Sandy describes her childhood and multi-generational domestic abuse, both during her childhood and later in her life. She has had many interesting careers, specifically in the food business, and now is involved with the Board of the Town Clock CDC.
“Nobody else but me defines me.”
Annotations
Transcript [2] : “ ... I was taking singing lessons and one point the teacher told me that you know I really had to lose weight if I wanted to continue.”
Transcript [3] : “And my sister informed everybody she would rather be dead than be fat, after watching me grow up.”
Learn More [2] : “Body Shaming.” Education and Awareness, The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, (ANAD), 2020..
Transcript
Interview conducted by Lauren Weinstein
New Brunswick , NJ
November 2019
Transcription by Helen Farmer
Annotations by Destiny Morales
That one always...Hi this is Lauren Wetstein and I'm interviewing Sandy. Um, and so um and the first kind of question is: are there any stories that you have heard about your birth. Like where were you born?
Oh, okay, ah, I was technically born in the Bronx. Ah, My uncle delivered me.
Wow.
Ah, yeah, I know (laughter)
Was he a doctor? Was that ah…?
(Laughter) Yes, he was a doctor, yes he was a doctor. Oh, um but, ah and ah at that point my family was living in ah, Jackson Heights Queens.
Okay. And what, ah, what was, when was this?
Ah, 1953, July 21st, 1953.
Uh-huh
Um, um, there’s not a whole lot I remember from back then so I’m not sure where to go. Um,
Well you might- do other people, have you heard stories from other people about your birth?
Ah, not about my birth. Um, What I remember when I was very young
After the age of diapers-my parents, my dad was a lawyer, a new lawyer and ah, they would have, ah, bridge games um at their house every now and then and they couldn’t afford cake, so everybody would have to bring their own coffee cake, you know, so they could eat something.
Um-hmm
Ah, and I remember, I remember being, the stories that I heard were that I was a very outgoing kid. I loved to sing- ah, okay, this can be edited, so anyway I remember we went out to a diner one day my mom and my dad me and I seemed to like the song Davy crocket. But I didn’t sing Davy Crocket. I sang at the top of my lungs Davy Focket and my parents kept on trying to shush me and I just didn’t get it. But anyway, so I loved to sing, I loved to dance and everything like that. Umm-then my sister was born. My younger sister and the way my parents put it was that I was going to have this little baby sister and I could take care of her and you know and I could love her and everything. So we picked my mom up from the hospital and my mom wouldn’t let me hold her, which is understandable from an adult point of view but for a kid it’s like “What the Hey? You told me that this was going to be like my little baby sister that I could play with and stuff” so that was a bit of shock, um, which is why I remember it all these years later. Anyway so, she was needy and insistent, she had issues with her eyes. She needed several operations on her eyes and she demanded attention and that attention took away from me. It was also, and some of this we might double back onto, there was also the beginning of a rivalry. Ah, when I was an infant and I didn’t remember this until, like five years ago, my mom had told me that she was afraid to hold me. I think it was because she was afraid she would break me, it was like a protective thing and she got, had somebody there who would take care of me and change my diapers and, you know and hold me and stuff and it became time for this woman to leave and my mom was terrified. Ah, umm, and anyways so, eventually I guess she did, but it explains a lot of how I turned out.
Um-hmmm
Believe it or not. Today, um, it makes a real big difference. It fills in a lot of holes anyway, so you know the woman said ‘You’ve got to take care of her, you’ve got to hold her’. Anyway, my mom and I stepped up to the plate, um, and did. But when my sister was born, and I’m thinking about this in present tense not as a child. Um, that she was really overwhelmed and um, it came out in lots of ways. Part of it was being the good girl and being the older one, I no longer receive attention and in some ways I didn’t, I don’t receive, I don’t think I receive care I might have gotten and the way it impacted my sister was my mom was, um, sorry mom, my mom was angry at her, because she made her feel insecure. I don’t know if my sister made her feel insecure, but her insecurities were boiling up. Um, and ah, that came back big time when we were growing up and towards the end, I never really quite understood that. But anyway it set up, um, a sibling rivalry and with all of that, my dad as I said was an attorney and, um, he lived in the world of power and control. It was all about power, it was all about manipulation. It was all about telling half-truths, I remember when I was old enough to talk politics, he would, you know, take one side and I would take the other. He would take the Republican and I would more Liberal and stuff and we’d go back and forth with each other and then he’d suddenly switch sides and it, it, I mean for a little kid that was crazy making, you know because I wanted to feel my power and I feel like I could convince him or show him something that he hadn’t thought about and it was just very confusing. So, I’m all over the place, oh well
No, it’s good
Ah, um, so (pause) he was also very competitive. You know it’s funny, I think of it now and I don’t know whether he chose the law or law chose him. Cause he was born into it and we could talk about some of family history too, but more than that, um, we used to, you know, he would get me to play, you know, board games of MONOPOLY and it wasn’t just that he had to win, he had to crucify me. He had to grind me into dust and then (blows out) sprinkle me to the, I mean, eventually I wouldn’t play with him anymore, you know there was no joy in it for me. I couldn’t succeed at anything, I couldn’t even succeed at these board games. Um, so, yeah. Anyway, I guess we can go back to ahhhh (sigh)
Domestic abuse is something that is passed on from parent to child and that is something that I hadn’t wanted to speak about for many years, because as children we need to believe our parents loved us and you know that they wouldn’t be-and they did, our parents always love us and sometimes the way they show it is um, not in a way that we can feel and internalize um, but they do the best that they can and they do the only thing they know. So, um, my dad told me a story, um about when he was growing up and he said they would have these Sunday dinner dinners and um, my father was never allowed to speak and it wasn’t until he went to law school that, and it was a pivotal moment in his life when he ah, he opened up his mouth and instead of being shushed by his dad, his dad stopped and said ‘Wait a minute I want to hear what you have to say’ and my- that was a big deal, again that was something my father remembered so that was really something.
Um, that was on my father’s side. On my mother’s side my mom’s mom was-you do want me to go this far back right?
[ Annotation 1 ]
Sure, yeah, it’s all
Okay, my mom’s mom was a school teacher and she was teaching in Manhattan and she frequently taught, ah children who were difficult and my, my Grandmother on my mother’s side I mean, she wasn’t five feet tall, I mean she was really short, so for this little, itsy, bitsy woman to come in to deal with these big strapping guys, you know, who were giving, who were bent on giving her a hard time was a big deal. But evidently she was very successful at it, she was really good at it. But she wasn’t nice to my mom. Um and I know how painful that is, because of some of my experiences later in life. She told her she wasn’t smart, that she’d never amount to anything um, you know that she was fat, because she might have been at one point when she was growing up. But I think what was most painful about it, again because I experienced this with my ex-husband, was that you have this person who presents as so charming and lovely, she was a great storyteller and she was successful dealing with children and stuff and when they turn around and say to their own child, you know or to their wife, you know like, you’re-
[ Annotation 2 ]
Yeah
Like- you’re not good enough you know and all. It is painful, it's like the way I think of it is like getting slammed over the head with a board, but the fact they are so lovely with everybody else is the nail that in the board, that makes it hurt that much more, so um, yeah. Um, my grandfather on my mother’s side always seemed like, um, a sweet guy, um, so my grandmother was the one as a child that gathered all the attention and love from me, because she knew how to (imitating Grandmother) ‘Oh, let’s play this!’ you know she was really good that way. Um, and it wasn’t until I was somewhat older, I was still a child that I paid attention, I noticed my grandfather and I decided I needed to appreciate him more and ah, it seemed shortly after that, we, my grandmother, me and my grandfather went out for a walk and we sat on a bench in in, ah, outside of Central park and all of the sudden I hear my grandmother scream out (imitating Grandmother) “Charlie!” because that was his name and he had fallen back on the bench anyway, the and their were kids who were making fun of the old man, who were passing by, anyway, it turns out he had had a heart attack and uh, turns out he died, but my parents decided not to tell me that.
But you were there?
I was sitting next to him. I didn’t know he died. What did I know from death? And what did I know from heart attacks, you know.
Yeah, yeah-
It was easy to lie to me but I never felt like I had a chance to say goodbye. I always regretted the fact that I didn’t show him that I care about him-
How old were you?
That’s a good question. (Pause) I’m going to guess 11? Um, anyway, I didn’t find out till much later. And I was pretty angry that my parents didn’t tell me, so, ah, they thought they were protecting me or that was the excuse they gave anyway.
Uh-hmmm
So, and then I hear stories about going back to my father’s side. My father’s father, he taught me how to walk by holding up a lollipop and I would come and get it. It’s probably the reason I got into the food business afterwards, I was chasing food by the time, I was you know, even before I could walk, um, but, ah, anyway, from what I gather and my father never put it like this but from the stories I hear, he was probably a son-of-a-bitch, but um but my grandmother on my father’s side was no angel either. There was hatred, um, she told my mother, my mother, her daughter in law that her breasts were too high. Couldn’t think of anything better? You know, I don’t remember, oh, what the heck, um, I don’t remember whether it was me-it was me- I heard, I heard rumor that ah, and this must have been after puberty and I’m going to use her words and not mine, that um, I had an ass like a negro. I gather, it’s because she thought it was big, was the implication. Huh?
15:30.3
Yeah
So those were tipoffs, um, that I realized later on, I didn’t pay, you know, I didn’t process them when I was younger, but later on I saw that these were all signs. It goes way back, my father had a brother and he married an abusive and controlling woman. I mean, you can trace the genealogy of this all the way back and ah, yeah it goes as far back ah, as I know so.
Um-hmmm
Um, which is also to say, um, and this goes for all of my survivors, that it wasn’t our fault. The only thing we,we, again, we, this is all we saw we had no idea there could be anything different.
Yeah, yep.
Yeah, so. And that’s the tragedy of it and I think specifically of ah, the woman in Deena’s and ah, and they just don’t know, they just don’t know, just like I didn’t know. Do I? Okay-
Um-humm?
Would you like to throw in a question or should I just babble and jump all over the place?
So, I, um, ah, my only instructions really are to prompt you forward. And you’re actually doing, I mean, you feel like you’re babbling but you’re actually going in a chronology-
I mean I was going to jump-
Yeah, you can jump. If there are things that I mean are really missing I can come back.
Hmmm
The other thing I’ve been instructed to do which is very hard for me, but I’ll just tell you. Which is very hard for me but I’ll just tell you. I’m like, not allowed to commiserate-
I know. I know. I know. I know.
So- (laughter)
And I realized you had your poker face on and I’m going ‘Oh yeah, oh yeah’
I’m just-
Because you don’t want to prompt because that’s a prompt in itself.
Yes, so these silences I am giving you feel unnatural to me. I want to say things-
Okay, okay
I want to say things, but I’m doing it to just keep you going. If I feel like I need to-
Give me a direction or push me along?
Yeah, I’ll push you along, but I think right now-
So somebody else will be doing the transcribing and it will be up to them to make some sense of this all over the place
Yeah, exactly, but I think also have faith in the fact that you’re pulling up these anecdotes and they are not just random each one kind of sinks in someway-
Yeah, well there not so random so far.
18:19
Yeah- well keep going even if they-
All right well I’ll leave it to whomever has to transcribe this thing to put it in order or whatever. Ok so, I guess I was thinking about my parents and um, how they mimicked what they saw growing up and so did I. And that brings me to, the women at Deena’s, well actually never mind, we’ll get there.
Yeah-
Ah, I was, no, I will start with the dating, um, okay so at the time I meant my husband I was an assistant manager for a restaurant in New York and-
I think going back a little further than that, just to give a little more background information might be helpful
Okay, yeah, yeah, um, any way things were always rocky with my sister and I realize it was scarcity. You know? My mom didn’t have enough to give to both of us and that set up a rivalry as we fought over our mother’s attention, um and my dad, I’m sorry dad, was um, a manipulator by trade. Um, and so he would try to get me to do what he wanted me to do by taking away things that I loved, um and I was rebellious so that wasn’t going to work with me, but he kept on at it. It did work with, well, whatever he did with my sister it did work. She was his little girl, she did whatever he wanted, so my dad, my sister was my dad’s favorite and I was my mom’s favorite and we both wanted both of them so that caused a rift, which got pretty ugly. Um, yeah, my dad, he, ah, I used to love to, I used to love ballet and I would put on my tutu and I would dance around the house to the Nutcracker suite and I didn’t stop sucking my thumb until, I don’t know, I want to say 16 but that’s not true, it was probably 12 or 13 or way older than you’re supposed to be doing that. Anyway so he took away my tutu and I was totally crushed. He said he would, he would give it back to me when I stopped sucking my thumb but I was kind of stubborn and I didn’t do that so fast, so by the time I stopped sucking my thumb the tutu didn’t fit and he said, well I’ll get you another one, which he picked out and I hated it, which is not surprise. So, yeah, what else did he? Ah, well, this is a little bit forward, but when I was old enough to receive an allowance.
Which is probably around 13?
13? Yeah, I’m guessing. Um, we would have these, well, the first time I just took his allowance, then he told me I had to account for every penny of it, that’s not what a 13 year old wants to do so, I resisted and I might leave some things out. The kicker was, and here we go with the board with the nail in it, I would finally give him the stinking accounting of every penny and then he would judge me: (imitating dad) “You spent 55 cents on a single record!” What, you know, what the, it’s like, what the hey? It’s a gotcha. So that became part of my normal, um so, but I didn’t, I didn’t, it was horrible- and then we would have these battles over allowance, the allowance wars and of course he was the guy holding the money so that didn’t work out too well. But it wasn’t, I mean like, the accounting was, again, who has to account for every penny of their allowance and then telling me-using that as a weapon against me to tell me I was not good enough, as you know, wasn’t so cool.
What other little tiffs did we have? Not remembering anything at the moment
You can talk about other things that were going on in your life too. You don’t have to just talk about like the –
Oh
It helps to give more of a context to the whole.
Oh. Okay. So we had moved out of Queens and we were living in Long Island…it was Halloween and this girl comes up to our door, she’s dressed (inaudible 24.06) but she remembers, um as something or other, maybe Peter pan and of course I wanted to be a princess because of course that’s all I ever wanted to be, turns out she lived down the street, turns out her name was Sandy, she was there with her mother whose name happened to be Barbara which was the same as mine.
Wow-
Yeah, so we giggled like crazy and that was the beginning of a friendship and we’re still in touch actually today, she lives out in California um, and we both liked to sing, she still sings. So in an effort to add on to my allowance there was a restaurant called ‘the Spice of Life’ they had art on the wall and they allowed us to come in on Sunday brunch and we would sing. It was to be Sandy, her brother and me. And I was the smallest of the three of us so I was the one who had to wear the tip bag (? 25.15), which I did not appreciate. But that was what I had to do. So we went out and we would sing folks songs, you know ‘Michael row your boat ashore’ and things like that and ah, we did that several times it was fun. Oh also, it’s funny, because we would walk into town, Sandy and I would walk together, of course we had no money. We would go to the local, you know, ah, deli, diner kind of place and in those days they would have pickles out on the counter. So we would order a glass of water and eat pickles (laughter) and not think anything of it, you know, you know, really, like oh my god- but I guess it was a different time then and I was a different person then and I didn’t know any better. So anyway that’s what we would do and it was fun, she was my closest friend for a long time. I was able to walk to school so that I was nice and I had- Oh yeah- and I had friends and then at some point, oh, well whatever.
Where was this?
This was in Woodmere. Woodmere Long Island.
Oh, yep.
Yeah, and my parents would send my sister and I away to summer camp. My sister loved it of course and I hated it. And I pleaded with them every summer not to send me and every summer they would send me looking back on it now, I realize a couple of things, they were upwardly mobile so this was something people in their situation did because I think a lot of it had to do with appearances and then the other thing was they probably wanted to get rid of us for the summer, so that was, that was summer and my birthday is in July so I never had an opportunity to spend it with my friends and at-what I remember growing up is a lot of sadness so you know we’ll go in there and I’ll fill it in with whatever joy I can.
Yeah-sure
But what sticks with me was the sadness.
Yeah.
Um, all right, part of the reason why I hated sleep away camp is that-and I didn’t call it this but apparently I was bullied. The kids in my bunk would make fun of me. They told me that I snored and that it was like (snoring sound then “Pea soup”) (laughter) it hurt me, but I mean, I have to laugh about it now, so you know I didn’t want to sleep because I was giving them more ammunition you know and that when I started being a loner. I didn’t like any of the sports, I did like tetherball um, but you play that with only one other person and I was actually pretty good at it um, so anyways that was summer camp. Ah, where do I want to go next?
So we’re about up to say 14,13,15 something like that you could-
Oh yeah, the move. Yeah, anyway, so um my parents wanted to move to Great Neck Long Island and I had friends and I didn’t want to go. So, um, they asked us how we would feel about moving so I said ‘no’ but ah, during the summer while I was, while we were away, my sister and I were away at summer camp, they moved. So, I always had a thing for weeping willow trees, so my dad when he told me about before arriving at the new house, he told me it had this huge weeping willow tree and I was so excited and so I get there and it’s a weeping birch. Weeping birch is nothing like a weeping willow. They both weep but they don’t look the same, I mean I imagine, I had imagined myself in like a kimono sitting up a weeping willow, like, what was that musical? Um “Flower drum song” and this was this monster big leafed thing and so, lying or bending the truth was something that also was normal and to be expected. And actually I really resisted Great Neck, that’s when I really became a loner. And um, people would ask me, I would meet somebody new and they’d ask me and I say ‘I just moved here’ and they’d ask me ‘How long has it been?’ it was like three years, and I realized as the words were coming out of my mouth that wasn’t just moving in, but that was how I felt so- Um, it was high school and again I was all about the rebellion and ah, you know, certainly wasn’t with the popular kids. I had a handful of friends who were like the outsiders. I joined 4h, they had a 4h chapter there. So I was a kind of friend with my 4h partners so that was nice but I had no sense of direction. So one day my mom dropped me off close to the- the meetings would rotate from house to house, and my mom dropped me off um, and told me okay you walk two blocks and then turn right and walk another block, well anyway somehow or other I got it all turned around in my mind and forgot which way which was the one block part, anyway I wandered around the neighborhood for hours anyway I finally got to the house right as the meeting was adjoining. So to this day I have a fear-a really bad fear of getting lost which is why-I’m just going to say this-I’m so grateful that you’re coming here you know, because usually when I leave the house and I go someplace new I have at least two sets of directions which is not good cause it’s really confusing, because you know, my gps is telling me one thing and my piece of paper is telling me another thing anyway, but so. So that was the beginning of that. I remember ah, okay, so downtown Great Neck was, I don’t know I’m going to guess about a mile from our house so it was walk able. But when I wanted to go into town or I needed to go into town for something I wouldn’t go unless my mommy took me, and you know we’re now talking older, we’re now talking ah, 14, 15 um. And that was, that was, I don’t know why I was so afraid but I was. Oh well, this doesn’t contribute, but yeah, so I was in town walking around by myself one time and um, there was a yellow light and I crossed the street and there was a police officer on the other end so he told me I was jaywalking and continued-started to lecture me about how dangerous that could be. I didn’t get a ticket that time, but he threatened me with a ticket. So, um, yeah, so I learned that-I think it helped cement the fact that I can’t lie, I can’t break the rules and if I do I’m going to get caught and all hell is going to-ah-I probably learned that somewhere else but that was a moment I remember. Um, so, yeah as a little kid, you know? Jaywalking, I mean give me a break. But that’s not the first time, it happened again later on, I guess we’ll get to that later. Is that okay?
Yeah, of course.
34.50
Ah, I want to get it out of the way now. So later on, this was when I was in college, I was going to school in DC because I wanted to break away from my ah, I wanted to get a little diversity in my life. I was aware that not everybody was Jewish and the way I think of it was I was living in a Jewish ghetto um, and so I went to school at American University in DC, only to find out it was a Jewish ghetto too. All of the upper mid class from Long Island was there, anyway but um so again as impoverished students one day we were walking around the dorm and we were talking about travelling my roommates and I, my roommates and a friend of mine decided we were going to call up the airport and find out what cheapest flight to anywhere was. So we did. I don’t remember where it was but it was only like, an hour flight, we got our stars aligned found someone who would take us to the airport real cheap and then we got on this flight and we got there and then it’s like we didn’t have any money to do anything else, so you know my friend washed her hair in the sink in the ladies room of the airport and we wandered around there all night and then we didn’t have any money to get home so we started hitch hiking. And back then I hitched hiked often all over DC, and didn’t seem to feel afraid um
Do you remember where you-oh did you just go to the airport or did you actually go somewhere?
No, we flew somewhere-
Yeah, yeah- do you remember where it was?
What’s-
I’m just curious-
What’s, it couldn’t have been, could it have been Philadelphia? It might have been Philadelphia
Okay-
Might have been Philadelphia because I know we came back via Delaware, um anyway so we were sticking out our hands and we were getting rides and we had heard that Delaware was really tough on hitchhikers and um, but it was like this itsy bitsy little state and it would only take us like 15 20 minutes to get through anyway so we got dropped of in Delaware and then we stuck out our thumbs again and the next ride dropped us off a little further down the road in Delaware and then, anyway it took us three rides and by the third ride I’m looking behind me and I’m seeing that there is a patrol car behind us on the highway, so he didn’t actually catch us hitchhiking, but he took us into the police station for pedestrianism on a highway. They ah, searched our bags looking for marijuana which one of us may or may not have had, but it wasn’t me um, and then you know okay fine, you know, you’ve got to get home. We didn’t have any money to get home so the police officer dropped us off at a rest stop and told us to be careful and we hitched the way back. And I liked actually I like hitch hiking, it was an opportunity to talk to people and again, I guess I was too naïve to be afraid or maybe it was a safer world out there I don’t know. But anyway, I did not learn how to drive until I was, I’m going to say, 25 ish. Um, but I joke about having two moving violations on my feet, the only way I could get around was by walking and I had two moving violations on my feet. So again, and when you think about it, that’s how powerless I felt, I could not even walk without getting called on it, so anyway. Um, I digressed, I’m sorry.
So you were back in Woodmere- you were talking about-
Okay we went to Woodmere and we moved to Woodmere and moved to Great Neck
Great Neck sorry-
Did not like Great Neck at all um,
Right-
Hated it okay get to my, my grades were never good enough so I got-oh gosh- so I got a job because money was always an issue with me and the accounting was always an issue with me so I wound up getting an afterschool job at Crossman Cadillac and I was a file clerk and I loved that job and they loved me and I don’t remember how long I had been there for but they said I was the only file clerk who never made a mistake god forbid I should make a mistake. This was like, they were all nice to me, it was just lovely and then I got my report card and my dad didn’t like my grades, I wasn’t failing, I was probably a B or C student but um, and he told me I had to quit. And spent more time, so that was another thing I really loved and had to let go of and I remember going into the manager office and feel so ashamed when I told him I had to quit because my grades weren’t good enough. It wasn’t that my father was making me it was because I wasn’t good enough. Um that’s how I perceived it, and just sobbing, anyway um. You know it’s all about the rebellion, anyway, so when I continued on in school, um-senior year, I was absent, I had learned how to skip school so I didn’t go. I had to know how to map the halls, so I would miss the teachers I had classes with so I wouldn’t run into them and stuff. There were some other people that skipped but mostly nobody as much as me, the way I remember it and I could be wrong was that I just was not there more than I was there. But you know, where you’re upper middle class and in a white Jewish ghetto you graduate one way or the other, so I graduated but I refused to go my graduation to my parents chagrin and that that point I had gotten another job, but this one was in a dry cleaner and that was hateful I was sorting dirty clothes, it was hot it smelled, they didn’t have any air conditioning, it was summer time uh, the fumes were not so happy, um and so on graduation day when it was like 90 degrees out I was sweating in the back of this dry cleaner. And um, and they kept on yelling and me and telling me that I was making mistakes, which I found hard to believe because I was like the perfect file clerk and um, anyway, to this day I think it was their son and they were blaming me, because there son worked there too, because I was careful and every time they told me I made a mistake I was super careful. But anyway that was miserable. I hated that, that was probably one of my worst jobs ever. Anyway so, then I did I went off to American university. I loved, there was a wooded area, never the school and I loved going there. It was peaceful, that was like my safe place.
Is that like rock creek park?
Exactly rock creek park! Wow, um, yeah I loved that place and um, and I was, I guess I was lucky I got along with my roommate so that was really a good thing, um, one of my best friends from high school, also went to American university so I had a friend in her as well. I forgot about the fat part. All right, we’re just going to back tracking in time-
Yeah, sure,
44.02
Because this is a running theme in my life, still affects me today. So, I remember when I was young, pre-adolescent, my dad told me that you know ‘you have to stop eating’ ‘you’re eating like a pig’ ‘you can’t eat like that’- oh we have more pig stories- and that one’s actually fun. ‘You’re eating like a pig you’re going to get fat if you keep eating that way and I go ‘Dad am I fat?’ and he goes ‘You’re not now but if you keep eating like that you will be’ and I remember being totally confused. Like why am I worried about being fat if I haven’t headed down that road. But he set out the expectation so I obliged, and that happened well the compulsive eating happened, started happening, well, my parents would get boxes of candies as gifts when people came over to their house and I developed a system, you know I would push the box of candy to the back of the drawer, they were in the linen drawer, push it to back and leave it for a week or so, see if anybody noticed, nobody noticed I would cover up the box of chocolate with a table cloth and see if anybody noticed, nobody noticed you know then I would you know nibbling, getting rid of the chocolate. I did the same thing with ice cream, I’d go around the outside of the container first then I would tunnel underneath the container and then ah-and then I would eventually I would just polish it off. I would take Ritz crackers, a sleeve of Ritz crackers keep them in my purse and when nobody was looking, I remember doing this at a 4h meeting, shoving crackers in my face. So you know food was always there for me, maybe another reason I got into the food business, when I felt like I couldn’t count on people, um that was how, that’s how my self medication started was with food. Um, ah, oh yeah, fat. So when I got to college they signed me up the meal plan, I remember I didn’t really like it, but I once ate there for two meals in one day and I got sick so that was the end of the meal plan for me. We were eating what students ate back then which was boxed macaroni and cheese but I didn’t like cleaning up so I would put my dirty plates and my pots in my closet and close the door. And then sometime after they turned green I would throw them out and then eventually I stopped replacing them and that when I went to the vending machines in the basement. The vending machines, if it didn’t come out of a vending machine I wasn’t eating it, expect for an occasional treat um, to Roy Rogers, which was like a gourmet meal, everything they had at Roy Rogers was delicious, their hamburgers, their fried chickens and stuff and we could hitchhike there it was a short ride and again I liked doing that. I should go back and retry Roy Rogers and see if it’s as good as I remember, probably not. I like to revisit things every now and then.
[ Annotation 3 ]
It was also when I was in college I started, in DC you could drink wine and beer when you were 18 so that’s when I started with wine and eventually pushed myself, can’t believe I pushed myself to drink beer I didn’t even like it, but that’s what they served on campus at the tavern, so yeah. And so I started doing that and so um, and I have fond memories of Manashewitz and Spinyatta (sp 48.10) and because Yago was too expensive and Boon’s farm apple whatever I guess it was a wine, whatever was cheapest was what we drank. And we drank in excess and um, then there was marijuana around and we, and you know I started smoking that and that was all dandy. Um, and then I started staying up all night and sleeping through all my classes, so I got through my freshman year and that was okay. Year two I dropped out about five minutes before they flunked me out. I thought that was, that didn’t sit too well. However, my joy in college because I wasn’t into traditional classes, I had an adviser who would sign blank course slips, so I started working at a, um, preschool kind of thing. So I was into and I remember thinking this to myself it was to be the schools that are going to step in to intercede on the part of the children, and this was like straight forward fact as far as I was concerned, because parents don’t have time so it is clearly the school’s responsibility to pick up that slack and I of course, no surprise, didn’t believe in any kind of authoritarianism kind of thing so I was into open classrooms and free schools and summerhill kind of thing. So I was able to, I guess it was volunteer because I wasn’t paid, so I was able to volunteer at an open classroom free school and I really like that I worked with one young woman, wasn’t a young woman, one child named Pat and she was non verbal.
[ Annotation 4 ]
How old was she?
I can see her face-uh-I’m going to say five or something like that, but that’s a wild guess. Anyway, she and I kind of connected and I, I almost got a word out of her. You know, her face lite up when I came in I would read stories to her, um, so she was my special project and um, yeah, I really cared about her and actually that what I was thinking I would do after college if I had graduated is I wanted to get my degree in elementary education and change the world by changing the school but I couldn’t make it through the ah, traditional school thing. Um, so that was really, that was kind of cool. Anyway so,
So you-
I dropped out. I’m just trying to put things in order. I guess my parents told me that if I wanted to leave school that that was my decision but that I had to support myself. So I wound up in Manhattan. I got a job as a teller in Central savings bank. Um, and I got, I sub-letted an apartment, it was a fifth floor walk up on east 72nd street, it was one more than flight than you thought you could even climb, you know, one two three, I was fine, by four it’s like then there was that fifth one, so you really had to think twice. But it was my own first place and I loved it, and ah, and I met a guy who was cute, and nice and we moved into together. So working at Central saving bank this is a big bank on West 72nd street if you walk the city at all you can’t miss it, it’s kind of like triangular, I forget the cross streets but it’s this huge old bank and they were the first to install computer systems in their bank and they would um, the computers would go down and they would lock us in the bank until we finished proving, entering in the days work and finish proving, so I had no idea what time I was going to be in and out of there. I mean it was horrible, the work wasn’t so bad, but no idea what my hours were going to be um, and it was a popular bank. They had trained us very well and of course I always did what I was told. I guess if I was asked by either a non family person or somebody who asked nicely, um or maybe when I was (inaudible 54.21.5) but anyway I was well trained and um they back then they had signature card so when somebody came in and wanted to do a withdrawal or cash a check you would have them sign in front of you and then you would go and check against the signature card. There had been a rash of forgeries and bad checks and stuff, so I’m at my window and this woman signs the back of the check you know and I go over and I check the signature file and it’s not even close, so my heart is pounding and racing and I’m thinking ‘oh my god, oh my god I caught a criminal’ and I signal to somebody to get the bank manager and this is all taking some time and so I hear and the walls echo because it’s this cavernous place “Come on!” and it’s like the woman was hollering “what the heck is taking so long?” and I’m trying to be calm and calm her down, and the teller next to me looks at me she goes “do you know who that it?” I'm going ‘no’, she goes “that’s Bette Midler” and Bette Midler was wearing a babushka on her head. I had no idea and stuff, so that was my criminal catching background. I think I also, Jack Lemmon was also one of the people who came in, but I didn’t give him a hard time.
Um, so that was, that was, that job, um, and I worked there for quite a number of years, I don’t remember when it happened but wound up transferring down to the Wall street area. I didn’t feel the subways were safe so I would get up two hours before so I could take a bus down from my apartment on the upper east side to the wall street, which was a little coo-coo, but I did it and I didn’t think twice. I- they had a talking coke machine, I don’t remember the details of that but I was very cool. I guess you put your money in and it would ask you what you wanted, anyway that was the highlight of that one. Michael was my boyfriend and I just adored him, I remember holding him so tight, I remember thinking, that I wanted to be absorbed by him, you know I didn’t, I didn’t want there to be an separation between us, looking back on it, ah, twisted, but anyway so, I loved him.
Was he your first serious boyfriend or-?
He was, ah, he was my first serious boyfriend um, I went steady when I was in six grade. I wasn’t allowed to date, so he’d call me up every weekend and I’d say let me check with my parents and I’d run off and say ‘MA’ and then make up an excuse, come back and for like almost a year he never caught on that I wasn’t allowed to go out. I was coming up with all really weird excuses. Anyway, that was kind of a boyfriend and then when I was in high school um I had another boyfriend. He was probably a nice guy. Yeah, this is a rabbit hole in terms of, okay, I don’t know how much I’m supposed to talk about, but I’m not going to worry about it, you can edit it out if it’s (inaudible).
It’s fine-
So as long as we’re talking about boyfriends, um, and this did not help with my relationship with my sister, there was a guy in high school that I thought was fabulous. And um, I don’t remember where I was in the weight gaining thing, but my sister was, according to me, and probably according to him, she was the pretty one, she was only three years my junior. So she started flirting with him and I really-I mean- I wanted to kill her. Um, anyway, this guy's name was, whatever, he had a friend who really did like me, but I wasn’t interested in him at all. And I realize looking back, his friend was a real sweetie. He got this old, this really, really old car/truck and you know I would sneak out of the house, I would put my clothes on, I would put a bathrobe on over my clothes, roll up my pants- I would sneak out of the house and we would go, he would drive into New York and he would want, it was a food tour, he wanted falafel, he wanted orange Julius, he wanted all of these things. I just wanted to be out house, I just wanted to be living on the edge you know, and that all worked out for quite a while until one time, finally his car stopped and we couldn’t get it started after a trip to orange Julius so ah, we spent a good part of the night and eventually I had to call my parents and they were kind of pissed. But anyway, I wasn’t interested in him because he was a nice guy and the guy I was interested in was the guy interested in playing me against my sister. And looking back on it he wasn’t a nice guy, um, but that’s you know what I had learned, but this again echoes later on that ah, nice guys are wimps and strong guys are bullies. And again there was no question, that’s the way it is, the grass is green, the sky is blue, you know nice guys are wimps and strong guys are bullies and that’s the way it is period. I had no idea that there could be anything different. None. Um, so, anyway, so that was in high school and then later on in high school. There was this guy who worked, he worked at Baskin Robins and he probably and he was a nice guy I think. But not super nice, because I probably wouldn’t have liked him, whatever! But anyway, that was, that was, that was a no detrimental relationship.
[ Annotation 5 ]
So maybe we could go back to Michael-
Okay now- present tense
Unless you are-
No, no we should stop right there-
Unless there’s more you want to say-
No there’s no. Anyway, Michael was, Michael was, drinking was a big part of our lives and smoking grass was a part of our lives. Um, cocaine was kind of a part of lives, but for me it was too expensive so if somebody had some and they were willing to share then that was fine, but I would never, I mean buying it was out of the question. Um, anyway so yeah he was cute, we would go out and party and go to dance clubs and stuff and then he would go out with the guys. I don’t know, I always felt jealous, I didn’t think he was cheating on me but, I guess I felt like he was a flirt and so I was always worried when he went out with the guys. And that was, that was kind of contentious and I guess I had some reason because at some point, at some point I was getting, I got some really bad abdominal cramps and so I went to the emergency room and they wound up admitting me and what I remember, which is not what my mother remembers, what I remember I had some sort of infection in my tubes and um, what I remember hearing the doctor say, um, was that they really don’t, it happens quite a bit and they really don’t know what caused it and so I was in hospital for several days. My mom did not hear that, my mom heard it was some kind of an STD um, but I wasn’t buying it. But anyway, I was probably reacting to something looking back on it. Um, at that point-
Like a stress reaction kind of thing or? What do you mean by reacting to something?
Reacting my jealousy was probably reacting to something that was going on. Because I look, I don’t really, I mean it is more likely that my mom heard what was going on, we only hear what we want to hear and I didn’t want to hear that. So that is-yeah- that is possible. Anyway, at that point I was going to therapy because I was miserable. I felt that my time without a boyfriend was just time wasted. There was no point I was just waiting for the next one you know so giving up on Michael was not an option because he was what validated me. So I went to therapy and ah, I usually showed up for my appointments, but every now and then there would be a far-fetched excuse. And what I remember looking back on it now, I mean I remember that I was in pain and I wanted it to stop. What I didn’t realize is that I had to do something, my mom used to have the expression ‘This too shall pass’ so I just kept waiting for this too shall pass, you know? And I realize now I was just doing everything in my power to hold tight, my expectation was that somehow or another the world was going to adjust to me instead of my adjusting to the world and looking back now that’s ridiculous. But I see that echoed in some of the women in Deena’s dwellings. And again, my lament is that there’s a whole other thing that you have no idea, you know, there is a whole other world out there that you have no idea exists and you couldn’t possibly know that it exists, but my passion is kind of, walking with you on your journey. I know that’s skipping way ahead, but I, it was relevant-
[ Annotation 6 ]
Yes, totally relevant
Anyway so, ah, yeah, so eventually, the one piece, eventually it got so rough with Michael, not physically rough but you know, but he was drinking a lot, his dad was an alcoholic and died of alcoholism eventually. And ah, so that is, that is, that is relevant because it is, it shows dysfunction, you know, it shows, people who drink a lot or use substances that they are self-medicating, so there is clearly pain there that is unresolved and that’s why people do this kind of thing. So his dad had it and Michael had it too and I had it as well. Um, so, he anyway eventually, eventually, he, I told Michael, you know, Michael and I broke up, I don’t remember how that happened. I liked to think I told him to, because actually I really do, I think he loved me, he just you know, he just did what he does and expressed it so-. Um anyway so, I’ve had boy therapy, I’ve had a 100 years worth of therapy in my life young 63 year old body. Anyway, so this is going back to just ten years ago when I was already living out here I looked up at old up that old shrink-analyst-I call them shrinks I’m sorry if anybody out there doesn’t like that it my pet name- anyway I looked her up and she’s still in the phone book or online. And I reached out to her and I said “I don’t know if you remember me but I’m Sandy and I would love to schedule another appointment just to, kind of, catch up” and she said “Oh sure I remember you come on in” and I did and she did remember me and my point, and my point –and this is jumping kind of way ahead- I wanted to let her know, I was very proud of how far I’ve come and I’ve come farther since still since that meeting ten years ago, but I had no idea that was going to happen. And I wanted to thank her because the one piece, the only piece that I was open to that eventually took hold of me was that I found out I could live on my own. And that was so important because without that piece I never would have left my ex-husband. So, I wanted to say thank you and I’m still grateful and regretful that I was not more open to it at the time, but that was all I was ready for. And that’s something else I see with the ladies of Deena’s dwellings, um you know and I have yeah-I don’t know if therapy can work if you don’t want it to. But anyway I did get something out of it so that was good. So eventually, I kind of moved out on my own or ended up with a place on my own. I was in a second floor walk up on 74th and 3rd. It was a great place, it opened up to, the lobby was one story and I was the second story so I had a door that lead to the roof of the first story and it had this big ugly smokestack and I got somebody-I’m not sure who- to do a mural on it so it would be visually lovely for me and I could-it was having my own outside space which in New York city is pretty good, other than that it’s stoop sitting. Or at least for me, you know, so that was really a lovely place and that that point, sometime before then I had, ah, changed jobs, I started as a wine pourer I couldn’t hack it at the savings bank anymore, so there was a restaurant around the corner from me that I would in, restaurant/bar and they had, and this is going to sound weird but whatever, they had a all you can drink wine happy hour and so I was the person who went around and refilled everybody’s glasses. Well the place, the place was a weird concept it had a long narrow hallway going in and it was lined with, this was the heyday of singles bars, and they had washing machines and dryers and the idea was you could come in you could do your laundry, you could have a drink and maybe, you know meet somebody nice. Anyway, the guy who opened it up was a wall street drop out and had no idea how to do the food business. So anyway, I started as a wine pourer, um, decided I wanted to learn how to tend bar and that was where I learned how to tend bar. And that was hunky dory and long as that lasted, but we’re going back a really long time ago um, and I guess I was about 20 years old at this point and finding a job as a woman bartender was not an easy task. Um, ah, a lot of the places were that, would advertise were like strip places-which I wasn’t going to do- um, and other than that they were sleazy they were places that were so slow that no man would take the job because you didn’t make any money, there were no tips, so that was really tough. If you want- you know what- remind me I got get something to drink- oh I have a coffee here-
And anytime you want to stop this doesn’t have to be all one-
Okay, this is a lot of talking.
I know it is!
Ready? Okay. So I am compulsive and I have, it's funny because I've had issues with weight we can get to that. But, um, I was, my mom took me away on a retreat to Canyon ranch. She loved it there in the Berkshires and it was my first time that I had come in contact with exercise or healthy living, because again I was a junk food queen. Anyway I came back and I decided I was going to join a gym and I was doing treadmill and I remember being on the treadmill and I would go more and more and more and they said at the time, you know, that thirty minutes of exercise was good enough. And in my head I'm going well 30 minutes of exercise is good for everybody else but for me I gotta be on here for an hour and half. And this is something that is a theme throughout my life, whatever, it was taught to me by my dad and cemented by relationships that I sought out afterwards because that was my comfort level that was what I knew. And so yeah, and obviously I still battle with it as part of my three chords because you know, first it was 10,000 steps a day, then it was like 15, then it was 20, then it was 25 and now it's close to 30 and um everybody else’s exercise is fine, but for some reason with me the bar is different than it is, and I know, I know it is! But it's part of my hard wire.
And you were saying the three chords thing can you-
Oh, yeah, yeah Okay so, yeah and that is really true. It is my belief that when we are born we learn three chords from our family of origin, ah, and we play throughout life, we play these chords, we play them in different keys, in different order, in different tempos and we think that we're playing something different. But we're not at the end of the day is really just the same three chords. And so everything that I am and everything that I do today, and this is after a lot of therapy, I can trace back and I know where it came from and that makes it easier to break that pattern. But there is a lot to break so, it's a process. I used to imagine that one day my therapist would walk me down the aisle and she would give me a way because in a way she had given birth to me herself and it would be a graduation day. But you never graduate, the deeper you dig the more you have to learn and I'm still learning and I have, I pick my battles. So, as long as I'm walking and I'm not hurting anybody else, I'll let that one go. I have bigger fish to fry. Like, my fear of people, and we should come back to that or I can talk about it now. Let's talk about it now. One of, again one my chords, I hadn't learned this until, I don’t know maybe ten years ago, we attach to people in different ways and we learn how we attach um, by earliest our earliest experiences when we are first born and I have know for quite some time that I am a loner. That when it comes to reaching out to somebody or not, I don't. Um, I even, and John if you're listening you might notice this about me, um, even sometimes getting back in an email is difficult for me. Or the phone is really bad, making plans is hard, phone is really bad even and email, even if it's a no brainer email, I just this anxiety inside and I just, I don't, I just don't. And um, what I used to go was I would spend so much effort worrying about my tone, it was like giving birth to a baby every email, every, you know, "AHHHH, go back, maybe they won't understand" Now it's like, Okay Sandy, I'm going by anything is better than nothing so if you get a two word reply from me, it better than nothing, I'm not going to worry about the tone if you have a problem with it you can ask for an explanation.
Right-
But that connects back to the memories, you know the stories I told you about my mom and how she was afraid to hold me and how she wanted other people to pick it up. That is the anxiety, I mirror her anxiety and I bring it forward into many of my relationships and that is a very big fish for me to fry and that is one I need to take on. I realized last week that my power is in saying no and you like, I said no to school, I said no to college and you start, I said no to my sister and the rest of my family and its- I need to rethink that because I am making the box of the people I am in contact with small. And that's not a good thing, so I have to, that's something I have to work on now. Um, okay.
So, you were talking before about post-Michael
Oh, okay post Michael. Oh yeah, oh yeah my lovely apartment-
And working at the bar
Oh, oh yeah working at the bar. Okay, so ah, so I had, anyway, anyway, eventually ah, the name of the place was 'mates' and eventually it folded but not before I had an affair with the owner, who was 20 years my senior. What was I thinking? Um, anyway so, then I had to go out and find work and it was, as I said, it was difficult because they were really sleazy or everything else. So, I started, I was able, I got a job in an after hours bar. For those of you who have led a sheltered life, an after hours bar opens up at four o'clock in the morning when it is closing time for the regular bars in New York City and it goes until eight or nine o'clock or seven o'clock I don't remember. And um, I thought that was kind of cool, I kind of enjoyed it, it was a safe place, it was not a large place and I enjoyed that, anyway, I don't remember and anyway, jobs were few and far between. So, whenever I found something I would, that I could live with, I would take it. Which meant being on my feet for 14 hours a day so I remember taking a cab, you know shoes became very important, taking a, first of all they had the overhead glass racks and they had these boards that ran across, that were supposed to give you some spring. It was like a board walk except they had slates and empty spaces in between. At the time I couldn't reach the glasses unless I was wearing platform shoes, and if I wasn't, I'm sorry about this, I had to walk sideways because if I walked this way you know I would-
Lovely-
Yeah, I would wobble and fall through the cracks. So anyway, so I was taking a taxi from one to another, and I'm in the back seat and I'm massaging my feet and I found out you know if you get your feet into hot water as soon as you get home and massage them then they won't be so stiff the next day. So anyway, time is marching on and there's this really nice looking restaurant that was opening on 3rd avenue in the 50's and they had an ad for a bartender and I decided to apply. But the day before I had plans to meet my dad, my mom, they were both living out on Long Island still but he was working in the city so I met him for lunch and ah, he started with you know 'Why does it have to be bartending? ' You know, he knew I was struggling um, 'Why does it have to be bartending?' then he starts on you know, he said ' you could collect tokens in the subway'. I mean he was bringing up all of these disgusting, demeaning jobs and in the subway, who wants to spend 8 hours a day in the subway. Subway wasn't so safe then, although you were in a cage so maybe you were safer. But it was like anything, the message that I got was that anything was better than what I wanted to do. And, I kind of tried to blow him off but the next day I went in for the interview and I said something like you know 'I'm a good bartender' and I was, I was a really good bartender. And the guy asked me what a good bartender was, and I was so wound up about this job, which I had to get to show my dad I just burst into tears. I couldn't come up with anything and I just burst into tears. So I was plenty angry about that, I was angry at him at the time.
And I worked in some pretty cool places. I worked in the world trade center, ah, they had, it wasn't on the top, they had a place called 'Skydive' on the 44th floor. That was a great job, I loved it. The place after work was packed, I mean it was three deep, it was like flying, you had to move so quickly and the money was good and everything it was like AH. But they had, I'm going to call it a schmatta, which is like, I'm going, in my thought, it was a rag, but it wasn't it was actually a scarf with clouds on it and you had to wear it, it was part of the uniform. And I didn't want to, so I didn't and I didn't and they told me to and I didn't. Anyway, sooooo, I don't remember if I got fired or whether I quit but it was over the stinking scarf issue. It's all about the rebellion. So, anyway so I guess at that point, oh yeah, ah- I always wanted, my parents used to vacation in the Caribbean and they and one point I met a young man who lived on whatever island it was we were visiting and we went out dancing and he told me I was a good dancer, I could follow and I was like 'this is great!' So anyway it became my dream to live or move to St. Croix, that the island it was. Anyway, later on my father had a bar association meeting and it was in Honolulu and he decided that since it was in such a lovely place to take his wife and his two daughters. Um, and ah, so we went! And I encountered people who were in the restaurant business and the hotel business and that’s of course that who I gravitated to because that was what I did for a living too. And I had con- well it wasn't confidence- I told them I had always wanted to live in a warm climate and they said something to me that I have never ever heard before they said ‘go for it’. I had never heard those three words put together a sentence before and ah, and if you were thinking about doing something and I ran it past my parents you know its a like, ‘are you sure’, ‘be careful’ you know, ‘can you really do this’, there was all this hesitation and doubt but here I got this ‘go for it’. So, there was drinking and partying with my new found friends ish and I realized it was getting late and I decided to stay. And I called my parents and I told them that I was staying I wasn’t going home with them um, and there was a lot of back and forth ‘you’re irresponsible’, nah-nah- nah, ‘you’ve got to pack up your clothes anyway’ somehow or other I managed to pack up my clothes and friend let me stay at their place for a night, but there I had to find a place to live and find a job. And I did I found a job
And this is in Hawaii?
In Honolulu
In Honolulu-
Yep, Waikiki and of course I didn’t drive so I mean it had to be within walking distance and so I did. And it was funny because I didn’t want to be a burden, because being a burden was something I was familiar with from me mom-not that she intentionally told me that, but I knew it. So, I called a taxi and I realize I couldn’t even pronounce the name of the street I was on. I couldn’t even tell them how to pick me up some place and bring me some place. I’m going (mumbles) and I’m hanging off of a pay phone and I’m going how do you pronounce this street. Yeah it was quite an experience. But I did find an apartment and I did find um, a job, um, and so I stayed there um it was a tough experience. I think my grandmother and my mom came to visit, I don’t think my dad ever did because he was still pissed. My sister said that on the air flight home he was clutching onto her so tight, like she couldn’t, you know because I had really shocked them. Anyway, so um, it was an interesting experience. Living in Honolulu was a lot like living in New York in that it was very expensive to live because it’s an island and everything has got to be brought in. Only thing was the pay scale was about a third of what they were in New York. Whereas in New York you would have a job, you know and if you were a real go getter you might have two. In Honolulu everybody had two jobs and if you were a real go-getter you would have three or four, because you had to make ends meet. Anyways, I got this job as an assistant manager at a, um, a wine restaurant that specialized in California wine because that was kind of what I was into at the time.
And that was interesting too, that was an uphill battle because I was, I was a Haole, meaning I was white and I came from the mainland and there was deep distrust of all Haole, which some people really deserved, because some people would do down there they would, you know, do damage, they would rack up a debt then they would flee back to the mainland and disappear. And I get that, but I wasn’t like that and I was also a woman and that did not go over. I was very lucky that the people who were responsible, the owners of the restaurant were supportive, there was a guy who was a retired or an ex police officer who was also very supportive. First of all, I was a new manager and I didn’t know how to manage um, so I got my head handed to me quite a few times. Once was for playing favorites-oh my god they had this- the rolls that they served at the restaurant were expensive so the rule was that the staff was not allowed to eat the rolls. Anyway, and I was going to enforce that rule because I was the assistant manager at the time, I was the roll police. Really! Anyway, one of the lessons I learned was I was, the people who did what I said, I was nicer to, gave them some favors, not eating the rolls but you know I mean, you know. And so I was accused of playing favorites and other people were actively giving me a hard time. I didn’t understand that, why shouldn’t I treat them better if they are doing what I want. Another lesson that I learned at home. But evidently that’s not the way you do. And ah, I had to make, I was given my orders to make my peace with the rest of the staff, which was really hard, but I did. I also gained huge amounts of weight. Now I gained huge amounts of weight eating stuff from the vending machines in college and I had lost it again, with the whole thing with Michael. And then I would after the restaurant closed, the leftovers and things the bits and pieces that’s what I would eat and I must have gained, I don’t know, and I’m five two so twenty pounds on a five two person is a lot. Good thing that they had mumus there because that was all I could fit into. Um and then of course there was feeling ashamed, I couldn’t risk running into anyone who knew me back when I was pretty um, so. That was a running sore in my family. At one point, I’m just going to digress backwards.
At one point, as I said I liked to sing and dance-oh yeah my dad took my dance classes away from me for a while and then when I went back we had moved and I didn’t like them anymore I didn’t like the new teacher. And I was taking singing lessons and one point the teacher told me that you know I really had to lose weight if I wanted to continue. And I’m going ‘I don’t want to sing professionally, I just want to sing’ and anyway I didn’t continue with the lesson but looking back on that I can’t help but wonder. Certainly he was singing my father’s tune, whether he was just living in my Father's world or whether my father had put him up to it I can’t say. And my sister informed everybody she would rather be dead than be fat, after watching me grow up. So anyway, I actually kind of rebounded and when the manager left, they promoted me to manager. Which was actually a huge accomplishment considering I had been an underdog quite an under dog for a long time. I had made a lot of mistakes.
[ Annotation 3 ]
Anyway, at that point my uncle had been diagnosed with lung cancer and I had know that- I loved my uncle he was the only person who asked me what I wanted, everybody else, and I remember that day we were at the zoo and he asked me what I wanted to do in life and it was like I was stunned, I was stunned that anybody, and adult would ask me that. So anyway I really loved him, there was a special bond there and I had heard he was really ill and that he was dying. And so I told my bosses that I wanted to go back to New York to see my uncle and that I would come back. Um, for me I only had one job but that one job was seven days a week um, I took one day off a month. I would walk over to the most luxurious hotel I could find and park myself on their beach and pretend that I could afford to stay there and ah, my, so that was my one day off a month. My weekend was going out into the parking lot around sunset and just looking around. And actually it was good enough, that was interesting. Anyway, after all I had given them and I had worked my bones off for them they gave me a hard time about going back to New York. They gave me a really hard time and again, I understand, but they knew me so they should have had a little faith. Anyway so I went back and I saw my uncle and ah, and then I came back cause I said I would and then I quit. I really felt like, I had given them so much, I had worked really hard to prove myself and I felt they were totally unreasonable and I quit. And that was little over a year I had been living there and as I’m leaving I realize-it takes 365 days almost exactly to start to have a life- when I was leaving I realized I had made some friends, that I knew my way around, that I could take care of myself, but you know I had to leave that behind. So I came back to New York. I got, um, ah, I got um, my dad pulled some strings of someone he knew, a client or somebody was opening up a restaurant in midtown and so he used his clout to get me a job because I needed one. And um, I realized that I had to, I was getting close to 25, I didn’t want to be an old broad, that’s how they referred to women back then. I didn’t want to be an old broad behind the bar so I realized I wanted to move into management. So he got me this job, well, I showed up there, I was still big as a house-which should not have been a reason in today’s world- they gave me a job and they put me in the coat room for six months. So I was taking people’s coats. Anyway, after that time I must have gotten myself together somehow and they got to know me a little bit and they let me leave the coat room and ah, yeah. So, you know I started working there and that was something, it was another dysfunctional family, you know but that’s where I was comfortable. Um, I remember-it was like a steakhouse- and I remember the first time, they would use sizzle plates and they would put the steak on there and then put the butter on and it would spit all over the place, and the first time I am helping somebody to the table with this, I could, I feel-I was drooling- I had to keep my mouth really close ‘cause otherwise it was- anyways it was good- it helped me objective food and see it was a commodity but that was an important lesson. I also was interested in the kitchen and they had this Swiss chef in the kitchen, Tebore, and I told him, you know that I’d always been into cooking, and I always had and I wanted to work in the kitchen and stuff. So he sat me down with a 50-pound bag of carrots, which is not a big deal anymore but back in the day I had no idea there was such a thing as a 50-pound bag of carrots. And he told me to start peeling, then he told me I was peeling wrong then after I finished the fifty pound he told me to go back over it again because here were little hairline things in it I had to repeal them again. And this is how he was taught this is how he apprenticed in the kitchen so this is what he was doing to me and I think he was mean. But anyway so eventually he managed to dissuade me from that goal. Anyway, eventually I decided I need to go to restaurant school, so I signed up for restaurant school it was in Manhattan. It was the New York restaurant school, it specialized in preparing people to work in all aspects of the restaurant business management, cooking, management everything and it was geared for small fine dining restaurants 40 seats for less. So I did that and um, that was interesting. I went there because I really wanted to cook and they had some famous people working there too. Anybody out there know Nick Malgiary ? He was my baking instructor, and he yelled at me because I wasn’t paying attention in class, but that’s okay. It’s funny the things you remember too, you know it’s not like the joys of anything, it’s just what you want to remember. Anyway that was pretty cool and I became friends, part of restaurant training, the last part of it was that you had to open your own restaurants on paper and you worked in a student operated restaurant and every two day you would rotate to a different station, so you would go from the pastry station where you had to make soufflés, to the um, cold station, to the grill, to expedite, waiting, everything, so that was pretty good. Anyway, I became friends with the woman who was running and when she decided it was time for her to move on she put my name up there to take her place. And that was another uphill battle, because it is all about the rebellion and guess who never turned in her paper on how-on opening my own restaurant so there was some push back on that, but eventually, um, they decided to do that and that was a kind of, that was a good experience. It was funny, I was there as a manager so I became very good at um, getting maximum seating and turning people over and I would also teach to, so I remember teaching students my emergency evacuation techniques when people had sat at a table too long and I needed it back because I had another reservation. You know you slowly start removing things from the table, you know ending with the water glass and the napkins and you don’t have to say anything, but they will eventually get the idea. And then I would margin with people because it was a popular place um, and I say you know ‘I have a table open but I have another reservation at 1:30 so you have to be out-if you can eat quick and get out I can take you’ and sometimes it worked out and sometimes it didn’t. But it was a game and I loved it and supervising the students in the front of the house was also cool. There was this one guy, we had a selection of teas- and that was before that was common practice- and this one kid: “we have this kind of tea, we have this kind of tea, and we had Earl Ray tea” and no matter how many times I corrected him it was always Earl Ray tea. So that was, that was a chuckle, but I really loved it and I became attached to my students. I also taught at a bartending school too. And that was also real fun but the downer was that they would eventually turn over and I would have to let them go. And at the bartending school every year they have a holiday packaging show, which is a liquor and wine show, and what I thought was so cool about it was they had all these free samples out. So they had free samples of scotch, and free samples of wine and oh my god. The first time I went-by myself or with a friend or whatever I got sick. I had insisted on bringing these kids because it was like the coolest thing ever, you know you get all this free alcohol, that was really quite an experience. That was, that was fun, I don’t remember if any of them got sick, but they had warning from me, so that was. So I have always done a lot of teaching, so okay. All right so after that I got a job at, at a really popular restaurant in the theater district and it was a combination restaurant-pre-theater- restaurant wine bar and wine school. And they had top people from the wine industry doing courses and stuff like that and I was in charge of ordering the wine for the whole place, and it was tough. I mean I spoke some Spanish and it was pretentious all of the wine purveyors, with thick French accents and some of the stuff I couldn’t pronounce at all, and one point there was a really good guy who was near and I had to go over to him every five minutes ‘How do you pronounce this?’ ‘How do you pronounce that?’ But anyway it was a good job and what was but about it was that the manager liked to drink and was very happy to turn over his responsibilities to me, so even though he might have been taking advantage of me it was a great opportunity for me to learn and um, and that was really cool. Um, it was a really busy place and I loved the job. And after, after, working a full day instead of going out and drinking excessively which was the culture, I would go, the Hilton had a disco, so I would walk around the corner to this disco and I would dance. And ah, I actually I turned out, I think I knew the bartender, he had been one of my students, we were friends or anything, but I felt safe there. So there’s this guy there one night and he was really drunk and I was getting-he must have been hallucinating that I was his long lost girlfriend- ‘Oh baby, don’t be that way ‘ and you know anyway I had to handle him. I was an expert at handling drunks, I taught people how to handle drunks, so I got rid of, I mean I was kind of able to finally get rid of him and there was another guy sitting at the end of the bar and he came on like a really nice guy, he’d seen what had gone on and this that and the other thing, so we spent a part of the evening you know doing some dancing and talking what was remaining. Anyway it turns out he was in New York, he had a men’s clothing store, he was in New York for some sort of a clothing thing, an exhibition, a clothing show and he was staying at a hotel and that’s how he wound up in there, in the bar. So ah we were talking and everything else and he, he wanted to take me home in a cab and I said absolutely not. And he asked for my phone number so I gave it to him and he gave me his, you know we exchanged phone numbers and he told me to call him when I got home. And I said ‘No’, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself, this is my city, I don’t need to check in with you. Anyway, I got home and he crossed the line, it was a boundary I know that now. Didn’t know what a boundary was at the time, so he called me. And we talked and I thought it was, was kind of gutsy/ rude of him to call me after I had said I don’t need to check in with you, but the way he phrased it was that he really liked me and just wanted to make sure I was safe and sound. So I put that aside. Anyway, he would find reasons to come into the city so we started dating. Anyway, we were going out to dinner once and I didn’t know what kind of budget or what kind of food he wanted so I of course saved all kind of restaurant menus for places that I liked and I presented him with about 15 different menus and I said, okay I like all these places you pick, and he wouldn’t, you pick, no, and this went back and forth for a while so finally I said, okay fine, and I picked. And we went out for dinner and after all was said and done, I picked the most expensive restaurant in New York, which was not true, but I mean I just laughed it off, nah-nah, I gave you to opportunity to pick the restaurant and you didn’t so you abdicated any kind of responsibility but anyway. These are all little things I didn’t think too much of at the time. So we continued seeing each other, he told me his wife had died and that he had three children. And we continued dating and then you know it started to move to the next level and I guess he felt like he had to let me know that in fact, he separated and his wife didn’t die. And I was really upset, but I had already taken the bait. He was- you know there was a song by a country and western singer, (singing 39.36) ‘the sweetest gift I’ve ever known is loving you’. I mean oh my god, just sweep me off my feet ‘I’m so sorry I made a mistake, please forgive me. Here’s hearts and roses and flowers and all this other stuff, I didn’t think it was going to this far but’ you know. And I was addicted to the idea that here I had this man who adored me um and so eventually I forgave him and- drink-
40.08
And uh come to find out he had a store um a men’s clothing store in Somerville and he rented out apartments on top of that. He owned the building and he had been living and sleeping on the floor of ah, one of the apartments that wasn’t being rented and it was kind of pathetic. And eventually he did decide he’d sublet an apartment from a woman and he was living in the basement and I would stay over every now and then and I thought I was being nice when I put her, when I moved her clothes from the washer to the dryer but she was pissed at me because she said her clothes shrunk, I shouldn’t have done that but whatever. So eventually I did meet his kids. Eventually we get married. Well, I didn’t really, I didn’t really believe in marriage, it’s this Joni Mitchell ‘you don’t need this piece of paper from the city hall making us tried and true’ because I had lived with people before. But he started to convince me that I needed to be married. You know that I should want this and that everybody was married and if I loved him then- Anyway it was- and eventually I set aside me own feeling and figured okay fine if this is way the world is I will just go with it and go along with it and at time I kept on expecting him to propose after he knew that I was willing to say yes and he didn’t, and he didn’t and he didn’t. And then we were in Lambertville, at the time he was, we were both smoking, and he tore off the foil from his cigarette and fashioned it into a ring and asked me to marry him. You know so, anyway, that was what I got and I gather I said yes. And eventually he gave me his mother’s engagement ring, which I didn’t like but what the heck. He had to have it resized and stuff. So eventually that became official and there was before we actually were married every year with his ex-wife they would go on a trip to Disney land and it was big thing, that he had been doing this every year for years and years and years and now, he decides I’m going to be his wife now so we should take the kids on this trip to Disneyland. Now, his son was like, his younger son was 7 years old and he just looked like he was going to cry the entire time because this is something they had done with his home and his dad when they were all a family and there’s this new person there and who the heck is she? And I just really felt, my heart went out to him. And then his daughter who was combative, I found out later that what he had said to his daughter was you know, I will always be your dad, and I will always-he used to call his daughter his number one girl- I will always be you dad and I will always love you but now but now I have a new number one girl. No wonder she hated me! How could you say that? That was a set up. So he got what he wanted, because he didn’t want them to love me, whatever, I didn’t find that out till some years later but I mean it was an ugly nation to say the least and I have not set food in Disneyland since even though I have I have been invited to go by other people I do care about. It was just hideous. So, and all of these things were a tipoff that was before we were married. Okay so we decided we were going to get married so we were planning this wedding and stuff. My soon to be husband was complaining about the number of people my parents wanted to invite because they had a big friend circle and his side of the family was not as big so we had a shrink-I don’t know how that all shook out. I just took a back seat to it. And then we decided on a honeymoon we wanted to go somewhere that was featured on ‘Lifestyles of the rich and famous’ so we booked into the Villa d’Este, which is on Lake Como in Italy which was spectacular, but before that. Um, So I had decided I was going to ah, wear my mom’s wedding dress, she still had it, so we had to have it refitted for me, I have a visual aid, so just eat your heart out-
PAUSE 45.48
So we had it remade for me.
Oh wow-you look gorgeous.
And this is a picture of me and my dad dancing and the reason why I have that one displayed and not others, is because in this picture he looks like he likes me. Because I realize now my father, he loved me, he was my dad and he loved me, but he didn’t like me. All of the things that I now value most about myself were the things that made me vulnerable and made me a chump. I was generous, I was empathetic, you know I would run in, I you know- anyway, whoops, sorry Dad. Anyway I was going through the fitting for this wedding dress and for me when I am um, nervous, I eat. Okay and when I am really nervous in super crisis mode, I don’t. And so I kept on having my wedding dress, and I didn’t even realize what was going on- they just kept on taking it in and taking it in, because you can’t be too skinny. And I realize looking back now that somewhere in me I knew that I shouldn’t be heading down this road. I was in crisis mode and as it turns out on the day of the wedding the dress was swimming on me because even though I had had a fitting whenever I still lost more weight so it was dropping that quickly. So that was an interesting thing. I certainly had enough clues to put together but you see what you want to see and again strong men are bullies so it was what I expected. So what was interesting to me too was that we got married and stuff and I had this ring on my finger and the next day I got up and my finger was like, throbbing against this ring it was an odd sensation and then my husband would refer to me as his wife, but there was something about it that hit me wrong, it was like: my dirty sock, my shoe, my wife. There was something about it and again looking back on it now I think there was something there I was reacting to because objectification is part of it so I must have been picking up on that. And the honeymoon although it was in this beautiful place was just weird because he kept on referring to me as his wife like a possession and I was really uncomfortable. So that was that. Alright drink-
[ Annotation 7 ]
48.58
So is all during the honeymoon you’re feeling-
Yes, and I noticed something right away and I noticed stuff before but I didn’t pay attention and I noticed stuff on the honeymoon, but again I’d cross the bridge you know that was what I knew, we are going to live happily ever after forever, because my parents are still married. Alright, so now we’ll move on I had been living in New York, I
Can you talk a little more about the stuff that you noticed? Like, more specifically about what that was?
When?
Like around the honeymoon period?
Well, the only thing I remember vividly was the throbbing of my wedding band and the fact that I was now his possession.
The way he referred to you-
I don’t know what it was again in hindsight clearly I was reacting to something because I was uncomfortable with it and I was and I was-I was uncomfortable with it, because that’s the way he saw me I was his property um, and that is, in an abusive relationship you become property of the other person you are- and it makes it so much easier for them to be abusive when you are not a person you're a thing, you know and it’s also dehumanizing it invalidating, I mean the repercussions can go on and on forever and again if I had that feeling I must have been right. I can’t point specifically, I can’t say exactly what it was, but I must have been right. We know things without knowing so that's that. And because he had a men's clothing store in New Jersey I was the one who had to uproot and move out there. I think I had a driver’s license, and I didn’t get my driver’s license till I was like 25 years old. I didn’t get married until I was close to 30 so I was old enough, I think, I was old enough to know better, but you can never be too old to be stupid, and I mean that in a nice way, I’m not really stupid, apology to self. Anyway so, and at first before I had a job I would commute from New York out to New Jersey and he’d pick me up at Jersey avenue Penn station was under construction and by the time I got out to New Jersey I wanted to kiss the ground, I mean it was such a hassle. Anyway eventually I wound, he encouraged me to get a job at a hotel, I had never had a job, it was in their restaurant, but I had never worked in a hotel. And his thought was eventually I would move up the ranks and I don’t know what he was thinking, I would have a cushy manager kind of job where I didn’t have crazy hours or anything else. It doesn’t work like that, what I found out in the hotel business the more hours you are open the more likely it is that you are going to have to come in and work on those hours. So, um, hotels are open 24 hours even though the restaurant wasn’t. The staff was unionized; they had gone through a series of managers before chewed them up and spit them out because they had the power and the manager didn’t. I really tried hard to make the whole thing work. I hated it. But it also meant because I had to-I felt compelled with the staff wasn’t doing like resetting for the next day, I couldn’t get them to do it so I wound up doing it and so my hours were long an hard and they would vary from working until 2:00 in the morning to going in at 6:00 in the morning. And right from, even though he encouraged me to take this job right from the get go it was a problem with him, “too early” “too late” always complaining. Anyway, it didn’t take all that long and I was reduced to tears because once again I couldn’t do anything right and it’s all my fault. And I said specifically if I took that job they are saying it is a 50-hour a week job, but in my experience whatever they tell you it is in fact ten hours more than that. And I said can you live with that for year or two because I didn’t about hotels, and he said yes, so he had the option, he approved it he'd said he would deal with it and from day one the didn’t and that also pissed me off but also confuse die too because I had been really clear about this that it was not going to be a cake walk from the beginning. Anyway, so that went on for a while and um, and I wound up having to quit. And then I got another job in town managing a gourmet take out store on Palmers square, that was actually pretty good and I enjoyed doing that. And moved up from they hired me as a production manager, for their kitchen, it was their way of, it was technically a chef’s kind of job but they didn’t want to pay a chef kind of salary so they called it a production manager and I did not feel like chef material so production manager was it. So, I went in there and I did that then eventually I moved up to manage when the manager moved, so that was cool. All the time, Bob, my husband was giving me a hard time in terms of my hours and how hard I was working but they weren’t crazy hours, it was just long hours, so that was that. Um, then you know things were probably always screwy, but I thought that was normal so I don’t have any particular recollection of anything because it’s just the way it is, or the way it was, except when we hit our 7th year. And it was right around Father’s day, which coincided with, coincidentally was right around his father’s birthday. His father and mother were gone. And they were also no nice people, no surprise, but ah, everything changed on a dime. Everything I said and did was wrong. Everything! I mean I looked at it like, who is this guy, even though the level was not where I would keep it now in terms of how I was treated it just got so much worse it was unbelievable. And this lasted 365 days almost exactly, which was odd. And then suddenly he (snap sound) snapped out of it and he was the same old person that I knew. I thought it odd, but whatever. I was just grateful I wasn’t living in that same kind of situation anymore. And then it was year 14 right around the same time of year and all of the sudden (snap sound) it was, I mean it was horrible. I mean we were driving down the street and there were trees in the center island- it must have been spring- and they had not bud yet and he was talking about you know how everything was dying and this and that and the other thing. Those trees are all dead, and I said ‘they come back every year, you know, they wouldn’t all have died’ ‘No they're all dead’, anyway it was, it was bad. Um, and I started to shut down, first I stopped laughing then I stopped smiling, then I stopped being able to maintain eye contact and then I just stopped talking. And I had an experience. I was in a supermarket. I was picking up some sort of meat for my husband. And it was odd I was standing in line at the counter and I had been there early on but the guy behind the counter was helping everybody else and not me so I just stood there, which I thought was odd, I just thought it was odd at the time and then he asked me what I wanted and I opened up my mouth to speak and all of the sudden I had this strange noise that kind of enveloped me and after a couple of moments I realized it was the sound of my own voice and it sounded so foreign to me um, I just there was no point in saying anything because everything I said was wrong. Around the same time we had neighbors and I encountered one of them in the street and he was trying to have a conversation with me and I couldn’t have a- I was so unnerved by the fact he was trying to listen to what I had to say that I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t maintain my train of thought because it was really, it was really strange. So I was in the process of shutting down. He never hit me. He would make gestures you know, I was afraid to go in the car driving with him because he would have these anger things that would erupt and -people from New York were aggressive, women were no good, people from Pennsylvania didn’t know how to drive at all, I mean there was an excuse for everything. Oh my god. Indians. He had this men’s store and this Indian guy, this one Indian guy he told me would come in and he would look at the jacket and look at the jacket and he would touch it and stuff and he wanted to think about it so he left, and then he came back later and my husband had hidden the jacket and said he a had sold it, because this guy had so much nerve to not buy the jacket. Ahhhh!
My husband just hated everybody. Um and he hated my family too and that was something. My sister was just plain crazy and that’s something, my sister and I had not been getting along since forever, so that’s something, okay I can accept that. But then we went to my parents and it was never safe. Every time we got together there was something and he would usually skate by the interaction and I think it was all fine and then it could be right after, it could be a week after, it could be a month after, he’d start in on how horribly they treated him and you know anyway, it was really not good, so. Um, and the same thing with my friends and that is the isolation piece which is also standard operating procedure. Um, they isolate you so that as your world shrinks they become bigger in your world and that gives them again more power. Um, I had, I mean I was really lucky I had a certain amount of financial freedom in that I didn’t have to turn over my paycheck to him but it did get deposited in a joint checking account and he was the one who approved the purchases. Yeah it could have been a lot worse but it wasn’t and I’m grateful.
[ Annotation 8 ] [ Annotation 9 ]
1.02:58
I have a question about the seven-year thing that stands out to me-
It was seven and then on number 14 too and you want to hear the weirdest thing?
Yeah
Let me tell you the weirdest thing, his first wife filed for divorce in year 14. I don’t know what that is, but he was on some sort of cycle. It happened to her twice, it happened to her once. By the way his first wife and I are friends um, why not? We both thought the same man was okay. She has since broken the cycle and is married to a nice guy who of course her first husband thinks is a wimp, but that's what he would think. Yeah I have no idea, it just struck me as odd, it was 7 and 14 and then 14 again and I don’t know what happened to her on her 7th anniversary but I wouldn’t be surprised, anyway I didn’t make it to the 14th because I realized there must be something wrong.
And where were the kids in all of this?
Okay his kids, his, his youngest had been diagnosed with ADHD, the kids were all living with their mom initially and then um his first wife, he was acting out a lot and she felt like she just couldn’t handle them so she, he said he should come and live with us. And um, I didn’t want that that’s not the way I envisioned my life, I had never had any children, if his own mother couldn’t handle them then how could I possible do it, but that wasn’t, I mean, it was his father’s call and then, this was my own ridiculousness you know, just give me a week so I can get mentally prepared. I know now it doesn’t make any difference, but that request was not honored either. So, his son comes to live with us and he is having issues in school and I decided that I was going, that this sweet kid that I was not going to let him fall through the cracks. So he had books to read and of course he didn’t want to read them so what I would do was, I would go out and get the book and say okay fine, you read a chapter a night and because I knew that he could give me a lot of baloney I would have to read the same chapter so we could talk about it afterwards. So it was homework for him. It was homework for me. It was time consuming and but I mean, we were establishing a relationship, we were establishing a report, he knew that I was on his side um and he was getting this school work done but it was time consuming and my husband did not like that. ‘Oh you’re going to spoil the kid’ (Grumbling like husband 1:06:21) you know just bellyaching about anything he could, but I was wrong. I think ah, he was jealous because when you are in that kind of mindset there just so much love to go around so if I love his son that means there is less love for him and he couldn’t have that. If I was making, If I was changing my life around his son’s needs that would mean there is less for him and that wasn’t acceptable even if it was his own son that he wanted to come live with us. So, um yeah, so Anyway, the other two kids um, lived at home with their mom, the middle child she and I reached a truce somewhere along the line. I think when she might have told me that she wasn’t his number one girl anymore and I going, oh my god I can’t believe he said that, so we were okay and I, I love her, we have a relationship now, a little distant but- And the oldest son who was the one I was closest to living with his mom and uh, he wound up, um getting involved with a man that was just like his father um so, so I understand that when my parents met this man who he was living with- after my mom died my father’s girlfriend just thought that this guy was the most handsome the most successful person that she had ever met. My feeling was that my step son is just as handsome and just as successful and I don’t really understand why this other one was being put up on a pedestal but my step son was not being given that credit, but after both my parents had died and stuff the eldest son first of all he was not around as I expected cause he was close with my father and with my parents, he was not around when things started going badly for their health um, he was not really around, I mean he showed up to the funeral I think and left early after the repast afterwards and I think that was because- anyway he wanted a painting that had been in my parents house so he asked and we had been close I thought he asked my dad girlfriend of two years whether he could have the painting and I’m like, I’m his daughter forever why are you asking girlfriend but I new the answer to that question but I knew the answer to that question, because the girlfriend glorified the man he was living with so I was out. Cause I wasn’t going that route, and I'm not. I wasn’t offended, at that point I understood it, but I’m sorry because and actually the rest of his family is not seeing him that much either. He’s kind of pushed himself back and I understand that. Anyway, sorry I went way ahead into current time.
But um, you were talking about; you didn’t make it to year 14
Well, I made it to year 14 but I didn’t make it to year 15
15 right-
Anyway, I um, I don’t know exactly how it was that I realized that this was- I didn’t realize I thought perhaps this was an abusive relationship. We went to a therapist together, my husband and I, and you know my husband was not the kind of person who would be open to such a thing because he doesn’t want change. But anyway we found this guy and the first time we had a session together it was like somebody had opened up the windows and fresh air breezed in, I mean it was fabulous, that was pretty much it and it was downhill after that.
Do you think he felt that way too?
No
Okay
Um and actually the dynamic, okay, down the line family shrink tells me that his father was abusive and I figure and I figure he has worked out his issues so this was a good person to come to. Well apparently present day, he hadn’t worked out all of his issues, he consistently sided with my husband, he was very proud of the fact that he continued, that my husband continued to come this was his victory but the reason why my husband continued to come was he wasn’t being challenged at all. All of the challenge was at me and he would say, the shrink would say, oh you’re more psychologically attuned then he is, so we would meet, in addition I would meet with him periodically and that was really spooky. He started talking about this mind control thing, and he had met someone who could do, this is the shrink that’s talking. Okay fine so, all right, in subsequent sessions and this is so ridiculous I’m embarrassed but I have learned to trust my gut so I am just going with it so. I’d be sitting there talking to him and I felt like my nose was growing. It was weird. It was like a physical sensation that was happening with my nose, I know it’s weird but it was tackle. So with the warning, he had studied this mind control he could do, I don’t know what’s going on here but it is plenty weird. Um, he, also would only when I was alone with him, he would talk about, family shrink was only married for two years, to a-I’m using his words- a lawyer bitch. Okay and during that two years they had a child, you now that was exactly the way, I felt that he was throwing this stuff at me, he would not, he would not flirt with me because it was unprofessional, he would not flirt with me because I wasn’t credentialed enough for him, he wanted somebody who was going to add something you know somebody on his arm that would add something to his stature in the world. But yet he would ask about my sex life with my husband, he would ‘do you ever have wild abandoned sex’ and I’m looking at him going, huh? First of all he never asked me when my husband was in the room, he, I had bigger fish to fry, I mean, you know. Are you having sex may or may not have been a question, but sing descriptive stuff about it was really inappropriate. Again I felt like he was throwing out there lines bouncing these lines if he was going to hand out to other women and he was balancing them over mea head. They weren’t exactly aimed at me because he wouldn’t do that, but he wanted to, they were aimed at a wall behind me. I know I’m not really nuts-
But he was sort of trying out techniques on you
I felt like chick techniques. When he went out in the world and was looking for, I’m going to say new victim but a new girlfriend or whatever.
So you had a great therapist-
He was perfect and that’s why my husband kept on going because there was not challenge they were both you now, they were both from the same-anyway. So, this continues on and on for a while and at one point I remember thinking to myself I have to take this from my husband but do I have to take this from my therapist. And then this little light wait on and I said, wait a minute I’m taking this from my therapist, and then another light goes, I have to take it from my husband. From that point I had no idea where to go, every place I look there was more of the same that had been used to so I wound up taking myself to Women’s space, which is like Women aware except that it’s in my neighborhood. And um, I wound up, I guess they some sort of an intake thing, I guess it was probably a safety assessment.
So you don’t- there’s no defining moment where it was just like- this is it?
What- I’m getting out?
Yeah.
Oh we’re not there yet and I’m not sure that there ever was. This was my introduction, I wasn’t even sure I could call this abuse because he never physically laid a hand on me. I look back on it now and I say if he had hit me I would have known, but you know if he had hit me I probably would have made an excuse because that’s what we do. So I can’t say that for sure, but go ahead-
Oh no, no, I just, I wanted to figure out where this was in the timeline so-
We’re at year 14
14, okay-
I realize things are not good, I can’t go on much longer than this um,
So you go to-
I did have kind of a defining moment um, my mom was diagnosed with multi-myeloma. It's a kind of cancer they don't have a cure for, um, and I suffered a lot of regret with my grandfather who had the heart attack I never had the chance. I mean, I lived in fear of that kind of regret again. So when she was diagnosed, um, at that time I had my own business and I decided the rest of the world was not going to wait for me to become the next Martha Stewart so I found someone I thought would be appropriate and I-
What kind of business was it?
It was a food business, gourmet take out and catering on Nassau Street in Princeton. So- no that’s alright-
I’m curious about your career, during this trajectory-
Okay my career okay so I did the gourmet take out on Palmers square and I did that- I think of it as I gave them the best seven years of my life because by the time I left, I decided I wanted to do my own thing I was getting pretty tired. But I did, I started looking for my own business and my husband was ah, supportive I guess of that um, he didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear, I wound buying this I believed that he knew business, even though he would hide merchandise from his potential customers on a regular basis, you know um, but anyway so but he was in fact helpful. I wanted what I wanted, which was a new place that I could call my own and this and that and the other thing and he convinced me I should buy an ongoing business because I would be buying their business. They would have a track record, blah, blah, blah. So I would buying- I have a fancy streak to me- but I wound up buying this Italian deli that sold newspapers and cigarettes, they had a big cigarette hood right in the front they had a rotisserie in the window. It was hideous and I’m looking at the window I was showing my friend from college, who would come up to visit, before I bought business I’m pointing it out to her and my head is starting to throb because I hate this, but I was convinced that it was a sound business decision. So I did it. Anyway, that actually, I was good at what I did. I always was successful at my professional part of it was because I gave it 100% part of it was because I'm as sensitive and could figure out what people wanted and needed and I could try to adjust so some of that stuff that was good for me in business was not as good for me in my personal life, but whatever. Anyway people knew me in own they knew I had been running a shop on Palmer’s square which is ritzy and expensive this was local place they prefer low prices and they were afraid I was going to gentrify their store so I was sensitive to that. So what my decision was I would take one step in the gourmet direction which is what I was interested in and I would take another step in the deli direction so that I would have, um, back in the day, sandwiches on crusty baguette were considered special and gourmet so I would do a special with a crust baguette sandwich and then I would do a deli special like, not just corn been but corn beef with homemade coleslaw and you know, so I would do that or. Yeah. So I would go in both directions, I would take steps in either direction. And I guess I had a good business sense because it was successful, although it was terrifying that first year, but again that 365 day thing happened again and it just turned around after the first year and all of the sudden it was really starting to grow and it continued growing until I dumped it. And my husband was always giving me a hard time, I mean that’s just what he did that was expected. And his kids would come over and I would be in the kitchen for hours and hours and hours preparing this feast for them you know I didn’t get a chance to sit down and eat myself because his kids are more of a priority than I was. His family was the good family except when they were and my family was no good at all. My family was a family of privilege and that probably- my father wound up being very, very successful. Um, at what he did. Very, very, very successful at what he did. Because he was born to do it and because he was driven so I think that probably threatened him too. Um, anyhow so yeah, so eventually we redid the place I say we I know, I know- yeah I guess he did help, we tried to- I was contacting the cigarette company, like, get that stinking hood out of here and they were supposed to come and take it down and they didn’t so um, I finally convinced him, macho man that he thought he was that he could do it, so he gets up there and he’s gotten it kind of loose but can't go the rest of the distance, and he’s like ‘get me some help’ so I’m running across the street to the Greek place ‘cause I knew them and I said, come on you got to help me, he standing there and his arms are shaking and this whole things is going to fall crash and injure him, Anyway we go the cigarette hood down but that was quite the evening. And our course when he did things like that ‘see what I do for you?’
Right, right.
You know that comes back to haunt and it always does. I cannot point out those instances. It’s enough that was just woven into everyday that was just standard operating procedure. And what was also standard operating procedure was um, he everybody thought he was the nicest guy because in front of their face he was the nicest guy. And when we walked out of the house we would be holding hands so everybody assumed we were deeply in love and I guess at some point we were, or whatever, I don’t know what you call that now. And he would always be helpful to the neighbors and help them with things that needed to be fixed because he was kind of handy after owning a building for all those years and but what I saw he’d be lovely to them he would trash talked them endlessly, like he trash talk my family, like he trash talked everybody else, and then he was entitled ‘You see what I did for them and they can’t-“ it was another reason for him to get insulted when there was some sort of perceived slight. I don’t even think there was a slight, it was just what he chose to react to.
1.26.49
We went away on a family vacation, my parents took us away on a family vacation several times. But he was kind of a big guy, so this was his justification for needing the biggest room in the entire family and the best seat on the airplane and I believed it, I mean he was a big guy, he wasn’t so big he needed two seats but he was big. Um, and that was part of his power too, his physical impression. Anyway, so, yeah. Okay so I had the business-
Yeah, you were talking before about sort of a defining moment you were saying one
Oh with the therapist?
Yeah with the therapist but then-
I told you about the butcher um,
Yeah then you were also talking bout going to women’s-
Oh yeah, yeah yeah, women’s space. Anyway when the therapist turned out to be a few shades worse than the man I was actually living with. I had no idea where to go, I mean I had tried the therapist so I ended up going to women’s space and they did an intake I guess it was safely assessment and I was up there talking to her and I remember telling the woman how he was, all the things he was doing to me verbally and emotionally and I kept on repeating to her I know this is normal, but the its the degree that makes it bad and I kept on pleading with her and you know she suggested that I join, you know that I attend this drop in support group and I remember walking out of there thinking ‘what a chump’ and I was thinking of her. Two reasons, number one because she believed me, and nobody believes me, number, and I am not believable and I’m not worthy of being believed, I’m embellishing for you and the other part thinking ‘he’s just a strong man, that’s the way strong men are’. So I decided to go to this drop in group and what was mind boggling about it, it was you could go there and you could talk or you could not talk, you could decide for yourself if this was where you belong and after attending the groups, several of these groups I knew it was where I belonged. I was able to make that decision, and it was so weird, we actually became close, many of us, but there was a certain amount of ebb and flow and every new person who came into that group used the same words, they described their partner as Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. That was how I described my husband but one by one by one, I must have heard it a dozen times and that was so weird because we were a diverse group, we had women of all ethnicities, some were wealthier than I was, some were just scraping to get by. It just didn’t matter, we were clearly telling the same story. And if you didn’t want to have sex with them you were gay or you were doing it with somebody else. I mean, the stories were so much alike, I mean the pattern of behavior was so and that was amazing to me because number one I realized I wasn’t alone. Number two I was able to see that this is a pattern of behavior so it made it less personal, it wasn’t so much that I deserved it which is what I believed because these other women didn’t deserve it. It was really something, I remember getting advice from one of the women because you know it was all about, with my husband trying to be private, my trying to stay emotionally safe and him trying to violate this boundary. So she suggested I get a post box and I could have things I don’t want him to see sent there and I did. But again I was convinced of his power and really he was sneaky, he snooped, I mean, it would not be putting it past him to think that he followed me. I was terrified because whatever boundary I tried to set that was his goal to let him know he could break it anytime he wanted to. I mean I picked a post office box that was twenty miles away, but now I’m going what the hey, I mean I didn’t have to pick one just around the corner but I didn’t have to pick one in Oshkosh. Anyway you know again, I was terrified of him and as I started speaking about with my fiends I found out the 100%, 100% of the women that I was friendly with had been beaten up and this was really odd to me at the time, because I know that not 100% of women get beat up. And it wasn’t just the verbal and the emotional it was actual physical abuse um and it was like whoa this is weird. So that started me down my quest for therapy forever, just trying to figure that out and I understand why, now I understand why, we spoke the same language, we understood the way the game was played, these are the people I’m going to connect to. And again when it came time to connect ah, to a gentleman I found one who had an abusive wife. I know, I know that was part of the draw. I didn’t consciously think it but I know that was one of the reasons I felt safe with him, because he understood.
[ Annotation 5 ] [ Annotation 10 ]
Yeah, yeah-
So I continued on at women’s space.
Did he know you were going to women’s space?
Oh no, no, no, no. My life was a secret, at some point okay so we were, I guess at some point we, (inaudible 1:34:04) oh I didn’t finish the part about my mother. Okay so my mother had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma there is no cure. That’s when I dumped my business I found someone who would buy it. I didn’t, I started off liking her, ended up not liking her. Turns out she was an abusive woman, came out later when I hear how the place went and how she treated my employees who I made her promise she would keep because they were my new family. Um, anyway, so um, so now when I run into women I don’t like I realize why, because other than that I can get along with anybody it’s only when people pull the power move. Um, but anyway, I was going into the city, I was going in, once a month, okay and you know parking was an issue so I would have my husband drop me off at the train station and pick me up. And at this point he had retired too he had sold his business. So I didn’t think it was a big deal, then after a little bit of time I started getting some grief. It's like “I’ve got to plan my whole day around you and I never know when you’re going” and you know. He wasn’t doing anything anyways as far as I knew. So
And you’re going to visit your mom?
I ‘m going to visit my mom who is terminally ill. So, um, anyway so then I start going in once every other week and the belly aching continues and stuff. So I said, okay you feel like your life is on a string being dangled by my mom? Okay so I’ll set it up with my mom, I’ll go in. I'll pick out the dates two months ahead of time so you’ll know. Well, that didn’t go over too good because he felt like he had to plan everything around her and this was interfering with his life and this, that and the other thing so there was no getting around that. I was going in there, I was so upset by everything that was going on in my marriage that, I mean, my mom and I would go out to lunch and I’d have to excuse myself several times and I’d go into the ladies room and cry ‘cause I did not want to lay this on her she had enough on her plate. So um, and I was only going in once every two weeks, I mean really. So, it got so bad that I decided, you know, don’t you worry you just do whatever you want to do. I'll just take a taxi. Well, I couldn't take a taxi because we were going to go broke on taxis. Um, it’s like okay. So then I said, okay I’ll walk. Now I don’t know how many miles it was, but it was somewhere between a minimum of 3 maximum of 5 miles to the train station but I was determined to see my mom. So anyway that was, I mean I did it the first time and I’m thinking this is not so bad now because the days are light, it’s long and it's summer time but in the winter when the days are short I didn’t want to be walking down route 27 for miles. And I didn’t know about the ice and the snow, so I realized that was going to be problematic, right off base. He also realized it was going to be problematic and he did not say why but my feeling was my neighbors travelled up and down route 27 and if they had seen me walking and had asked me why I would have told them and he would have been ah, outed as the lovely supportive husband that he was. So, anyway, eventually I, there was a bus that ran on 27 so I was able to take the bus to take me in and out of but the tension over visiting my mother every other week did not subside. And all of the sudden again it dawned on me it wasn't that I was doing everything wrong it was about him making everything that I do wrong. There was no way out, the only way out for me was to give up on my mother, who I loved and was dying, you know. And that was kind of the line that I drew that I would not cross. But it just didn’t matter what I did because I third it every which way. I mean and there was no way, no matter how he expressed his displeasure um the solution was never good enough, so that was also a defining moment. And the whole time I was also going to women’s space, at that point I guess we had realized, I could not believe, it was so painful for me, I had put his family first, his needs first everything about him came first. I put everything that I held near and dear I either got rid of or put it on hold. And yet when my mom was dying I wasn’t, he wasn’t going to stand by me for that? It never in a million years occurred to me that that was going to be the case and I was crushed that he wouldn’t make more of an effort to save our marriage. At the time I was crushed he wouldn’t make more of an effort. Anyway, we did go to this shrink, that didn’t work out too good and then eventually at some point I realized I couldn’t keep going like this and one or the other of us brought up divorce. He might have brought it up to call my bluff, or I might have brought it up because I just couldn’t go on like that hoping he would call my bluff but we didn’t. So um, anyway, at this point we are kind of leading separate lives. I’m still surprised he moved into the guest bedroom, I kept the master bedroom. They both had bathrooms so that wasn't a problem. But I remember lying down at night or in the morning sometimes, lying down belly on the floor trying to peer underneath the bedroom door trying to see if there were lights on to see if he was home or not. You know just hyper vigilant to every move that was going on around me. And big time secretive and then, he just showed me time after time that he could plow through my boundaries. So I started to install locks on my bedroom doors. And that’s pretty crazy since I’m not the handiest person in the world but I managed to get them on there. There was a deadbolt kind of thing and then there was a chain thing and there was the key to the regular door lock that evidently anybody can get through, but I didn’t know that. So I had all these things on then the paranoid, because it just spirals, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger, um, it just sweeps you up and carries you away because you are never safe. I put locks on my closet door and stuff and it was such a hassle getting in and out of house. First of all I’d try to schedule around a time he might not be around because I didn’t want to encounter him because that was going to be unpleasant to say the least. And it was also, locking up properly and did I do this. I mean it was all about maintaining secrecy. And um, anyway, at some point I got myself a little present because I was going through hell and I got it with a little money that I had put aside from my store and I had stashed that cash in a boot, of which I had many pairs in my closet, which was locked. Okay, I bought this for myself as a present and kept that in a boot in my closet, which was locked, in my locked bedroom door. So time goes on, time goes on, I go to get some more cash because I needed it cause I wasn’t supposed to be touching the joint checking account until because that I was still under scrutiny, whatever.
1:43:47
Under scrutiny what do you mean-
Ah, until the lawyers divided it up I wasn’t supposed to take anything away from him.
Oh I see
That might be 50% his-
Because you were in the process of a divorce- or?
Well, we were in the process of talking about it. Um so anyway so I went in there to get a little more cash and it wasn’t there and neither was the bracelet. And I cannot believe it because I never thought of him as a thief. I couldn’t believe it, it’s like what on earth happened? And in retrospect I have to accept that my husband must have taken hours to break into the room and into the closet and search the closet because it was not I mean like, who, who, just looking for anything. The fact that he would go that far that was also terrifying and he made off with it. And I didn’t feel like I could say anything at the time.
Why didn’t you feel like you could say anything?
You don’t want to accuse him of being a thief. You know I still couldn’t, in my heart of hearts it was still really hard for me to believe that for myself I couldn’t believe. You know I mean I was still in denial. Years later, fast forward, years later, um, maybe about ten years ago or so, he was constantly figuring out- you know I had moved out, I had moved here and every now and then I’d get a call from him saying he had something of mine did I want it back. So I get a call from him and he said “Yeah I found this bracelet, I was cleaning up some stuff-“ his ah, his office was on our third floor, ok, I seldom went up there because it was hotter than Hades, because it was his office, I didn’t like it at all he decorated it, but it had furniture that was from my New York apartment, built in wall unit that we had moved. So he said he: “ I was cleaning up on top of the wall unit and ah, I came across this Fortunoff bag with a bracelet in it”. And it was like, I know immediately what it was he said “Do want this- I don't even know if you remember do you want this back?”. So I said yes and so he said, “I don’t know what happened to it” you know at this point I know he’s not admitting to anything there is no point in taking that in that direction. I wanted to ask him about the cash that he stole, because the cash was several thousand dollars, you know, but there was no point and there was no point in reminding him that he had done it. There was no way I could have gotten this bracelet you know on top of this wall unit, I knew for a fact that’s what it is. I have no idea why he gave this back to the only thing I can figure, because has been angling for his kids inheritance that, you know, yeah, um that he was trying to get me to leave money to his kids so he could take credit for it, because that’s what he does and he was trying to be nice to me. In front of my face and trash me behind my back because that’s what he does.
When did you get the bracelet back?
I don’t know 10, 15 years ago. And you know what, I never take it off.
Yeah
It is a miracle that I ever got it. And it needs to be polished so I do that with the bracelet on. Um cause I wouldn’t want to risk breaking it. That’s my miracle.
(PAUSE 1:47:49)
Okay so, um so those were really crazy times and I was seeing- I was going to support group once a week and they were I mean support group was on a Thursday night and that was Thanksgiving and we all decided needed to cancel or move Thanksgiving to a night that’s different because none of us could bear to be without this support gourd and it was life changing. And when I think about my own story, {(whispering) that’s what I want to give to the women of Deena’s}, you know, because I know without knowing that they have more in common then they don’t. I’m just going to do the best I can with that. Anyway, so, um so I was running around all over the place trying to secretive and stuff then I- at one point things got really heated and I locked myself into the bedroom and he was banging the door, you know, ‘let me in’ ‘let me in’ and I was afraid he was going to break down the door so I told him to stop or I was going call the police so he goes ‘You let me in or I’ll call the police’ I don’t know what he was thinking but this was a man who was not in his- not in the present- So he did, he called the police and then after I guess he realize that maybe that wasn’t the smartest move on his part so he tired to cancel the police call but of course they can’t do that. So they showed up and when they did I’m still locked in my room, I get a ‘boom, boom, boom’ on the door and he said ‘Open up it’s the police’ so I let him in. Now he walks in the room, he looks around, I’ve got my husband this big (indiscernible) I was this little thing dressed up in a bathrobe, pretty much shaking, he sees the locks that I’ve installed around the room and god bless him, he knew what was going on and he said to me ‘You don’t have to live like this’ and it never occurred to me and- it just never occurred to me and he didn’t say, I mean that is all he had to say. He really heard me, and he reacted to that and I wasn’t used to that. Something else that us survivors do is that we do tend to repeat ourselves a lot because it’s common place that people don't hear us and if they do they disregard it. So, I’ve noticed that as a pattern, not so much anymore with myself but with other people too. It’s one of the tips that I have when I encounter somebody and they repeat themselves a lot. I know where that is coming from. So, um, so that, that gave me the idea and I was going to see a therapist and stuff and I was determined to fight back because I had given him so much. I want the house I wanted to stay in my home and so I wanted to fight him on this. So she suggested, and again, this is the way you do it. She suggested that I just go out and look at apartments. She said ‘ do not rent anything, just go out and see what’s out there’ and because it was non-threatening and because it was open ended, and stuff she wasn’t telling me what to do, she was leaving it up- but it was a push in the right direction, I did go out and look at apartments. And that’s when I saw a condo in this development and I loved it. It was two bedroom and so even though I had decided, you know, I wasn’t going to, that I wasn’t going to win the battle of the house and that it wasn’t worth giving up what I was giving up. I was also convinced that he was following me all time, so I couldn’t go from point A to point B. I had to you know, take circular routes all over the place and then after I did that for a couple of times I was sure he was catching on to that too then I had to change the routine. I mean it was craziness personified. But it’s what you do. So, anyway, I wound up getting that, renting that apartment and it was, it was, and it was fabulous. I just loved it I felt safe there, I was able to, you know when the furniture was divided up I took what I did- before then when I was realize I was going to move out I was afraid that- there was a guy who struck me as similar ilk living across the street and I knew that he wasn’t going to want me to take my own things. Everything that was his was his and everything that was mine was his. So I knew this was going to be an issue. One of my friends, my best friend from high school and college introduced me to another woman who I had met only once, when she heard about my situation she immediately gave me her garage door opener and keys to her house and said- Do you want to use the bathroom or anything?
[ Annotation 11 ]
Yeah, pretty soon, but I don’t want to stop.
Okay, and you’re in charge of keeping track of where I was. Anyway, this was someone I had only met once but she had also been in an abusive relationship and she immediately gave me, so I started smuggling my clothes out in garbage bags when my husband wasn’t around because I was sure he wasn’t going to let me and that got convoluted too. It’s like, ‘Well, maybe the guy across the street is spying on me” or you know “maybe he’s doing feedback for Bob” and I just, it was too crazy. So anyway, eventually I kind of got my stuff, my clothing and stuff out of there. And again because the door was locked and he had taken all my valuables it was really no reason for him to break in or maybe I added a few more locks, I don’t know. Okay bathroom break!
Yep.
Okay.
Let’s see women’s space. I found an apartment and yeah. And that’s something else too. Again I was terrified of my husband so I hired a, the highest powered divorce attorney in New Brunswick. Um, when I was talking to him he said to me that you know, that he was a little older than many other attorneys and he was more expensive and that was because he had the experience and could get things done in half the time. And so I bought it. In fact my husband who wound up getting a female attorney, not surprising, was intimidated by this guy as it turns out um, he kept on making mistakes like in the papers he was going to send my husband he called me the husband. So he got that wrong, then there was something about an ameritrade account that my husband had and they kept on typing it in as “ameritrait” and I kept on correcting them and they kept on spelling it wrong again. I don’t think, I think they handed it off to a paralegal and never bothered to look at this. And I was terrified if I handed my husband papers that were clearly wrong then he would lose his fear of my lawyer and that was all I had. My dad was, my dad is an attorney, was an attorney and even though this was not his area of expertise, basically my father had to write it for me and then we would hand it to the lawyer. So, even the lawyer, I mean when you, when that is your world, that is your world. 100% of my friends beat up, this, picky therapist I had picked out at first then the lawyer who was ineffectual and didn’t care, Ah (exasperation). So my dad was doing some behind the scenes negation and I remember sitting in his Manhattan apartment, and my dad was saying: you know, “You shouldn’t be giving him this” and you know “You’re entitled to that” and the other thing and I remember shrieking at the top of my lungs “You don’t understand, he will kill you, he will kill mom and he will kill my sister”, because he's Italian and he kept on even before we were married he lepton kind of hinting that he had connections, which is also part of you know. And I was screaming because I really believed it I really believed he would murder my family. And that’s how real this whole craziness was to me. So anyway, I came out with it, I mean I gave up a lot of stuff because you know, because it wasn’t worth it. Moving out was a whole thing too. Alright so my reasoning was you could hire a police officer to ah, supervise an event, you can hire a police officer to supervise a parking, in their off hour you can hire a police officer, so I wanted to hire a police officer on moving day to get me out. That didn’t go over too well. Neh-an. It was not going to happen and my fantasy was at the time and it probably wasn’t right, was that you know, they were sending a police officer to move out my husband’s favorite Barcalounger. He was having beer in it. It was just my fantasy. But anyway that didn’t happen, but I did have a bunch of friends come over and be with me. Because I really had no idea whether there was going to be trouble or not. Um, and ah, and I realized that they were helping me pack up thing and I was saying to one of them: ‘I don’t care if you wrap it up, I don’t care what you do, just put it in the box and lets get out of here” and I realized that to me the point was and I realized this after was that I just wanted to get it out of there. I didn’t care if it showed up on my doorstep smashed into a million pieces that wasn’t important it was taking what was mine, or keeping what was mine that was important and not anything else. She eventually told me she would not continue to help me unless I took an Ativan, which is something that will make you calm down a little bit. I didn’t think I needed it, I thought I was doing great. But she said, take one or I’m leaving, so I guess I did. Anyway, and one of the things that I did when I was stressed out was for me it was exercise, so that’s when I really started walking and I’d spend, you know, hours and hours on the treadmill at a gym. Then, yeah and so I figured that in the woman locker room I would be safe, so I had a bottle, a little half bottle of a very expensive dessert wine and so I put that in my locker in the ladies locker room and I felt secure. Well, I don’t know what happened, they forgot that I had rented it out on a monthly basis and I go back and they had cut the lock off And I go back up there and everything is like gone. Now they still had it and gave it back to me. But looking at this thing it was like oh my god this happened again. It was again, bringing up this whole issue of boundaries and no place is safe even though it was done by my husband. So, um, anyway, so-
PAUSE 7:12
I anyway, so eventually I got my stuff out and got my stuff out of my friends garage. It took me a really long time to do that but I did. All the time I was going to a support group once a week, I was going to a therapist once or twice a week as needed. Um, and there was a TV show on called “Starting over” and nobody is going to remember this one but I do and it was about women who had hit bottom so to speak and um were given a chance in therapy to move forward, to let go of their past and move feared and that cameos five days a week, so five days a week I was on the treadmill hanging on for dear life walking and watching these things. And then there was the self-help aisle at Barnes and Noble which is right across the street from me. You know, I mean it was like twenty-four seven support, and therapy and thinking things through and I could not have done it alone. Ah, um, so one of the things I did when I was, okay, one of things I noticed when I had separated, divorced um, was that I was male phobic. I was afraid of men, even the spouses of my girlfriends, who were perfectly nice guys, since they dumped the ones that beat them up, let’s, I was having a really hard time interacting. So I went back to one of the things I loved doing as a kid and one of the things I loved doing was dancing and so I went back. They have a whole ballroom dance culture out there and so I heard about these dances and I started attending. And it was, it was fun, it was something that I used to love. I was retiring to a passion that I had given up because my husband could only dance sometimes after two and half drinks, if you got past to number three he was too drunk and before two and half he wasn’t drunk enough to get up there. So I was going back. And the interaction was good, you would dance with somebody and then you would move on and then you would move on. So that is all the interaction I was capable of at the time and-
(Noise)
What on earth?
Phone: Here is the result from search
Is that some sort of SIRI thing?
Yeah, Okay.
They’re listening (laughter)
Anyway so ah, so I would go back and do this ballroom dancing and I remember at one of the dances there was this guy up on the dance floor he was dancing by himself in position. And I’m looking at him and I’m going this guy is either really crazy or he’s really brave. And um, didn’t know which but he came up and asked me if I would want to warm up with him so we danced for a little bit then the music came on to change dance and in between he held my hand and it just freaked me out. I mean totally freaked me out. So I still continued dancing but I would not look at him. I would not, we were always running into, everywhere I wanted to be because he was dancing to. And so, I just wanted nothing to do with him. Absolutely nothing, so I kind of- anyway eventually I think after a year or so after encountering him I decided he was probably alright and I started to talk to him a little bit more and he-he, I knew where he lived he lived in Levittown Pennsylvania and you know we exchanged phone numbers I guess and so one time. And I still wasn’t thinking- it wasn’t a date thing, it was a just dancing thing. So one time I went down to this dancing place near where he lives and they said you didn’t need to bring a partner so I didn’t and there were only a handful of couples there and so I figured he lives pretty close I’ll give him a call. And I called him and he said, sure I’ll come out and dance with you and he took his sweet time getting there and I realized that when his hair was wet he had stopped and gone into the shower and in his mind this was a date. Which was not what I had in mind at all but anyway, he was harmless enough and so we kind of continued seeing each other. Um, and um to make a long story short, um we moved into together that was about 15 years ago and we’ve been together ever since. I call him my sweetheart because once again I don’t want, I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t see any point I wasn’t having children, But he’s my sweetheart because he’s a little bit too old to be a boyfriend, I’m not going to call him a boy anymore. So anyways, so, and that was interesting too. He did get it because his wife was abusive, although he would not call her that, he would just describe her actions to me and I know.
I think in his mind and in the mind of a lot of men, they don't want to admit to being abused, verbally or even physically because it makes them feel less manly. So the statistics we have that are overwhelming, women who get abused, not my anecdotal experience, there are, it is, I want to say equal amounts. But men don’t report, That’s why there’s very little on them. And I will also tell you having dealt with some of the women, that women, abusive women are like so much worse than men. I mean we know who to get with the guilt, and under the skin and the fact that um, that women are seen as caretakers and nurturers in our society makes it all that much more painful when they turn around and treat us like we’re crap. And that’s an issue I haven’t particularly addressed but I do encounter people every now and then. And one of my close, close, close, friends, had an abusive mother, and her father used to beat her up too, but the mother was the one she had to watch out for because that was the one. Anyway, so we moved in together and it was really, it was really quite cleansing experience for me. My therapist would keep on, I would manufacture-
[ Annotation 5 ]
How soon after the divorce was this?
Was he moving in?
Yeah, how, how-
I have no idea-Ah
Or even when did you first meet him after-
I probably, once we were separated that was it in my mind so that’s my ground zero in terms of counting. So the actual divorce didn’t much matter because that was just pieces of paper so, ah, I probably met him about a year after I was separated. I probably started to see him a year after that and then I have no idea-
Yeah
You know what, I was fast, I’m going to say maybe a year to six months after that I felt like I could trust him and maybe we should move into together. I don’t know why. So anyway, even though I was in a different situation with a man who was kind, I couldn’t see it that way, everything he did I was making into something he was doing to me, instead of something that is about who he is or was. And um, you know, I really, really love him. I am not perfect and he is not perfect, he has his own issues and his issues are things that he, he has made it quite clear he doesn’t want to deal with. And if I’m going to accept him I have to accept he is not going to deal with his issue, so it’s a matter is it worth it to me is it not worth it to me. But he is, he’s a good guy, a kind guy but I couldn’t entirely embrace that for a really long time. A really long time. Like ten years, for ten years I was angry at him. And I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t think I was abusive but I just cut him off, which is abusive, but whatever it’s just a word. And it wasn’t until my personal growth came to the point and this is profound, my therapist used to say to me, it’s all about me, you know. So I thought that was totally disgusting, that would make me selfish and there was nothing worse I could be, no label could be worse than being selfish. But as time wore on with her I started to realize that if it’s all about me then that means what you do is all about you. And that made me strong, everything just slid right off me, what other people do is more about who they are then who I am. So if you were to get pissed off me and say ‘You ugly, fat, stupid bitch” you know, I would look at you and say, oh I’m sorry you are having a bad day. And that is a very healing part. Also taking back my own power and know that nobody else but me defines me. So that if somebody does come at me it doesn’t make it true it just makes it what they think. And the only thing that really matters is what I think. Honestly I can’t believe I’m so grown up now and yes, I am quite proud of myself. But anyway when I decided, I realized that, I’ll use his name because he’s not embarrassed , although I would not go out of my way to show this to him, um, when I realized, I noticed that Jim engages at the drop of a hat. So as soon as you engage with somebody it becomes like a push pull thing. They think I’m inviting you to come along with me, but you think it’s a power thing and push back in the other direction. So, I realized that this is what happens with him, not his fault, this is what he saw growing up this is the way things were in his family and his marriage. Um, so, I decided I am not going to engage and no matter what I’m not going to engage and I stopped engaging. It’s like, okay fine this is what you think, okay that is what you think. And when I started doing that all of the sudden the world started to shift and he started letting his guard down. When we first got together-
20.23
Wait, can you talk a little bit about what that non-engaging means, like?
I mean it’s stupid, stupid subtle little stuff. Okay, Jim is a diabetic, under control but- “Jim are you going to go out for a walk today?” to him that’s like saying you should be going out for a walk. That’s what he hears. That’s not necessarily what I was saying. So I just don't. If he wants to go out for a walk, he will go out for a walk. I just want to be the food police. you know, it’s like “well Jim you know you shouldn’t really be eating chocolate and nuts all the time you need some protein” Uh-uh. I am not the boss of him. I am not going to tell you, and then when I started letting go of that. He started letting in, and it was magical. For the first year at least that we were living together he called me hon, ah, I didn’t like it, my name is Sandy you know. And what I realize now he was probably afraid that he was going to call me by his ex-wife’s name. Because I know there have been occasions that I have called him by my ex-husband’s name and I realize he is nothing like the man that was married to, so I’m not about to take it personally it's a force of habit. But I just Hon, which is a push back and a disconnect, that how I took it at the time. “You can’t even call me by my name” you know. Um, yeah, ah, okay, so we. Anyway so this has been, it really's been a process with him and a really good learning experience for me, that is continuing, yeah. He used to correct me when I made a joke you know I mean, nah (whine 22.32). He is a physicist, he is a brainiac, when he feels threatened he does or went into his head. So I guess he was feeling threatened by the closeness, so he went into his head and he would correct me. And I would take it like “What are you saying about me” you know “What’s going on here”. When it wasn’t, that was just where he went and when I was able to leave it alone he was able to lower his guard some. And I was able to make a joke and he would know it’s a joke, and he, he lowered his guard and I lowered my guard. And then I realized that the whole time we’d been together I was looking at him, my hands are in front of my face for those of you who are not here, um, you know, I couldn’t see him, I couldn’t appreciate the fact that he was a physicist and that science was his thing because, and he couldn’t, because of that he couldn’t see that food was my thing and you know we couldn’t even see each other because we were so scared for that vulnerability and it has really been a process that is still unfolding. I mean, I had really shut him out, I didn’t want to do anything with him because I was afraid- I’ll put this, I didn’t trust myself that I would be able to control my anger at him if he did something that I perceived as being against me and that has all melted away. So even though you are out of an abusive relationship it does not mean that the world changes. It takes a lot of continued work, because I was hang out before you know, before I got things straightened out, and they continue to straighten out with Jim, I was hanging out with people who treated me the way I wanted to be treated, but it's a whole other level when you get can intimate relationship. That’s just, that’s just, the triggers’ going ‘bing, bing, bing, bing, bing’. And it’s nobody’s fault because I had never seen a healthy relationship growing up, he had never seen a healthy relationship so we’re both kind of newbies. The thing that takes my breath away and I will take credit for sorting this with him is that he is able to continue with it, that things, you know, I really enjoy being with him now and I wasted so much time not being able to, but you know it's a process. Okay-Are we up to Deena’s can I go there?
25.36
Yeah, yeah
Okay good.
Yeah that seemed like that caps-
So I know I got where I got today, I could not have gotten there by myself because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I could not have gotten there without support, with out all of these different things. So I know that you cannot, and I know that getting out of an abusive relationship just means maybe you won’t get hit you know or yeah, no people are still going to be throwing the insults a you, it doesn’t take you out of the verbal stuff because you think that’s normal. So I am passionate about supporting these women because nobody deserves it. For 17 years I carried around shame of who I was and that, you know nobody is perfect. It was his shame. All I wanted to do was love him, be loved by him, be a good wife and he just could not sit by that. So every time I stand up and say, I’m a survivor. I’m also saying, not my shame, I’m putting it back on the person it belongs to, it’s his shame for treating me the way he did. I feel the same way about the women at Deena’s. It is not their shame and I’m pretty sure they are carrying it around. It is their partner’s shame and there's no need. And there’s a whole other world out there. When I was going through my stuff and it was, it has been a long process at first it was like the storm clouds were always over head and then after a while I would see a peek of sunshine and then it would close up again and the cloud would roll back in and then I’d see another peek of sunshine. And I was ever hopeful and working really hard to get in, and then eventually the peeks of sunshine hung around a bit longer and the clouds were not as quick to roll in. Um, and that’s the way it is. Um, but you need the help and you need the support and housing is one piece of it.
So you are on the board of-of and how much influence, have you helped with the way they do things? Like how much, I don’t know if
Um, okay so I had been involved with them for a while and my knee jerk reaction is to feel, my gut reaction will always say there’s something wrong with me. I have learned to kind of push past that when I need to. At first I was kind of feeling my way around and um, I was taking it easy and then they asked me if I’d be interested in being board vice president. And I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be. Um, I wasn’t convinced that the women were getting everything they needed to get to heal. So I wasn’t sure. But I thought about it and John said: “Well, it’s only for a short time you’re up for re-election”, so I said okay, I’ll grin and bear it for X number of months if I don’t like it I can walk away. I have a graceful out. Time came, I’m up for reelection there really wasn’t anybody else that I now of and so I wound up getting reelection and that’s when I decided, by vision became clear and I’m not sure- okay the way I think about it now- I am a gift, I am gift that not everybody will ant and I am a gift that not everybody will like. And that’s okay, but I need to be true to me. And so my purpose now, because I am a loud mouth survivor and because even though the women had endured much more severe trauma than I have. I know my trauma and if it affected me as much as it did, it shaped my entire life, can you imagine what it would be if the trauma was miles and miles long. And that’s like impossible, so my personal mission is to advocate for the women who live there and if people don’t like it I will do the very best I can and if people don’t like it, my, my, my lease is up for renewal and they don’t have to vote me in. But this is what I need to do and I think and I really believe that I can do it. I am not a therapist and not qualified to schedule programming, but I now know what’s out there and when I have encountered programming that I thought would be of help I am going to push for it as much as I can and so far that little bit has been pretty successful.
What do you mean specifically programming?
I have a friend who is a survivor and she is an amazing human being and um, she is out like I am, I mean her goal is to make the world a better place and she is not specifically focused on domestic violence but she is credentialed in mental health. And she has came up with a program that I thought might be helpful for the women at Deena’s. I don’t know where this is going, they meant once they have done a vision board, um. i was not allowed to attend that vision board meeting because of confidentiality and being that I’m talking to a machine mostly I will tell you that um, most of the women all of the women that showed up on that date were surprised that I was not there. I don’t care, I think I can be helpful here, I think I can be helpful um because I am one of them and that’s how I view myself, again I'm not a therapist I don’t have all the answers, I don’t have training.
Did you see other, before being involved with Dina’s dwellings were you involved with other kind of shelter systems that you thought weren’t doing a good job or-
Okay, ah,
That may be too leading a question-
No, no, the shelter system-shelter- i want to say is really not effective. First of all if it took me 20 years to figure it out, over the course of a week, or a month it ain’ t happening. Now, I mean, it can get a woman out of imminent danger, it can um, but it’s only imminent danger, it doesn’t give her time to heal. And she can be put in touch with services she needs but she still at the end of the day she’s still basically on her own and not really able to handle it. And that’s why so-one of the reasons why so many abused women go back to their abuser. They frequently have no money, they can’t support, they’re frequently carrying around little children and they have to take care of that. knowing what I know about the whole thing it’s amazing anybody gets out. Which is one of the reasons why I love the women at Dina’s so much because I understand the kind of courage it took and what they had to go through. But shelter is-shelter is, oh what are they called, it gives the illusion of being protected but it really doesn’t. Just like um, restraining orders, you know it gives us the illusion that we are going something but we’re really not. And I don’t want to down play- I am very grateful that there are shelters but what is more important is interim housing and or permanent supported housing. Women’s space the place that I went does have an interim house and I had the honor of interacting with them and I was struck that they were all in each other's corner. All of the women, all of the residents there, you know they saw past the triggers and stuff, they were going to school, a lot of the same things we hope will go on in Deena’s was happening there, but they were only there for nine months or so. But it can’t be- and I don’t know what the outcomes of those women were after they left, but it’s got to be something bigger than that.
Longer than the nine months?
Yes, yeah.
And I’m curious to know back to the programming idea, like what are the ingredients? Are there any-
Well, I’m not that familiar with what you are doing but I’m hearing good things about it so that is something. Number one, okay the thing and this is before the programing, from what I hear a lot of the women don’t ‘get along’ that’s in air quotes. Um, and I understand where that is coming from. I can sympathize with that people are stepping on each other's buttons and not realizing there is again scarcity. I mean we have a part time staff there if one person takes a lot of time it means there is less tie for somebody else. Even though all the staff there goes above and beyond so they’re put into the same situation me and my sister were and it’s totally understandable that there would be that kind of back fighting so I decided that I am not going to participate in that. And I started making sweets for the people whose birthday appears on the calendar and bringing it to them and I have another idea, you know I want them all to know that my door is open to all of them whether they have had a relationship with me or not. Some of them I know better then others, some of them I haven’t interacted with a lot but they are important and just as worthy. And I need to send that message out, that they all matter and they are not in competition for anything, as far as I am concerned. So that’s number one, that way we can maybe get more to attend. Also, by sharing my strength, hope and-arghh what it is, think it's from an AA thing, strength, hope and whatever, experience. that you know maybe I can encourage them to you know. My feeling is and I am getting all of this through heresy so I don’t know for fact that it is true that the things that are party events are better attended then the things that involve real work. And get I, understand it, it would be much better- we would much rather forget about our problems than dwell on them but you need to walk through it to get to it, meaning the healing. So um, yeah I think in a more supportive atmosphere we might be, I might, I can have visions of grandeur, be able to convince them to do more of the kind of work that will help- that will not just distract them, but will help them heal, help them move past and start the moving process, because again it’s a long time. And I have walked this road with people before.
So what kind of work, can you be more specific about what that entails?
I’ll know it when I see it. Ah, you know again I’m not a therapist, so there is art therapy, you- there is musical therapy, there is talk therapy, there is - I really love the group dynamic because that’s what, that’s what really helped me and if we can get them to see past their differences hopefully they can start to rely on each other for support and that would be good, because they have a part time staff and if they can get the support from each other that would take some of the pressure off. And yeah. So, yeah, I’ll know it when I see it. And even when my Faith- and she did, actually two things so far, she bought me this stuff and I had seen outlines of what she was going to do but until visualize, until I saw her doing it I really had no idea how brilliant this was. And I would probably feel the same way about you, but I haven’t seen it so I don’t know.
No, no, um yeah. I think -
I’m exhausted-
I think that's it.
Is there anything else?
I can’t think of anything right now.
Okay.
I may ask some follow up questions-
And you can do that.