isn't being belligerent, but has that look in their eyes.
01:18:39
Speaker
It triggers me and brings me right back to that night as well. and It can feel like, like they have a psychosis and I don't mean to armchair shrink anybody, but when you drink for long enough and you drink enough, it, it does put you in a different headspace where.
01:18:58
Speaker
I mean, it it is like a ah break from reality because it's it's well, it's often very like the anger is very blame oriented, regardless of the reality of who may be to blame for situations. It's a you made me do this. Oh, also Wednesday. I had to drive that car for another five years. Oh, shit. That is awful. Every day that car was a constant reminder of the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life. And I had to drive it for five years. And everywhere I went, Oh, are you a game changer? Oh, what happened to your car? And sometimes I would just lie. Oh, yeah, that a deer, a deer ran over the hood of my car, or like a couple of deer ran into the road. And that's why the body and the hood look the way that it did.
01:19:53
Speaker
Um, it did look like, like once it got rusty, it looked like my hood had been shot up. Right. Cause remember I said he brought the bat straight down. So it was all those little circles. Yeah. So that's why people would think that like, you know, I had just had a ah whole round fired at me while I was driving. But when I told people the story, 99% of the men and assigned males at birth.
01:20:24
Speaker
would respond with, wow, he loved you that much. Or what did you do to make him do this? And I still get that question sometimes. And it used to just make me cry and shut down. And then other times I would be like, I did nothing wrong. And they would just kind of like laugh it off.
01:20:50
Speaker
And now I'm like, why the fuck would you ask me that question? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Like I've learned to have a voice in it, but yeah, then it was usually those two questions or that statement and that question. Wow. He really loved you that much. And what did you do to make him do that? Whereas all of the women in assigned female at birth people I knew were like,
01:21:18
Speaker
I am so sorry that that happened to you. And then most of the time with them shared their most traumatic right experience with a man with me. And It just, it puts a lot of things in perspective. Well, given that most of the women that we all know have such a story, at least one story. Some have plenty. Exactly. You know, as women, we are trained not only to put our own anger inside of us and not take it out on other people, but also that it's our job to make everyone feel better. How do we get around that?
01:21:56
Speaker
It's like, i I want to be your partner, not your fucking therapist. um there are there's There's a role that partners play in each other's lives, especially when it comes to neurodivergence. I'm not asking anybody to fix me. I'm asking for people to stay around and love me while I fix myself, while I work on myself.
01:22:23
Speaker
um Nobody is my project. I am not anybody else's project. And so when it comes to the roles, the traditional roles of men and women, ah so often ah a female partner, whether it be a girlfriend or a wife ah is seen as the one that is supposed to be that therapist, right?
01:22:52
Speaker
it's It's not about a partnership. It's like playing doctor and mom. Well, yeah. And then when the relationship gets to the point where usually long after you you do recognize that it's hurting you, it still feels like you're a quitter and you failed at making the relationship work. you know and that and but And for some people, like I mean me certainly, and I imagine you to an extent,
01:23:22
Speaker
that you have those voices in the back of your head, whoever they are, that are like, see, you failed. See, you fucked up again. How do you feel now? like Sally, give up. Exactly. Why did you ever have hope in the first place? Well, and when you go through school being told that you're lazy and you're not trying and you want attention all the time and just, you know, these things that are all manifestations of your mental illness, it makes it that much more difficult to stand up to yourself in your own mind, let alone in front of other people, you know, and certainly- So my advice
01:24:01
Speaker
My advice as far as red flags go is um watch the company that they keep. You might have friends in common, but also see what their other friends are like. um Do they defend people when those people are not around? Do they defend you when you need defense, when you are around or not around, right?
01:24:30
Speaker
I know this isn't always true, but if all of your friends and family are telling you that this is unsafe or this person is not good for you, you have to take a step back and listen to what they're saying and ask yourself, is this true, right? Cause this isn't one of those things where it's like a white family with a white daughter who stayed in a black man. And they're all like, you know, get that,
01:24:58
Speaker
person out of your life, we don't take kindly, right right? This was one of those things where like, I had friends that were like, Kalen, you have changed Kalen, you cry about this person all the time, Kalen, you're on and off again, right? Just all of these things, my mom, my dad, my like my closest friends, we're all just like, Kalen, this isn't good for you. And we got to love this response. You just don't know it. Yep.
01:25:27
Speaker
He loves me. You just don't get it. Nobody gets it. And it's like, bitch, they all got it. Right. Like, and I know that sounds harsh. Like I'm not actually calling myself a bitch, but it's like, Kaylin, like they, they understood. You know, there's, I don't know who originally said it, but there is a piece of advice that goes something like your soulmate isn't going to make you cry on a regular basis. Your soulmate is not going to make you feel like you're nothing. Soulmates lift each other up.
01:26:00
Speaker
And if you are not being lifted up and if someone will not let you help them lift them up, then that's, that's not your soulmate. And it's probably codependent if you know that and you still feel like you can't leave because man.
01:26:16
Speaker
After I left my family of origin, I went no contact in 1994. Suddenly, i was everything was on my own. you know like I was yeah kind of'm crashing with a bunch of dudes. I was doing holidays on my own. like Nobody was giving me any Christmas presents. and just like You know, my family was really screwed up, but my mother was very into the trappings of things. She wanted to look like a functioning family. So we did get Christmas presents and we had decent clothes and we had, you know, lunch every day and stuff like that, like all the normal middle-class stuff. But then there was like emotional terror and hitting and, you know, whatever. But the thing, well, I mean, yeah, like they want to take away the signs of abuse. Yep. Yep.
01:27:04
Speaker
on the symptoms of abuse that aren't ah behavioral, right? Because like once you're getting abused, your behavior changes. yes Or if you've been abused your whole life, your behavior also changes either into where you're acting out and you are a disturbance or you're angry or something like that.
01:27:27
Speaker
or you just shrivel into yourself. Because you go through these long stretches where you think no one would understand this if I explained it. And it turns out that like, no, that's exactly what the DSM-4 says would happen under these circumstances. Yeah, you know, I saw this sign at a bar in Seattle once that said no trauma bonding allowed at the bar. you You need a booth if you're going to do that shit. but I'm just so, I'm over here. Like some of my, my best ah connections have been made from trauma bonding at the bar. I don't even drink like that. Like I don't go to the bar to drink. I go to the bar to do karaoke every Tuesday night at my little home dive bar here in Kalamazoo, but like,
01:28:15
Speaker
Another bit of advice that I could say is it's, it's hard to take the advice of people. I can tell you all the red flags that I noticed. I can tell you, you know, as soon, as soon as they hit you leave and don't ever come back or when they start hitting objects.
01:28:39
Speaker
that aren't you leave and never go back as soon as they make you feel less than yourself leave and never go back. But when you're looking at the world through rose colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.
01:28:59
Speaker
Wow. Yep. Yep. Yep. And that that's just that's really hard.
01:29:07
Speaker
That's really, really hard to navigate. Well, I mean, there are so many areas of life where we know intellectually what the right thing to do is, and we have all sorts of great reasons why we're not going to do that just yet. Except that yeah when it comes to domestic violence, that's the kind of decision that can leave you on a left. Murdered? Oh yeah, Zuckerberg's not here. We can we can say it.
01:29:36
Speaker
Well, I would hope if there's a takeaway from hearing a story like this for people that are not involved and haven't had these experiences is to believe people when they tell you what their experience is, to listen back. You know, we'd all like to think that the people that we know are not abusers, but the longer the internet exists, the more we learn that, yeah, lots and lots of people that we respected and admired are not worthy of it.
01:30:06
Speaker
Neil Gaiman. um
01:30:10
Speaker
I'm sorry, man. That that just cuts that cuts me in my belly. I i can't with that. um we I really want to get away from this topic for a bit if we can. Let's switch things up a little bit. I wanted to ask, you're singing Heavy Metal. Now is that because of anger?
01:30:32
Speaker
Okay, so one of my friends ah in the band, Humza, he's actually the ah person that created the band in the first place when we were in high school. um And over the years, all the other ah instruments and vocalists have been different people, but Humza said for the first time ever that it actually feels like one big cohesive band.
01:31:00
Speaker
So one day, Humza was like, hey, Kalen, you're not a metalhead. And I was like like, that wasn't a question. It was a statement. And I was like, yeah, you write. I am not. ah But he was the first person to be like, hey, will you please do vocals in the metal band? And so he was like, but would you be doing this music if you were the one that started the band? And I was like, no.
01:31:29
Speaker
But I love our music. um So when I moved into the house that I currently live in, I live with two people that I went to high school with. ah Both are badass black drummers who play all sorts of different music. One of them is more metal heavy with R and&B influences and the other one does metal, jazz. He teaches several different um ah African drumming classes. I cannot remember the exact countries and locations, but he has like three different drums that he knows how to play, I think, plus you know the kit for the band. And I can tell you my favorite metal band is Protest the Hero.
01:32:24
Speaker
um turn students to the sea on the Kazaia album is just, oh, it's about women's rights and ah how men treat women and how they all deserve to get shot. Oh my. I disavow that statement. I disavow that statement as well. But ah its it's a it's a great song.
01:32:52
Speaker
Anyway, ah I'm in this band because two of my roommates are in the band. One of them plays the drums and the other one plays the keys. And then ah Hubza plays the guitar. And then I asked one of my other friends to play the bass once I joined as vocalists. And then my best friend moved in with us and I asked her ah to join it as backup vocals. And she also does beat.
01:33:21
Speaker
ah behind everything. And it's just this beautiful, ah almost all people of color band, our basis is white, but four of us are black, and ah Hamza, his family is from Pakistan. So the reason that I do it, or the reason that I started doing it was for the community aspect of it, because these are all people that I absolutely adore and have known for a very long time. um They had the lyrics for all but one of our songs, but they didn't have the melodies for any of our songs. And so it was up to me to listen to the instrumentals over and over again and create
01:34:14
Speaker
the melodies for all these songs. And that was like the first time that I really had to challenge myself musically in a creation way. Um, cause I'm used to just sight reading music to sing or when I played my flute back in the day, right? Like, but that was pre-written and this only did not come with sheet music, but it, it came with no melodies, a copy. And I was just like, wow.
01:34:43
Speaker
I feel so cool right now. And um I taught myself how to scream and watch a few lessons on YouTube so that I don't like kill my voice because I'm already a smoker. right And I snore because I've got the, ah what should we call it, the sleep apnea. So my my voice isn't right already to the point where like, if I'm screaming into a mic, I better do it right. Right. um But now, it's about the catharsis aspect of it. um And the community. Okay, like yeah, I, I love being able to do something creative. And I love being able to get my screens out in a way that would
01:35:35
Speaker
the sound would normally trigger everybody in my house. But when it's happening in a creative, constructive, and like fun, expressive way, I could just like get it out. And all of these songs were written by Hamza or Justin when we were 16. And so they're like these really like cute little emo god or sort of like emo metal songs um mixed with like just like anger. You know what I mean? No, I get it. my whole My high school poetry book is kicking around here somewhere. So yeah. Oh yeah. I get it. Oh yeah. Well, my my my old poetry notebook is more like, oh, I love this boy. No, wait. I love this boy now. Oh, I love this other boy now.
01:36:31
Speaker
Why don't any of these guys help me? Why? Why? You know why? Because everything's stupid and the world sucks. Turn page. All right. No, but my favorite song by us is called Sexy Burnin' Music. And it doesn't sound like most of our other songs. And Sexy Burnin' Music used to have lyrics, but Justin, the drummer, lost them.
01:36:58
Speaker
And so they were like, Kalen, you should write sexy burning music. And I was like, well, based off the title, I'm just going to write a bunch of like, not vague sexual innuendos and really bad metaphors involving fire. And they were like, okay, go. And one day in a drug fuel manic, induced fit, I wrote all the lyrics to sexy burning music.
01:37:26
Speaker
And it probably wasn't the healthiest way to, to be creative and write a song, but it's so much fun. And it's something that I'm very proud of the end results.
01:37:42
Speaker
um Yeah. Sexy Burna music. Like the first, all the choruses are different. And the first chorus is just, this is the Sexy Burna music that you crave coming all over your face like a tidal wave.
01:37:56
Speaker
This is the sexy burn of music that you crave. Put this on your speakers. You're guaranteed to get laid. and it But it's it's so silly. And when I first sang it, everybody in the band was just like, yeah. So the validation was nice. Awesome. I never thought that I would be in a metal band in my entire life, though. no Oh, I was surprised to hear it myself.
01:38:27
Speaker
Well, this is the part of the show where I asked the guest if they have anything they want to ask me.
01:38:35
Speaker
You know, this is my favorite question to ask anybody, whether it be a complete stranger or somebody that I've known my entire life, like you. It was instilled in me by my father. And it's a question that he asks me and all my siblings every day.
01:38:54
Speaker
So my question to you is what was the best part of your day from the moment you woke up until before we started talking? Oh, it can be the smallest thing or a really big thing. Well, what was the best part? I i have a friend who was having a tough time.
01:39:17
Speaker
And I had not been hearing from them as much as I normally would, because when they're depressed, they retreat. And I was able to hear from them today. And even though they're still having a tough time, we were able to connect for long enough that I was able to get like an honest assessment of where they're at and to convey my sincere, you know, but hopes that that things get better. I don't want to give any detail.
01:39:42
Speaker
But, uh, but yeah, I mean, I was able to connect with someone who is important to me. And like, I know that he heard me when I said, I am here for you and we can talk about this. And I'm confident that you're going to get through it. Okay. You know, and it didn't fall on deaf ears. So, so that was good. It makes me really happy. It makes me really happy. I think that like.
01:40:11
Speaker
That's one of the more beautiful things about being a neurodivergent person is being able to love other neurodivergent people the way that they need to be loved the most. Not to say that neurotypicals can't do it either because my mom is the most neurotypical person I know and she, she's really good.
01:40:36
Speaker
at loving me and making me feel you know like things are going to get better and feel heard and cherished, but like for you to be able to do that for your friends and for them to hear it. Well, yeah and so many people do that for me, because I got plenty of my own business going on. and i mean I have one friend in particular who is neurotypical.
01:41:01
Speaker
um Who said to me straight up, listen, I know that you've got stuff going on, so if there are ways that I can be a better friend to you, I want you to tell me what those are. And it's just such a simple, like, I'm opening up the lines of communication. you know One of the things on this show is that I'm inviting people that have these kind of issues specifically, not everybody talks about those issues. So there are people, like basically I haven't found a tactful way to say, hey man, you're you're crazy, right? Come on my show. Hey, I noticed that sometimes you sound like you're out of your goddamn mind. Is that is that because of something organic? like
01:41:46
Speaker
i There's no real way to to broach that because there are people that I'm fairly friendly with online that do talk about their their mental illness and I'm keeping a list of who they are and who I plan to approach but there are some people that like I don't like I can see it but I don't know if they know And maybe that's not how you want to find out that you have a mental illness is a complete stranger saying, Come beyond my mental illness podcast. So well, if you ever need somebody to interview, I have so many friends that are artists that would just love an opportunity to, you know, go on a tangent about
01:42:33
Speaker
all of their trauma just like me. right Right? And it's so helpful. So I got you, boo. All right, sweet. So it is time for the Mad Lib. I hope you are ready for this. Oh, I'm ready. I was born ready. So the first one actually is person in room ah female. So I guess that'd be me. We're going to go with Wednesday. Yes, Wednesday. All right, an adjective. Tiny. A noun.
01:43:03
Speaker
Actually, I need one, two, three, ah three nouns. Singular ones. Nope. Balloon. Okay. um Jewelry box. Pocket watch. I need one more noun, actually. One more singular. Okay. Sorry, I thought you said three. I did. I lied. It was a false lie. Flagrant. Deceit. Well in default.
01:43:31
Speaker
I don't know why he popped into my head, but let's go with that. ah right um Oh, you know what's funny is that the next one is actually a celebrity.
01:43:43
Speaker
Is Willem Dafoe married to a famous person? I have no idea. Isn't that weird? Is Willem Dafoe married? I really don't know. i don't I don't know if he is straight or like who he would be married to. like I'm trying to know i always impressed.
01:44:02
Speaker
I'm always impressed with celebrities that can like just keep their personal lives as quiet as possible. Right? Like people don't know shit about them. Right. Even people when they get hounded, like what do you know about Claire Danes' marriage to Hugh Dancy? I know nothing about it except that it exists. I didn't even know that it existed. Oh yeah. So there you go. um Okay.
01:44:24
Speaker
Let's let's put Willem Dafoe in the celebrity one. Nope, nope, we can't. It's already written. Oh, yeah, we can't do it. Nope. I used to pay i to come up with another celebrity. Yes. All right. My one true love, Daniel Radcliffe. Fuck JK Rowling. But Daniel Radcliffe is amazing. Well, did you see jungle? I did.
01:44:44
Speaker
I mean, I watched that movie a lot. Do you know? I mean, the first time I saw that, I like just walked around in a fog. like a homemark is ah I did not take that one because I did not know it was a true story. Yeah, it was an episode of I shouldn't be alive. Oh, I guess that would make sense, wouldn't it? All right. So wait we need we need one, two, three, four plural nouns. Is bite marks a plural noun? Yes.
01:45:14
Speaker
Let's go with that. I'm looking at my grandpa's taxidermied bear right now. Nice. And it's all snarly, which is why it made me think bite marks. Cheeses. Uh-huh. And candles. Goldfish. I need a letter of the alphabet.
01:45:36
Speaker
Cue. And adverb. ah Speedily. Is that, is that an adverb? Yep. And a number. Yay. I did it. Thirteen. Uh, adjective. I need one, two, three, four adjectives.
01:45:59
Speaker
Ugly. Thoughtful. All right. And one more adjective. Nope. I lied. Two more. And don't forget colors or adjectives too.
01:46:14
Speaker
Oh, um brown. All right. And. Oh, my God. I don't know why. Like, I have a million things in my room. It's hard. Let's go with another color. OK. Purple. All right. I need another celebrity. Oh, my goodness. I know, right? So many famous people in this one.
01:46:40
Speaker
oh Ted Danson.
01:46:45
Speaker
Because why not? Why not indeed. And finally, a part of the body.
01:46:57
Speaker
Pinky toe. All right. This is called You're Invited. And it is a letter, okay? Dear Wedness,
01:47:09
Speaker
I would like to invite you to a tiny sleepover party this Friday night at my balloon. I live on the corner of South Willem Dafoe Street and Daniel Radcliffe Lane. Please arrive speedily at 13 o'clock and don't forget to bring an ugly sleeping jewelry box and a soft pocket watch to rest your pinky toe on.
01:47:36
Speaker
we'll have pet We'll have pizza topped with bite marks for dinner and watch we'll watch a thoughtful movie. When it's time for bed, we'll all change into our candles and turn out the cheeses. Then we'll tell brown ghost stories and talk about all the cute goldfish at school.
01:48:02
Speaker
RSVQ to me by email at I love Ted Danson at TedDanson.com. Hope you can enjoy our purple party. See, that's Mad Libs for you, irreverent. Oh my gosh. ah There were a couple of ones in there ah that okay, so I have this ah band name list. That's like,
01:48:30
Speaker
from 2017 up until now. And it's just like things that my friends and I say that sound like they could be a band name, album name, song name. And most of the time, like lately, it's just been like odd sentences that we end with by Panic at the Disco.
01:48:49
Speaker
So and I'm gonna need to re-listen to this bad lib later. right and right yeah because i so I heard a couple of gems that might be Panic at the Disco songs. Well you know I actually came up with the phrase mentally odd about 15 years ago, maybe a little more. It was like, I posted about it on my live journal. That's like how long ago it was. And then was like, I need to save that phrase. I need to do something with it. And then my first horror collection of short stories was creepy, stabby and mentally odd. And I was like, okay, yeah, that's good. That's good. But which but I absolutely adore, by the way. Oh, really? I love that I and I love that I have a sign. Oh, well, yeah, I think I might have even spelled your name right.
01:49:36
Speaker
I think you did because you asked me. Yeah, we probably. You were like, how do you spell your name properly? Or, you know, you've read it on Facebook and not. That sounds like something I do. first The first book that I ever read by you was Kiss Me Like You Love Me. And I think we've had quite a few conversations about that book. um But that's why I wanted to read more of your stuff. was be like it's It's so dark.
01:50:05
Speaker
but it's so good. So thank you for that book. Well, thank you. um yeah yeah I should send you the new one, actually. Because spitefully stabby-spidery stuff, like I was shocked at how soon that came together. Because I wrote the first President Sun book, and then I wasn't. Because you know in 2022, I almost died. So I didn't get like i didn't get much writing done. I had stuff going on. um
01:50:37
Speaker
I'm quite happy that you did not. I know, right? there's That sentiment is ah like more widespread than I was expecting, frankly. um Because honestly, there were, and I will not give any names, but there were two different people who had always joked with me about how great H is, who were like, oh, so you're getting better, huh? Be be going back home whole to your husband? Like, yeah, bitch, I am.
01:51:06
Speaker
Oh my. Yeah, why? like I've told H, man, because he's he's like, Oh, what would I do without you? I'm like, there will be a line there. There, you know, in fact, you will want to hire someone to make sure that line is orderly because it would be like memory on the Sopranos, like Bobby's wife died. And like every woman whose husband was murdered on the show showed up with casseroles and stuff. Oh, Bobby, how are you?
01:51:36
Speaker
Here, you need a wife. I wouldn't remember that, but my mother definitely would. Yeah, I mean, and I get it. I get it. He's a keeper, for sure. He's a handsome feller. He really is. He's so sweet. And just looking at your relationship with each other online always makes my heart smile, like your anniversary stuff and your birthday stuff. He does things that are so thoughtful and so you.
01:52:05
Speaker
Right. And like my last boyfriend didn't get me anything for my birthday, took me on a camping trip with his friends and told me that if I didn't come with him, that he wouldn't be spending his birthday with me. You know what I mean? Like, you know, but like a good rule of thumb is that if your person, your person should always be happy to see you.
01:52:35
Speaker
And that, I mean, if I was gonna give relationship advice, which I don't, but if if I were going to do that that, that's the advice that they should, you know, if you're not sure about the relationship, if you're not sure how they feel, if they give a heavy sigh when you come into the room, if they roll your their eyes when you ask how their day was, like, nah, f that.
01:52:58
Speaker
Your person should always be happy to see you. Man, when I was in the hospital, H worked all day and then he rode his bike to the hospital because we don't drive. Every single day, except one day I was preparing for a procedure and said, no, you don't want to be here for this. Please don't come for this. But every other day, I was there for 17 days.
01:53:20
Speaker
And he rode his bike up there every single day, like some teenager. and yeah That is a keeper right there. Well, the the nurses were jealous. like Like, I mean, apparently it was unusual, like the roommates that I had at the hospital, their husbands were not coming to see them every day. And I was just floored by it. Well, cause they had cars and shit. Like I was, you know, they'd, they'd call and they'd FaceTime or whatever, but it's like, they're in the hospital. They're like trapped in a bed all day. And if they're not in their bed, it's cause they're getting poked and x-rayed and whatever. So.
01:53:59
Speaker
yeah Yeah, but you know, I could spend the next three hours bragging on my husband for sure. Caitlin, I am so glad that you could be here for this interview. I am. I really appreciate how, how ah open and and raw you've been with your story.
01:54:15
Speaker
I think it was always a pleasure. Indeed. Um, I want to remind all of our listeners that we are sponsored by sometimes hilarious horror magazine. And if you want to support us, the best way to do that is to head over to coffee. That's K O hyphen F I slash sometimes hilarious horror and a subscribe to the magazine. Show us some love. Cause we sure need it. Um, all right. We'll see everybody next week.