On the 19th floor of a high rise in Bangkok, I’m between nature and highway, and I’m still clearing the voices from my head, the voices of those I absorbed over the past decade. I had world views imposed upon me in my thrities, I unconsciously made a choice…to get to know people, even mystics (lol) with strong worldviews instead of developing my own. Help, in my case, was a shadow. The other was more right than I was. Love and security was something I “owed.” I had a debt to pay, very young.
I came from an otherwordly story.
I had to understand everyone. I could not get angry. You see, you have to care to get angry. I had one of these childhoods that was impossible to communicate, impossible for people to grasp though I saw it everywhere. Injustice even is a real part of the world. Was my story unbelievable? People thought my story was unbelievable? What about slavery? Foster care? The responses I received could even enrage me, but I decided to wrestle with the world inside a person, with the architecture itself— and I had to get real with myself, really real, why are you doing this? My story made no sense, for a long long time. I made no sense, according to the audience too, except no one in my life presented that — you must get clear around this story. You need to go to a psychologist. No sense. You want to make sense. Someone even told me in the end, “make less sense.” So you can be led astray, but whether or not that has to totally be true is another subject. The story itself was a hurdle.
I really got unlucky at the top of my thirties, because, as I began to write about my childhood, believing that there was something of value to contribute within it, a person entered the play of my life and I made a mistake, again, but are there really mistakes? I don’t know. I hope not. All I know is that the current direction of thought I have taken seems to have made me well, so I’m just following that logic, because I look back on the past decade, and I cannot even believe what happened. So enter — a supporting role.
“What are you writing about?” This stranger asked. And, being a touch too open as a person, I told him about my family, since that was what I was writing about, trying out that “one sentence,” and suddenly I was in a relationship that I didn’t actually want to be in. I got something akin to a guru. Help. That shadow. Not direct help, like, uh, maybe I can get you a job. Ever thought about film? It was “reality creation” advice. He thought I could be a big star. But was that my problem? I only just got to LA. Turning the wheel, at 39, I’m looking back, a bit shocked, on the other side. After our first…drink… and, no offense, I don’t care who you are if I don’t know you, a grown man showing interest, I have a right to wonder if he might be interested.
My problems were so basic, and that’s what makes the foundation of ourselves so important because it might have been broken, but I stand on firmer ground because I understand where I came from. I didn’t want to put this story onto anyone, so I didn’t always act like anything can happen to a person, which you’d expect in my case, someone who isn’t open but rather closed off.
I checked out, admittedly, during this first outing with a man considerably older than I was. I have friends of different ages, but my friends would be the ones to lead since I am always uncomfortable about it, that I am very pretty. “He was probably in love with you,” already, even. So hold that. Afterward, he pointed to me across his living room like a guru, “what do you wanna knoowwwwwww” he shook his finger at me. “what do you wanna knoooowwwww….”and now, looking back on it, I’m disturbed. “Life isn’t about what you wanna do, it’s about what you wanna knoooowwww…” pointing at me. Isn’t that rude? Back then, it struck me, purely. Uh, he spoke with such authority.
I was blown away, I really was, when I looked back at step one. Recalling this. “Life is about what you wanna knoowwwwww not what you wanna do…” and can someone hear me? When you go out to dinner with a potential new friend, is this how they talk to you? That set the tone. The next time, just blown away again, I’m talking about my pain, my childhood, with this person I do not know. He’s… presenting himself as an authority on my situation? What would Gabor Maté say, about all that? Wouldn’t he be the one? So I got into a weird relationship because I didn’t understand that I came from an affecting story, and how it might affect someone.
I would not—going down the line — be friends with many people I once knew, it’s not even personal, but from the position of — I just found out that I might have wants and needs? You see? I didn’t know I had wants and needs. So I’m looking at the world very very differently. Do I want to spend time with you? I’m not just open to everything and everyone. I’m a new person practically.
So step one, basics, basics basics. “You do not know this person,” I had to learn that. I was taken from my home, accidently, strangers became familiar. I don’t do this to people, you see, so I never understood how people knew what they knew. And who cares? I had to get over that. Rage, in my case, red energy, was essential. To activate rage. Who gave a crap, looking back, about the angle people took with me, I cut ties with a rapier in my hand. Someone, who, at the end of this magical and terrible decade, the guru called “Carl Jung” after she…got out of the hospital for a day. Looking back on our conversations, I was flabbergasted at this person. “Carl Jung’s The Red Book,” he said, let’s just put a pin on that, mini-psychologist, okay? That’s who I was coming out of these years on Miracle Mile, at nine, so I wondered about this person as I was quite obsessed with the subject when I was young, and I met another obsessive. I found heartache in someone who might inspire a psychological thriller…role playing my father? I woke up to this decade, like, what the hell is even going on? Why is this man role playing my father?
I had to sort out of my head after that relationship.
When you work out a family problem as severe as mine was, and I had to rely mostly on myself to simply stand firm upon the idea, that my family problems were severe; the plethora of responses I could get around me and my childhood was such a crazy range. And now, freedom: my new set of friends, as my new friend even said, last night, at the Four Seasons bar, his track just broke the top 15 charts, so he was verklempt, so sweet: German.
“Friendship takes time.” I like that. That’s how I am. I could get sucked into a deep dive right away, which is cool too, but again, everything changes once you have a sense of yourself. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t need to. We’re all sort of innocent, in that, he wondered if I spoke to my mother, and I said no, simply. And he asked again, later, not even aware of it, and “no,” simply. We’re not going down this road. Sipping cocktails at the Four Seasons. “Child molester, sure,” sip.
My mother, Dr. J, even her nickname is amazing. My mother was a cartoon villain,. She gave me away… oh, wait. I had to reframe my understanding of my life. I used to say that my mother gave me away to another family when I was four, “blah,” I seemed to “appear” as if I came with a story, so it was obvious. But then, to others, I was a heiress (?), potentially “the girl with a plane,” destined to marry a Duke? I got the impression later, sometimes, I was more like a fairytale character, an unreal toy. Not that fun, not for me.
Dr. J wrapped up a stranger in a protection scheme when I was four; she said that my father was a child molester, on the light end, a child rapist on the…dark end: an abuser. I’m going to let that one sink in.
I have no clue how this reads, but this story put me through the ringer, and all I had to hear was: stop talking about it. I didn’t share it with everyone, but when asked, it was — I think classic trauma — where you can’t quite help talk about it, even if you don’t want to. I even felt obliged, and it tended to interest the person I was talking to, so I didn’t always know what to do. And, of course, I could not lie, another problem. My parents were liars. I could not lie. Torturous. I could, obviously, in that I withheld my feelings, too.
For better or for worse, in my thirties, I reopened these years on Miracle Mile. I was between the ages of 4-8, though I don’t know if I was closer to five or closer to nine, as those points are blurry. I didn’t live in my house for four years. In a snap, Angelita snapped her fingers at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club, of all places, I can’t make this shit up, I started living with her, overnight, practically, but now, as an adult, as I interrogated her when I was nine, I would ask — can you break down what “in a snap” means? What I know? It felt like that. Overnight.
In my case, when your mother was showing up to a stranger’s house with her breasts exposed, um, me questioning what happened here is understandable. As well as — not wanting to bring this into my cousin’s house, just please, as I’m working on a book about reuniting with them and telling them…about all this. And the thing is, I know I’m not alone. I know so many people come from terrible families. Families who would get their four-year-old into this situation. Kids do end up in foster care. Sorry to “burst” the bubble.
I got the other side, in Bangkok, hilariously, um, not really, plenty of people live abroad, in Bangkok in particular, but I was a “funny girl.” Not that fun. On stage, sure, in real life, hmmm, not so sure. Next — I have not a lot of money right now. I didn’t have to be in this position. I made a series of choices…including who I hung out with. I think one of the biggest problems I saw was absolutism. This hurt me as someone who fit in, practically no one’s frame of reference.
I couldn’t believe what I did, this past decade, I was blown away. Blown away — out of reality totally. Reality refers to here. Not the future. How we navigate through time might be a fun imaginary voyage, a material even that we shape ourselves, but there is only the present moment. Even if I did see “probable futures” when I was nine. I suppose there’s a theoretical dimension, maybe, an organization outside of the mind, possibility, but what I learned that splendid afternoon that I saw time bend, as I had an experience I couldn’t explain around the time my father was diagnosed with a dementia-related illness, was that: the present moment. I keep doing all the visualization techniques as well, I just cannot speak, yet, from the position of — it works.
My story was so complicated, in that, I lived for four years at this stranger family’s house on Miracle Mile, and one of the reasons why it lasted four years has to do with my father, of course. A figure I couldn’t really look at until I reopened it, and based on how he reacted to this situation, he was either sick, guilty, or both. Sick, most definitely. Meaning, he received a diagnosis, in the end, that he would keep to himself. I found about it ten years later, and it took another fourteen years to even think about, mostly because I started writing about it, as those ten years weren’t that pleasant, to be pleasant about it.
One of the positives in my story, as I lost my sense of purpose, I did, so I’ll rely on one of my values, honesty. It held lessons because my parents were sick. I remember, being taken into my pediatrician’s office for “a talk,” after Miracle Mile because my father started asking for help with me…I wasn’t eating my fruits and vegetables… when I didn’t know what else I was eating with this man. I was maybe nine, ten, like, aren’t you making the food that you make? All these years later. I got MAJOR gender favoritism with my father, major. He drove me nuts. That man was sick, and I saw emotional problems at the center of his illness… whatever it was… Parkinson’s first — then Alzheimer’s. As he didn’t tell anyone. And he had a minor. And of course, my cousin said and he would say that he didn’t, but he did, “how could he tell a child?” Okay, I was living alone with him. So was there always SENSE in the world? No. People skirt out of sense even when they don’t want to believe what they’re hearing. We’re not always sensical. That aside, it might be changing, but emotion in health tends to be overlooked.
I still have to fight, oh wait, no, I don’t have to, it’s called a boundary. With my cousins, a couple of years ago, they acted as though he wasn’t sick, that I hadn’t said that, but of course, they forgot that, “we never said we didn’t believe you,” and guess what? Everyone lies — Dr. J. The liar of all liars. I had to let go of problems with the world itself, if that makes sense…we don’t always have the same version of reality.
I expressed my feelings, around that, finally, and now, just like anyone else, I have to learn how to let go. Forgive. I forgave so easily in the past, and now, I find, in a positive way, even, that it might not be that easy because — regardless of who did what — I put myself through unnecessary pain. So I can’t help that, that I had an experience that I wasn’t aware of. Hello? Wouldn’t that hurt? I didn’t know I could be. I suppose, people say things in the moment, but, for someone like me, it just reminded me of my mother, and it terrified me.
I’m working on a book right now, Christmas in Naples is a Sport, and I love it, I do, I just don’t know what it is, exactly, and whether or not I should strictly tell my family story in this context, but of course, and listen up, listen up if this pertains to you.
Sometimes, I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I was getting into — like with this guru — I didn’t know that what appeared like a positive might not have been. Today, in other words, I wouldn’t even share a tidbit of my story with someone I didn’t know, so that would have taken care of that right there, and if I got pointed at across a room like that, I would just leave. I’m not getting wrapped up with some stranger over my childhood.
I am trying to integrate the lessons I learned, so I won’t repeat this painful pattern for me — of getting “taken in” because of this story. But I’m also older now. It doesn’t matter. I am not open about that story.
A maladaptive pattern in my case was making these weird families externally, where the wise direction to take would have been — stop. You are not alone, this is first. You want to create that from within. Go out and make it. I wasn’t adopted either, but people claimed (psychologists too?) that I had “the adopted stuff,” which would explain my external viewpoint, but the accurate statement is: both my parents were ill. They were sick. Wouldn’t you…search elsewhere? I might have been taken in by families, though I don’t even know how to describe the first — I mean, imagine? Imagine your mother, you, your wife makes “a stop” and comes home with a baby that’s going to bring breasts and child molester to your door. Four years.
And now, I wouldn’t have gotten involved, literally speaking, with the rest of the families. Why? Why was this necessary? So now I’m navigating different turf, so do I “consciously uncouple?” Probably.
I couldn’t exactly pursue, beyond experience, so that’s the seat I’m in now— first — choice. Action. This is about the active man, you have to create your own life. Everyone does. This person wasn’t necessarily wrong, “life isn’t about what you wanna do but know,” but that ended up having a negative effect, as someone who couldn’t pursue — I tried, I did, at the top of my thirties, and then, I had quite an adventure to get here specifically also because I opened my mouth. We probably get in our own way without even realizing it. Simply, I came to understand that what I was doing wasn’t sustainable.
It’s alright, I suppose I got funny tools that made no sense, like my closet that I built in France out of rope, and a dream. Right? “Why are you making a closet out of rope?” I suppose I could have invented a cool closet, absolutely, but, again, funny operation. But his entrance into my life demonstrates that the story itself posed potential problems that I didn’t see. Getting wrapped up, again, which is what happened with my cousins at step one.
I got encouraged to write a book about my family story inside another family. They were the main characters to this guru. Not me. So, once again go external and who cares about you? In the end? This guru utterly confused me. I had a problem of aggrandizing these families, too, like “they saved me,” which makes me a little uncomfortable to admit. But once again, “go external,” I got that piece of advice.
So now, I don’t know what to do. I was talking to an editor who kept on driving this question home: “what is this about for you? Is this about you finding family? Like, you don’t know what family is, and then, you learn?” Not exactly. I’m trying to digest what she said and decide what I want to do before I move on. I think that’s partially true, so I’m trying to work out my thoughts here.
The thing is, they are my cousins, there’s a line, and that line, in my case, was practically always crossed. I did not want to cross it. They weren’t my immediate family, and I doubt that they would have shared such a story with me if it had an insane element, that included accusations of child molestation. But they also saw me as family, so they came after me as a family would. A family would express concern. Except, mine didn’t. So my world began to come to an end. Was it true? About my father? Giggino kept YELLING, needing to KNOW what I ATE at all these friggin’ families —
My story had an effect, but in the end, I was the only one who really went through something that they can’t forget. I wasn’t a TV show. I had limits. I didn’t have a sense of those, so that was important — limits. Not the self is limitless, sure, but in my case, it would have been more useful to — suggest limits. I mean, Giggino, my cousin, he came at me morning, noon, and night over this story — and I got the “fun” in it, meaning, you’re playing parent, I get it’s sincere, but today, I would say: no. He still calls me, it’s just I had to put distance.
They still don’t know the whole story. And recently, for my own peace of mind, I just communicated that I cannot take any disbelief, none, once I succeed in publishing something about these years this year. No disbelief. I understand it’s “hard to believe.” I couldn’t help but laugh sometimes.
I know what it’s like to have a deeply destructive pattern, I guess. I mean, my family life was always hard. I’m just not totally taking on the blame anymore, I mean my brother did tell me he was dying of AIDS, for example, and had committed manslaughter by giving it to people for ten years. And then, it magically disappeared. So that’s a bit of the terrain that’s coming up in my family. I didn’t commit a crime, you see the difference?
I was lucky outside the United States, I did not get into “power plays.” Funny enough. This story, not my story, is brimming with these fascinating pieces of “marketing research” that have no real application. (If I say “my story” throughout, it’s just a habit, I keep avoiding it.)
But to exit the relational space, I had to get in real touch with my boundaries. I had to adjust my relationship with power, as I hated power, I really did, I hated hierarchy, I gladly chose to uplift another’s status, support one’s power, since I felt that so many people were so wounded there, it’s just, wounded can hold a gun, you know. I had to stop. I put up a good fight against the world, but it’s a bit too big, it’s META structural. Meaning, most people are going to check out or not be able to handle “child molester,” okay? First. Let’s start with the word. And it’s unfortunately so common that people’s disbelief could anger me, not visibly, so the audience was a bit of a fight.
I had to make peace with the world, even, as the more and more I read about child abuse, the more I understand that typically the blame falls on the wrong person.
I mean, were my parents fucked up? I guess. Someone said that. I don’t know how to respond to that. The appropriate comment would be: they were sick. That’s a fact, it’s grounding, at least, I can say that. And when I read about other people who had mentally ill parents, I just read one essay, she traveled a lot, and I have been trying to stop living abroad, but of course, I met people along the way, so separation was a necessary step. Forgiveness too.
Again, this is another care problem. Yes, I can be hurt. I didn’t know. I suppose I could put this at the military castello if I keep the book as is, as I stayed there at the end of the Christmas in Naples experience— 17th century. I hear so much about walls, walls going down, the walls that people built, cracking up at myself because I had to get in touch with walls. I get that we create our own reality but so did the Germanic groups — sailing on into town…no? You gotta have a wall, walls are good, so I got in touch with mine. And I had to forgive myself as change is not a linear process for the moments that I slipped into old dynamics, but the more you move forward, the more that these moments became blips, like who cares?
Like many of us, I sometimes moved in directions that did not work. They just do not work. And the more basic I tackle this moment, the better I feel. So, it didn’t work, and it’s time to start something new. One’s cleverness can work against them. I learned that, too, lots of lessons. I’m a bit over that part. I got a couple “teachers” that came into my life this past decade — the line between someone else and me got blurred — that essential boundary is extremely drawn now. I was manipulated, as far as I understand, when I was four, so.
Is everyone always right? No. I had to exercise that logic in the external direction.
But as I am writing a book, and I’m working on personal essays right now, I think I have a better strategy even if that took a decade, practically. I decided that I wanted to write about my crazy family, and I sort of wish that I didn’t, sometimes, but I’m trying to assume it now.
I’m going to blog about it, to free up my mind, and work out what this book is about because I can’t decide if I should loosen the containers, so it isn’t so strictly Christmas-focused, or make it about Christmas in Naples.
So, for example, Giggino and Diordora, my cousins, start taking me in… and so, do I learn about family? Was I supposed to “act” like their daughter now? This was what I wanted to avoid. They called me their “like a daughter,” even though I was telling them this story, which is fine, now, I wouldn’t be triggered, but I didn’t feel that way. What was I supposed to do? At thirty-something? Embrace them as “like a parent?” Or was this just casual, in reality? Talk of walking me down the aisle? Confusing. So, the only thing I know, I had to separate, I did not have parents, so I couldn’t get too attached.
Mid-decade, I went through a truly terrible time — the guru even indirectly believed that I wasn’t FED as a baby, imagine? Seriously? He developed some fixation on it — so I went through a truly terrible time partially because I had no idea even how to respond to that — they FEED you, he kept saying, like why is he saying that? — and was it true about my father? And my “like parents” weren’t there when I went through hell though they came after me — hard — when it wasn’t real. So, “another croc of shit.”
So “another croc of shit.” I don’t know if one would expect that side from someone like me, there it is, I do not choose to act that way, as I understand, also, totally exhausting, as I had to understand everyone and everything. I’ve engaged with so many expectations, Jesus, from others like a swarm of flies… Giggino wondering if I had an alcohol problem… you’d expect… uh huh uh huh uh huh. Sorry to disappoint you. I don’t. They’re still in my life, my cousins, but I had to put some distance between us. Allow, even, for things to work themselves out.
I don’t know if people would expect that facet to appear in my case, but that’s not my style. However, I’ve engaged with SO MANY expectations — Jesus — in relation to my story — that personality is a slightly different exercise for me. I don’t HAVE to choose that. I learned, personally, that it doesn’t have to be true. I can’t delve into — whether or not there are absolute truths about our nature.
Giggino even thought — wouldn’t you be an alcoholic? With a story like that? Okay, in the words of Cher, “it was time for a makeover, but this time, my soul,” because I had to adjust from step one. The way I spoke about this story could be concerning, as I laughed a lot, couldn’t help it, and I had some delusion to work out.
After all, I had to be grateful to this sex scandal I was in… for one. So my laughter could be sardonic, at blank faces, like, “awwww a baby blamed for a terrible situation, awwww, how unusual,” when it isn’t. People are sentenced before they are even born. I don’t even know how to talk about “my feelings” in this case. But Rosa Park’s house was inside a Baroque palace for the Christmas season. That’s it — just didn’t need to say anymore.
I recently arrived here, really, truly, so my whole perspective shifted to such a degree of depth that I don’t even know if that book applies? It does; I even feel it will do well, I just don’t know how to proceed with it, just yet, so I’m going to blog about it. I gotta get into the food, too, or the festivities themselves.
Thank you for reading!
