September 18, 2023 • 45 mins
Alana’s newfound love separates her from her church. As Notre Dame Cathedral burns, so does her faith. But as her self-acceptance grows, her life takes a tragic turn.
This episode contains references to suicide. If you or someone you know is in need of help, please contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988. Listener discretion is advised.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Dear Alana has released weekly and brought to you absolutely free.
But if you want to binge the whole season right now,
subscribe to tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus dot com or on
Apple Podcasts. You also get exclusive bonus episodes throughout the season.
For more information, check out the show notes enjoy the episode.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
The following episode contains references to suicide. If you or
someone you know is in need of help, please contact
the Suicide in Crisis Lifeline by dialing nine eight eight.
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Flames brought down the spire and much of the roof
at Notre Dame Cathedral yesterday.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Notre Dame took two hundred years to build. It's one
of the greatest treasures of medieval architecture. Tonight it lies
in ruins.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
I'm proud to say I'm not your daughter. What kind
of father leads his children to the slaughter? Notre Dame's
flames are getting hotter. We're exercising these monsters, driving out
the impostors, resisting the conquerors. My mother is the one
who raised me back to life. My mother's raising hell
and demanding you pay the price you put your love
and candy wrappers just to entice them. You dump your
(01:25):
burden on their backs and scourge them and crucify them,
or putting an end to all the children being sacrificed
to him. Notre Dame's flames are getting hotter. Notre Dame's
flames are getting hotter.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
From Tenderfoot TV, I'm Simon kent Foung and this is
Dear Alana, Part seven. Notre Dame is burning. Alana is
happy to be home, even if it means moving back
in with her parents. Her brother Sammy is about to
get married, and because the wedding's in Spain, the family
(01:58):
makes a trip of it, stopping in Paris beforehand. I'm
looking at the photos from that trip. Alana is gorgeous
in a white dress and her hair done up. But
I noticed something else in the wedding photos. On Alana's
left arm, just below the shoulder are large, blocky uppercase
letters that spelled the word daughter. It almost looks like
(02:20):
something drawn in black marker. Joyce tells me that this
was actually a tattoo that Alana got right before the wedding.
Speaker 6 (02:29):
Because at first I was like, well.
Speaker 7 (02:30):
That's interesting, Like it was so just block letters and
it seemed kind of not pretty and why would you
do that?
Speaker 6 (02:36):
You know, why did you pick that?
Speaker 7 (02:38):
And she told me she said it was for you
and I'm a daughter of God. But then later she
you know, she admitted to cut the word defiled and
she was covering it up.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
Oh wow, yeah.
Speaker 8 (02:53):
I feel bad.
Speaker 7 (02:53):
I remember before the wedding up took her to a
makeup store and I'm like, I don't my grandma might
freak out for China. I was like, forget it because nothing,
but she, you know that she could show it.
Speaker 9 (03:07):
Wow, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Back at home, Alana tries to reconnect with her church friends,
but something shifted. News has spread about her relationship with Jessica.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Sister Concepta was like my mother. She was so kind
and loving. I called her every week in treatment. She
always made me laugh. When Jessica became my girlfriend, I
felt like things changed, like maybe she felt like all
her efforts were wasted, but I didn't want to leave her.
(03:43):
She was my mother. It soon became clear that she
was going to try to lead me in one direction,
but I needed to go a different way. I told
her we shouldn't meet anymore. But I was the one
that felt abandoned. I still wanted her in my life.
I still wanted to talk to her and visit her.
I didn't want her to be my spiritual director. I
(04:05):
just wanted her to be my friend. Why couldn't she
just be my friend?
Speaker 1 (04:10):
And in another entry, addressed to one of her priests.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Dear father, I was really angry at you because in
my darkest hour, you wouldn't.
Speaker 10 (04:19):
Speak to me.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
I called you, wrote to you, left you messages. I
never got an answer. Where did you go? You said
I was your daughter.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
It's not just her spiritual mentors who she feels have
abandoned her. Even her friends seem like they're keeping their distance.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
Micah, do you care about me? Then? Why is it
me that always texts you? It was nearly a year
after I was less in Colorado that we finally met up.
Didn't you care wonder how I was? Don't you realize
how different life is for me? Now? Don't you want
to know? Don't you want to know who I really am?
(05:04):
We were best friends, We were soulmates. You were my
protector on our adventures. You used to love me.
Speaker 11 (05:12):
What happened?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
It's as if they don't know how to handle all
the changes in her life, her mental health, struggles, her sexuality,
this other side of her that they've never seen before.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
My closest friends from Saint Tom's haven't contacted me. I
feel rejected from my old life, barred for my community.
I can't stay with the sisters, So how can I
get my community back?
Speaker 10 (05:37):
Should I even try to get.
Speaker 6 (05:38):
My community back?
Speaker 5 (05:41):
I feel so alone. Why hasn't Father Peter written to me?
Do they think I'm on vacation. It's not okay to
leave your friend behind.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
It's not okay, and life at home is also different.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
This new relationship with my family scares me. I've known
them my whole life, but now they finally know me.
It scares me. It's so old and so new.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
All the things that used to be so familiar feel
foreign and off. Alana even stops going to church. Whenever
she enters a Catholic church, she can't help but cry.
Speaker 5 (06:23):
When I went to treatment, Rachel, father Peter, Father Dave,
and the sisters were the only ones that I trusted.
They were the only ones that stayed by my side.
But as I became more true to myself, I guess
they didn't see the need to mentor me. I feel
misled and abandoned, like they all made it but I lost.
(06:47):
It hurts so much when they left me, I had
to pull over the car to throw up as I
drove away. I feel so ashamed, like I hate myself.
I feel so stupid and weak and like a slut.
I want to hurt myself.
Speaker 9 (07:07):
I haven't felt this way.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
In so long, and it's terrifying. The one place I
felt safest was slowly allowing my illness to grow stronger
to the point of eventual death.
Speaker 6 (07:22):
That scares the shit out of me.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
She's grappling with how she got here and who's responsible?
Speaker 5 (07:29):
Why did it take me so long to do something
about it? Where was God all this time? I want
to blame someone, but who's to blame me them anyone?
How do I get past this? Anything to do with
Jesus or the Catholic Church reminds me. I don't ever
(07:52):
want to be in the same headspace I used to
be in. I want to blame everyone, but no one
forced this on me.
Speaker 9 (08:00):
It was always my choice.
Speaker 12 (08:13):
Well, you can remind your son, because every time something
scary comes up you decide to run. You're all going
to be running for the rest of your loves.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
I'm back in San Francisco and it's summer movie season
at Dolores Park. This evening they're playing Sister Act too.
Everyone's got their picnic, blanket and snacks lined up for
the sing along. I'm here with my friend Andrew. Andrew's
an er doctor at SF General. I feel like a zombie,
(08:56):
and I've been telling him about how hard it's been
in Colorado with sleeping in the panic attacks that have persisted.
Speaker 13 (09:04):
Basically, what I was saying is like what you're describing
as like symptoms of PTSD. You're describing nightmares, difficulty sleeping.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
He rhymes off the list of symptoms.
Speaker 13 (09:16):
Unwanted upsetting, memories, flashbacks, emotional distress after exposure to dramatic reminders.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Maybe he's onto something, but I'm still skeptical.
Speaker 13 (09:25):
That reminds you.
Speaker 14 (09:26):
You were saying that my body in mind perceive it
as trauma. Like I guess I never identified with that,
Like I wasn't assaulted, I wasn't attacked or anything.
Speaker 13 (09:36):
You know, you weren't in war, you know you didn't
have anything like that. But regardless, your body perceives many
things as trauma or threats. And I think a lot
of gay people went through some prolonged episodes of trauma
growing up. I think it's probably bringing back a lot
(09:57):
of stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Andrew's also gay, and he's been through his own journey
of reconciling his Catholicism with his sexuality. This is someone
who studied the entire Bible multiple times, and even with
that knowledge, he comes back to his own conscience.
Speaker 13 (10:12):
That's what guides me, I think the most is you know,
I read scripture, I meditate and pray, but ultimately I
think that what guides me most and a lot of
this stuff is my conscience. I think that's probably the
way God talks to you and guides you a lot
of the time.
Speaker 14 (10:32):
I think, I think you're right. I think That's what
I'm struggling with is like, is.
Speaker 13 (10:38):
He rationalize what your conscience is saying versus what the
church and other people are saying.
Speaker 14 (10:44):
I think I'm still sorting out what my conscience is saying,
you know, because I think my conscience has been formed
so much by the logic that these people are operating from,
so I empathize with where they're coming from. But I
also know that I was not doing well in that space.
(11:06):
And I am not doing well now as I am
going through all this again.
Speaker 13 (11:09):
Like I think that's also telling.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
He gives me a list of things that I might
do to take better care of myself. I did not
expect this intervention.
Speaker 13 (11:22):
Moral of the story is, you need to be kinder
to yourself. You would give other people the same advice.
I think tech has conditioned you to be terrible to yourself.
Am I wrong?
Speaker 14 (11:33):
Does tech do that?
Speaker 13 (11:35):
Yeah? Tech people work as their life. You're terrible to yourselves?
Am I wrong?
Speaker 15 (11:43):
No?
Speaker 13 (11:43):
Most happy people don't do that. Don't work their selves
to death, no matter how much they enjoy their work.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
He's right. I did burn out of my tech job.
But I still have trouble with the idea that I've
been traumatized or been a victim of anything Like Alana.
I feel responsible for my choices and beliefs. But is
my body trying to tell me something? Maybe it knows
more than what I give it credit for.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
I am a gay woman. I don't struggle with same
sex attraction. It comes quite easily. I don't struggle, It's
what my body feels naturally. For years I thought differently.
I was told that homosexuality was across. Yes, the very
thing that Christ's scourged body hung from, an outcome of
(12:39):
the fall, a mental disorder to which I must never succumb,
Not even the worst of all, the very thing I
call love. They said it was no more than a
narcissistic projection of my maternal wounds. Mom My mom, that
woman that never gave up on me, would sit with
me on the toilet to soothe my anxiety. Turn the
(13:02):
hot water on, let the steam call my lungs, so
that I could breathe and be safe in the evening
light in my mother's arms.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Alana's coming into an acceptance of her sexuality, and she's
not apologetic about it. She challenges the conversion therapy narratives
that pitted her against her mother, defending her, recognizing the
love that was always there, and defying the psychological and
theological ideas she'd been taught. Sophia, her sister, notices how
(13:32):
much Alana has changed. First in her appearance.
Speaker 10 (13:36):
She started having more fun clothes, she started to get
a lot more creative painted her room. She'd go back
to wearing like glitter all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Alana even goes to Pride for the first time and
she's bringing Jessica around more.
Speaker 10 (13:51):
She had a girlfriend that she would was openly able
to bring around us, and I loved her. She's super funny.
N Lana would like hold her hand while she was
around her, kiss her. It wasn't like she was hiding
this anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
But what was most significant for Sophia was that she
felt like she and Alana were bonding again and we.
Speaker 10 (14:13):
Started to become close again, which was awesome. We're on
a backpacking trip together. It was the best because it
was just me and Alana.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
As I scroll through Alana's texts from this period, a
few months after she's moved back home from treatment, I
find a conversation she has with father Dave, dated September
twenty seventeen, just as she's about to redo her senior
year at CU. It starts off casual. He asks her,
are you praying your Rosary smiley face emoji?
Speaker 15 (14:44):
No?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Why not?
Speaker 5 (14:47):
He asks, It's boring, it seems unnatural, and it is
a foundational prayer of the Church, And I don't trust
the church.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Why don't you trust? And remember, you're not going to
be judged on other people's holiness or theological accuracy, but
on your lifestyle.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
He replies, Why do you say that like?
Speaker 6 (15:09):
What brought that up?
Speaker 1 (15:11):
He writes, because I'm afraid for you that you have
never spoken against the church like that. And I am
not saying that this is you, but I have met hundreds,
literally hundreds of people who when they turn against the church,
it's because their own lifestyles have changed. Again, I am
not saying it is you, but I am afraid for
(15:31):
anybody who speaks like that, especially someone who once loved
the church so much. It's extremely, extremely dangerous ground usually
for one salvation. Be extremely careful where you're going.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
A. Lona responds, I don't speak against the church because
I have pride. I speak against the Church because I
have real and deep pain. I don't trust the church
because the fruit of mine my labor was shame, fear, pain,
mental instability, and my life was put at risk. I
changed my lifestyle so that I wouldn't be crushed under
(16:09):
the weight of depression and anxiety. I am so much
healthier now. But when I hear you say things like this,
or talk to the sisters or try to go to
mass I revert back to where I was a year ago.
I'm distancing myself from the church right now, because I
don't feel safe or loved or accepted.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
He continues, Okay, you'd have to explain in person what
you actually mean by changed lifestyle, because I don't want
to go down that road on text messages. He closes
with this, regardless, I'm here for you, and you can
call me any time about anything, even trivial matters, because
I will always keep my promise. I will love you
(16:51):
one hundred percent through thick and thin heart emoji.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
I just can't talk about this stuff anymore.
Speaker 10 (16:59):
It hurts too much.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
This is the last time Alana texts with Father Dave.
I'm struck by the gravity of this moment. Alana standing
up to her mentor for the first time, the man
who kept all her secrets. But more than that, she's
speaking her truth, calmly, clearly, sharing her real life experiences,
the fruit of her labor, as she puts it, in
(17:23):
the face of all those familiar, veiled warnings of hell
by the person who, for most of her adolescence wielded
such tremendous spiritual authority over her, she elucidly details how
his words and actions have actually affected her and tells
him that she just can't talk about this anymore. I'm
astonished by her courage. Alana continues to process all of
(17:45):
this in her journals.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
They called it unconditional, but it wasn't. It was impossible
for them to accept me as I am. Why is
it so important for them to accept that part of me?
Because it's a part of me, part of my identity,
It's an important part of my life.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Who I love?
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Why is that so bad? Don't say you love me?
It's confusing. I know what real love is now. If
you loved me, then why don't you care anymore? I
never said anything to a fault. I wanted to let
you be you, but you never let me be me.
(18:28):
You don't want to see me, you don't want to
know me. I have so much to say to you, guys.
You don't realize how you all contributed to my immense
suffering in the name of love. I worry if you
ever meet someone like me, you will try to love
them in the same way you will hurt them. You
(18:48):
hurt me, You made me feel so ashamed, you made
me hate myself. I continue to hate myself. I struggled
so hard. I wanted it to be easier. I tried,
but I couldn't shake it. I don't understand how you
(19:09):
could see me struggle and not intervene or question the process.
I was playing a dangerous game. I was messing with
the person God made me to be. This is who
I am. I'm not over identifying with it. This is
a huge part of me.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Alana is putting things into words I haven't yet been
able to. What can be so confusing in the church
is that it repeatedly says it loves us, but your
SSA that part we don't love. So stop over identifying
with it. It's just a temptation anyways. But what if
Alana's right? What if my sexuality isn't a small part
(19:52):
of me, but a huge part of me. What if
it's not just about sex but about companionship, bonding love.
What if it's as much me as my face, my voice,
my mind, my heart? And then at what point does
the harm of messing with me start to matter? As
Elana says, messing with the person God made her to be.
(20:24):
Even though Alana sounds like she's standing up to her
spiritual community for hurting her privately, she's traumatized and still
hates herself. She blames the church for standing idly by
while her mental health had been deteriorating.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
I lost everything. I lost my humor, I lost my joy,
I lost my passion. I lost the ones that I loved.
I lost my ability to love anyone or myself. How
can you cling to a religion that is so cruel?
(21:00):
This burden I had to carry? You dare not lift
a finger. You killed me. You absolutely killed me.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
In the summer of twenty nineteen, Colorado's ban on conversion
therapy for minors goes into effect in the US. These
bans exist in many states. However, they don't apply to
religious settings, which is where the vast majority of young
people receive conversion therapy. The Denver Post is looking for
people to speak to for an article. Chrisa tells me
(21:37):
about how much of a struggle this was for Alana.
Speaker 16 (21:41):
I knew Alana was really nervous going into the story.
It wasn't something she wanted to do right away. She
was like in this struggle of wanting to share her
story because she knew it would be helpful to others.
She was scared of what people at the church would
say if they read the story.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Alana's hesitant right in her journal that she doesn't want
anyone to get hurt, doesn't want anybody's life to be ruined.
But she eventually agrees to be interviewed.
Speaker 16 (22:08):
And then when she had the interview, my mom text
me and was like, hey, if you have time, like,
can you call your sister. She's having a really hard
time after the interview because she just had to relive everything.
And so I went over to the house and she
was in her bed, just like crying and like not
talking at all.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
The article in the Denver Post profiles Alana alongside two
other conversion therapy survivors. It describes her struggle with reconciling
her sexual identity with her dream of becoming a nun.
Here's how Alana is quoted.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
I felt a lot of shame and anxiety. I couldn't sleep,
I couldn't stop thinking about it, you know, like was
I going to hell? But I was still extremely faithful
and I felt like the church and the counseling was
the thing that was saving me. But like the worse
I got, the more I clung to it.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Because there are no licensing regulations around religious counseling. Colorado's
ban wouldn't have protected Ilana, the article.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
Continues, But in reality, I think the church's counsel is
what led me to be hospitalized. I was feeling so
much shame that I was comforted by the thought of
hurting myself. By now I've basically completely lost my faith.
I don't really know what I believe about God. I
(23:39):
think if there is a God, he doesn't need me
talking to him anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
I'm looking through Alana's cracked iPhone. I'm aware of how
sensitive this is. Our phones tell us so much about
who we are. I scroll through her Spotify playlists from
the last few years. She loved Kesha and the Avitt
Brothers and Andrea Gibson's Spoken Word. I can see the
places she searched for on Google Maps, and her group
me messages with her Frisbee team. When I tap into
(24:13):
her voice memos app, I hesitate. Could this be where
Alana left notes to herself? Maybe audio versions of her
journal thoughts. What I find instead are nearly two dozen
files of original songs.
Speaker 10 (24:29):
Ah Greatest Streaker, Turning to Fall Asleep, Faking and.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
De for Ans. Really my heartscape to be swearing and
the world to me.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Honestly damn, Alanna scot She's working through song after song
of original compositions.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
The music take it to a high play.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
For a little while about love, God, regret, Tay.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
There's away from me.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Oh, say.
Speaker 15 (25:14):
This away from.
Speaker 9 (25:15):
Me because we regret.
Speaker 8 (25:20):
It is whoison a sign it is killing me.
Speaker 6 (25:28):
Say true.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
A little over a year after dropping out of CU,
a lot of transfers to Prescott College in Arizona to
be closer to Jessica, But by the time Alanna arrives,
they've broken up again, something she processes prolifically in her
journals and songs. Still, she's determined to look ahead. I
know this because of the next voice memo I find
on her phone. It's a memo titled Reading roughly thirty minutes,
(26:05):
one of the longest and only recordings I can find
of her speaking voice. In it, Alana sounds like she's
getting an astrology, reading.
Speaker 8 (26:14):
When's your birthday?
Speaker 6 (26:16):
October fourteenth?
Speaker 8 (26:18):
Oh see, you want everything perfect? What do you mean, Well,
you're a libra.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
Yeah, I want the perfect solution.
Speaker 8 (26:26):
I want the perfect good. You know you're perfectionist and
you're an idealist.
Speaker 15 (26:31):
Well that's what I's kind of like ruined my relationship
with my girlfriend. I just wanted the perfect match.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
She asks Alana. What caused the breakup with Jessica.
Speaker 6 (26:44):
I just think I'm kind of like too damaged right
now to be in a relationship.
Speaker 8 (26:49):
Okay, So where do you feel you're damaged?
Speaker 15 (26:52):
Your First of all, well, I'm gay, yeah, so and
I but when I was like a teenager, I became
very involved in the Catholic church.
Speaker 8 (27:03):
Okay, so you think you think because you're gay that
you're damaged? Is that where that started?
Speaker 15 (27:10):
Because I like I held it in for so long
and I let like priests and nuns like try and
teach me like how it was supposed to live. I
just lived a very like a life of like repression
and self hatred and self doubt.
Speaker 8 (27:24):
What else makes you feel emotionally?
Speaker 15 (27:30):
That was?
Speaker 6 (27:30):
That's like the main thing.
Speaker 8 (27:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (27:32):
I think like my like growing up like wasn't super easy.
My parents fought a lot.
Speaker 15 (27:40):
And like always on the brink of divorce. So but
I don't feel as much pain around that anymore.
Speaker 8 (27:46):
I know, But it's in there, Yeah, it's in there.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
It strikes me that Alana still seems to be seeking
some sort of spiritual guidance in her life, perhaps to
fill the vacuum left by the church, like swapping out
one framework for another. They look at the cards on
the table.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Ace means new beginning, new challenge, new charge. You're charged
up about what you want to do, are you okay?
Speaker 8 (28:10):
So you'll make the.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Decision and listen to the fire that's inside of you
that wants to burn a little bit, don't burn yourself.
Speaker 6 (28:23):
And I'm also moving out, and I don't know where
I'm going.
Speaker 8 (28:26):
You don't know. I'm just kind of going, okay.
Speaker 15 (28:29):
Part of me just like wants to travel around a
little bit, like around the United States a little bit.
Speaker 8 (28:33):
Yeah, okay, do you have the finances to be able
to do that? I have a little bit of money,
a little okay.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
I'm not opposed to like staying in homeless shelters or.
Speaker 8 (28:44):
Like, do you don't need to stay in a homeless show? No, No,
you don't need to do that.
Speaker 15 (28:51):
I feel like right now, like I have enough connections
with people that like I wouldn't need to So pack
your pegs, yeah, get moving.
Speaker 14 (28:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Alana packs her bags and begins a new semester at
Prescott College, where she's just been accepted to a master's
program in counseling, but things change abruptly. Moving on from
her past won't be that easy. She comes home early
from RA training, telling her friends, I just don't think
school is where I need to be right now. She
asks the other ras to water the plants she was
(29:22):
caring for and assures them I feel a lot better
now that I'm home. But based on her journals, we
know that that isn't true. Alana self medicating heavily, smoking
weed to cope.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
I've been getting so high every day I can merely
think straight. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
I feel empty.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
I don't want to do anything. I don't want to
take my meds anymore.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
She writes about how she uses it whenever she's alone,
so much so that she doesn't want to take her
antidepression medication. On the inside, Alana's not doing well. She
journals about crying every day and wishing she was dead
to stop the pain, even drafting out several suicide notes,
and then days later seemingly feeling optimistic about her future.
(30:13):
On the outside, none of this is obvious to those
around her. Alana seems cheerful and even plans her own
birthday for the first time, inviting all of her closest friends.
Joy remembers this period as we flip through the last
few pages of their scrap book.
Speaker 6 (30:29):
Then she gave it back to me for my wedding.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Remember this is the album that she and Alana would
swap during special occasions.
Speaker 17 (30:39):
And then I actually gave it back to her one
more time for her birthday in twenty nineteen. It was
in her possession, and then Joyce gave.
Speaker 15 (30:51):
It to me.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Do you feel comfortable reading that last entry from me?
Speaker 5 (30:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 17 (30:58):
So it says you're twenty fourth they eve. I told
someone today that I was busy tonight because I'm celebrating
the birthday of my best friend since kindergarten. Then I
reread this journal and am in awe of your thoughtfulness
and love. You are not the girl I met in
line for class at Fireside. You have shaped so much
(31:19):
of who I have become. I consider it a real
honor to continually beginning to know you in new stages
and seasons of life. Each version of you is a
gift to me. May year twenty four bring you love, light, healing, hope,
and many more unexpected gifts. It has already brought you
(31:40):
back to Colorado, which is a gift to me. Love
joy ps. I almost didn't write this because I didn't
want to give up this book. I love it so much,
but it is not mine, it is ours.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
When I first met Alana's mom, Joyce, she'd reflect on
how happy Alana looks in her birthday photos, with her
head tilted, Alana smiling as she holds up her birthday
gifts two packs of Darn Tough hiking socks. The party
Alana threw for herself was small and intimate. She even
invited a new girl she'd been seeing. The next evening,
(32:26):
Alana goes to a Lizzo concert, and at Thanksgiving, her
friends from Prescott come and visit her to urge her
to come back to school. On Saturday, December seventh, twenty nineteen,
two months after her birthday, Alana leaves home at around
three pm, telling her mom that she's going hiking and Boulder.
She ends up missing her appointment with a friend that evening.
(32:48):
Since Alana had a reputation for disappearing into nature by herself,
this wasn't totally out of character. But when Alana doesn't
return home that night, her family begins to worry, they
hold off calling the police, contacting all of Alana's friends first,
even reaching out to Jessica in Arizona. No one's seen
or heard from Milana. As concern grows, her family decides
(33:12):
to call the police and report her missing. By the
next day, the local news picks up the.
Speaker 6 (33:17):
Story, breaking from overnight.
Speaker 15 (33:19):
Family members of Alana Chin say they haven't heard from
her since Saturday.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Brian.
Speaker 18 (33:24):
Alana Chen's family members say she loved nature and she
was actually on her way here to Chautauqua Park to
go hiking on Saturday afternoon, but since then, her family
says they haven't heard from her. Lewisville Police says she
was last seen wearing a black down jacket, jeans, and
timberlin hiking boots.
Speaker 10 (33:42):
It hadn't been that long, so I was like, okay,
there's still chances of calling her, texting her. I still
have the text on my phone, something along the lines
like I can't wait for us to do like go
climbing and hiking together, so please like come a home.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Friends and family spend to the weekend scanning the area
looking for Alana's black Toyota Camry. Nitacides to search for
Alana at a reservoir in the mountains where Alana liked
to camp.
Speaker 19 (34:14):
I'm leaving from Denver. This is like six pm on
I think Sunday, December ninth. It's starting to get dark.
It's starting to sprinkle some snowflakes. Get to the first
parking lint, Gross Reservoir and start driving around and don't
see a car. Go to the next lot, it's a
little bit smaller.
Speaker 6 (34:30):
Don't see a car.
Speaker 18 (34:31):
According to Louisville Police, who have been keeping in contact
with family members, this is very unusual behavior. And on
top of her not corresponding with her family, her cell
phone has been turned off as well.
Speaker 19 (34:42):
Get to the third lot again, don't see a car. Okay,
I'm relieved. I don't see you know, Alana's car here.
It's a good sign that she might not be here.
So we ended up, you know, after three lots, turning
around Gross reser ours really massive.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
As Sunday passes with still no sight of Alana, everyone
begins to fear for the worst. It's snowing, with nighttime
temperatures in the teens. Anyone exposed to the elements would
likely not survive the next day. According to the Boulder
County Sheriff's Office. The Denver Water Board reports a suspicious vehicle,
(35:17):
a black Camray, parked by the Gross Reservoir, nearly an
hour away from Alana's home. Nead happened to miss this
particular parking lot when she had been looking the day before.
The patrolling witness recalls spotting the same vehicle parked in
the lot as early as Saturday afternoon, but didn't register
it as unusual at the time. He remembers seeing the
(35:37):
black Camri, but with a single female wearing a winter
wool cap sitting in it alone with a quote confused
look on her face. There were one or two other
cars parked in that lot on Saturday, so he didn't
think much of it. As officers approached the car on Monday,
they find it covered in a light dust of snow.
No one's in the car, but they uncover several items,
(36:00):
a purse, marijuana vaping supplies, a checkbook with a check
written for therapy on the memo line, an Arizona ID card,
and a note to family and friends. At around one
twenty pm on Monday, December tenth, two days after Alana
was reported missing, police find the body of a young
(36:22):
woman near the reservoir. It's later confirmed to be a Lana.
She was just twenty four years old. Her cause of death,
as determined by the coroner, is suicide. What was it
(36:57):
like for you In the days, weeks and months after
I'm with Joy, her kindergarten best friend.
Speaker 17 (37:05):
It became really scary for me. You know.
Speaker 15 (37:08):
I was like.
Speaker 17 (37:09):
I started to kind of, you know, first job out
of college in the middle health field and was working
with highly suicidal patients, and that was just I shouldn't
have done that, you know. I was kind of I
didn't know what to do, so I just kind of
kept moving forward. I, you know, just this is this
is a this is a thing that happened. I had
(37:30):
thoughts of suicide myself for a while. The pandemic hit
a few months after, so then isolating and carrying that
stress while grieving was really intense. I was just in
(37:52):
so much pain, like every day and trying to do
all these things to fix it. Was reading all the
books and my own therapy, and there's just no answer
for grief. It's just, you know, it just is. You know,
her funeral, I don't know if you've heard much about it.
(38:12):
It was massive. It was like overflowing the chapel, which
on the one hand is like beautiful and then on
the other hand just makes me so angry.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Hundreds attended, including Micah, who was the only one from
Saint Thom's invited. Her Frisbee team made two framed collages
of Alana photos.
Speaker 17 (38:34):
She had all these people who loved her, and the
church isolated her and told her things that weren't true
so that it couldn't get in.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
As complicated as it was for Alana, it's undeniable how
deeply she was hurt by the church, And yet it's
hard for me to hear others talk about the church.
Church so pointedly.
Speaker 17 (39:02):
Alana shared this very vulnerable part of herself with an
adult in power at a really vulnerable age, and then
they controlled the message from there. So even as she
developed and became an adult, she couldn't reconcile that a
(39:27):
loving God probably hated her. I think she couldn't get
rid of that belief that she felt like God hated her,
or that God needed her to change for her to
be loved. And I think that the split that that
caused in her was extremely painful. It isolated her in relationships.
(39:49):
It cut her off from all kinds of things that
she needed, and you know, suicide is an answer to
an unanswerable problem. I have a lot of anger at
the church. You know, church was a huge part of
my life. I haven't been in like two years. Like
(40:11):
I just cannot I can't stomach like the lack of
accountability that this happened, that this happens to tons of people,
and that it just does not seem to matter.
Speaker 9 (40:30):
I believe that this did not have to happen.
Speaker 17 (40:34):
That's so much of my anger. You know, this didn't
have to happen, but there were a lot of things
in place that allowed it to happen. And it's really
scary to realize that we all loved her and made
mistakes and did our best, and that this shame and
self hatred was too big.
Speaker 8 (40:57):
To me.
Speaker 17 (40:57):
It's like that internal tension is what happened. The substance use,
the relationships, the isolation, those were all symptoms. But the
golden thread through it all was her relationship with herself
and God, which was controlled by people who were abusing her.
(41:20):
That's the best sense I can make of it. I
don't think that's a perfect answer. That's the best I
can make of it.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
In twenty twelve, after a decade spent trying to change
my sexuality through conversion therapy, spiritual counsel, and healing prayer,
I relocated from New York to the Bay Area for
a new job. Still closeted, I'd scrutinize every attraction and desire,
applying everything I learned in there Be, surrendering it all
(42:01):
to God in hopes that I was just one breakthrough
away from healing my father wounds, becoming straight, and unblocking
my vocation to the priesthood. One night, after work, I
came home to my empty apartment. It was quiet except
for the sound of the family next door making dinner
for their screeching toddler. I looked around my one bedroom
(42:24):
with the new Ikea furniture and still on open boxes,
and I was suddenly failed with a deep sadness. God,
you promised healing, and I trusted you. But why aren't
you healing me? Are you ignoring me? Do you hate me?
Speaker 11 (42:43):
Is this a test?
Speaker 1 (42:45):
I'm not sure how long I can go on like this.
It was in that moment that I felt something inside
me well up. It was the conviction that I did
not want to be on my deathbed fifty years from
now and wonder what if? What if this part of
me that I've been trying to destroy in the name
of healing, what if it was trying to show me something.
(43:09):
It was a scandalous thought, one that I quickly tucked away.
But in that moment I knew, at the very least
that something had to change. This quest to change my
sexual orientation had to end, or I would.
Speaker 11 (43:26):
I will follow you, follow you where if I you
might go next time.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
On Dear Alana, there was a point when you were thinking, oh,
maybe this is not going to work.
Speaker 6 (43:41):
But you never told me that you thought that, right?
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Why not?
Speaker 8 (43:48):
I didn't want to destroy your whole.
Speaker 11 (43:53):
I will follow you ever since you touched my head.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Dear Alana was created, hosted, and written by me Simon
kent Fong and is a production of Tenderfoot TV in
association with a Slopped Audio in the Center for Independent Documentary.
It was produced by Lori Puliski, who also composed the music.
Executive producers are myself, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay. Our
supervising producer is Tracy Leeds Kaplan. Additional music by Makeup
(44:25):
and Vanity Set sales and distribution by iHeartMedia. Our voice
actor is Alana Rabor and our credit song, I Will
Follow You is by to Loose. Show notes and resources
can be found on our website Dearlana dot com. If
you enjoyed this episode, please take time to follow the show,
rate and review.
Speaker 11 (44:45):
Ud monson sohio. Keep Me Away, Away from Long.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Dear Alana is an eight part series released weekly. If
you can't wait until next week, subscribe to tenderfoot Plus
so you can binge the entire series right now. Add
free head to Apple Podcasts or tendorfootplus dot com to
subscribe now.
Dear Alana has released weekly and brought to you absolutely free.
But if you want to binge the whole season right now,
subscribe to tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus dot com or on
Apple Podcasts. You also get exclusive bonus episodes throughout the season.
For more information, check out the show notes enjoy the episode.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
The following episode contains references to suicide. If you or
someone you know is in need of help, please contact
the Suicide in Crisis Lifeline by dialing nine eight eight.
Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Flames brought down the spire and much of the roof
at Notre Dame Cathedral yesterday.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Notre Dame took two hundred years to build. It's one
of the greatest treasures of medieval architecture. Tonight it lies
in ruins.
Speaker 5 (01:02):
I'm proud to say I'm not your daughter. What kind
of father leads his children to the slaughter? Notre Dame's
flames are getting hotter. We're exercising these monsters, driving out
the impostors, resisting the conquerors. My mother is the one
who raised me back to life. My mother's raising hell
and demanding you pay the price you put your love
and candy wrappers just to entice them. You dump your
(01:25):
burden on their backs and scourge them and crucify them,
or putting an end to all the children being sacrificed
to him. Notre Dame's flames are getting hotter. Notre Dame's
flames are getting hotter.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
From Tenderfoot TV, I'm Simon kent Foung and this is
Dear Alana, Part seven. Notre Dame is burning. Alana is
happy to be home, even if it means moving back
in with her parents. Her brother Sammy is about to
get married, and because the wedding's in Spain, the family
(01:58):
makes a trip of it, stopping in Paris beforehand. I'm
looking at the photos from that trip. Alana is gorgeous
in a white dress and her hair done up. But
I noticed something else in the wedding photos. On Alana's
left arm, just below the shoulder are large, blocky uppercase
letters that spelled the word daughter. It almost looks like
(02:20):
something drawn in black marker. Joyce tells me that this
was actually a tattoo that Alana got right before the wedding.
Speaker 6 (02:29):
Because at first I was like, well.
Speaker 7 (02:30):
That's interesting, Like it was so just block letters and
it seemed kind of not pretty and why would you
do that?
Speaker 6 (02:36):
You know, why did you pick that?
Speaker 7 (02:38):
And she told me she said it was for you
and I'm a daughter of God. But then later she
you know, she admitted to cut the word defiled and
she was covering it up.
Speaker 6 (02:49):
Oh wow, yeah.
Speaker 8 (02:53):
I feel bad.
Speaker 7 (02:53):
I remember before the wedding up took her to a
makeup store and I'm like, I don't my grandma might
freak out for China. I was like, forget it because nothing,
but she, you know that she could show it.
Speaker 9 (03:07):
Wow, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Back at home, Alana tries to reconnect with her church friends,
but something shifted. News has spread about her relationship with Jessica.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
Sister Concepta was like my mother. She was so kind
and loving. I called her every week in treatment. She
always made me laugh. When Jessica became my girlfriend, I
felt like things changed, like maybe she felt like all
her efforts were wasted, but I didn't want to leave her.
(03:43):
She was my mother. It soon became clear that she
was going to try to lead me in one direction,
but I needed to go a different way. I told
her we shouldn't meet anymore. But I was the one
that felt abandoned. I still wanted her in my life.
I still wanted to talk to her and visit her.
I didn't want her to be my spiritual director. I
(04:05):
just wanted her to be my friend. Why couldn't she
just be my friend?
Speaker 1 (04:10):
And in another entry, addressed to one of her priests.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Dear father, I was really angry at you because in
my darkest hour, you wouldn't.
Speaker 10 (04:19):
Speak to me.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
I called you, wrote to you, left you messages. I
never got an answer. Where did you go? You said
I was your daughter.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
It's not just her spiritual mentors who she feels have
abandoned her. Even her friends seem like they're keeping their distance.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
Micah, do you care about me? Then? Why is it
me that always texts you? It was nearly a year
after I was less in Colorado that we finally met up.
Didn't you care wonder how I was? Don't you realize
how different life is for me? Now? Don't you want
to know? Don't you want to know who I really am?
(05:04):
We were best friends, We were soulmates. You were my
protector on our adventures. You used to love me.
Speaker 11 (05:12):
What happened?
Speaker 1 (05:14):
It's as if they don't know how to handle all
the changes in her life, her mental health, struggles, her sexuality,
this other side of her that they've never seen before.
Speaker 5 (05:24):
My closest friends from Saint Tom's haven't contacted me. I
feel rejected from my old life, barred for my community.
I can't stay with the sisters, So how can I
get my community back?
Speaker 10 (05:37):
Should I even try to get.
Speaker 6 (05:38):
My community back?
Speaker 5 (05:41):
I feel so alone. Why hasn't Father Peter written to me?
Do they think I'm on vacation. It's not okay to
leave your friend behind.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
It's not okay, and life at home is also different.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
This new relationship with my family scares me. I've known
them my whole life, but now they finally know me.
It scares me. It's so old and so new.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
All the things that used to be so familiar feel
foreign and off. Alana even stops going to church. Whenever
she enters a Catholic church, she can't help but cry.
Speaker 5 (06:23):
When I went to treatment, Rachel, father Peter, Father Dave,
and the sisters were the only ones that I trusted.
They were the only ones that stayed by my side.
But as I became more true to myself, I guess
they didn't see the need to mentor me. I feel
misled and abandoned, like they all made it but I lost.
(06:47):
It hurts so much when they left me, I had
to pull over the car to throw up as I
drove away. I feel so ashamed, like I hate myself.
I feel so stupid and weak and like a slut.
I want to hurt myself.
Speaker 9 (07:07):
I haven't felt this way.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
In so long, and it's terrifying. The one place I
felt safest was slowly allowing my illness to grow stronger
to the point of eventual death.
Speaker 6 (07:22):
That scares the shit out of me.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
She's grappling with how she got here and who's responsible?
Speaker 5 (07:29):
Why did it take me so long to do something
about it? Where was God all this time? I want
to blame someone, but who's to blame me them anyone?
How do I get past this? Anything to do with
Jesus or the Catholic Church reminds me. I don't ever
(07:52):
want to be in the same headspace I used to
be in. I want to blame everyone, but no one
forced this on me.
Speaker 9 (08:00):
It was always my choice.
Speaker 12 (08:13):
Well, you can remind your son, because every time something
scary comes up you decide to run. You're all going
to be running for the rest of your loves.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
I'm back in San Francisco and it's summer movie season
at Dolores Park. This evening they're playing Sister Act too.
Everyone's got their picnic, blanket and snacks lined up for
the sing along. I'm here with my friend Andrew. Andrew's
an er doctor at SF General. I feel like a zombie,
(08:56):
and I've been telling him about how hard it's been
in Colorado with sleeping in the panic attacks that have persisted.
Speaker 13 (09:04):
Basically, what I was saying is like what you're describing
as like symptoms of PTSD. You're describing nightmares, difficulty sleeping.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
He rhymes off the list of symptoms.
Speaker 13 (09:16):
Unwanted upsetting, memories, flashbacks, emotional distress after exposure to dramatic reminders.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Maybe he's onto something, but I'm still skeptical.
Speaker 13 (09:25):
That reminds you.
Speaker 14 (09:26):
You were saying that my body in mind perceive it
as trauma. Like I guess I never identified with that,
Like I wasn't assaulted, I wasn't attacked or anything.
Speaker 13 (09:36):
You know, you weren't in war, you know you didn't
have anything like that. But regardless, your body perceives many
things as trauma or threats. And I think a lot
of gay people went through some prolonged episodes of trauma
growing up. I think it's probably bringing back a lot
(09:57):
of stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Andrew's also gay, and he's been through his own journey
of reconciling his Catholicism with his sexuality. This is someone
who studied the entire Bible multiple times, and even with
that knowledge, he comes back to his own conscience.
Speaker 13 (10:12):
That's what guides me, I think the most is you know,
I read scripture, I meditate and pray, but ultimately I
think that what guides me most and a lot of
this stuff is my conscience. I think that's probably the
way God talks to you and guides you a lot
of the time.
Speaker 14 (10:32):
I think, I think you're right. I think That's what
I'm struggling with is like, is.
Speaker 13 (10:38):
He rationalize what your conscience is saying versus what the
church and other people are saying.
Speaker 14 (10:44):
I think I'm still sorting out what my conscience is saying,
you know, because I think my conscience has been formed
so much by the logic that these people are operating from,
so I empathize with where they're coming from. But I
also know that I was not doing well in that space.
(11:06):
And I am not doing well now as I am
going through all this again.
Speaker 13 (11:09):
Like I think that's also telling.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
He gives me a list of things that I might
do to take better care of myself. I did not
expect this intervention.
Speaker 13 (11:22):
Moral of the story is, you need to be kinder
to yourself. You would give other people the same advice.
I think tech has conditioned you to be terrible to yourself.
Am I wrong?
Speaker 14 (11:33):
Does tech do that?
Speaker 13 (11:35):
Yeah? Tech people work as their life. You're terrible to yourselves?
Am I wrong?
Speaker 15 (11:43):
No?
Speaker 13 (11:43):
Most happy people don't do that. Don't work their selves
to death, no matter how much they enjoy their work.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
He's right. I did burn out of my tech job.
But I still have trouble with the idea that I've
been traumatized or been a victim of anything Like Alana.
I feel responsible for my choices and beliefs. But is
my body trying to tell me something? Maybe it knows
more than what I give it credit for.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
I am a gay woman. I don't struggle with same
sex attraction. It comes quite easily. I don't struggle, It's
what my body feels naturally. For years I thought differently.
I was told that homosexuality was across. Yes, the very
thing that Christ's scourged body hung from, an outcome of
(12:39):
the fall, a mental disorder to which I must never succumb,
Not even the worst of all, the very thing I
call love. They said it was no more than a
narcissistic projection of my maternal wounds. Mom My mom, that
woman that never gave up on me, would sit with
me on the toilet to soothe my anxiety. Turn the
(13:02):
hot water on, let the steam call my lungs, so
that I could breathe and be safe in the evening
light in my mother's arms.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Alana's coming into an acceptance of her sexuality, and she's
not apologetic about it. She challenges the conversion therapy narratives
that pitted her against her mother, defending her, recognizing the
love that was always there, and defying the psychological and
theological ideas she'd been taught. Sophia, her sister, notices how
(13:32):
much Alana has changed. First in her appearance.
Speaker 10 (13:36):
She started having more fun clothes, she started to get
a lot more creative painted her room. She'd go back
to wearing like glitter all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
Alana even goes to Pride for the first time and
she's bringing Jessica around more.
Speaker 10 (13:51):
She had a girlfriend that she would was openly able
to bring around us, and I loved her. She's super funny.
N Lana would like hold her hand while she was
around her, kiss her. It wasn't like she was hiding
this anymore.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
But what was most significant for Sophia was that she
felt like she and Alana were bonding again and we.
Speaker 10 (14:13):
Started to become close again, which was awesome. We're on
a backpacking trip together. It was the best because it
was just me and Alana.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
As I scroll through Alana's texts from this period, a
few months after she's moved back home from treatment, I
find a conversation she has with father Dave, dated September
twenty seventeen, just as she's about to redo her senior
year at CU. It starts off casual. He asks her,
are you praying your Rosary smiley face emoji?
Speaker 15 (14:44):
No?
Speaker 1 (14:46):
Why not?
Speaker 5 (14:47):
He asks, It's boring, it seems unnatural, and it is
a foundational prayer of the Church, And I don't trust
the church.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Why don't you trust? And remember, you're not going to
be judged on other people's holiness or theological accuracy, but
on your lifestyle.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
He replies, Why do you say that like?
Speaker 6 (15:09):
What brought that up?
Speaker 1 (15:11):
He writes, because I'm afraid for you that you have
never spoken against the church like that. And I am
not saying that this is you, but I have met hundreds,
literally hundreds of people who when they turn against the church,
it's because their own lifestyles have changed. Again, I am
not saying it is you, but I am afraid for
(15:31):
anybody who speaks like that, especially someone who once loved
the church so much. It's extremely, extremely dangerous ground usually
for one salvation. Be extremely careful where you're going.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
A. Lona responds, I don't speak against the church because
I have pride. I speak against the Church because I
have real and deep pain. I don't trust the church
because the fruit of mine my labor was shame, fear, pain,
mental instability, and my life was put at risk. I
changed my lifestyle so that I wouldn't be crushed under
(16:09):
the weight of depression and anxiety. I am so much
healthier now. But when I hear you say things like this,
or talk to the sisters or try to go to
mass I revert back to where I was a year ago.
I'm distancing myself from the church right now, because I
don't feel safe or loved or accepted.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
He continues, Okay, you'd have to explain in person what
you actually mean by changed lifestyle, because I don't want
to go down that road on text messages. He closes
with this, regardless, I'm here for you, and you can
call me any time about anything, even trivial matters, because
I will always keep my promise. I will love you
(16:51):
one hundred percent through thick and thin heart emoji.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
I just can't talk about this stuff anymore.
Speaker 10 (16:59):
It hurts too much.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
This is the last time Alana texts with Father Dave.
I'm struck by the gravity of this moment. Alana standing
up to her mentor for the first time, the man
who kept all her secrets. But more than that, she's
speaking her truth, calmly, clearly, sharing her real life experiences,
the fruit of her labor, as she puts it, in
(17:23):
the face of all those familiar, veiled warnings of hell
by the person who, for most of her adolescence wielded
such tremendous spiritual authority over her, she elucidly details how
his words and actions have actually affected her and tells
him that she just can't talk about this anymore. I'm
astonished by her courage. Alana continues to process all of
(17:45):
this in her journals.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
They called it unconditional, but it wasn't. It was impossible
for them to accept me as I am. Why is
it so important for them to accept that part of me?
Because it's a part of me, part of my identity,
It's an important part of my life.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Who I love?
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Why is that so bad? Don't say you love me?
It's confusing. I know what real love is now. If
you loved me, then why don't you care anymore? I
never said anything to a fault. I wanted to let
you be you, but you never let me be me.
(18:28):
You don't want to see me, you don't want to
know me. I have so much to say to you, guys.
You don't realize how you all contributed to my immense
suffering in the name of love. I worry if you
ever meet someone like me, you will try to love
them in the same way you will hurt them. You
(18:48):
hurt me, You made me feel so ashamed, you made
me hate myself. I continue to hate myself. I struggled
so hard. I wanted it to be easier. I tried,
but I couldn't shake it. I don't understand how you
(19:09):
could see me struggle and not intervene or question the process.
I was playing a dangerous game. I was messing with
the person God made me to be. This is who
I am. I'm not over identifying with it. This is
a huge part of me.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Alana is putting things into words I haven't yet been
able to. What can be so confusing in the church
is that it repeatedly says it loves us, but your
SSA that part we don't love. So stop over identifying
with it. It's just a temptation anyways. But what if
Alana's right? What if my sexuality isn't a small part
(19:52):
of me, but a huge part of me. What if
it's not just about sex but about companionship, bonding love.
What if it's as much me as my face, my voice,
my mind, my heart? And then at what point does
the harm of messing with me start to matter? As
Elana says, messing with the person God made her to be.
(20:24):
Even though Alana sounds like she's standing up to her
spiritual community for hurting her privately, she's traumatized and still
hates herself. She blames the church for standing idly by
while her mental health had been deteriorating.
Speaker 5 (20:40):
I lost everything. I lost my humor, I lost my joy,
I lost my passion. I lost the ones that I loved.
I lost my ability to love anyone or myself. How
can you cling to a religion that is so cruel?
(21:00):
This burden I had to carry? You dare not lift
a finger. You killed me. You absolutely killed me.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
In the summer of twenty nineteen, Colorado's ban on conversion
therapy for minors goes into effect in the US. These
bans exist in many states. However, they don't apply to
religious settings, which is where the vast majority of young
people receive conversion therapy. The Denver Post is looking for
people to speak to for an article. Chrisa tells me
(21:37):
about how much of a struggle this was for Alana.
Speaker 16 (21:41):
I knew Alana was really nervous going into the story.
It wasn't something she wanted to do right away. She
was like in this struggle of wanting to share her
story because she knew it would be helpful to others.
She was scared of what people at the church would
say if they read the story.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Alana's hesitant right in her journal that she doesn't want
anyone to get hurt, doesn't want anybody's life to be ruined.
But she eventually agrees to be interviewed.
Speaker 16 (22:08):
And then when she had the interview, my mom text
me and was like, hey, if you have time, like,
can you call your sister. She's having a really hard
time after the interview because she just had to relive everything.
And so I went over to the house and she
was in her bed, just like crying and like not
talking at all.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
The article in the Denver Post profiles Alana alongside two
other conversion therapy survivors. It describes her struggle with reconciling
her sexual identity with her dream of becoming a nun.
Here's how Alana is quoted.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
I felt a lot of shame and anxiety. I couldn't sleep,
I couldn't stop thinking about it, you know, like was
I going to hell? But I was still extremely faithful
and I felt like the church and the counseling was
the thing that was saving me. But like the worse
I got, the more I clung to it.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Because there are no licensing regulations around religious counseling. Colorado's
ban wouldn't have protected Ilana, the article.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
Continues, But in reality, I think the church's counsel is
what led me to be hospitalized. I was feeling so
much shame that I was comforted by the thought of
hurting myself. By now I've basically completely lost my faith.
I don't really know what I believe about God. I
(23:39):
think if there is a God, he doesn't need me
talking to him anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
I'm looking through Alana's cracked iPhone. I'm aware of how
sensitive this is. Our phones tell us so much about
who we are. I scroll through her Spotify playlists from
the last few years. She loved Kesha and the Avitt
Brothers and Andrea Gibson's Spoken Word. I can see the
places she searched for on Google Maps, and her group
me messages with her Frisbee team. When I tap into
(24:13):
her voice memos app, I hesitate. Could this be where
Alana left notes to herself? Maybe audio versions of her
journal thoughts. What I find instead are nearly two dozen
files of original songs.
Speaker 10 (24:29):
Ah Greatest Streaker, Turning to Fall Asleep, Faking and.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
De for Ans. Really my heartscape to be swearing and
the world to me.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Honestly damn, Alanna scot She's working through song after song
of original compositions.
Speaker 6 (24:56):
The music take it to a high play.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
For a little while about love, God, regret, Tay.
Speaker 6 (25:08):
There's away from me.
Speaker 5 (25:11):
Oh, say.
Speaker 15 (25:14):
This away from.
Speaker 9 (25:15):
Me because we regret.
Speaker 8 (25:20):
It is whoison a sign it is killing me.
Speaker 6 (25:28):
Say true.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
A little over a year after dropping out of CU,
a lot of transfers to Prescott College in Arizona to
be closer to Jessica, But by the time Alanna arrives,
they've broken up again, something she processes prolifically in her
journals and songs. Still, she's determined to look ahead. I
know this because of the next voice memo I find
on her phone. It's a memo titled Reading roughly thirty minutes,
(26:05):
one of the longest and only recordings I can find
of her speaking voice. In it, Alana sounds like she's
getting an astrology, reading.
Speaker 8 (26:14):
When's your birthday?
Speaker 6 (26:16):
October fourteenth?
Speaker 8 (26:18):
Oh see, you want everything perfect? What do you mean, Well,
you're a libra.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
Yeah, I want the perfect solution.
Speaker 8 (26:26):
I want the perfect good. You know you're perfectionist and
you're an idealist.
Speaker 15 (26:31):
Well that's what I's kind of like ruined my relationship
with my girlfriend. I just wanted the perfect match.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
She asks Alana. What caused the breakup with Jessica.
Speaker 6 (26:44):
I just think I'm kind of like too damaged right
now to be in a relationship.
Speaker 8 (26:49):
Okay, So where do you feel you're damaged?
Speaker 15 (26:52):
Your First of all, well, I'm gay, yeah, so and
I but when I was like a teenager, I became
very involved in the Catholic church.
Speaker 8 (27:03):
Okay, so you think you think because you're gay that
you're damaged? Is that where that started?
Speaker 15 (27:10):
Because I like I held it in for so long
and I let like priests and nuns like try and
teach me like how it was supposed to live. I
just lived a very like a life of like repression
and self hatred and self doubt.
Speaker 8 (27:24):
What else makes you feel emotionally?
Speaker 15 (27:30):
That was?
Speaker 6 (27:30):
That's like the main thing.
Speaker 8 (27:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (27:32):
I think like my like growing up like wasn't super easy.
My parents fought a lot.
Speaker 15 (27:40):
And like always on the brink of divorce. So but
I don't feel as much pain around that anymore.
Speaker 8 (27:46):
I know, But it's in there, Yeah, it's in there.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
It strikes me that Alana still seems to be seeking
some sort of spiritual guidance in her life, perhaps to
fill the vacuum left by the church, like swapping out
one framework for another. They look at the cards on
the table.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Ace means new beginning, new challenge, new charge. You're charged
up about what you want to do, are you okay?
Speaker 8 (28:10):
So you'll make the.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Decision and listen to the fire that's inside of you
that wants to burn a little bit, don't burn yourself.
Speaker 6 (28:23):
And I'm also moving out, and I don't know where
I'm going.
Speaker 8 (28:26):
You don't know. I'm just kind of going, okay.
Speaker 15 (28:29):
Part of me just like wants to travel around a
little bit, like around the United States a little bit.
Speaker 8 (28:33):
Yeah, okay, do you have the finances to be able
to do that? I have a little bit of money,
a little okay.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
I'm not opposed to like staying in homeless shelters or.
Speaker 8 (28:44):
Like, do you don't need to stay in a homeless show? No, No,
you don't need to do that.
Speaker 15 (28:51):
I feel like right now, like I have enough connections
with people that like I wouldn't need to So pack
your pegs, yeah, get moving.
Speaker 14 (28:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Alana packs her bags and begins a new semester at
Prescott College, where she's just been accepted to a master's
program in counseling, but things change abruptly. Moving on from
her past won't be that easy. She comes home early
from RA training, telling her friends, I just don't think
school is where I need to be right now. She
asks the other ras to water the plants she was
(29:22):
caring for and assures them I feel a lot better
now that I'm home. But based on her journals, we
know that that isn't true. Alana self medicating heavily, smoking
weed to cope.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
I've been getting so high every day I can merely
think straight. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
I feel empty.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
I don't want to do anything. I don't want to
take my meds anymore.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
She writes about how she uses it whenever she's alone,
so much so that she doesn't want to take her
antidepression medication. On the inside, Alana's not doing well. She
journals about crying every day and wishing she was dead
to stop the pain, even drafting out several suicide notes,
and then days later seemingly feeling optimistic about her future.
(30:13):
On the outside, none of this is obvious to those
around her. Alana seems cheerful and even plans her own
birthday for the first time, inviting all of her closest friends.
Joy remembers this period as we flip through the last
few pages of their scrap book.
Speaker 6 (30:29):
Then she gave it back to me for my wedding.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Remember this is the album that she and Alana would
swap during special occasions.
Speaker 17 (30:39):
And then I actually gave it back to her one
more time for her birthday in twenty nineteen. It was
in her possession, and then Joyce gave.
Speaker 15 (30:51):
It to me.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Do you feel comfortable reading that last entry from me?
Speaker 5 (30:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 17 (30:58):
So it says you're twenty fourth they eve. I told
someone today that I was busy tonight because I'm celebrating
the birthday of my best friend since kindergarten. Then I
reread this journal and am in awe of your thoughtfulness
and love. You are not the girl I met in
line for class at Fireside. You have shaped so much
(31:19):
of who I have become. I consider it a real
honor to continually beginning to know you in new stages
and seasons of life. Each version of you is a
gift to me. May year twenty four bring you love, light, healing, hope,
and many more unexpected gifts. It has already brought you
(31:40):
back to Colorado, which is a gift to me. Love
joy ps. I almost didn't write this because I didn't
want to give up this book. I love it so much,
but it is not mine, it is ours.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
When I first met Alana's mom, Joyce, she'd reflect on
how happy Alana looks in her birthday photos, with her
head tilted, Alana smiling as she holds up her birthday
gifts two packs of Darn Tough hiking socks. The party
Alana threw for herself was small and intimate. She even
invited a new girl she'd been seeing. The next evening,
(32:26):
Alana goes to a Lizzo concert, and at Thanksgiving, her
friends from Prescott come and visit her to urge her
to come back to school. On Saturday, December seventh, twenty nineteen,
two months after her birthday, Alana leaves home at around
three pm, telling her mom that she's going hiking and Boulder.
She ends up missing her appointment with a friend that evening.
(32:48):
Since Alana had a reputation for disappearing into nature by herself,
this wasn't totally out of character. But when Alana doesn't
return home that night, her family begins to worry, they
hold off calling the police, contacting all of Alana's friends first,
even reaching out to Jessica in Arizona. No one's seen
or heard from Milana. As concern grows, her family decides
(33:12):
to call the police and report her missing. By the
next day, the local news picks up the.
Speaker 6 (33:17):
Story, breaking from overnight.
Speaker 15 (33:19):
Family members of Alana Chin say they haven't heard from
her since Saturday.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Brian.
Speaker 18 (33:24):
Alana Chen's family members say she loved nature and she
was actually on her way here to Chautauqua Park to
go hiking on Saturday afternoon, but since then, her family
says they haven't heard from her. Lewisville Police says she
was last seen wearing a black down jacket, jeans, and
timberlin hiking boots.
Speaker 10 (33:42):
It hadn't been that long, so I was like, okay,
there's still chances of calling her, texting her. I still
have the text on my phone, something along the lines
like I can't wait for us to do like go
climbing and hiking together, so please like come a home.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Friends and family spend to the weekend scanning the area
looking for Alana's black Toyota Camry. Nitacides to search for
Alana at a reservoir in the mountains where Alana liked
to camp.
Speaker 19 (34:14):
I'm leaving from Denver. This is like six pm on
I think Sunday, December ninth. It's starting to get dark.
It's starting to sprinkle some snowflakes. Get to the first
parking lint, Gross Reservoir and start driving around and don't
see a car. Go to the next lot, it's a
little bit smaller.
Speaker 6 (34:30):
Don't see a car.
Speaker 18 (34:31):
According to Louisville Police, who have been keeping in contact
with family members, this is very unusual behavior. And on
top of her not corresponding with her family, her cell
phone has been turned off as well.
Speaker 19 (34:42):
Get to the third lot again, don't see a car. Okay,
I'm relieved. I don't see you know, Alana's car here.
It's a good sign that she might not be here.
So we ended up, you know, after three lots, turning
around Gross reser ours really massive.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
As Sunday passes with still no sight of Alana, everyone
begins to fear for the worst. It's snowing, with nighttime
temperatures in the teens. Anyone exposed to the elements would
likely not survive the next day. According to the Boulder
County Sheriff's Office. The Denver Water Board reports a suspicious vehicle,
(35:17):
a black Camray, parked by the Gross Reservoir, nearly an
hour away from Alana's home. Nead happened to miss this
particular parking lot when she had been looking the day before.
The patrolling witness recalls spotting the same vehicle parked in
the lot as early as Saturday afternoon, but didn't register
it as unusual at the time. He remembers seeing the
(35:37):
black Camri, but with a single female wearing a winter
wool cap sitting in it alone with a quote confused
look on her face. There were one or two other
cars parked in that lot on Saturday, so he didn't
think much of it. As officers approached the car on Monday,
they find it covered in a light dust of snow.
No one's in the car, but they uncover several items,
(36:00):
a purse, marijuana vaping supplies, a checkbook with a check
written for therapy on the memo line, an Arizona ID card,
and a note to family and friends. At around one
twenty pm on Monday, December tenth, two days after Alana
was reported missing, police find the body of a young
(36:22):
woman near the reservoir. It's later confirmed to be a Lana.
She was just twenty four years old. Her cause of death,
as determined by the coroner, is suicide. What was it
(36:57):
like for you In the days, weeks and months after
I'm with Joy, her kindergarten best friend.
Speaker 17 (37:05):
It became really scary for me. You know.
Speaker 15 (37:08):
I was like.
Speaker 17 (37:09):
I started to kind of, you know, first job out
of college in the middle health field and was working
with highly suicidal patients, and that was just I shouldn't
have done that, you know. I was kind of I
didn't know what to do, so I just kind of
kept moving forward. I, you know, just this is this
is a this is a thing that happened. I had
(37:30):
thoughts of suicide myself for a while. The pandemic hit
a few months after, so then isolating and carrying that
stress while grieving was really intense. I was just in
(37:52):
so much pain, like every day and trying to do
all these things to fix it. Was reading all the
books and my own therapy, and there's just no answer
for grief. It's just, you know, it just is. You know,
her funeral, I don't know if you've heard much about it.
(38:12):
It was massive. It was like overflowing the chapel, which
on the one hand is like beautiful and then on
the other hand just makes me so angry.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
Hundreds attended, including Micah, who was the only one from
Saint Thom's invited. Her Frisbee team made two framed collages
of Alana photos.
Speaker 17 (38:34):
She had all these people who loved her, and the
church isolated her and told her things that weren't true
so that it couldn't get in.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
As complicated as it was for Alana, it's undeniable how
deeply she was hurt by the church, And yet it's
hard for me to hear others talk about the church.
Church so pointedly.
Speaker 17 (39:02):
Alana shared this very vulnerable part of herself with an
adult in power at a really vulnerable age, and then
they controlled the message from there. So even as she
developed and became an adult, she couldn't reconcile that a
(39:27):
loving God probably hated her. I think she couldn't get
rid of that belief that she felt like God hated her,
or that God needed her to change for her to
be loved. And I think that the split that that
caused in her was extremely painful. It isolated her in relationships.
(39:49):
It cut her off from all kinds of things that
she needed, and you know, suicide is an answer to
an unanswerable problem. I have a lot of anger at
the church. You know, church was a huge part of
my life. I haven't been in like two years. Like
(40:11):
I just cannot I can't stomach like the lack of
accountability that this happened, that this happens to tons of people,
and that it just does not seem to matter.
Speaker 9 (40:30):
I believe that this did not have to happen.
Speaker 17 (40:34):
That's so much of my anger. You know, this didn't
have to happen, but there were a lot of things
in place that allowed it to happen. And it's really
scary to realize that we all loved her and made
mistakes and did our best, and that this shame and
self hatred was too big.
Speaker 8 (40:57):
To me.
Speaker 17 (40:57):
It's like that internal tension is what happened. The substance use,
the relationships, the isolation, those were all symptoms. But the
golden thread through it all was her relationship with herself
and God, which was controlled by people who were abusing her.
(41:20):
That's the best sense I can make of it. I
don't think that's a perfect answer. That's the best I
can make of it.
Speaker 1 (41:41):
In twenty twelve, after a decade spent trying to change
my sexuality through conversion therapy, spiritual counsel, and healing prayer,
I relocated from New York to the Bay Area for
a new job. Still closeted, I'd scrutinize every attraction and desire,
applying everything I learned in there Be, surrendering it all
(42:01):
to God in hopes that I was just one breakthrough
away from healing my father wounds, becoming straight, and unblocking
my vocation to the priesthood. One night, after work, I
came home to my empty apartment. It was quiet except
for the sound of the family next door making dinner
for their screeching toddler. I looked around my one bedroom
(42:24):
with the new Ikea furniture and still on open boxes,
and I was suddenly failed with a deep sadness. God,
you promised healing, and I trusted you. But why aren't
you healing me? Are you ignoring me? Do you hate me?
Speaker 11 (42:43):
Is this a test?
Speaker 1 (42:45):
I'm not sure how long I can go on like this.
It was in that moment that I felt something inside
me well up. It was the conviction that I did
not want to be on my deathbed fifty years from
now and wonder what if? What if this part of
me that I've been trying to destroy in the name
of healing, what if it was trying to show me something.
(43:09):
It was a scandalous thought, one that I quickly tucked away.
But in that moment I knew, at the very least
that something had to change. This quest to change my
sexual orientation had to end, or I would.
Speaker 11 (43:26):
I will follow you, follow you where if I you
might go next time.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
On Dear Alana, there was a point when you were thinking, oh,
maybe this is not going to work.
Speaker 6 (43:41):
But you never told me that you thought that, right?
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Why not?
Speaker 8 (43:48):
I didn't want to destroy your whole.
Speaker 11 (43:53):
I will follow you ever since you touched my head.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Dear Alana was created, hosted, and written by me Simon
kent Fong and is a production of Tenderfoot TV in
association with a Slopped Audio in the Center for Independent Documentary.
It was produced by Lori Puliski, who also composed the music.
Executive producers are myself, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay. Our
supervising producer is Tracy Leeds Kaplan. Additional music by Makeup
(44:25):
and Vanity Set sales and distribution by iHeartMedia. Our voice
actor is Alana Rabor and our credit song, I Will
Follow You is by to Loose. Show notes and resources
can be found on our website Dearlana dot com. If
you enjoyed this episode, please take time to follow the show,
rate and review.
Speaker 11 (44:45):
Ud monson sohio. Keep Me Away, Away from Long.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
Dear Alana is an eight part series released weekly. If
you can't wait until next week, subscribe to tenderfoot Plus
so you can binge the entire series right now. Add
free head to Apple Podcasts or tendorfootplus dot com to
subscribe now.
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