Revisiting How to Unlock the Past

We take a look back at the ways grief can linger when you lose someone important. Even when the relationship was complicated.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
So it is days after my mother passed away, and
this has been an incredible journey. I have realized that
people don't really talk about death and grief in a

(00:33):
digestible way. I'm finding that out from a lot of people.
I'm finding out. I mean, I've never had a response
to anything like I've had to divorce and death. And
I'm seeing that there are a lot of similarities and
not just parallels, but like these two topics are converging
because many people have chosen certain types of partners as

(00:57):
a result of their childhood, and the types of messages
that I'm getting are about generational trauma, meaning you know,
the parents that you had and the dynamics that you
experienced as a child, if they were traumatic or very damaging,

(01:18):
and then really getting into thinking about their childhoods and
there's anger and there's confusion, and there's compassion, and there's
being closed off. And I mentioned that I literally have
lived nowhere but in my childhood for the first time
in forty five years, in so many different ways, and

(01:39):
you kind of put it all through a strainer, and
with any luck, you end up with the good because
you end up being compassionate about the fact that if
someone was so miserable that they would abuse you and
be mean to you and abuse themselves and be self destructive.
You know, they're filled with toxinsotional toxins, physical toxins, disease

(02:04):
and addictions, and like they cannot contain it, and so
they dump it on you. And I realize that, you know,
parents dump so much on their children, even good parents,
and the kids wear it and you have to be
very aware of that. And I want to also talk
about motherhood more, and I want to talk about some
stuff that has been happening with myself and my daughter.

(02:24):
But basically the letters that I've been getting and the
emails I've never I mean divorce, it's been divorced and
traumatic experiences, Like no one was talking about divorce in
this type of way. They're illogical way sometimes it's psychological way,
but in a very like traumatic way, and how to
deal with it, how to manage it logistically and then
also emotionally. So as I mentioned in my post, I've

(02:46):
been grieving this horrendous trauma, the worst of my whole life,
the most significant loss. And also I was getting so
many messages about divorce that we are going to come
back with divorce in the next couple of weeks, and
that I'm reading all your messages, but I am am
moved by these messages about your life, your lives, your life.

(03:10):
I'm reading them, I'm seeing them, you know, and I
know that I'm this is freeing you and you do
not feel alone, and you feel seen and you are seen.
So and I am certainly not an expert on death
or grief, like I am divorced, but I've had my
own way of doing it, and i will share it
with you because it's been a different way than I've
seen other people do or I've done in the past.

(03:34):
And there are many brands of death, so they're brand.
One brand is you had a person lives a very
long life. They're at ninety eight years old. You had
a good relationship with them, and it's so sad and
they were around for so long and you can't believe
it's over. But there's some peace to it, there's some meaning.
There's a brand where someone's very sick and it's been
torturous and you feel guilty that for years you were

(03:55):
a caretaker and that you wanted it to be over,
and that's a level of guilt you know, there's grieving
when God forbid someone who passes before their time or
before you and you're older, or something like that. Like
that's like traumatic, or God forbid an accident, or someone
takes their own life. I mean, there were so many
different brands, you know, frustration. Lorie Peterson and I have

(04:16):
been messaging back and forth from Orange County. So there
are many brands of death. And I, as a kid,
never really experienced death because I didn't really have a
family for most of my life and so I didn't
hadn't had people around me that had really died. And
I always this is going to sound strange, but not envied,
but like I felt left out with people that had
had family members pass away because they were going through

(04:37):
something and I was always like I didn't understand it.
I couldn't relate to it. I didn't know what it
would feel like, you know, grief. And my dog Cookie passing,
which will become relevant later, was a traumatic event. My
dog lived eighteen years and she was a family member
because I did, as I've now been more open about,
I haven't had family. And when Dennis, my ex and

(04:58):
a friend of thirty years, passed, it was it was
it was a brand of death. It was it was
feeling guilty because he loved me so much and would
send me these love letters, and some of them were
not lucid. And it was over the course of years,
and there was a lot that I didn't know and understand,
and and I was frustrated and blamed myself, thought I

(05:23):
could have done something, blamed other people because I was
open about certain things to them and felt that they
didn't do it. I mean, you go through a million things,
and the stages of grief is a very true thing,
and they're not all the same for everybody. They say
the stages, but they don't have to be in order
and they don't have to all happen. And so this
brand of death is a different brand than I had

(05:43):
ever heard of, than I had ever experienced, and that
many of you hadn't really thought about. And now people
that I know and people that I don't know are
reaching out and it's making them think differently, and it's
it's it's having meaning because I am telling people that
I know and also people that I don't know, when
I hear their story, it is not going to be

(06:04):
what you think it's going to be. This brand, this
particular brand, this generational trauma brand. Complicated being a very
understated word for this brand of death with a person
that's supposed to be the most significant safe relationship in
your life, dying is not what you expect. I know

(06:25):
other people that haven't spoken to certain family members, have
estranged relationships. They've put it in a drawer, like me,
They've locked it. They don't think about it. Days could
go by. You don't think about this person. You are
positive they are gone from your life, so you will
not when they die. It will just be something that
just happens. Like my father died and it made me
very very sad that he never really wanted anything to
do with me and was very dismissive of me. My

(06:47):
real father, I call him, because I had a stepfather
that was more of a father and more significant. He
had a lot of issues and he is very old
and also very sick, and I'm just waiting for that
shoe to drop and then me to be under the
couch for a month. But that was the most significant
male relationship in my life was my stepfather. Because when
my mother was away and left for months at a time,
and when she went to a mental institution, and when

(07:09):
she had just left and had a boyfriend somewhere in
Wales and wasn't at my graduation, she just decided not
to go. All these times he was there, and so
I didn't want to attach to him when I was
young because I didn't really want him around, and he
was problematic. He did end up getting his ship more
together and was more of a solid figure, and he

(07:30):
had a lot of problems. He had left a family before,
and then I became his family, and I was sort
of a way for him to like show my mother
how much he would love her and take care of
her because he was obsessed with her, as everybody was.
So I was really with him more and he was compassionate.
He was certainly very problematic. But when my real father died,

(07:51):
someone who really kind of just left me when I
was young, they were in a relationship, he didn't treat
me right. I went back to my mother into the
arms of the next man, who was my stepfather, who
was the most significant relationship. This is still in the
formative years, which we'll get into, because I did not
realize until recently that between zero and eight is when
you're formed as a person. So if you had some

(08:14):
good memories and some love before your parent fell off
the rails, you know you might have a shot. And
so so that that real father, when he died of cancer,
it was unresolved, and it was definitely why didn't he
love me? And for years I tried to get his love,
and for years he abandoned and dropped me and was
mean to me. I mean I had two parents be
very very mean to me, said me and things to me.

(08:35):
To the day when he died, I thought I was
going to get some sort of resolution. And a friend
of mine who was friends with him because people again
glamorized him and worshiped him, and he always dated younger,
pretty people, and he was a Hall of fame horse trainer,
and I used to beg for his affection. I used
to pretend publicly that like I was the daughter of
Bobby Frankel, because I wanted them to think that I

(08:56):
was somebody and like that I could go to the
Kentucky Derby and I could like be that. My stepfather, John,
who wasn't as successful a trainer, but still successful, he

(09:18):
included me. He took me, He took me to Saratoga
and like put me in the Winter Circle pictures. My
real father, who was the real success, which was a
big rivalry between those two men always discarded me. And
one year I went with an ex fiance to the
Kentucky Derby and he got the ticket. He brought me there,

(09:39):
and the tickets are a fortune. And I called my
father to ask him if he could get his tickets
and he said he blew us off, and he said no,
and he didn't have any, and this is always how
he goes, I don't have any. He was very He
also was scathing. So I had two scathing parents, which
will explain my personality a little bit, like I have
to try to tone it down, and I think this
will significantly change me. I've been hardened by the racetrack
and by two very scathing parents and the abuse and

(10:02):
everything else. But we showed up at the races that
day and I overheard my father, because we had to
buy tickets. I overheard him saying to other people, I
have all these tickets. I don't know what I'm gonna
do with them. I could probably sell them or something.
He was just mean my whole life, and he was
a mean person, and everybody could glamorize it the way
that they want to. He was very successful. He was

(10:23):
very good friends with Joe Tory, the guy from the Yankees,
who also ended up disliking me, not knowing me whatsoever,
because people thought that my father, who was enamored with
some fame, like he was enamored with the Joe Torris
and baseball because the trainers were the like the workers,
even though they, you know, the owners were the rich
blue bloods and the owners and a lot of celebrities

(10:44):
hang out around racetracks. And my father was a god,
but he was a really mean, mean person, and he
was mean to me to the last breath through through
the baby cam like that thing that you can hear.
My father's friend who's my friend, also heard it, heard
how mean he was to me, and that the first
time he got a glimpse into what I my pain

(11:04):
for all my years, and it was validation, like because
people see different sides to people. And I've heard people
in the letters that you guys have written me tell
me that your mother or you know, a parent was
you know, cold to you, couldn't connect to you what
was charming and wonderful to everybody else. And it can,
it can really be very sad, so we don't have
to get into too much about my real father. But
he was not a parent in any any part of

(11:26):
the situation. He tried to connect with me at a
certain age when he started seeing pictures of me with
John Paracella, and I was glad. I was I was
enamored by the glamour of that he lived in La
and I was watching sixteen Candles. I'm pretty and pink,
and I wanted to be out there and thought I
was going to live this fabulous life. And he courted me.
But once I relinquished and decided to allow my real

(11:47):
father to be my father, I put changed my name
from Bethany Paracella, which I literally would like to go
and change back. I've always hated my name because my
father it was like being bougie and like having that
name and pretending that he was a father. And it
happened in college. I had never legally been Paraslla. It
was just that in third grade I went with John
Paracella to register at school and they asked my last name,

(12:07):
and I felt guilty that it was Frankly, it was
on my passport my whole life, and so I said Paracella,
and there are so many people in my life that
only know me as Beth Paraslla. But so in college
because of my stepfather really lashing out at me, every
single thing I owned came to my dorm room from
my life with my mother and my stepfather. He had

(12:29):
physically lashed out at me, and I took the name Frankel,
and I leaned in and I wanted my real father
to like accept me, like I was gonna now be
his daughter. And he dropped me like a hot potato.
He wanted nothing to do with me. He literally all
the courting. It was like I was a woman that
had been courted and just dumped. It was like the
dog chases the cat, the cat runs away, the cat
chases the dog, the dog runs away. So he was

(12:50):
not a great person, and he was really pretty much
a piece of shit my whole life. And I tried
so hard to write letters and to ask him, and
he just really was this cold, detached person. My mother
was not detached in that same way. She was miserable
and toxic and mean, but she had emotions underneath and
would cry and wasn't detached like you could have. You know,

(13:12):
she was emotional, but just very erratic. So my real
father when he died, it was not the same type
of feeling. It just wasn't the same brand it was.
My ex was with me, my daughter was in my belly.
I tried to make meaning out of it. I took
some meaningful things from his house that I still have here.
He was hostile in his death. On a Today's Show
episode about Father's Day, I said something like, and I

(13:34):
don't really have a father, like a throwaway comment, but
down deep, I guess he loved me, and he used
to watch every single thing that I did, and he
used to watch The Apprentice and he rooted for me.
But what good is loving someone if you're not going
to tell them or remote He just was not capable,
which was the problem that my mother had with him,
And he never was able to be in relationship because
of his generational trauma and his parents and how they were.

(13:58):
And when he heard me say that on that show
that day, he really cut me off in his mind,
cut me off financially, which was a part of the relationship.
Like every year, I think he'd send me five hundred
dollars for or maybe more for my birthday or twenty
five hundred dollars. Fifteen hundred dollars was all the money
in the world to me. I waited for it for
some reason, because I always have to be fully accountable.

(14:18):
For some reason, he agreed to pay fifty thousand dollars
for my first wedding. I should have just taken the money.
I don't know why he agreed to do that. And
there was a negotiation and a debate back and forth
about who was going to pay for my college between
he and John. So he died and I was I
really didn't care that much. It didn't affect me. This

(14:40):
loss of my mother was a very different brand of death,
and I did not expect to experience what I would experience.
So the way that I went into this, which was
not intentional, just what happened. I'm a loner. Another thing.
My father, my real father, was a loaner. He was
a loner's whole life. He'd be alone in the house.
My mother was a loaner too. It's Kelly Rippa who

(15:01):
said to me, that's genetic. And I am a loner
a lot. So I intervene in that and I do
a lot more than they did. But and like my father,
like his work became his social every day you get
up and you shower, and you go to the track
and you see people and you go to dinner, like
so my work and that the Housewives in that way
was good for me. Reality television was good for me

(15:23):
because I would be even in my twenties, I was
the one who wanted to like a home early and
be in my pajamas and could be alone for days
on end and like not tell anybody about it. I
could like not do Thanksgiving because it was triggering me,
and I'd be alone and I wouldn't tell anybodycause I don't
want like anyone to know or feel bad. And some
of you can relate to that. The pandemic leaned right
into that for me and really like enveloped me in

(15:44):
it being okay and normalizing being alone. And so it's
taking I'm still it's still taking me a while to
get myself out. And so I think that Jewish people
in sitting shiva is a good thing. And I was
talking actually to Jill Zarin about this, because you grieve
for a week. But what I personally don't agree with
is the distraction of it. Because when Dennis died I

(16:08):
went to the funeral and I remember drinking wine that
morning because it was like making me cope. And then
I went over to someone's house after that they were
having you know, they're starting, I guess to shive at
their house. And then you were in your house and
people flew into New York and like came to see
me and like it does help, and they're visiting, and
it's it's you know, if you have a family, you're
doing it together. And I'm not. I'm not there's no
way to judge anyone's version of how they're going to

(16:30):
do this. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just
saying if you're a person, that can really distract. Because
I had an ex who had a mother who died
and we did shive for a week and all we
did was drink and tell stories and look at pictures,
and then it was over and then you know, people
go back to normal life and you've had like a
social week, and that's jarring. So I have not done
it that way. My daughter came back to me. I

(16:51):
was supposed to go to a volleyball tournament, and thank
god she had the volleyball tournament. It was my weekend
with her. I did not want her to be laying
with me in misery, and like I didn't want to
like share that with her. She knew my mother, but
she had seen her two times in person and done
art with her and spend time with her. She would
call her sometimes and send her things, in fact, and
in fact, when my mother would call, she would really

(17:12):
just stay to brin like I don't have much to say,
colostomy bag and I'm this and it's that, and not
really much good. Like she was selfish in that way too,
Like she wasn't saying, oh, tell me about what's going
on outside, or let's talk about your mom when she
was a little girl, Like my mother was not capable of,
like not being super deep and dumping really adult shit
on my daughter, because that's what she did on me

(17:33):
my whole life. But my daughter's not equipped for that.
Like I was an adult at five years old, and
that's not like when I first found my mother's throwing
up and found her her her trolley and her laxative
caddie and would call the cops and see people being beaten,
you know, with an inch of their life, like and
was at the racetrack with degenerates and drugs and guns
like I was an adult. It's just what it is.

(17:54):
I'm not complaining, no poor me. I'm just saying, like,
my daughter's not that person, and I can get into that.
And how I described this to her yesterday, you could
see she doesn't even have the emotional bandwidth to hear
the stories of my childhood, which have been very watered
down but just need to be explained so she doesn't
wonder why her mom never had a relationship with her mom,
and now her mom's dead, and now her mom's mom

(18:16):
is dead, and now her mom is crying and wait,
you could have been like trying to very very dilute
it down and fold into the batter some stories of
my life and how it wasn't great. I mean, she's
old enough to understand to realize that, not to process it.
But I didn't want her. I was so happy she
had this volleyball tournament. I actually there was a moment
when I thought like I was going to be there,

(18:36):
like that's psychotic now realizing what I've gone through, But
I like put her somewhere, and I was so happy,
and she won a medal, which of course I had
placed meaning on and she came back on Sunday and
she had all her stuff and she was exhausted, and
you know, she hugged me and we had ramen together
and it was a distraction and I was glad for it.
And I made her this amazing cinnamon roll in the

(18:57):
morning that I like wanted to I was so tired
of because I was three hours a night, but like
just was paranoid that I wouldn't wake up and be
able to make her this big, like gold belly cinnamon
roll of strawberry frosting, and like she's like, I love you, mamma,
can I U can? We hug and we hugged, and
you know, and and just showing I've she has been
showing her pictures of my mom. Like I haven't dumped
the whole bag of shit on her at all, but it's,
you know, she's getting it. She's very emotionally, you know,

(19:20):
intelligent and and so off she went to school and
then she went to her dad for a couple of days,
and so that was good too. So I have been
alone in my house. I have people that work here
that I've been with me for years, that I love,
that have gone through their own losses and have experienced
the dentist losses of me that you know, it's made
meaning there because I've thought about them and their children

(19:42):
and the things that they've gone through and how they're
always for me and they're my family, but like they're
not really my family, meaning in the sense that like
I don't live in their house. And we started talking
about some of their traumas and things that have happened
for them. And I have always you know, Laney's been
in my life for so many years. I've always said
she's in my will. But like saying that, I mean
God forbid dropping dead tomorrow and her not being and
my will are not the same thing. And so I

(20:04):
like started to take the action with my you know, team,
to like actually put them in my will and in
my like what's going to happen to them? And they're old,
They've spent all these years working with me, and like,
you know, like are they going to be are they
going to be protected? What's most important to them is it?
Are they worried about being old and alone? No, because
some of them have big families. They you know, is
Laney worried that her son is not going to be

(20:25):
able to go to college? Does she want that for him?
Like what what worries her? And I didn't want to
make her feel vulnerable and uncomfortable, but for her to
talk to, you know, my business people about like what
you know, how they can be protected, like my home
version of whatever a retirement account is, and like a
will and things like that. You know. It was like
Lane's going to be in a Rolls Royce. When I
dropped dead, I was alone the whole week. I was alone,

(20:49):
listening to seventies, you know, Carol King radio and like
having memories of Barry Mann alone. My first album it
was the Big White one that opened and had like
three parts to it, and I wore it down and
Neil Diamond and Carly Simon and James Taylor and airs
supply and it brought back a lot of memories. There
were some songs I absolutely couldn't couldn't listen to, and

(21:12):
and I took nature walks and reconnected and connected with
my area because I don't have a good relationship with exercise.
And I'm always envious to people who like every morning
they just worked out, and you know I do that
in the Hamptons. I go on my beach walks, and
it opened up this I couldn't say in my house.
So every day, twice a day, I would like put
my big hat on and put the Carol King radio

(21:34):
on and listen to Barry Manilow and everybody nothing modern.
I literally did not crave. I was like rejecting anything current,
anything like there could be the way we were, like
a gaga could slip in because it like is nostalgic
from the way we were, but like nothing, and I
didn't want any of it. And I cried on these

(21:55):
walks and I connected with nature and my lived in
my childhood, and through this week decided that I was
going to finally go visit Saratoga, where I went as
a kid, and I was gonna take Brin back there
because I have not been willing to revisit there. I've
never gone back because it was the only escape from
this hell. And we would have one month and there
would always the would still be fights up there, but
I don't remember there being a lot of like police

(22:16):
level fights. I remember everybody just being happy up there
for that one month, and my mother wasn't always there.
But like I said, those drives up there, the memories
are chill my skin like, and Saratoga's changed so much.
It's not a place that's nostalgic anymore. It's very commercial
and like it used to be so farm stand and
so provincial, and so I like have it in a
time capsule, and I just haven't wanted to go this

(22:38):
place dairy house that had this like soft custard with
so many flavors that we used to go to, and like,
I have all these memories, so all these memories were
flooding in that I never had because the music was
connected to the memories. And my version of sitting Shiva
was a week of just being alone and really like
you know, having compassion and forgiving and going there real

(23:00):
and doing therapy, realizing that if your formative years or
zero to eight, that like that's why these are so strong,
like these memories and you know, and that's also when
it was like bad. But I just you know, I
had my own version. Today's the first day I've washed
my hair. And it's funny because I was looking I
was I showered to say, have my grandma's sweater on,

(23:20):
and I was thinking, like I was listening to the
song You're so vain and there's a line in You're
So Vain from Carly Simon about Saratoga, and I was
thinking about how I'm not so vain and people comment
on that that I'm willing to be like just look
like this and not you know, care. And my mother
was not pretentious or superficial. She was vain, but she

(23:40):
was the one wearing overalls to the you know, during
the day all the time. She never had makeup on,
like you know, there are a lot of similarities with
myself and her. She didn't wasn't vain in that way.
She was internally like you know, with a disorder pain vein,
like it was just she just that addiction and that
bolimia just just ruled her entire life and killed her.

(24:02):
And it's crazy that the one thing that she was
so vain about was the thing that rotted her. And
I have a different relationship to age now. You know,
people used to think that you were in your late
thirty your thirties and like you were done, like you
were look old. And she thought she was old at forty,
I mean, and she started to look old at forty
because of what she was doing to her body and
destroying herself. But like it's hard for me because I'm

(24:23):
having a rebirth right now, like I'm healing generational trauma
right now, and I am at an age where I
looked at her as so old, and so there's a
lot of guilt, a lot of guilt, like, you know,
I don't like me. I want to fix everything, and
my therapist says, I fix everything. I go there's a
problem in the Hampton's right now with encampments, and like

(24:44):
I've got my team there, palettes of aid. There's something
going on in Puerto Rico, like I saw it. Why
you know, why couldn't I go to Florida and just
be like, I'm gonna like solve this, and you're gonna
go into this type of rehab and you're gonna be like,
I don't know. And I was scared to do that
and I didn't even know to do that, and I
had so much anger for my life. You know, it's

(25:04):
like it's Monday morning quarterback. Listen. She had a friend,
she had a good friend who knew nothing about this,
so she compartment mentalized this enough that she had a
friend that is in that house showing me Cartier giant
pearl earrings that we've like I've put next to pictures
at my confirmation Tiffany Pearls and I mentioned the brands

(25:25):
because I didn't realize, Like she's the one who made
my stepfather like into nice things and cultured all of
us with like knowing what things were and like disco music,
which I wasn't even allowed. I realized that too. My
mother was living at Studio fifty four as Studio fifty
four when I was growing up, That's when she was
going out partying, and like I lived for disco. I

(25:47):
had a secret life on hot skates. No one at
my school they would have made fun of me. They
all were into the doors. Everybody that went to Saint
Agnes and sixth and seventh and eight, you know grade
there was no disco. I had a secret life of disco.
No one knew about Indian food, No one knew about sushi.
My mother was living this Like she went to f
I t she went to Pratt, she went to Parsons.
She was like this like fabulous person. I don't know

(26:08):
where she got it from. It's like amazing to see that,
Like she left her house at sixteen and just found fabulosity.
It really really is and I've been talking a lot
about well. First, Brenne and I decided together, we came
up with a good solution for her ashes her friend
in Florida. I got her someone to take care of
her for the last couple of years. And this woman
is like, you need to come here, and you need

(26:28):
to do this here, you know all this, And I
was feeling guilty because I was feeling like, I don't
want to go in that. I don't think I can
handle going in that apartment. But then why should I
go there? And her friend, her actual friend of eleven years,
was like, no, she hated and I remember that she
hated Florida as a kid, And this makes me sad too.
I said to her friend, why did she move to Florida.
She hated Flora. She never went out, she didn't go swim,
she didn't go to the beach, She couldn't give a shit.

(26:50):
And this woman said, because she wanted to go somewherehere
no one knew her, which also broke my heart. Like
a picture that this woman sent me of her, this
beautiful specimen of all those that had all the all
the opportunity and just continue to choose the wrong men
and devolve. You know, men are such a massive theme
and and and devolve that this man the last man

(27:12):
that beat her, and there were police reports that this
her friend found and before that was an alcoholic. Like
the male choices were just always driven by how someone
loved her, never how she loved them. Something that is
like genetic, like something that has been a massive theme
in my life. And you know, my daughter, there'll be
a boy in school and she'll say, ex likes me

(27:33):
a lot of many times, and she's never seen anything
about this with me, Like this is like it's like
in our weaving of the souls. As Michael Caponi, my
philanthropy partner, said, you know, my daughter will say this
person likes me. I'm like, okay, do you like them?
Like I'm you know, trying to break these chains by
also saying like, it's great that someone likes you. And yes,

(27:54):
it's great someone be chivalrous and like you first and
write the Valentine first or whatever happens. But like, ultimately
someone else cannot love or like you enough for you
to like them like or love them like it's not
that's not how this thing is gonna work. And I
realize now that like it's because she came from an
abusive household with a father that was a tyrant, and

(28:14):
so she just went out and wanted love, like if
someone would love her enough. John Paracela love bombing, he lived,
love bombed her all those Cardier stuff and those pearls
and everything, but she couldn't even afford himself, like she
was this woman who was so stunning and perfect, like
he wanted to like, you know, and same with Bobby,
Like she didn't really love these guys, and she really
she loved one of the guys after you know, before

(28:36):
the monster. This like one guy, but he was an
alcoholic and she was attracted to that for that reasons,
Like we have to intervene in our lives and think
about why we're choosing people. The game is moving very
quickly when you are choosing people, but you have to
find a way to think about why and and and so,
like I'm thinking about that for my own life, Like
you just want people, you know, several of my axes

(28:57):
have said to me or friends have said to me,
about these people. You're never gonna find someone who's going
to love you as much as they do. And one
of my exes said to me, you will never find
someone who will love you as much as I will,
pleading with me to be with them, and as a
person who had no real parents or parental structure, like, yes,

(29:18):
take me. I want to be loved. I want to
be loved. To give it to me, you love, Yes,
I believe you. I believe in I believe it. No
one's gonna love how No one loved me as a child.
Why would anyone else love me more than this person
who wants to be my family? And then it gets
layered that like with my ex Peter, who I married
like his parents. I loved his parents. His mother was
like a mother to me. Mary and Sussman was like

(29:38):
a mother to me. She took me wedding dress shopping.
She would take me and it wasn't about the material things,
but she would take me to go like to where
are we gonna get the wedding test? To get my
makeup done? And she would like take me shopping is
a you know mother would do. And she would talk
to me and she was funny and like I was
marrying them too, you know, like there are different reasons.
They may not even be the person you're with. You're

(29:58):
marrying their family, Like they're different reasons we're making these decisions,
and like I when we broke up, you know, it
broke my heart that I broke her heart because she
loved me, and I broke her heart, And like they
don't come from or understand a person from a damaged
childhood like myself. Brian Koppleman, you know his his mother,
Bunny Coplelman loved me. I was like attracted to her.

(30:20):
You know, you're you're finding these different things. So I
realized when my mom, I was doing what my mother
was doing for so many years and and I haven't
been able to crack into this. I haven't been serious
about therapy for a while where I'll be like regular
where like you know how you'll like make a standing
manicure appointment and be like, Okay, the second I leave here,
I'm making the next appointment. That's how regular I've been

(30:42):
in the last couple of uh, certainly the last year,
maybe a couple of years, but really the last year
where it's like f and it it could be and
the same thing for my daughter, it'll be like it
could be once a month. It just has to be
like that. It's happening again, because it's something you may
not want to do, but once you do it, you
feel bet or it's like working out. And if you
cannot afford therapy, you know, do the apps that have

(31:05):
a therapist. Okay, if you cannot afford therapy, go online
and look up things that you know, people like me
and other people say like generational trauma or like formative years,
like I literally till yesterday did not really realize and
had to send to my friend who was a complicated
relationship with her mother the formative year thing, which gave
me some comfort. It made me realize, Okay, maybe I'm

(31:27):
not in a total basket case, because I do have
glimpses of love from when I was a kid, and
going through the old pictures is bringing me there. And
it made me very sad the first couple of days
of this grief, like tortuously, like bad, and because I
wanted my mommy and I wanted to be there and
I wanted more of it. And that move you move

(31:47):
through that, you move out of the bad, you move
into that, and then you move into like guilt and
like logic and what you could have done and you
could have brought you know, and then and then you
kind of go in and out of that, and then
you're just playing nostalgic songs and they're just reminding you
of something and you're just like honoring. I'm wearing a
ring that was my mother, that was mine when I
was thirteen, and a one that I bought with Brynn

(32:09):
recently in an antique shop that we believe is the
same one that I had when I was younger, because
I've never seen anyone else with it, but we want
to believe that this bee that I got for like
my confirmation, that's like a diamond script bee, and like,
you know, just trying to connect and like, there's a
beautiful picture of my mother when she looks like the
bandu sole, like this French beautiful woman, and she had

(32:29):
these two rings on that she wore every day and
I've always coveted them. And this friend of hers that
found like found these pictures sent a picture. I'm like,
oh my god, those are the rings, and she's like
in a scavenger hunt and she found them for me,
and it's making me so happy that she had this
friend of eleven years that I'm connecting with and that
you know, she deserves all this stuff. I'm like, take

(32:50):
whatever you want, and she's like, no, I want you
to have it all. And it's like, like I said,
Cartier and stuff, real stuff. And it makes me happy
because it means she had a friend that she could
trust because anybody could have gone in there. My mother
was so vulnerable and anybody would take from her. Anybody
could have gone in there and stolen all this stuff.
And this beautiful person, Julia is her name, but it's
spelled like with an L. And she said to me

(33:11):
that she's now connecting with her mother because of this.
She bought her mother a ticket. So I'm feeling like
there's all these like things swirling because of this death,
and I'm sharing it with you because a lot of
things are swirling with you and a lot of you
are reconnecting, and my friend is now thinking about therapy,
and like a lot of stuff is swirling with mothers
and daughters and it's and we're entering where we're coming
into Mother's Day. It's like the perfect time to talk

(33:32):
about this stuff. And I'm sending people a lot of
messages saying it doesn't matter. I know your mother abuse,
do I know she's angry and evil and all. It's
not really about that. It's about doing something so you
don't go through like torture and trauma. Like take one
part of that off, Go send her a mixtape of
songs from her generation, write a letter, send a gift,
because this person is in tremendous pain. They've been evil,

(33:54):
but they didn't just wake up and decide to be evil.
That's the generational trauma. That's the stuff that comes from
decades that was passed down. And like, there are ways
that I am like my mother, even though it's stuff
that I don't want to be. And there are ways
that I'm like my father, but you know, at least
to understand where you come from and why. You know.
I can be biting, you know, but I've turned it
into a good sometimes in the sense that you know,

(34:18):
my daughter's pretty incredible, and I don't suffer fools, and
I don't negotiate with terrorists, and I'm strict in that way.
She messes around me, she disrespects me, she says something like,
I snap it right away. I don't let really any
of them slide. I'm tremendously loving and amazing, and I
never turned down a snuggle. I never turned down a cuddle.

(34:39):
We hog. I mean, I live for my kid, but
I don't play games. And the way that I with
my daughter that I've handled it was is to like
tell her the stories, but like not you know, overwhelm
her with it, you know. And Melinda, my therapist, who's
a psychoanaly is like so happy. She's like can't believe.

(35:02):
She's like, now the deep work will happen. And the
same thing with Breck. They're like, this is profound because
I feel different already. I feel like different, even that
I'm willing to go back to Saratoga, even that I've
been willing to like think about my childhood and go there,
it's a door that's been locked. And reconnecting with people.
Matt Littman said to me, Toady, did you butt dial me?
Because like, I don't talk to my friends from that age.

(35:23):
I transact with them like once in a while, they'll
be like someone will see something and instagram a message me.
But anyone from pretty much my entire childhood until my twenties,
with the exception of two friends that I met in
high school, but I met them in boarding school, so
I was removed from the situation, and one of them,
I moved out of boarding school into their house, just

(35:44):
to give you an idea of like I moved into
another person's home with it. You know, those are my
two friends. But it's interesting because I met them out
of this psychotic environment. So I've like they're they're in
some sort of separate bubble, you know, like they're they're
they're they're like protected from I did anybody that I
met through that entire life, even my friend Alyssa that
I was good friends with, whose mother took me to

(36:06):
the hospital when I had chicken pox because my stepfather
John ignored me when I said I had bumps all
over my stomach and like no one, I had no
parents to take me to doctors. I hurt myself fell
off a mountain years ago. My mother kind of like
blew me off on the phone, like there was no compassion,
no caring, no chicken soup. When you don't feel well,
when you're an adult, no one's moving you into a
college dorm, no one's moving you out, no one's you know,

(36:28):
like I was in a so Alyssa, who's mother and
you know, horrified that I literally had chicken pox at
eighteen years old, took me to the hospital. I had
one hundred and five. I fainted when they took my blood.
Like all these people I've really kept in arms length,
They're like, well, text me and I'll say thank you
and excel. Like they're just like I've cut them out.

(36:49):
I've like put them in a compartmentalized state. And now
I've been reconnecting with them, you know, because like I
can like deal with what part of my life they
were adjacent to. And I know a lot of this
is going to be like very familiar to you, and
you didn't even know it reading my old journals. And
what's crazy, though, is that John was like actually a

(37:09):
pretty not a bad, terrible person. It's the only time
he really ever touched me, and there was a time
he stopped touching her, but his degenerate friends did sexually,
you know, assault abused me, and because he was around degenerates.
But he's eighty two years old, and I forgive because
he had a heart and he cared and he was,

(37:30):
you know, living in a life of animals, like you know,
and he was enraged and substances and you don't think
about it when you're young. You don't know like people
could be doing. They're doing cocaine and like they're what
they're doing, You don't know what the hell they're doing.
It's due to fifty four. They're not doing you know,
they're not They're not drinking fucking boba. He did. He
treated me like a daughter, and I have he has
to get that credit. And he did admit what went

(37:52):
on way more than my mother did. And I'm gonna
have a driver take him because I don't think he
can he can't. I'm not gonna have him drive himself,
but IM gonna I have someone take him bring him
to my house. I have a property. It feels weird.
He's Celiac, I guess, and he's lost a lot of weight,
and it feels weird to like be in a restaurant
with him. And it's going to be uncomfortable for me.
It's to be comfortable for Britney's and look very old
and frail, and it's gonna be triggering. But I'm going

(38:14):
to put that aside because that's a lot of why
I didn't see my mother. And I'm going to have
him brought here and sit out on the lawn and
he'll get to like watch her do sports, and he'll
he asked about her metal. I've been texting him. He
texts very fast. We've been laughing. We actually were talking
about some of my personal traumas that we've discussed on
my other podcasts that you guys won't listen to because

(38:35):
I'm not going to get specific right now, but you'll
understand what I'm saying. And I said to him that
someone once told me when they were kind of threatening me,
now you're going to see what I was like on
the basketball court. Incidentally, he was best friends with Rick Patino,
the famous basketball coach who actually named horses after like
him and stuff like that. And he was a big

(38:56):
basketball fan. And he went to Saint John's stepfather and
it made me laugh because this was a person who
had played basketball, but not professionally, just like was a
good basketball player. And I said, he was asking about
a situation of my life. And I said to him,
this person said to me, now you're going to see
what I was like on the basketball court. And I said,

(39:17):
I said, I survived, and I prevailed, and I fought
hard and I came out on top. And I said
to John Paracella, I said, I said, I should have
said back, Now you're going to see what I was
like on the racetrack at five years old at the
shoeshine stand, hanging out in the jockeys room. I mean
like and he laughed because like he was, like he said,

(39:38):
there's nobody the NBA growing up. Now you're gonna see
what I was like on the NBA basketball court still
does not hold a candle to being raised on the
racetrack by wolves and animals. So we laughed because like
it's very It's like people want to know why I
am like the way I am. It's I was because
I grew up on the racetrack. It's like it's there's

(39:59):
no place, you know, it's not a place to be raised.
I mean I remember going to John Paracela and being
at OTB off track bedding, the degenerate place. People were

(40:19):
smoking and like gambling. It's seven years old. We'd stop
at OTB because he was John Paracel. It was a
degenerate gambler who'd crack my piggy bank open for money.
I mean, it's like crazy. So this is like a memoir.
In the end, this is podcast. So Melinda, my psychoanalyst,
said something so fascinating, which you guys are going to
think is interesting. And it's about she said, your mother.

(40:40):
We came up with this together. But like the fact
that my mother would have a lifelong eating disorder, which
by the way, affected me too. There was a time
in like high school, high school when people were talking
about food, and I talked to my daughter about that
yesterday too, I told her about the eating disorder. I
was like, listen to me, girls are going to come
in with fat diets and I only ate this and
I look fat and I look and I'm like, that
will ruin your life. It's almost like when people tell

(41:01):
their kids, like, don't do you do drugs, You'll die,
Like it will ruin your life. That's why we never
talk about food in this house. We don't talk about
any why I was bad, it was good, this thin weight,
it's like not discussed in my house. There was the
word die is in the word diet is not discussed.
So and my whole life it was my mother. Oh,
I gained ten pat like every day, and I had

(41:22):
that where there were times that I took laxatives and
there were times when I would in living in that
apartment in New York City, where I would, you know,
go out night and get drunk, go to nightclubs, come
home downstairs and eat like a whole you know, Enteman's cake,
or eat pint device and a binge because you were drinking.
I did. Then college to you get a whole pizza

(41:43):
and then starve. I never had the throw up that's disgusting.
I never had that. I could never make myself throw up,
but like and then would starve myself. I'm gonna be good,
I'm gonna be bad. So it wasn't a classic eating
disorder like that is like anorexic or believe it. But
it was a disorder because it wasn't in order. And
that's what I wrote Naturally Thin about because I don't
know how I got involved in my own life because

(42:04):
I wanted to be happy. Your life was defined by
like I was good, I was bad, I was fat,
I was thin. I gained way to ruin your day,
you know, and I was like twenty five pounds heavier
because I had no It was a disorder, but it
wasn't in the you know, it never got completely out
of control. It was more binge and never perd binge.

(42:25):
And then knot eat and be good, good and bad.
Those words are not should not be associated with food.
Food is not your best friend or your enemy. That's
naturally thin. But Melinda said, I mean, Bethany, you have
a brand called skinny Girl, like like is it? Freud?
Is it? Who knows what? But like and then that
she was also in alcohol. Her big disorders were we're

(42:49):
eating and alcohol. I mean I made all my money
on alcohol. I mean, it's insane. But skinny Girl is
about having a good relationship with food. It's about allowing.
It was about allowing, like it was never about depriving.
The whole book, the whole brand was about like, now
you get to have a margarita that's slightly sweet. Now

(43:10):
you get to have microwave popcorn, but it's better for you.
Now you get to have salad dressings, but they're better
for you. It was never about depriving. So it was like,
somehow resolving that disorder. And yes, the word skinny can
be problematic, and if I were naming it tomorrow, I
wouldn't do that. It was just the margarita was a
skinnier version. But Freud would have a fucking field day

(43:30):
with that. Like that was like a resolution to a disorder,
and it became something you know, that represents a healthier
relationship with these things, to be able to have Margerita whatever,
and then alcohol, you know, to have an alcohol brand
and a wine brand. I mean she drank wine, you know,
out of the faucet. So and then she said, and now, Bethany,

(43:51):
this is becoming so clear because I told her my
mother wanted to be a star. She wanted to be fabulous.
You know. She held me down. I wanted to go
to acting classes. She wouldn't take me. She had a
friend she once told me to made commercials. I badgered
her day and night. She she didn't take me. She
once told me she made She once told me intentionally,
I guess that I was offered a Disney contract when

(44:12):
I was like five years old, and that she turned
it down. I regretted it my whole life, my whole life.
I obsessed over it, like I could have been something.
I could have had a Disney contract, like when I
was a little girl. I begged her, why didn't you
say yes? And like I wanted to go backwards. I
wanted to call the friend who did commercials, like she
never helped me. She never she wanted to be famous

(44:34):
like she wanted to be me. She was jealous of
me like and so Malinn and my father too, would
name drop the David Milch's and the dough Tories, and
you know, he was a horse training. He was good
at one thing, and he made a lot of He
made a lot of money. And I thought he was
so rich. And I was so enamored by the rich
and my father's rich and he lives in the Pacific
Palisades and go to the Derby and pretend and pretend

(44:56):
and pretend. And Melinda said you, and I said, passed
all of their goals. I am wealthier, even even with
inflation and all of it. I'm more successful, more relevant,
more wealthy than my father. I and my Linda said
to me, you surpassed and you completed their goals, like
that's what happens with generational trauma, Like you completed each

(45:18):
of their goals. And that all the times that people
ask me why I have the hard work and determination
and the drive, I never go deep enough. I think
it's my father was very driven and he was the
best of what he did. And my mother too, she
was a worker. They were workers she worked her ass off.
She didn't complain. She was They were. They are people
who worked. They are not complainers. They are workers like I.

(45:39):
You know, I'm surrounded by people sometimes like people I've
been in relationships with. People want wah and they're complaining
and what like pros play hurt. That's how I grew
up like pros play hurt. Period. No complain, no explain,
Like I work. You take all my money today, I'll
be at a restaurant. Tomorrow, I'll be making money. I'll
be working, I'll be bartending, I'll be. I am a
worker today day I die. And I don't expect anyone

(46:02):
to ever do anything that I've never done. But I
took whatever they did into the end zone, you know.
And there's something about that that I that I like
feel in my body like I did it, I made it.
And I think she thinks that that is very related
the hard work and drive. So there's a lot that's

(46:25):
like unfolding, and that's why it's been good for me.
The music, the walking, like the being alone, like I'm
using this to be good to like, you know, work
it out. Brennan and I decided we were gonna take cookies.
Ashes which have been in my laundry room in a
corner for years. We have not touched them, we have
not addressed it. But we made a decision that we
would take my mother's ashes because her friend that has

(46:46):
been this good friend is gonna come here. I'm gonna
fly her here. I'm gonna send something, Send some money
to that woman who's been taking care of her, who's
like at her house, like take care of as many
people as I can. Fly her friend here, have her
stay here, put her in a hotel, hell, give her
an experience. She's reconnected with her mother, as I told you.
And we're gonna put the ashes with cookies, I think

(47:06):
in the water my new house in the Hampton, so
like Cookie and my mother together. I know this is
all not real, and like you know, it's things that
we make up and you know, our lives, but maybe
it is real. I said to Brim, what do you
think happens? She said, I don't know, Mama. She said,
I think you come back. I think you recarnate. She
didn't say those words, so I think you come back
as something else. I said what she said, like and

(47:27):
I was sharing with Michael Capponi my partner said, he said,
one day, I'll tell you what I think. And you know,
he talked about the weaving of the souls and he's
in Ta Cabala and spirituality. But he said, maybe one day,
you know, bring comes back as your mother's daughter, and
like all that gets resolved. And I can't see anything
but my mother and my daughter right now. I can't
see like you guys brought it to my attention. I

(47:49):
had seen it myself, but was like, thinking, it is
it true? And she looks like her and she has
that like seventies essence of her, so I can't see anything.
But and I was thinking maybe cookie and bring love
ish she like, can we do that, Mama? And all
the stuff the way I sell bags and that a
lie address that I can't believe this woman found in
my mother's closet from thirty years ago. All of this
stuff is going to come. And Broom was like, please, Mama,

(48:10):
please don't do it without me, like please, And I
hate stuff, but I'm like, I can't wait for it
to come, and I can't wait to go through it
with Brin. So that's all got you know, got meaning,
And it's just important that I really mention, Well, first

(48:32):
that there have been a lot of signs. You know.
My mother was the one who say to me, a
black crow is a sign of death. And I saw
a black crow the other day just like by itself
and it wouldn't move, and I like, I remember her
saying that, and so that was meaningful to me. So
many crazy memories that like are so insane. It's a movie.
It's like literally it's a movie. So I have you know,

(48:53):
I can't really just make it all that. It was
like I was living every day and my house was
like shit, it wasn't they were just it just wasn't
a child's house, you know. But take these moments with
your family, Take these moments with your kids. Take these
moments and really appreciate them, like as Mother's Day comes,
like appreciate them, cherish them because they're like fireflies. I

(49:15):
think it's so crazy that they call that movie Firefly
Lane because they're like fireflies, like they're fleeting. And then
you're in a bed crying at fifty three and you're
like remembering just like an ice cream cone with your
mother that's like the firefly like popcorn in the middle,
and you know, on a road like why do I
just remember rest stop popcorn? Like I and Brynn recently,
when I was going to go that weekend, she was like,

(49:36):
wanted to go on a road trip because I have
a driver. He always drives us. It's like I want
to go just mom and Peanut and I want to go,
and like We're going to take a road trip. I'm
planning a trip this summer. You know, pictures on my
mother for me and taking me to Egypt and Greece,
and like this summer, I'm taking on a special trip,
but not just like one of these like fancy like
Sancho pe I'm taking her somewhere or see something that
we haven't seen. So it's got meaning. I'm making meaning

(49:59):
out of this, and I believe I'll be I have
a more open heart, more forgiving, and I've taken the
entirety of my mother and I've put this, all of
this through a strainer and it's I'm I just have
the good now. I'm just I just have the good
and there's I'm gonna make meaning out of it. And
this podcast has been such a gift to have a

(50:20):
place to put this. I have like had this inside
and me been writing notes, reading journals, listening to letters,
all of it. And and I had an experience recently
where Brynn was feeling from you know, someone that she
had the weight of the world and she's feeling guilty
and someone's making her feel guilty of something about something,
and she feels everything and like she's wearing it. And
you know, one day we'll get into the pandemic. And

(50:43):
and how much she had on her back when she
my kid broke down bad. And that's how we started
her therapy. I said to her yesterday, you are a
butterfly and you have to do what work, what is
good for you and what is healthy for you. And
I will always support that you are not living my life.
You are not living any parents life. It's amazing that
she right now is making meaning out of this and

(51:04):
wanting to spend time with her grandparents and wanting to
be more thoughtful, et cetera. I said to regarding anything
negative in her feeling this pressure as that you are
living your this is your life. You fly, but love
you guys, Thank you, and thank you for all the messages.
I'm learning from you as much as hopefully you're learning
or just expressing or being inspired by whatever this brings

(51:27):
up for you,