May 14, 2025 • 31 mins
K.J. Aiello is a Canadian who describes herself as a mentally ill writer. It is, she says, who she is. K.J. discusses her fabulous new book, "The Monster and The Mirror." It's a unique blend of memoir, research, and cultural criticism in which K.J. tries to understand her own mental illness using "The Lord of the Rings," "Game of Thrones," and other stories as guides to heroism and agency as well as cautionary tales of how mental illness is easily stereotyped as bad and violent. K.J. and her work can be accessed at https://www.kjaiello.ca/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
Welcome everybody.
This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction,brought to you by Westwords Consulting.
I'm Mike McGowan.
A while back I had the privilegeof speaking with our guest today,
K. J. Aiello, about mental illnessand the stigma around that term.
K. J. is one of my favorite people.
She's a Toronto based mentally illwriter whose work includes essays,
(00:33):
op-eds, and recently and recently.
Released a nonfiction book titledThe Monster and The Mirror, which
explores the intersection ofspeculative fiction and mental illness.
I'm gonna mention this, even thoughwe talked about the last time,
she also authored a brilliantarticle, just brilliant that was
available and I'll put a link toit in the independent publication.
The walrus titled, whoGets To Be Mentally Ill?
(00:55):
Well, since May is Mental HealthAwareness Month here in the States,
we thought it would be a great timeto talk to K. J. again to celebrate
the rollout of her book and to chatabout the state of our mental health.
Welcome back, K. J..
Thank you for having me again.
God.
Well, it's so fun.
You are one of my favorite people.
Thank you.
Since we last talked, and I know Italked about this to you a couple
(01:16):
of years ago, and then againlast year your book came out.
It did.
So I want, I, since I haven't hadthat experience, I wanna talk about
what's the reception been like?
Are you doing appearances?
Talk about that stuff.
Yeah, it's been wild.
Well.
So a little bit of context here.
My book came out and I think it wasabout four or five days previously,
(01:39):
I, my cat passed away, and I know,you know, as a state of the world,
oh, cat passing away, but...
Oh, no, no, no.
It really, yeah, she wasmy, my little companion.
So, and then three days afterthat, I started an MFA program.
So it was a whirlwind and I don't thinkI've been able to catch my breath since.
And it's, it's been, I am grateful forall of the, the warm reception that the
(02:06):
book has received, as well as, you knowthe Can Lit or Canadian Literary community
here, as well as some, you know, literarycommunities in the US embracing me and
embracing my work and my thoughts andopinions, which is kind of wild to me.
But I'm also, I'm feeling very exhausted.
I
bet.
Yeah, it's taken a tollon my mental health.
(02:26):
But yeah, I think it's thepeople who are reading the book.
I think it's, it's hitting themin ways I did not really expect.
I think it's helping people tofeel seen, to find nuanced layers
to our conversations aroundmental health and mental illness.
(02:48):
As well as folks who just, you know,feel othered or, or they want, they
want to learn more about how thesemental health conversations and
mental illness and othering it'splaced in our political discourse.
So.
It's not just about dragons.
(laughs)
No.
No.
In fact, well, there's a millionquestions come up right away.
Let me start with your cat, sorry.
(03:08):
Because your cat played a rolein your growing up too, so.
That's not easy.
I'm sorry about that.
Yeah, it's, it's a different kitty.
She was the one who I adopted aftersome pretty traumatic experiences and
I thought, I need something in my life.
And it was this little creatureand it felt kind of full circle.
(03:29):
She lived 15 years.
Wow.
15 good years and.
It was almost like, you know, theuniverse said, okay, she's done her part.
And I know she's just acat, but she was my baby.
So it felt strange and full circleand wholesome and yet heartbreaking.
You know, K. J., I, I work with a,a lot of adolescents all the time.
(03:51):
That's what I was doing yesterday.
And your book.
I, the, I work with tons of kids who yourbook is perfect for, not that it's an
adolescent book, but they, they will beseen in that 'cause I can just see them.
But when I ask them, who's thebest listener in your life?
Who listens to you, animals come up.
Mm-hmm.
Number one, grandma all the time.
(04:12):
So it's not just a, a cat, it's your,some, many times it's for a lot of
kids, especially in dysfunctionalfamilies, it's their best friend.
Yeah, she was, and she also kindof gave me this she helped to teach
me what unconditional love is.
I mean animals will love youunconditionally, but also.
I found a way to look after anotherliving creature in a way that I'd
(04:35):
never, I'd never really felt in myown life at that point but that I
was capable and competent to do itand worthy enough to have this, this
little critter in my, she was so cute.
Oh yeah.
She was just the cutest.
(laughs)
(laughs) That's great.
Well, you know, you've talked a alot in, when our conversations about
going through, you went through alot, and I like that you describe
(04:56):
yourself as a mentally ill writer.
Like let's take the stigmaout of it right away.
But we've had a guest or two onin the last few months who have
talked about different therapies,everything from like ketamine
therapy and EMDR and other things.
What sorts of things have you triedover the years that helped you?
So I have not done any of the.
(05:17):
I don't know how to termthose other therapies.
You know, the non-traditionaltherapies, I guess is what we, well,
non-Western medicine traditional.
I do know that there are other culturesand traditions that do use some of these
other like ketamine or CBD, marijuana.
I have not, I, you know, I. Idon't know how to say it, but
(05:39):
I have partaken in the past.
(laughs) And it was not, it was not great.
I do not deal well withthose sorts of things.
But I also, I have found, I. When I met myhusband, I kind of found this soft place
to land and to fall apart and to reallykind of, you know, you can't organize
a closet unless you empty it out first.
And that was the process.
(05:59):
Over a couple years I just emptied outand then I sort of started to build
things back up again and I found thatthat was one of the best therapies
that, you know, in my medication.
And, you know, traditionaltherapy as well, talk therapy.
So for me, that has.
That has worked.
And I also, I feel really, reallygrateful that I actually don't
(06:21):
have to work a full-time job.
Mm-hmm.
I can look after my mental health and Iunderstand the privilege, the, you know.
That I have to be able to do that.
There are a lot of disabled folkswho, you know, they're living
under the, what it is, it the,the baseline living conditions.
What do they call that again?
Words.
Words.
Mike, you know, they're,under the poverty line.
(06:45):
Yeah, yeah.
You get, you get the point.
So.
For me, those, you know, non,non-Western traditional therapies,
I don't really want to try.
I don't think that they would work for me.
I, and they don't work for everybody.
But the people who they dowork for, you know what?
I am happy for them.
(07:05):
(laughs)
You know, your, your book, since youbrought it up, your book, I really
like the way you dealt with whatyou just brought up in your book.
You don't go into war stories orgreat detail, but you touch on
stuff and you let the reader know.
Yeah.
You dabbled in things that,that weren't helpful, right?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Without elaborating, making wholechapters about the one nighters or you
(07:29):
know, what you took or anything else.
Mm-hmm.
You know, it's, it's hard you, whenyou're struggling to find yourself
and if you're feeling invisible,to feel visible even for a day.
Yeah, that's, yeah, thatwas kind of what I did.
It was also, I think this sortof subliminal way to hurt myself.
Mm-hmm.
I had, you know, zero self-respect zero.
(07:50):
I, I also, I wasn't suicidal,but I also would not be sad
if a bus hit me, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Like, it wouldn't be a bad thing for me.
So I think all of those behaviorswas because I did not feel worthy.
I did not even really feel human and allI'd really known of love, particularly
(08:11):
love from, you know, romantic love orsexual attraction or anything like that.
It was very toxic.
Mm-hmm.
What I had learned, I think alot of women have had similar
experiences to, to varying degreesand it's very hard to find your.
Your self-respect, your self-worth,and you know, fight for your place
in this world when really by a lotof men and boys, you've been treated
(08:34):
like garbage, and then you havethat additional layer of, you know,
I do live with childhood trauma.
I was living with mental illness, youknow, it was just a perfect storm of, you
know, treating myself like a trash bin.
Really?
(laughs)
Yeah.
Well your book caught me.
Well, and I think it would catchanybody, like right away it just
hammers you right into the book.
And, and I don't meanthat in a negative way.
(08:56):
I'm like, oh my gosh.
Turn the page.
Turn the page.
There's no slow buildup.
You saw yourself, sort of as amonster, but did you see yourself
that way or do you think you viewedyourself that way because others
viewed the behavior monstrously?
I think it was a bit of both.
I always felt there was something alittle weird, a little different about
me, even from the time I was little.
(09:19):
I mean, I had a very active imagination.
I think a lot of kids do, and I thinkthat should definitely be encouraged.
But I also feel like, and also themessages that I got from my mother.
Growing up was, the world is evil.
The world is gonna hurt you,only I can take care of you.
Which I'm sure she meant well byit, but it was a very harmful,
(09:40):
toxic message for a little girl toget, particularly a little girl.
But I did feel like there was somethingweird about me that I was not right.
I always felt like I was.
Sort of just stepped outsidemy body all the time.
It was like this, you know, tracingpaper over an original I was the tracing
paper, just sort of a little bit skewedover top of the original that I was
(10:01):
supposed to be or what people saw me as.
And that, you know.
Only became more inculcated into my,into my self view and like who I was.
My base personality as I grewolder because yeah, I lashed
out when I was a kid a lot.
And the only way I knew how to, tofight back or to be heard was to
(10:22):
be violent, you know, and I don'tblame myself for doing that really.
I don't blame that little girl.
Well, some of the violence you know,when, when you're being bullied.
You know, they made movies aboutsome of it, it, some of your
behavior, especially with thelittle boy in the fence, it seemed,
seemed justified and almost heroic.
(10:42):
But then you're the one punished for it.
Yeah, I mean, of course I would be,first of all, it was the eighties.
(laughs) Let's be real.
I mean, we didn't, yeah, we did not haveconversations about bullying and I think
little girls and you know, perhaps.
Also today little girls are seenas far more compliant, far more at
(11:03):
the diplomat softer, gentler, andthey would not lash out like that.
I think girls and women aregiven such a hard time if they
do, you know, show assertion.
right.
Like, like a man or a boy would,you know, boys will be boys, right.
And that little boy, he was very much,I don't blame him either, because
(11:24):
where did he learn that behavior?
Right.
Well, and that's what I wasgonna ask you children, right.
Get most of their emotions throughthe adults and are defining them.
So you can, at some age, you're only ashelpful or healthy as the adults are.
If the adults aren't empathetic orunderstanding, or themselves not
functioning would allow your mom.
(11:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think you are, you're correct in that.
And I do think there, there'sa lot of nurturing element.
You know, you have yournature versus nurture.
I definitely think for me there is thenature part of me, I had you know, sort
of the risk factors for mental illness.
I was already a very, I was astrange child right out of the womb.
(12:08):
I was a strange child.
I think cool now, but, you know.
Yeah!
It comes across as cool.
Right, right.
(laughs) But I also think, you know,that the, the nurture aspect for me.
Really layered over top of the coolkid I could have been or would've
been allowed to have, you know, beencelebrated for all my weirdness.
(12:30):
I'm glad weird and nerd is in stylenow because you know (laughs).
S o yeah, I think that there's.
If there are little kids doing thingsthat are particularly alarming or
violent or lashing out, I don't reallywant to blame the children for doing
that because I do think that there wassomething learned there, some message
(12:54):
they received, whether the parentsknew, or know they're doing it or not.
I do think it's parents'responsibility to not fix themselves
first, but address your, address,your problems for your kids.
Don't, don't give them to your kids.
Don't give them to your kids.
We call that intergenerational trauma.
(13:15):
(laughs)
I used to tell parents when I wasdoing therapy, please sneeze into
your elbow, don't sneeze on your kid.
Right?
Oh my God, that's perfect.
(laughs)
Yeah.
Well, that's kind of the, Imean, it it, not all by the
way, not all of them got it.
But
I love it.
I love it.
I'm gonna use it.
Good.
You interweave so much into your book.
(13:35):
Oh, by the way.
There it is.
Oh my goodness.
You have it!
Although it's, the mirror is not,but the mirror is very interesting.
And, and early on, you, you talkabout Frankenstein's monster.
Mm-hmm.
Which I think is an interestingplace to see yourself.
Yeah.
I think.
Frankenstein's Monster alsoresembled a lot of my mother.
(13:58):
I think that, not that my mother wasFrankenstein or anything, you know,
monstrous like that, but I do thinkthat there are entire aspects of her
that lived in such profound grief.
And it was a grief of what couldnever have been, or she believed
at the time would never be.
I do think there were a lot ofopportunities where she could
have addressed her own childhoodtrauma and her own loss.
(14:21):
Mm-hmm.
She didn't really havea father growing up.
She, she was the, the mistress's baby.
She was the love child.
So there was already that layer of notbeing accepted, of being the mistake.
And, you know, her mother wentthrough a lot in her life and, you
know, didn't fix herself either,but you know, that was the fifties.
(14:43):
So I do think that that grief thatmy mother was never able to address
became something monstrous for her.
And then, you know, for, for me andmy brother, particularly for me,
my mom definitely transferred a lotof her emotions and feelings and
messages to me because I was the girl.
(15:03):
I was her little girl.
I was her little princess, eventhough I did not wanna wear dresses.
Yeah, she's, she's a very, she's a verystrong character that moment (laughs).
Well, and, and the characterwe're talking about, for those
of you listening and watching isthe book, the book Frankenstein
Not the movie, the movie's great.
And Young Frankenstein is the bestmovie ever, but the book Frankenstein.
(15:25):
The Frankenstein's monster istotally different in the book
than comes across in the movie.
Yes.
Explores their emotions andvery empathetic in a lot of it.
Mm-hmm.
You know, you had a line in your bookthat made me really sad, but I could see
tons of people I've worked with with it.
And the line is, I know I amdifferent and different is bad.
Mm-hmm.
(15:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why is different bad?
Who defines that?
Yeah.
I mean, are we in a therapy session, Mike?
(laughs)
Well, no, I, it's, well, it's kindof like a lot of people wonder that,
you know, that I see it all the time.
I'm different.
Different is bad.
Why isn't different?
Great.
I like different.
Yeah.
Well I think that's also because you'rea very well adjusted person (laughs)
(16:08):
with a lot of self-reflection and beingable to observe the world from, you
know, both that eagle eye view, butbeing able to go deeper into the human
condition and human psychology and I thinkdifferent for a lot of people brings fear.
Yep.
Right.
Because I think particularly right now, wehave a lot of fear in our world right now.
(16:31):
And I think those who are, whodo not recognize that fear being
transferred onto difference are thepeople who are in power right now.
I'm not gonna, you know, but I thinkthat difference challenges us in a
way that is extremely uncomfortablein a way that perhaps makes us
feel like we are losing control.
(16:52):
Like take, colonialism for starters.
And up here in Canada, I don't know if youhave it in the U. S. there's this movement
called land back and it means givingthe land back to the indigenous people.
Now it doesn't, for, in some casesit does mean actually giving physical
land back, but what it also means isreturning, self-agency and sovereignty
(17:14):
and governance over themselves.
We still are indigenous communitiesare, you know, they're, they're
far more policed and governed than,you know, white folks are, you
know, immigrants and most of us areimmigrants or first, second generation.
So I think that when somebody whois, you know, a colonizer and, you
(17:38):
know, white folks or whatever, hearthat term, land back, they think
something that, something threateningthat they're going to lose out.
That their way of life isbeing threatened and it's not.
It's not.
The pie is infinite, right?
We all have a, a right to live,a right to be in our space.
(18:01):
But I think that's the differencethat people are really afraid of.
And that's obviously abigger, more political socio.
Sociological kind of take on that.
But when you apply to mentalillness and you see a very specific
difference, like somebody living withschizophrenia, that can be frightening.
(18:23):
Even though you know, we do now,thank God, have this message
that people with mental illnessare not exactly violent people.
(laughs) We are far more likelyto be victims of violence than a
mentally healthy person, than toactually perpetrate it ourselves.
So I think any kind of differenceit, it threatens people.
(18:43):
I think, I think fear is it, Ithink you quote Amanda LeDuc, right?
In your book.
Mm-hmm.
Who talks about you know, the speculativefiction and, and fantasy and how the
protagonists are always different,set a set apart, and that, and then
in a lot of it there feared by the.
(19:04):
As they would say in AA, normies.
Right?
The Normies, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, she writes very specificallyin her book Disfigured is the
one that you're referencing andI recommend everybody to read it.
There is an aspect she talks aboutwith mental illness, but it is about
how disability, both, you know,physical, invisible and you know,
mental illness, how they are framedin fairytales and the sum it up.
(19:29):
Her thesis is that.
The disability is either apunishment, a lesson, right?
She, she often refers to I thinkit's Hans, my Hedge Hedgehog, or one
of the Grimm's fairytales, but themain character is punished through
difference through a disfigurement.
(19:51):
So it's almost like, you know, anykind of difference is a punishment.
We are not normal, aka able bodied,able minded, white, cis, male, hetero.
You know what I mean?
Like yeah.
So the way she framed it just I feellike can be applied to a lot of ways
we tell stories in our Western culture.
(20:13):
Right.
Yeah.
And you use just a a fromFrankenstein, to Game of Thrones, to
Harry Potter, to Lord of the Rings.
You identify, or at least in the book withquite a few characters weaving in and out.
I think we talked about Game of Thronesthe last time you were on, right?
Yeah.
Denarius.
(20:33):
Yeah, I think.
I mean, I can definitely relate to alot of those characters in some way.
But I also think that there'ssome ways that the authors or
creators, like, you know, Game ofThrones, what they did to Denarius.
I'm still salty about that!
(laughs)
okay.
Every, every, everyone is, everyoneis, they just wanna take the
last season and just start over.
(20:53):
Right.
Oh my God.
(laughs)
Have you seen theYouTube clip of the yeah.
Oh, you know where I'm going?
Right Of the cast reading it andthe cast is all super ticked off.
Oh my god, they're so angry.
Justifiably, I, I can't rememberthe character, the actor
who played Lord Ferris, but.
Just teach.
I think he just tossed this way.
(21:14):
He's like, no, I'm out.
(laughs)
And then so he puts theirarm around, you know, like.
Oh, talk about [inaudible].
Well, because thecharacters lived it, right?
That's the point.
That's part of the point.
You're making characters live it.
They know the actors livedtheir character, they know
where their character would go.
And then somebody else writes the like,what did you see for seven seasons?
(21:35):
That you write this?
Exactly.
Yeah.
And I think like particularly forDenarius, you know, I, I think that the
writers took the easy, it, it was a copout what they did because I think that
they were, their brains were somewhereelse or they were running out of money.
I don't know!
The showrunners werelike, no, too expensive!
Let's end it!
So I think that they took the easyway out and a lot of times the easy
(21:56):
way out is to villainize somebodythrough difference, through othering.
And that's exactly whathappened to  Denarius.
There are some people who do defend itsaying, you know, she was showing, you
know, signs of being crazy all this time.
And it's like, well... or... maybe she wasliving in a very patriarchal, dramatizing
fantasy world, and the way she was, youknow, responding to that was quite normal.
(22:19):
You know, like she lived in fear most ofher life because she was actually being
hunted down and sold like a brood mare.
Yeah.
So, and I think like for a lot of the Gameof Thrones, and I'm talking about the TV
show 'cause I've tried to read the booksand they're like bricks, they're so thick.
I think a lot of the female charactersin Game of Thrones, like you look
(22:40):
at Songs of Stark also, these womenare, their story is pushed forward.
Their plot is pushed forward throughthe actions, the behaviors of bad men.
So you look at Sansa in the lastseason when they're all in winter
fell, they've won the, the spoileralert if you haven't watched it yet.
I feel like that's onyou at this point though.
(23:01):
Yeah.
And she meets up again withthe hound and he says, you're
not that little bird anymore.
And she said, if it wasn't for,you know, all of these awful men.
You know, using her, abusing her andselling her off and just, she says,
I would've remained that little birdthis entire time, and there's a part
of me that died when she said that.
(23:23):
Yeah.
You know, that is not our story.
No.
But because what happens when you'reabused that much we all know is not the,
you don't end up on the throne, right?
Mm-hmm.
And you end up in a really bad place.
Mm-hmm.
But you know, it's, it, you talkalso about gaming and other places
(23:44):
that people find themselves.
Right?
I think, was it your friend Nari thatsaid, in fiction you can create a
better world, you can find a better you.
Nari yeah, Nari's fabulous.
If you're on Twitch, check out Nari byNature, she's created such a wonderful,
welcoming, safe space for gamers.
And so I interviewed her.
It was, it's near, it's the end ofthe book actually, and it's sort of
(24:07):
like, how was I going to you know,take this story that I've told over
the past, you know, 200 some oddpages, and how am I gonna move forward?
How am I going to inject some hope,find, you know, possibilities for our
future as people who are different,particularly mentally ill people?
And Nari just summed it up so well, andshe first of all had said something like.
(24:31):
Why are people, why do they feel freer ina simulation than they do in real life?
And she says, what are we afraid of?
And again, we're going back to the fearthing, and she said, in fiction, I feel
like you can create a better world.
Because if we make those attemptsin our world here, we are
afraid of, you know, failing.
(24:52):
We are afraid of ostracization.
We are afraid of, you know, the,the boogeyman in the closet.
You know what?
Bad things are gonna happen todestroy our souls or literally
actually just destroy us.
So I think Nari has a very hopefulview and she actually taught me a
lot about, you know, what we cando with these, these incredible
(25:15):
worlds we can create in fantasy.
Literally we can do anything in fantasy.
Why don't we do something great?
You know.
Well, it blends.
Do you also share that optimism.
Because you communicate it, you embody it.
Yeah.
I mean, right now (laughs) withthe world, it's a little hard.
(25:36):
But I do try and find.
You know, hope in the world and waysthat we can move forward together.
And actually, I just finished readingand I'm looking at my books here.
I'm gonna show it to you.
I know people can't see, but it's, she'sAmerican Saving Five, Amanda Nguyen.
She is a Vietnamese American who she.
(25:59):
She yesterday just went to space.
She was the first Vietnamese to go tospace, and this had been, her becoming
an astronaut had been her dream, but she,when she was at, I think it was Harvard,
her first year she was sexually assaulted.
And her story of when she.
She didn't want to press charges becauseif she was going to go to NASA or CIA,
(26:22):
she also interviewed with the CIA.
She could not have an open court case,so she, the statute of limitations
in the state that she was in was 15years, but her rape kit would only be
kept for six months and then it wouldbe destroyed unless she had started.
She, she.
Press charges.
(26:42):
So every six months she was retraumatized,trying to get her rape kit saved,
and she said, of course she did.
She's like, you know what,I'm gonna change the law.
(laughs) And she didit at a federal level.
She went to Washington and shechanged the law and then obviously
wrote this beautiful memoir.
I recommend absolutely everybody read it.
(27:04):
I, I read it in a day one sitting,Amanda, if you're listening, I had to
pee for like the past hundred pages.
But, oh no.
Well, you can get up andwalk and carry it with you.
Yeah.
Carry it to the, no, I'm stilltraumatized also by that one.
Is that a Seinfeld episode?
(laughs)
Yeah.
Alright, got it.
Got it.
Yeah.
[inaudible] to the one.
(27:24):
No, no, no, we're not doing that.
Only our cell phones.
And just, you know, and afterall of that, she finally got
hired at NASA and yesterday.
Wow.
She went to space.
That's awesome.
And oh, oh my God!
So hope.
You know, like there's, there arepeople out there who are fighting
and they're fighting for those whoare too tired, who do not have the
(27:48):
power, who do not have the resources.
So amongst all of the garbage thatwe're getting right now, and I do feel
like a lot of Americans, are just,they're afraid and they're under so much
garbage right now of what's happening.
Well, and you don't know how you guysare gonna turn out either, right?
Don't even, yeah, we have an election,I think it's at the end of the month.
(28:08):
Right.
A federal election.
And the two candidates, one of thecandidates is she's kind, he, sorry.
He is kind of like the,the Canadian Donald Trump.
Yeah.
He's, he's a little only, he's alittle smarter, which is scarier.
So we'll see how it goes.
But even if he is elected,fingers crossed he is not.
(28:28):
I, I have to believe that there willalways be those people who do have the
resources, who do have the energy, the,the mental and emotional capacity to be
able to fight when those of us cannot.
Well, and I wanna end it with you,with that sort of like that you,
you mentioned in the book thatyour father coped with his stuff.
(28:48):
He'd go and talk to trees.
Right.
Yeah.
And you mentioned leprechauns andbeing Irish, I'm familiar with them.
And the space you talked aboutwith the lady's book, who you just
read, there's a space, our brain,we don't understand our brain yet.
Mm-hmm.
What's wrong with talking to treesand believing in leprechauns?
Yeah, so my dad didn'tactually really talk to trees.
(29:10):
It was sort of like a, a metaphorical,he had this sort of respect,
almost like this druidic respectand understanding with nature.
He was only really himself when...
Well, yeah.
Your, your mom said he talks the trees.
Yeah.
But he really just observed, right?
Yeah.
(29:30):
And it was kind of eerie that he wouldbe able to find a fox's den, like.
Just snap of the fingers.
He found a hawk's nest.
He waited there and saw thechicks, the hawk chicks.
He climbed up the tree.
He would see stags.
He would find stags like in inthe autumn, you know, when their
(29:52):
antlers are in, I call it full bloom.
I don't know how else to call it, but justabsolutely stunning what he could find.
And he would also find the rarest flower.
We went to Flower PotIsland, which is an island.
It's about, I don't know, three hour,three, four hours north of Toronto
because he wanted to see, to find thisone rare orchid called a Calypso orchid.
(30:15):
And he spent all day andhe finally found one.
And it's just like he was, I don't know.
He had this sort of sixth senseto be able to, to find the magic.
Even though he was in the realworld, the real person, he kind of
just sort of smooshed it all down.
He, he put it away for somereason and not for some reason.
(30:39):
I know why he did, but, and it wasincredible and I will always, even though.
My father and I do not speak, andvery complicated feelings there.
I will always be grateful forthose memories that I had with him.
They were beautiful.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, he might've been looking forit, but when you were with him, he was
walking alongside a pretty rare flower.
(30:59):
Well, thank, oh!
I'm gonna take that all week with me.
(laughs)
Well, it's, your book is just, I, youknow, I told you this before we started.
Your book is terrific.
The conversations have been terrific.
Thank you.
And, and I'm gonna find anyexcuse to have you back.
But for those of you listening,you know how this goes.
There's links to K. J.'s workand her wonderful website and
(31:19):
the pictures are, are delightful.
Thank you.
I love, I love anybody thatdoesn't take the author picture.
(places hand on chin)
Yeah, the author picture.
(laughs)
And, and yours are just fullof life, which is great.
Thank you.
For those of you listening,watching I hope you find hope,
courage, support, wherever you are.
Thanks for listening.
Be safe.
Keep going.
And who's to say thatthere are no leprechauns?
Welcome everybody.
This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction,brought to you by Westwords Consulting.
I'm Mike McGowan.
A while back I had the privilegeof speaking with our guest today,
K. J. Aiello, about mental illnessand the stigma around that term.
K. J. is one of my favorite people.
She's a Toronto based mentally illwriter whose work includes essays,
(00:33):
op-eds, and recently and recently.
Released a nonfiction book titledThe Monster and The Mirror, which
explores the intersection ofspeculative fiction and mental illness.
I'm gonna mention this, even thoughwe talked about the last time,
she also authored a brilliantarticle, just brilliant that was
available and I'll put a link toit in the independent publication.
The walrus titled, whoGets To Be Mentally Ill?
(00:55):
Well, since May is Mental HealthAwareness Month here in the States,
we thought it would be a great timeto talk to K. J. again to celebrate
the rollout of her book and to chatabout the state of our mental health.
Welcome back, K. J..
Thank you for having me again.
God.
Well, it's so fun.
You are one of my favorite people.
Thank you.
Since we last talked, and I know Italked about this to you a couple
(01:16):
of years ago, and then againlast year your book came out.
It did.
So I want, I, since I haven't hadthat experience, I wanna talk about
what's the reception been like?
Are you doing appearances?
Talk about that stuff.
Yeah, it's been wild.
Well.
So a little bit of context here.
My book came out and I think it wasabout four or five days previously,
(01:39):
I, my cat passed away, and I know,you know, as a state of the world,
oh, cat passing away, but...
Oh, no, no, no.
It really, yeah, she wasmy, my little companion.
So, and then three days afterthat, I started an MFA program.
So it was a whirlwind and I don't thinkI've been able to catch my breath since.
And it's, it's been, I am grateful forall of the, the warm reception that the
(02:06):
book has received, as well as, you knowthe Can Lit or Canadian Literary community
here, as well as some, you know, literarycommunities in the US embracing me and
embracing my work and my thoughts andopinions, which is kind of wild to me.
But I'm also, I'm feeling very exhausted.
I
bet.
Yeah, it's taken a tollon my mental health.
(02:26):
But yeah, I think it's thepeople who are reading the book.
I think it's, it's hitting themin ways I did not really expect.
I think it's helping people tofeel seen, to find nuanced layers
to our conversations aroundmental health and mental illness.
(02:48):
As well as folks who just, you know,feel othered or, or they want, they
want to learn more about how thesemental health conversations and
mental illness and othering it'splaced in our political discourse.
So.
It's not just about dragons.
(laughs)
No.
No.
In fact, well, there's a millionquestions come up right away.
Let me start with your cat, sorry.
(03:08):
Because your cat played a rolein your growing up too, so.
That's not easy.
I'm sorry about that.
Yeah, it's, it's a different kitty.
She was the one who I adopted aftersome pretty traumatic experiences and
I thought, I need something in my life.
And it was this little creatureand it felt kind of full circle.
(03:29):
She lived 15 years.
Wow.
15 good years and.
It was almost like, you know, theuniverse said, okay, she's done her part.
And I know she's just acat, but she was my baby.
So it felt strange and full circleand wholesome and yet heartbreaking.
You know, K. J., I, I work with a,a lot of adolescents all the time.
(03:51):
That's what I was doing yesterday.
And your book.
I, the, I work with tons of kids who yourbook is perfect for, not that it's an
adolescent book, but they, they will beseen in that 'cause I can just see them.
But when I ask them, who's thebest listener in your life?
Who listens to you, animals come up.
Mm-hmm.
Number one, grandma all the time.
(04:12):
So it's not just a, a cat, it's your,some, many times it's for a lot of
kids, especially in dysfunctionalfamilies, it's their best friend.
Yeah, she was, and she also kindof gave me this she helped to teach
me what unconditional love is.
I mean animals will love youunconditionally, but also.
I found a way to look after anotherliving creature in a way that I'd
(04:35):
never, I'd never really felt in myown life at that point but that I
was capable and competent to do itand worthy enough to have this, this
little critter in my, she was so cute.
Oh yeah.
She was just the cutest.
(laughs)
(laughs) That's great.
Well, you know, you've talked a alot in, when our conversations about
going through, you went through alot, and I like that you describe
(04:56):
yourself as a mentally ill writer.
Like let's take the stigmaout of it right away.
But we've had a guest or two onin the last few months who have
talked about different therapies,everything from like ketamine
therapy and EMDR and other things.
What sorts of things have you triedover the years that helped you?
So I have not done any of the.
(05:17):
I don't know how to termthose other therapies.
You know, the non-traditionaltherapies, I guess is what we, well,
non-Western medicine traditional.
I do know that there are other culturesand traditions that do use some of these
other like ketamine or CBD, marijuana.
I have not, I, you know, I. Idon't know how to say it, but
(05:39):
I have partaken in the past.
(laughs) And it was not, it was not great.
I do not deal well withthose sorts of things.
But I also, I have found, I. When I met myhusband, I kind of found this soft place
to land and to fall apart and to reallykind of, you know, you can't organize
a closet unless you empty it out first.
And that was the process.
(05:59):
Over a couple years I just emptied outand then I sort of started to build
things back up again and I found thatthat was one of the best therapies
that, you know, in my medication.
And, you know, traditionaltherapy as well, talk therapy.
So for me, that has.
That has worked.
And I also, I feel really, reallygrateful that I actually don't
(06:21):
have to work a full-time job.
Mm-hmm.
I can look after my mental health and Iunderstand the privilege, the, you know.
That I have to be able to do that.
There are a lot of disabled folkswho, you know, they're living
under the, what it is, it the,the baseline living conditions.
What do they call that again?
Words.
Words.
Mike, you know, they're,under the poverty line.
(06:45):
Yeah, yeah.
You get, you get the point.
So.
For me, those, you know, non,non-Western traditional therapies,
I don't really want to try.
I don't think that they would work for me.
I, and they don't work for everybody.
But the people who they dowork for, you know what?
I am happy for them.
(07:05):
(laughs)
You know, your, your book, since youbrought it up, your book, I really
like the way you dealt with whatyou just brought up in your book.
You don't go into war stories orgreat detail, but you touch on
stuff and you let the reader know.
Yeah.
You dabbled in things that,that weren't helpful, right?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Without elaborating, making wholechapters about the one nighters or you
(07:29):
know, what you took or anything else.
Mm-hmm.
You know, it's, it's hard you, whenyou're struggling to find yourself
and if you're feeling invisible,to feel visible even for a day.
Yeah, that's, yeah, thatwas kind of what I did.
It was also, I think this sortof subliminal way to hurt myself.
Mm-hmm.
I had, you know, zero self-respect zero.
(07:50):
I, I also, I wasn't suicidal,but I also would not be sad
if a bus hit me, you know?
Mm-hmm.
Like, it wouldn't be a bad thing for me.
So I think all of those behaviorswas because I did not feel worthy.
I did not even really feel human and allI'd really known of love, particularly
(08:11):
love from, you know, romantic love orsexual attraction or anything like that.
It was very toxic.
Mm-hmm.
What I had learned, I think alot of women have had similar
experiences to, to varying degreesand it's very hard to find your.
Your self-respect, your self-worth,and you know, fight for your place
in this world when really by a lotof men and boys, you've been treated
(08:34):
like garbage, and then you havethat additional layer of, you know,
I do live with childhood trauma.
I was living with mental illness, youknow, it was just a perfect storm of, you
know, treating myself like a trash bin.
Really?
(laughs)
Yeah.
Well your book caught me.
Well, and I think it would catchanybody, like right away it just
hammers you right into the book.
And, and I don't meanthat in a negative way.
(08:56):
I'm like, oh my gosh.
Turn the page.
Turn the page.
There's no slow buildup.
You saw yourself, sort of as amonster, but did you see yourself
that way or do you think you viewedyourself that way because others
viewed the behavior monstrously?
I think it was a bit of both.
I always felt there was something alittle weird, a little different about
me, even from the time I was little.
(09:19):
I mean, I had a very active imagination.
I think a lot of kids do, and I thinkthat should definitely be encouraged.
But I also feel like, and also themessages that I got from my mother.
Growing up was, the world is evil.
The world is gonna hurt you,only I can take care of you.
Which I'm sure she meant well byit, but it was a very harmful,
(09:40):
toxic message for a little girl toget, particularly a little girl.
But I did feel like there was somethingweird about me that I was not right.
I always felt like I was.
Sort of just stepped outsidemy body all the time.
It was like this, you know, tracingpaper over an original I was the tracing
paper, just sort of a little bit skewedover top of the original that I was
(10:01):
supposed to be or what people saw me as.
And that, you know.
Only became more inculcated into my,into my self view and like who I was.
My base personality as I grewolder because yeah, I lashed
out when I was a kid a lot.
And the only way I knew how to, tofight back or to be heard was to
(10:22):
be violent, you know, and I don'tblame myself for doing that really.
I don't blame that little girl.
Well, some of the violence you know,when, when you're being bullied.
You know, they made movies aboutsome of it, it, some of your
behavior, especially with thelittle boy in the fence, it seemed,
seemed justified and almost heroic.
(10:42):
But then you're the one punished for it.
Yeah, I mean, of course I would be,first of all, it was the eighties.
(laughs) Let's be real.
I mean, we didn't, yeah, we did not haveconversations about bullying and I think
little girls and you know, perhaps.
Also today little girls are seenas far more compliant, far more at
(11:03):
the diplomat softer, gentler, andthey would not lash out like that.
I think girls and women aregiven such a hard time if they
do, you know, show assertion.
right.
Like, like a man or a boy would,you know, boys will be boys, right.
And that little boy, he was very much,I don't blame him either, because
(11:24):
where did he learn that behavior?
Right.
Well, and that's what I wasgonna ask you children, right.
Get most of their emotions throughthe adults and are defining them.
So you can, at some age, you're only ashelpful or healthy as the adults are.
If the adults aren't empathetic orunderstanding, or themselves not
functioning would allow your mom.
(11:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think you are, you're correct in that.
And I do think there, there'sa lot of nurturing element.
You know, you have yournature versus nurture.
I definitely think for me there is thenature part of me, I had you know, sort
of the risk factors for mental illness.
I was already a very, I was astrange child right out of the womb.
(12:08):
I was a strange child.
I think cool now, but, you know.
Yeah!
It comes across as cool.
Right, right.
(laughs) But I also think, you know,that the, the nurture aspect for me.
Really layered over top of the coolkid I could have been or would've
been allowed to have, you know, beencelebrated for all my weirdness.
(12:30):
I'm glad weird and nerd is in stylenow because you know (laughs).
S o yeah, I think that there's.
If there are little kids doing thingsthat are particularly alarming or
violent or lashing out, I don't reallywant to blame the children for doing
that because I do think that there wassomething learned there, some message
(12:54):
they received, whether the parentsknew, or know they're doing it or not.
I do think it's parents'responsibility to not fix themselves
first, but address your, address,your problems for your kids.
Don't, don't give them to your kids.
Don't give them to your kids.
We call that intergenerational trauma.
(13:15):
(laughs)
I used to tell parents when I wasdoing therapy, please sneeze into
your elbow, don't sneeze on your kid.
Right?
Oh my God, that's perfect.
(laughs)
Yeah.
Well, that's kind of the, Imean, it it, not all by the
way, not all of them got it.
But
I love it.
I love it.
I'm gonna use it.
Good.
You interweave so much into your book.
(13:35):
Oh, by the way.
There it is.
Oh my goodness.
You have it!
Although it's, the mirror is not,but the mirror is very interesting.
And, and early on, you, you talkabout Frankenstein's monster.
Mm-hmm.
Which I think is an interestingplace to see yourself.
Yeah.
I think.
Frankenstein's Monster alsoresembled a lot of my mother.
(13:58):
I think that, not that my mother wasFrankenstein or anything, you know,
monstrous like that, but I do thinkthat there are entire aspects of her
that lived in such profound grief.
And it was a grief of what couldnever have been, or she believed
at the time would never be.
I do think there were a lot ofopportunities where she could
have addressed her own childhoodtrauma and her own loss.
(14:21):
Mm-hmm.
She didn't really havea father growing up.
She, she was the, the mistress's baby.
She was the love child.
So there was already that layer of notbeing accepted, of being the mistake.
And, you know, her mother wentthrough a lot in her life and, you
know, didn't fix herself either,but you know, that was the fifties.
(14:43):
So I do think that that grief thatmy mother was never able to address
became something monstrous for her.
And then, you know, for, for me andmy brother, particularly for me,
my mom definitely transferred a lotof her emotions and feelings and
messages to me because I was the girl.
(15:03):
I was her little girl.
I was her little princess, eventhough I did not wanna wear dresses.
Yeah, she's, she's a very, she's a verystrong character that moment (laughs).
Well, and, and the characterwe're talking about, for those
of you listening and watching isthe book, the book Frankenstein
Not the movie, the movie's great.
And Young Frankenstein is the bestmovie ever, but the book Frankenstein.
(15:25):
The Frankenstein's monster istotally different in the book
than comes across in the movie.
Yes.
Explores their emotions andvery empathetic in a lot of it.
Mm-hmm.
You know, you had a line in your bookthat made me really sad, but I could see
tons of people I've worked with with it.
And the line is, I know I amdifferent and different is bad.
Mm-hmm.
(15:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why is different bad?
Who defines that?
Yeah.
I mean, are we in a therapy session, Mike?
(laughs)
Well, no, I, it's, well, it's kindof like a lot of people wonder that,
you know, that I see it all the time.
I'm different.
Different is bad.
Why isn't different?
Great.
I like different.
Yeah.
Well I think that's also because you'rea very well adjusted person (laughs)
(16:08):
with a lot of self-reflection and beingable to observe the world from, you
know, both that eagle eye view, butbeing able to go deeper into the human
condition and human psychology and I thinkdifferent for a lot of people brings fear.
Yep.
Right.
Because I think particularly right now, wehave a lot of fear in our world right now.
(16:31):
And I think those who are, whodo not recognize that fear being
transferred onto difference are thepeople who are in power right now.
I'm not gonna, you know, but I thinkthat difference challenges us in a
way that is extremely uncomfortablein a way that perhaps makes us
feel like we are losing control.
(16:52):
Like take, colonialism for starters.
And up here in Canada, I don't know if youhave it in the U. S. there's this movement
called land back and it means givingthe land back to the indigenous people.
Now it doesn't, for, in some casesit does mean actually giving physical
land back, but what it also means isreturning, self-agency and sovereignty
(17:14):
and governance over themselves.
We still are indigenous communitiesare, you know, they're, they're
far more policed and governed than,you know, white folks are, you
know, immigrants and most of us areimmigrants or first, second generation.
So I think that when somebody whois, you know, a colonizer and, you
(17:38):
know, white folks or whatever, hearthat term, land back, they think
something that, something threateningthat they're going to lose out.
That their way of life isbeing threatened and it's not.
It's not.
The pie is infinite, right?
We all have a, a right to live,a right to be in our space.
(18:01):
But I think that's the differencethat people are really afraid of.
And that's obviously abigger, more political socio.
Sociological kind of take on that.
But when you apply to mentalillness and you see a very specific
difference, like somebody living withschizophrenia, that can be frightening.
(18:23):
Even though you know, we do now,thank God, have this message
that people with mental illnessare not exactly violent people.
(laughs) We are far more likelyto be victims of violence than a
mentally healthy person, than toactually perpetrate it ourselves.
So I think any kind of differenceit, it threatens people.
(18:43):
I think, I think fear is it, Ithink you quote Amanda LeDuc, right?
In your book.
Mm-hmm.
Who talks about you know, the speculativefiction and, and fantasy and how the
protagonists are always different,set a set apart, and that, and then
in a lot of it there feared by the.
(19:04):
As they would say in AA, normies.
Right?
The Normies, yeah.
Yeah.
Well, she writes very specificallyin her book Disfigured is the
one that you're referencing andI recommend everybody to read it.
There is an aspect she talks aboutwith mental illness, but it is about
how disability, both, you know,physical, invisible and you know,
mental illness, how they are framedin fairytales and the sum it up.
(19:29):
Her thesis is that.
The disability is either apunishment, a lesson, right?
She, she often refers to I thinkit's Hans, my Hedge Hedgehog, or one
of the Grimm's fairytales, but themain character is punished through
difference through a disfigurement.
(19:51):
So it's almost like, you know, anykind of difference is a punishment.
We are not normal, aka able bodied,able minded, white, cis, male, hetero.
You know what I mean?
Like yeah.
So the way she framed it just I feellike can be applied to a lot of ways
we tell stories in our Western culture.
(20:13):
Right.
Yeah.
And you use just a a fromFrankenstein, to Game of Thrones, to
Harry Potter, to Lord of the Rings.
You identify, or at least in the book withquite a few characters weaving in and out.
I think we talked about Game of Thronesthe last time you were on, right?
Yeah.
Denarius.
(20:33):
Yeah, I think.
I mean, I can definitely relate to alot of those characters in some way.
But I also think that there'ssome ways that the authors or
creators, like, you know, Game ofThrones, what they did to Denarius.
I'm still salty about that!
(laughs)
okay.
Every, every, everyone is, everyoneis, they just wanna take the
last season and just start over.
(20:53):
Right.
Oh my God.
(laughs)
Have you seen theYouTube clip of the yeah.
Oh, you know where I'm going?
Right Of the cast reading it andthe cast is all super ticked off.
Oh my god, they're so angry.
Justifiably, I, I can't rememberthe character, the actor
who played Lord Ferris, but.
Just teach.
I think he just tossed this way.
(21:14):
He's like, no, I'm out.
(laughs)
And then so he puts theirarm around, you know, like.
Oh, talk about [inaudible].
Well, because thecharacters lived it, right?
That's the point.
That's part of the point.
You're making characters live it.
They know the actors livedtheir character, they know
where their character would go.
And then somebody else writes the like,what did you see for seven seasons?
(21:35):
That you write this?
Exactly.
Yeah.
And I think like particularly forDenarius, you know, I, I think that the
writers took the easy, it, it was a copout what they did because I think that
they were, their brains were somewhereelse or they were running out of money.
I don't know!
The showrunners werelike, no, too expensive!
Let's end it!
So I think that they took the easyway out and a lot of times the easy
(21:56):
way out is to villainize somebodythrough difference, through othering.
And that's exactly whathappened to  Denarius.
There are some people who do defend itsaying, you know, she was showing, you
know, signs of being crazy all this time.
And it's like, well... or... maybe she wasliving in a very patriarchal, dramatizing
fantasy world, and the way she was, youknow, responding to that was quite normal.
(22:19):
You know, like she lived in fear most ofher life because she was actually being
hunted down and sold like a brood mare.
Yeah.
So, and I think like for a lot of the Gameof Thrones, and I'm talking about the TV
show 'cause I've tried to read the booksand they're like bricks, they're so thick.
I think a lot of the female charactersin Game of Thrones, like you look
(22:40):
at Songs of Stark also, these womenare, their story is pushed forward.
Their plot is pushed forward throughthe actions, the behaviors of bad men.
So you look at Sansa in the lastseason when they're all in winter
fell, they've won the, the spoileralert if you haven't watched it yet.
I feel like that's onyou at this point though.
(23:01):
Yeah.
And she meets up again withthe hound and he says, you're
not that little bird anymore.
And she said, if it wasn't for,you know, all of these awful men.
You know, using her, abusing her andselling her off and just, she says,
I would've remained that little birdthis entire time, and there's a part
of me that died when she said that.
(23:23):
Yeah.
You know, that is not our story.
No.
But because what happens when you'reabused that much we all know is not the,
you don't end up on the throne, right?
Mm-hmm.
And you end up in a really bad place.
Mm-hmm.
But you know, it's, it, you talkalso about gaming and other places
(23:44):
that people find themselves.
Right?
I think, was it your friend Nari thatsaid, in fiction you can create a
better world, you can find a better you.
Nari yeah, Nari's fabulous.
If you're on Twitch, check out Nari byNature, she's created such a wonderful,
welcoming, safe space for gamers.
And so I interviewed her.
It was, it's near, it's the end ofthe book actually, and it's sort of
(24:07):
like, how was I going to you know,take this story that I've told over
the past, you know, 200 some oddpages, and how am I gonna move forward?
How am I going to inject some hope,find, you know, possibilities for our
future as people who are different,particularly mentally ill people?
And Nari just summed it up so well, andshe first of all had said something like.
(24:31):
Why are people, why do they feel freer ina simulation than they do in real life?
And she says, what are we afraid of?
And again, we're going back to the fearthing, and she said, in fiction, I feel
like you can create a better world.
Because if we make those attemptsin our world here, we are
afraid of, you know, failing.
(24:52):
We are afraid of ostracization.
We are afraid of, you know, the,the boogeyman in the closet.
You know what?
Bad things are gonna happen todestroy our souls or literally
actually just destroy us.
So I think Nari has a very hopefulview and she actually taught me a
lot about, you know, what we cando with these, these incredible
(25:15):
worlds we can create in fantasy.
Literally we can do anything in fantasy.
Why don't we do something great?
You know.
Well, it blends.
Do you also share that optimism.
Because you communicate it, you embody it.
Yeah.
I mean, right now (laughs) withthe world, it's a little hard.
(25:36):
But I do try and find.
You know, hope in the world and waysthat we can move forward together.
And actually, I just finished readingand I'm looking at my books here.
I'm gonna show it to you.
I know people can't see, but it's, she'sAmerican Saving Five, Amanda Nguyen.
She is a Vietnamese American who she.
(25:59):
She yesterday just went to space.
She was the first Vietnamese to go tospace, and this had been, her becoming
an astronaut had been her dream, but she,when she was at, I think it was Harvard,
her first year she was sexually assaulted.
And her story of when she.
She didn't want to press charges becauseif she was going to go to NASA or CIA,
(26:22):
she also interviewed with the CIA.
She could not have an open court case,so she, the statute of limitations
in the state that she was in was 15years, but her rape kit would only be
kept for six months and then it wouldbe destroyed unless she had started.
She, she.
Press charges.
(26:42):
So every six months she was retraumatized,trying to get her rape kit saved,
and she said, of course she did.
She's like, you know what,I'm gonna change the law.
(laughs) And she didit at a federal level.
She went to Washington and shechanged the law and then obviously
wrote this beautiful memoir.
I recommend absolutely everybody read it.
(27:04):
I, I read it in a day one sitting,Amanda, if you're listening, I had to
pee for like the past hundred pages.
But, oh no.
Well, you can get up andwalk and carry it with you.
Yeah.
Carry it to the, no, I'm stilltraumatized also by that one.
Is that a Seinfeld episode?
(laughs)
Yeah.
Alright, got it.
Got it.
Yeah.
[inaudible] to the one.
(27:24):
No, no, no, we're not doing that.
Only our cell phones.
And just, you know, and afterall of that, she finally got
hired at NASA and yesterday.
Wow.
She went to space.
That's awesome.
And oh, oh my God!
So hope.
You know, like there's, there arepeople out there who are fighting
and they're fighting for those whoare too tired, who do not have the
(27:48):
power, who do not have the resources.
So amongst all of the garbage thatwe're getting right now, and I do feel
like a lot of Americans, are just,they're afraid and they're under so much
garbage right now of what's happening.
Well, and you don't know how you guysare gonna turn out either, right?
Don't even, yeah, we have an election,I think it's at the end of the month.
(28:08):
Right.
A federal election.
And the two candidates, one of thecandidates is she's kind, he, sorry.
He is kind of like the,the Canadian Donald Trump.
Yeah.
He's, he's a little only, he's alittle smarter, which is scarier.
So we'll see how it goes.
But even if he is elected,fingers crossed he is not.
(28:28):
I, I have to believe that there willalways be those people who do have the
resources, who do have the energy, the,the mental and emotional capacity to be
able to fight when those of us cannot.
Well, and I wanna end it with you,with that sort of like that you,
you mentioned in the book thatyour father coped with his stuff.
(28:48):
He'd go and talk to trees.
Right.
Yeah.
And you mentioned leprechauns andbeing Irish, I'm familiar with them.
And the space you talked aboutwith the lady's book, who you just
read, there's a space, our brain,we don't understand our brain yet.
Mm-hmm.
What's wrong with talking to treesand believing in leprechauns?
Yeah, so my dad didn'tactually really talk to trees.
(29:10):
It was sort of like a, a metaphorical,he had this sort of respect,
almost like this druidic respectand understanding with nature.
He was only really himself when...
Well, yeah.
Your, your mom said he talks the trees.
Yeah.
But he really just observed, right?
Yeah.
(29:30):
And it was kind of eerie that he wouldbe able to find a fox's den, like.
Just snap of the fingers.
He found a hawk's nest.
He waited there and saw thechicks, the hawk chicks.
He climbed up the tree.
He would see stags.
He would find stags like in inthe autumn, you know, when their
(29:52):
antlers are in, I call it full bloom.
I don't know how else to call it, but justabsolutely stunning what he could find.
And he would also find the rarest flower.
We went to Flower PotIsland, which is an island.
It's about, I don't know, three hour,three, four hours north of Toronto
because he wanted to see, to find thisone rare orchid called a Calypso orchid.
(30:15):
And he spent all day andhe finally found one.
And it's just like he was, I don't know.
He had this sort of sixth senseto be able to, to find the magic.
Even though he was in the realworld, the real person, he kind of
just sort of smooshed it all down.
He, he put it away for somereason and not for some reason.
(30:39):
I know why he did, but, and it wasincredible and I will always, even though.
My father and I do not speak, andvery complicated feelings there.
I will always be grateful forthose memories that I had with him.
They were beautiful.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, he might've been looking forit, but when you were with him, he was
walking alongside a pretty rare flower.
(30:59):
Well, thank, oh!
I'm gonna take that all week with me.
(laughs)
Well, it's, your book is just, I, youknow, I told you this before we started.
Your book is terrific.
The conversations have been terrific.
Thank you.
And, and I'm gonna find anyexcuse to have you back.
But for those of you listening,you know how this goes.
There's links to K. J.'s workand her wonderful website and
(31:19):
the pictures are, are delightful.
Thank you.
I love, I love anybody thatdoesn't take the author picture.
(places hand on chin)
Yeah, the author picture.
(laughs)
And, and yours are just fullof life, which is great.
Thank you.
For those of you listening,watching I hope you find hope,
courage, support, wherever you are.
Thanks for listening.
Be safe.
Keep going.
And who's to say thatthere are no leprechauns?
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