August 14, 2025 • 43 mins
E461: Andrea Leeb’s memoir, “Such A Pretty Picture,” powerfully narrates her life and offers an honest insight into a survivor’s journey. Andrea is a retired lawyer, former nurse and has written for numerous literary journals. She also advocates for survivors of sexual assault, volunteering at the UCLA Rape Treatment Center and Stuart House, and mentoring […]
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(00:08):
Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here.
Thanks for listening to another episode
of Hey, human podcast.
This is episode 461,
and my guest is Andrea Lieb. Her memoir,
Such a Pretty Picture, powerfully narrates her life
and offers an honest insight
into a survivor's journey.
I read the book
(00:29):
and
before I spoke with Andrea,
and it is
superbly written. It's easy to read. It flows
really quickly.
It is intense.
I got mad. I got sad. I felt
triumph for her.
It's it's really something. And you can preorder
it now. It's available on all the places
(00:50):
you get books.
Highly, highly, highly recommend.
Trigger warning, incest, sexual assault.
This is a big episode as far as,
the things that it might stir up in
you listeners, and I just I wanna make
sure that you are prepared
and take care of yourselves,
and,
you know, self practice self care. Andrea is
(01:13):
also a retired lawyer. She's a former nurse
and has written
for numerous
literary journals. She also advocates for survivors of
sexual assault, volunteering at the UCLA Rape Treatment
Center and Stewart House, and mentoring young women
from post conflict and climate challenged countries.
She's a badass.
(01:34):
If you or anyone you know is experiencing
incest or sexual assault,
please contact
the National Sexual Assault Hotline.
It's +1 806564673.
You can reach out to rainn.org.
That's rainn.0rg.
If you're living overseas,
(01:54):
you can call RAINN at +1 (202) 501-4444.
Talk to somebody you trust. Tell a teacher
or
a safe parent or a safe family member
and there's help out there.
General stuff. Check out heyhumanpodcast.com
for links and to learn more about my
(02:15):
guests and the show. Check out susanruth.com
to learn more about me and my other
artistic endeavors.
Please follow Susan Ruthism on social media. Find
my music on Spotify, Apple Music,
Amazon Music, or wherever you get your music.
Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast
on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast,
(02:36):
Spotify,
iHeart,
it's all over the place. And thank you
for listening.
Be kind,
be well,
be loved,
and take care of yourself.
Here we go.
Andrea Lieb, welcome to Hey Human.
Thank you. I'm really excited to be here.
Yeah. I read your book last night.
(02:59):
Oh, wow. Okay.
It's, it's heavy,
but also,
triumphant.
Yeah. I think so. I I mean, I
think one reviewer said it's a moving memoir
of trauma with an uplifting conclusion.
So It's incredibly well written as well. I
have to say, having read a bazillion books,
(03:19):
what I really appreciated
was
how
it's written in such a a well
well receiving way. Then you could consume it
at a at a rapid pace. It felt
very much
like I was there.
I got mad.
I got upset. I wanted to just rush
(03:39):
in and take you out of there. You
know, it brought up a lot of stuff.
I had a,
a childhood that was abusive.
So, you know, the the little girl in
me wanted to go and get the little
girl in you
and protect her. Thank you. I that means
a lot to me. I mean, it really
means a lot to me. You know, as
a I've been a writer a long time.
(04:00):
I didn't just one day wake up and
say, oh, I'm gonna write a book. I
I've been working you know, I've been writing
most of my life. This book was a
really hard choice to write for and I
really worked hard to make it consumable. I
guess that would be a word. You know,
make it easy for people because I knew
the subject is, you know, I was I
spare nothing in the subject. I made it
(04:22):
really raw. I chose to do that as
a deliberate choice because I wanted people
to experience
what to the best that I could, what
what childhood victims go through.
And, and I wanted them to feel what
I felt. But at the same time, I
wanted to make sure the writing was kind
(04:42):
of fast paced enough and quick enough so
that people I knew that the subject would
be somewhat
overwhelming at times, so I wanted the writing
to be easier.
So I really I really worked on that,
you know, to to make it simple, easy
for people to read. For such a heavy
subject, incredibly digestible. Even the way you set
up the chapters, they they moved I write
(05:03):
script. Right? So it moves like a script.
I think I I'm a visual thinker, so
that's probably part of it is I visualize
things. So it might be part of my
writing style anyway, but, again, that was really
deliberate. And, yeah, digestible was more consumable.
I
mean, I feel like that's the same thing.
Such a Pretty Picture is the name of
(05:24):
the memoir.
Before we
dive into just where you are now, let's
go back.
You grew up in New York
just without I want people to read the
book, so
clearly we've intimated what is going on in
the book. But can you give just an
overview of childhood? I'll I'll start with just
the beginning because it's it's easy, and it's
(05:46):
on the back of the book, so it's
not a big spoiler alert. I was four
and a half when the first time my
father gave me a bath.
And it's an early, early memory.
Truthfully, it's my clearest first memory. And my
I knew when he was bathing me, he
asked me to let him wash me with
his hand. And I could tell from his
(06:06):
his breathing and all I was really young,
but I knew there was something wrong. He
scared me.
And when my mother walked in to check
on us,
she saw what was going on. And, you
know, I it was, you know, in retrospect
now as an older as an adult, I
realized my father was masturbating. As a child,
I wouldn't have known what masturbation was.
(06:29):
She screamed,
fell to the floor. And when she woke
up, she was blind. My father caught her
and she was blind and it was something
called hysterical blindness. And I write
that my mother stayed hysterically blind for a
month
and she was, you know, remained
emotionally
(06:49):
blind for decades. So the story is about
my surviving
a long term childhood,
sexual abuse and other abuse
and about my and also about
realizing
I kept it very, very much a secret
for a long time and realizing that, you
know, holding the secret was as almost as
(07:11):
destructive as the abuse itself. So that's what
the book is about. You know, my hope
here is to raise awareness on childhood
sexual abuse,
incest in particular,
as well as
to give other people who are still suffering
or or not speaking,
maybe the courage to speak to somebody,
a therapist, a trusted friend, and also to
(07:33):
give them a glimmer of hope that healing
is possible. Because the fact that I wrote
the book, I obviously shows that I've healed,
but I have. So
And I saw that you give some of
the proceeds to RAIN, which is extraordinary.
Yeah. I'm actually giving all the proceeds away.
I'm I'm really lucky that I, you know,
I worked as an attorney for a long
time, and my husband and I talked about
(07:55):
it when I wrote the book.
And this is,
this is the book unexpectedly
turned into an advocacy
and a life of I'm really realized
that what, where I am in my life
right now, I'm no longer practicing law and
I am really fully dedicating myself to advocacy
on this issue. I just recently was
(08:17):
asked to join the advisory board for UCLA
rape treatment center and Stewart House, and I
volunteer at Stewart House once a week.
I'm getting involved in other organizations. So I'm
giving all the rest of the proceeds 25%
to RAIN. They they run a hotline, which
is national,
and the rest to local organizations.
(08:38):
If I'm speaking, I have some book events
scheduled.
And if I'm speaking in a community, then
I'm looking up the local rape treatment center,
and I'm gonna be giving anything that comes
from that bookstore
or that event also to that local center.
It's more of a, you know, authors don't
make a lot of money. This is symbolic
as much as anything. Let's be real. But
(08:59):
I really want to make this,
it's a passion now. Strange. I did not
expect that to happen, but I've become incredibly
public about this. So
That's healing though. Yeah. It's a new I
I call it, you know,
I I thought I was healed when I
started writing the book and I was to
a large extent. And, you know, I couldn't
(09:20):
have excavated these memories
and put this on paper without a lot
of therapy and a lot of healing.
But it gave me another layer of healing.
And to be honest, I went back into
therapy when I was writing the book because
I, I really felt the need to be
in therapy again
to to really
(09:41):
it was comp it's complicated,
you know, and you're you're you're telling not
only your secret, but the secret of your
family. And
I know it's gonna sound really counterintuitive.
Well, my father, I really didn't
I I can't really say I loved him.
I was relieved when he died, but my
mother, regardless of her failure to protect me,
(10:03):
I I really loved her.
I did. Some people might disagree with that
choice, but I loved her, and I kept
her in my life. And it felt a
little odd, you know, kind of
not that she has a legacy, but ruining
her legacy.
You know? It's kind of like the author.
My mother's not the author Alice Munro, but
I don't know if you're familiar with that,
but she, you know, her legacy was, you
(10:26):
know, her daughter, who's also named Andrea,
wrote about being abused by her stepfather, and
it's really changed the way people look at
Alice. And,
you know, it probably will change the way
people look at my mother. She's passed on
now, so it's a little easier. I think
when you are someone who has suffered complex
trauma,
(10:46):
for people that haven't experienced
that,
they don't quite maybe understand how convoluted
the feelings of love and devotion.
And
even though you you low key hate this
person, but you also love them, you want
their attention, you want them to love you
back, and it gets so confusing and so
(11:08):
convoluted.
And people say, well, why didn't you
tell someone or why don't you run away
or why don't you and it's because you're
also protecting your abuser.
Yes. And and I was and in the
book I write about, you know, as a
young, I write about being an adolescent and
a pre adolescent and wanting my father's attention.
(11:30):
And at the same time, hating my father's
attention
and feeling responsible
for the family. And, and for my mother,
you know, the blindness was a really,
you know, seeing that happen at that moment
in time, I internalized it. I mean, my
father didn't help by telling me it was
my fault,
but I internalized it for a long time.
(11:51):
I really viewed myself as responsible for my
mother's protection and happiness.
And your mother's violence towards you was, you
know, her internalized rage that she couldn't touch.
Right. And yeah, my mother was violent toward
me for a couple of years when I
was a child. And, and I write about
that too. It was as if she changed
(12:11):
turned her rage at my father
in outward toward me.
And, you know, I can't speak to why
my mother stayed with my father.
I I wasn't I'm not in her skin,
but,
you know, people ask me all the time
whether I think she was abused. And I
I just don't know the answer. I mean,
(12:31):
this kind of child abuse is generational. This
kind of trauma is generational. So if I
were a, a guesser, I would say somewhere
in her family history,
there was some kind of of of
sort of sexual abuse. I I would guess
that.
But I at far be my mother kept
everything closed.
(12:53):
Yeah. Well, it's definitely generally generational. And statistically
speaking, it's more likely, yes, that that's true.
Yeah. I would encourage that.
Do you think you would have written the
book had your parents still been living?
Well, my mom was alive when I wrote
the book. She Oh, I thought she had
passed already. Passed at when I wrote the
(13:15):
epilogue.
Ah, yes. This is Pam Houston, my, mentor,
one of my men writing mentors said,
you are not gonna completely finish this book.
So she wrote she was alive through many
drafts of this book.
My father was dead. I probably couldn't have
written it if my father was alive. It
(13:36):
would have taken a little bit more my
mother.
I kept a relationship with my father, for
better or worse, because I kept the relationship
with my mother and
that he was a nonnegotiable
deal. And what that relationship looked like,
it
wasn't your typical father daughter relationship, obviously.
(13:57):
My mother was still alive and I was
actually taking care of her on and off
while I was writing it.
She
kind of knew I was writing the book.
My mother was always the biggest supporter of
my writer. I have writing.
I have an MFA in creative writing. And
when I went back for it and, you
know, I had this night once through the
new fiction series where actors read my work,
(14:20):
my short stories,
and my mother flew out and She was
so proud of me. And everything I ever
published, she wanted to read.
And not that I published a great deal,
but I published. And,
she
knew
I was writing this, but she she said,
I know you're writing a book, and I
know it's about your father, and I don't
(14:40):
wanna talk about it.
So I don't know if I could have
published it. I think the the universe
I I, if she was still alive, it
would be a lot harder to be in
this position.
I, there's a big part of me. My
mother wasn't well when I was writing it.
And I, I knew it was more, not
that I wished for her death because I
didn't, but I knew it was more likely
(15:02):
than not that she would be writing process
takes a long time, you know, that she
would be deceased by the time it came
out. It did cross my minds.
But, yeah, I I yeah. That was part
of why I went into therapy.
For sure. Well, I would think that therapy
would be important
while writing this just because even
(15:23):
if you felt like you were healed, it
would still your body
doesn't understand timeline.
Your body is feeling
in the moment of the actual moment, as
much as it is in the future self
writing it. When I write in the book,
healing is not linear. I mean, this is
you don't walk out of, of any kind
of program or have any kind of moment,
(15:44):
even if you've had an epiphany, which,
without giving away too much, I sort of
had. But even if you have an epiphany
of healing,
you can't, you know, you can't walk out
and then one day go, oh, I'm perfectly
fine. I think that, in fact, it's almost
bad for people to think that way or
or not healthy, not because,
(16:05):
you know, it it puts so much pressure
on you as a as a survivor,
you know, to be able to you have
to understand that there's steps backwards and forwards.
And especially you reference CPTSD
when it's this, you know, complex
CPTSD.
It's still with you. I mean, I still
jump when somebody comes up behind me too
(16:25):
closely. Your body,
you know, your body stays.
You know, I interestingly, I found yoga,
through writing this book or toward the end
of this book. I was older, and I'd
always run and done a lot of spinning
and different activities. And I ended up finding
yoga as as a rule of of this
book, which has opened my body in ways
(16:47):
that I didn't even
realize. You know, I was always kind of
ahead on a body.
Yeah. I understand that completely.
When you move through the world,
do you look around and spot kids and
think, oh my God, I know something's going
on.
I can see it in in young women,
(17:09):
sometimes from their posture
and and sometimes
from children, if I see,
you know, certain ways that if a parent
is yelling and I can see children shrinking
into themselves.
And so it becomes more apparent. Although, you
know, sometimes it's it's
it's funny because, you know, doing the work
at Stewart House, what Stewart House is is
(17:31):
a treatment program that UCLA treatment center rape
treatment center runs. And it's really unique because
everything is at this one location
and all the police, all the therapists,
so the children don't have to go running
all over the place.
And my volunteer work is I'm the play
lady.
So which is the best job I've ever
(17:54):
had, I must admit. And the children walk
in and, you know, wow. You know, the
first thing is they're greeted by
me or another play lady or play
and they well, there's this big playroom, which
is filled with donated toys and and
really fun things to do.
(18:14):
And they they're they're you know, say, hi.
I'm here. I'm I'm the play lady. I'm
wondering if you'd be interested in playing. And
and
watching the children when they come in because
they're scared that body language is that body
language, that that turtled
they're turtles. And when they start playing, children
are still really young children particularly are still
(18:35):
really helpful.
You know, they can still
have those you see it. The joy comes
quickly to them
as opposed to, I think, the longer you
know, by the time I was an adolescent
or a pre adolescent,
I was pretty hardwired
to feeling bad and distrustful
about the world in general.
(18:56):
But yeah. So it's been really that's been
really fun being having that opportunity to to
be the play lady.
That's lovely. And to how important it is
to rewire the idea of play, because even
in the book, that was one of the
things your dad said to you. Let I
wanna play with you. Mhmm. And that how
that becomes bastardized
(19:17):
of what what real play is versus
not safe play. Wow. You know, you picked
up on something I wasn't even conscious of.
So there you go. That that's really true.
I had never even thought that till this
moment, which
gives me a note for therapy. But,
you know, it's
which is goes to the point that we're
(19:37):
all healing and learning from this. Sometimes with
the fingers put on the page,
the conscious doesn't even we're not even conscious
of. But that's exactly it. I mean, I
never felt like a child, like a true
child. I lost my childhood
before I even experienced it, it, and I
lost my agency before it even developed.
(19:58):
And I I don't think my story,
unfortunately,
is that unique
to especially any any
survivor of sexual abuse, but also, you know,
children
who grow up with violence, with hitting, with
being screamed at constantly. And that really,
you know, these household
(20:19):
where the children
turn into
objects of anger.
And, you know, we lose our agency. We
lose our ability to be happy.
Absolutely.
And I read somewhere a long time ago
that
physical not sexual
the the punchy kind, the slappy kind, physical
abuse or pinching or whatever it is, is
(20:41):
as
detrimental
to a child
psyche as the verbal abuse that it's as
if you're being punched if you wanna, you
know, apples for apples or whatnot. And I
I find it very I have to be
very careful because
it is
no two people experience
trauma alike, and
(21:03):
it does not matter, in my opinion,
what kind of trauma you experienced,
you experienced trauma.
And that if we try to out trauma
each other, it completely loses the point and
and jeopardizes the healing of it.
Correct. And I, you know, I hope my
book is you know, I know it's difficult
at points to read, but I hope that
it would be a message for other people
(21:25):
who've had other kinds of trauma because,
you know, the the point is this, we
can't out trauma each other and we can't
necessarily
experience it the same way.
And, you know, in some ways, I was
really fortunate
because I grew up in a family that
loved books,
and books really saved me. And the the
(21:47):
ability to read and write
really was for me,
important.
It allowed me some academic success
and the ability to be financially independent earlier
than, than a lot of people. And, you
know,
that's truthfully where I got a lot of
people ask, were you resilient? And I said,
(22:08):
well, that I think it's part of that.
Although resilience can can have a double edged
sword too. So Sure. It makes you hyper
independent, which makes it very hard to operate
in the world sometimes.
I do wanna the book thing really stood
out to me. I'm a big reader. I
was a big reader as a child. This
is
why it's so important not to ban books
(22:30):
because
they become a lifeline
to children.
Correct.
And I don't think anyone you know, I
read at a very young age kind of
precociously.
I would say very precociously.
Part of it was, you know, my father,
for all his bad, was a was a
professor of English literature. And my mother was
a person who I write. Books were like
(22:52):
air to her. She she she loved to
read. And, you know,
I started
and I think it's really
hard for adults to always say, well, this
book is appropriate or that book's not appropriate
for a child. You know, we have to
let children read at the level that that
they're at. I'm not saying that everybody should
(23:13):
be reading the way that I did. Perhaps
there should have been a little more monitoring,
but that's a whole different issue. I don't
know the answer to that. It's easy to
judge. That's how children get to experience the
the world that's not their own.
Yeah. It's incredibly
important for escape as well if they're in
situations where they don't feel like they can
escape. It creeps.
(23:34):
My other option was it was either reading
or self harm. So Yeah.
And and I think, you know, books are
better than sticking yourself with a pen or
cutting yourself.
I guess it's it's
a healthier option.
Do you
ever get visited by your father in dreams?
(23:54):
Not well,
I'm trying to think of the last time.
It's been a long time.
Not not right after he died, yes.
Not
anymore.
And I do get visited by my mother
sometimes.
And
I've actually
you know, this is gonna sound really rude,
but I do a lot of yoga. And,
(24:16):
you know, I've done some really intense
meditative
yoga experiences
where I've seen
doubt my mother come to me, but not
my father. He seems gone. I I
trying to think if he showed up recently.
Maybe I had one dream where we were
all together, my biological
(24:37):
family,
and there was like a flood and something
was going on. How did your sister receive
the book?
Oh, my sister is my first true love.
I hope that comes across in the book.
I went nervous the whole time reading because
I thought, oh god, you know, please, please.
It's bad enough that you're dealing with what
you're dealing with. I'm she didn't have an
(24:59):
easy time either. I mean, she she also
was hit a lot by my father. She
was she read it early. I had her
read it actually at first draft
because I said I'm writing this. I won't
write it if you're not okay with it.
And she was okay, and she's read it
all the way through. I I, you know,
dedicate the book to her. I had her
(25:19):
read it as I was writing it for
two reasons. One is I wanted to make
sure before I published it that that it
was before it got published and or started
sending it out for publication
that she would would sign off on it
because I didn't want to go any further.
And I also
wanted to have her read it for I
mean, it's all a historical
(25:40):
accuracy.
Obviously, our memories are not identical on the
way everything happened, but at least, you know,
we moved a lot as children and just
to to kind of get her take on
on these on particular scenes.
But she's been really supportive,
and she's really excited.
She's excited for me because she also knows
that I've been writing a long time, and
(26:02):
she's excited that I have a book, and
she's excited about this book. She's a therapist
by by training.
She's just recently retired, but she she was
a LCSW.
So I think she's open to the and
open to the book being published.
The therapists in the book, I wanted to
reach through the pages and just
(26:23):
absolutely throttle. Oh, the two. They were not
good. I mean, the first one,
you know, the second one, I really
I don't even give the excuse of time
to because it was already 1981
and, you know, the he
it was out there. The first one,
(26:43):
you know, was in the sixties. Things were
different, and there wasn't required reporting. I often
wonder my sister thinks that even though I
never quite told him a 100% what was
going on, and you'll read the book and
find out more about this,
But, my sister thinks that that would have
been required reporting at this point.
There was really no one to rescue me,
(27:04):
and the therapist that did finally help me
was a woman. And, actually, she was an
LCSW,
so go figure.
Yeah. Yeah.
Do you have children?
I do not.
I do not. I did not want to
have children. And I love children, by the
way. I really do. You know, I it
(27:24):
took me a really long time to find
stability.
You know, I write about some of it
in the book. And even after
the book ends, the period after, it took
me a little bit longer to find
someone that I could live with. And intimacy
took me a long time to to find,
but I, I have a husband now for,
(27:46):
that I've been married to for,
it'll be twenty four years next month. And
we've been together for over twenty five. But
by that time I was already
over. I was 42 when I met him
and 43 when we got married. You know,
we tried, but I didn't wanna have kids
until I was stable and until I found
somebody who was stable enough to have kids
(28:07):
with. And I just didn't my didn't find
that before.
You know, it was my opportunity to break
the cycle.
I completely understand that. But but I have
10 I have 10 nieces and nephews, and
I have
three four greats now.
Two, three.
Your sister had 10 kids.
They're not my sister. It's on my husband's
(28:28):
side. Okay. I was like, wow. That's a
lot.
No. No judgment. Wow. I can't imagine talking
to you. One kid. And
my husband's got my husband's got a from
a big family, but they they count. Absolutely.
No. For sure. One of the things and
again, no spoilers. But one of the things
that happens
(28:48):
with any kind of abuse with children is
that
as they grow up,
they tend to,
and this is a generalization,
but in my experience, this is what I've
seen. They tend to
get into situations
where abuse continues
in different forms by people outside the family
(29:09):
because it has set up
a feeling about oneself. And as you mentioned,
sort of that out of body experience or
being in your head and not your body.
And can you talk a little bit, especially
for the listeners who maybe are experiencing that
now, the
journey of
of getting your boundaries
back
(29:30):
and what that felt like for you and
how you reclaimed that part of yourself?
Well, it took a while. I mean, I
when I was growing up as a teenager,
I really I write that I didn't know
the the difference between
safety
and and danger.
And, you know,
I
interestingly enough,
I actually
(29:51):
couldn't be intimate. And and, you know, I
I got into some really dangerous positions as
a teenager. As an older as I became
an adult,
a lot of the men that I picked
weren't really abusive.
I was cause I just couldn't I didn't
stay very long.
I just kind of picked them for
to pick them.
(30:11):
And, I mean, I think the the last
relationship in the book, I don't know that
he it was abusive. It it was
maybe right on the border. He he could
you know, to be fair to him,
I was holding secrets and not that easy
to live with at that point. But
I never really got into the hitting relationships.
(30:33):
I stayed away from, I was afraid of
power.
I got, I was really afraid of men
having power over me, but I think that
it was more of a journey of of
going to therapy and starting to really look
at what I was looking for in a
partner.
You know, what would a partner
(30:53):
that I would like
look like? And sometimes
to be fair, I looked at the externalities
a little too heavily,
which isn't to say that my husband's not
a
good looking man. But I really went with,
you know, I I really wrote that I
was kinda just looking for somebody to sleep
next to to keep away the boogeyman. And
(31:14):
so it took a really long I had
to mature.
I I I don't think I became a
grown woman until I was 43.
And I had to mature into being a
woman and work
in therapy, kind of understand,
you know, what are the qualities that
I think I value in myself?
And those are the qualities I would value
(31:36):
in a partner. And then how could I
trust that partner to be safe,
which is, you know, I really started looking
at at my partner's
family relationships
that
not not necessarily at what they did for
a living, but who they were as people.
Mhmm. So it was a process, though. I
can't really point to any one moment in
(31:56):
time. I I have a moment in the
book where I I talk about having a
conversation
relationship with somebody. I won't spoil that because
it's a precious moment.
Absolutely. No. It's and again, it's it's tricky
sometimes in these interviews because I wanna
dive in, but I also want people to
read the book.
I know some of them people eat, people
do that. They, I feel like sometimes I'm
(32:18):
like, I'm giving away the whole book, so
why would they buy it? But, you know,
I say buying the book and reading it
is a whole different experience than hearing about
it in a podcast.
Yeah. Also,
the the thing about writing about this particular
topic is you are now standing on a
roof and shouting
about what happened. And I think the more
(32:40):
that happens,
the more people in their own lives will
feel like it's okay for them to also
stand up to their abusers or speak about
their abuse and get that poison out instead
of carrying the burden of it. And that's
my primary you know, one of my primary
messages in the book because that that's why,
actually, my editor and publisher helped me find
(33:02):
the title. I struggled with titles for a
long time. But when they when we found
it, I was like, yes. Because
what I really believed was that if and
this is what my mother believed. If you
created a pretty enough picture, if you were
smart enough or, you know, externally attractive enough
or just
pretended something
what didn't happen,
(33:23):
you could make that to be that could
be so.
And what I learned is you can't hold
these these things secret. You can't bury them.
I mean, some people have are able to,
you know, their brains allow them to, to,
to bury their memories and their subconscious. I
kind of wish mine had,
you know, they come out anyway. I mean,
(33:44):
you know, and now there's all these, these
newer things that are happening, books being written
and and stories about people using MDMA
and finding their memories.
I
didn't ever lose mine, but I really tried
to keep them buried. For a long time,
I tried, trust me, But I'm glad I
didn't because, you know, it made me the
(34:05):
person that I am today.
Yeah. I mean, honestly, that
could have developed into DID or any any
number of things. Yeah. And truthfully, the secrets
were killing me. I I
am very lucky that I didn't, you know,
kill myself.
You know, there were moments where I was
very close without you know, to to suicide.
(34:27):
And and I'm I I'm grateful every day
that, you know, I was able to get
the help that I can, could. And
I hope, which is part of the reason
that I'm speaking and giving whatever money I
can to to these resources is, you know,
today, so many of these nonprofits are losing
federal funding,
(34:47):
but there are still
it still exists that there are
organizations
that will help
people who even people who can't afford to
get therapy themselves.
You know, the rape treatment center here in
LA, we're very fortunate, but other places we
are as well.
And the rape treatment center gives
(35:07):
adults
one year through the rape treatment center of
therapy, and Stewart House allows for the children
to have a year as well as the
non perpetrating parent. Wow.
I that's really generous, but there are other
organizations
that provide
services as well and hopefully
in more parts of the country. You know?
(35:29):
There's so much to the non perpetrating
parent too that
the the looking the other way ness of
it all for so many families,
for myself too, like, showing up to school,
tear faced, you know, bloated, crying face with
a note,
and nobody's saying a thing.
(35:49):
You know? Nobody's saying a word, and it's
just the whole the whole of it, the
silence culture around it all
is devastating.
It's devastate and I think it's you know,
you're you're much younger than I am, and
I you know, it still happens. And,
you know, that's the issue. When I'm at
Stuart House and with the play lady, I
see the moms who bring their children in
(36:11):
and sometimes it's a dad, but sometimes it's
a step father, sometimes it's an who knows?
I don't find out
much about the cases for a lot of
different reasons, privacy,
and also because, you know, for court, if
they do go to court, so they don't
give us that information.
Our job is simply to play
and, which is a great job to have,
(36:32):
like I said. But when I watch these
moms, I go, God, you're my hero. Those
are my heroes.
Is the women
or men, if it's the other way, the
or and sometimes it's a mother and a
father
bringing the child in because it's someone else.
The parents who bring their child to to
therapy and are willing to acknowledge this This
(36:52):
is happening by someone
to their child. Those are my heroes because
I know
that, you know, there's there's gotta be some
shame connected with it, and they're able to
overcome that shame for their child's well-being.
It's amazing. I, you know, but I also
want, you know, young women who, you know,
(37:13):
there's so much of this, this is, you
know, sexual abuse
pervasive,
you know, Rain says one in nine boys,
one in nine girls and one in twenty
boys are sexually abused before the age of
18. And we won't even get into the
women after the age of 18. That's a
whole different story. And that's just what's reported.
Right. And that's what's reported. So
(37:34):
regardless of whether it's childhood or not childhood
or
you know, I think the the point of
my book is that keeping these secrets
to yourself isn't gonna help you. You need
to get some help. And and as a
society, we should be aware that this happens.
Yeah. What's next for you? I I have
an old novel that is not about this,
(37:56):
that I pulled out. And I'm that I'm
I'm kind of exploring
whether I want I took a little class
on on character with,
a a writer I know, Josh Moore, who
who's like a really, really good character person
and and,
recently just have something to take my mind
off of this.
And I'm playing with that potentially.
(38:18):
I I'm also
looking at, you know, writing some more essays.
I have found right now that that this
process of this book
is
so consuming
that there's not too much time for other
things. And then on a personal
advocacy,
I want to continue that as a trajectory.
(38:40):
Writing, I can write something else. But I
do want to continue that
as, you know, I'm lucky. I call it,
I'm of retirement age, but not really psychologically
ready for retirement. But I'm ready to do
something new. And that's what I've chosen. So
I want to continue to be out in
the world talking about this issue.
That's what's next.
(39:01):
I'm curious
how
your relationship, if you have one, if you
are an atheist, if you believe in God,
how how that has changed over your lifetime.
I'm kind of a person who believes in
a higher power, the universe.
I don't know that I and I can't
the universe can be called God. I I
(39:21):
don't have anything, you know, with that term.
I'm not a part of an organized religion,
but one of the things that happened, I
went through a period probably around college where
I was just didn't believe in God at
all, atheist.
But now I believe in something bigger than
me. I actually do. I meditate every day
and I pray every day. And I also
(39:43):
kind of my prayers are more about gratitude
than about asking for something.
So I do have a relationship with something
bigger. I just don't I don't know what
that looks like, and I'm not a part
of any organized religion,
But I'm not opposed to other people's organized
religions.
Yeah. That makes sense. Tell people how they
might find you. I have a website
(40:04):
right now. It's andrealeebeauthor.com.
I think we're working on maybe perhaps
changing it, but it'll have a hyperlink.
So it's andrealeebauthor.com,
and then I have an Instagram, which is
andrea
lisa
leeb. So that's my Instagram,
and you can follow me. And the book
(40:25):
can be purchased. I'm gonna just give a
pitch.
It's my launch date my publication date is
October 14,
but it is available for preorder
now. You can get it on the Simon
and Schuster website
on,
or look on the Simon and Schuster and
there's hyperlinks there's hyperlinks. My author website.
Amazon,
(40:46):
of course.
Bookshop,
of course.
Barnes and Noble. So, basically, anywhere where they
sell books, it's available for preorder,
and the publication date is October 14.
And as I said, my royalties,
I
am you know, I because I have the
opportunity to, I'm able to donate them
(41:07):
to RAIN and other rape treatment organizations.
So Fantastic.
And as a person that as I said,
I read constantly.
I've
this book is very well
written. It's easy to read. It's an important
read. You know, people have an idea that
this happens only in certain families or in
(41:28):
in
and this is not
a you know, these issues, these child abuse
issues are not related
to
socioeconomics,
to race, to religion.
You know, they happen in all families.
So I also wanted, you know, no matter
how, and my family had a pretty good,
(41:49):
pretty picture. You know? It was
a, father who was a professor,
a pretty mother, and two little girls, cute
little girls. How how good how how lovely
is that?
Yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely.
I wish you great success, and I think
it's incredible
what you do and what you have survived.
And I think that it's
(42:11):
so important that
beacons exist in the world because the ocean
is fucking big.
Yeah. When we see a beacon of light
that we can swim toward, it makes all
the difference.
I I think that's really true. Right? That's
a good way to say it. I love
that. I might steal it.
Thank you so much for taking the time
to be on the show. Oh my god.
(42:32):
Thank you. And thank you for saying the
book was well written. That means the world
to me. I mean, also because, you know,
as a writer,
you want people to like your writing. So
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's it's it's well written.
Absolutely. It's easy to read. And I don't
mean that
that it's pedantic. It's not that. It's
I I yeah. I understand. But
(42:53):
thank you for having me. I really appreciate
the opportunity
to talk with you this morning. It's been
lovely.
Absolutely. And thank you for listening, everybody.
Bye.
Bye. Thank you.
Bye.
Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human podcast
wherever you get your podcast.
(43:15):
Thanks.
Bye.
Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here.
Thanks for listening to another episode
of Hey, human podcast.
This is episode 461,
and my guest is Andrea Lieb. Her memoir,
Such a Pretty Picture, powerfully narrates her life
and offers an honest insight
into a survivor's journey.
I read the book
(00:29):
and
before I spoke with Andrea,
and it is
superbly written. It's easy to read. It flows
really quickly.
It is intense.
I got mad. I got sad. I felt
triumph for her.
It's it's really something. And you can preorder
it now. It's available on all the places
(00:50):
you get books.
Highly, highly, highly recommend.
Trigger warning, incest, sexual assault.
This is a big episode as far as,
the things that it might stir up in
you listeners, and I just I wanna make
sure that you are prepared
and take care of yourselves,
and,
you know, self practice self care. Andrea is
(01:13):
also a retired lawyer. She's a former nurse
and has written
for numerous
literary journals. She also advocates for survivors of
sexual assault, volunteering at the UCLA Rape Treatment
Center and Stewart House, and mentoring young women
from post conflict and climate challenged countries.
She's a badass.
(01:34):
If you or anyone you know is experiencing
incest or sexual assault,
please contact
the National Sexual Assault Hotline.
It's +1 806564673.
You can reach out to rainn.org.
That's rainn.0rg.
If you're living overseas,
(01:54):
you can call RAINN at +1 (202) 501-4444.
Talk to somebody you trust. Tell a teacher
or
a safe parent or a safe family member
and there's help out there.
General stuff. Check out heyhumanpodcast.com
for links and to learn more about my
(02:15):
guests and the show. Check out susanruth.com
to learn more about me and my other
artistic endeavors.
Please follow Susan Ruthism on social media. Find
my music on Spotify, Apple Music,
Amazon Music, or wherever you get your music.
Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast
on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast,
(02:36):
Spotify,
iHeart,
it's all over the place. And thank you
for listening.
Be kind,
be well,
be loved,
and take care of yourself.
Here we go.
Andrea Lieb, welcome to Hey Human.
Thank you. I'm really excited to be here.
Yeah. I read your book last night.
(02:59):
Oh, wow. Okay.
It's, it's heavy,
but also,
triumphant.
Yeah. I think so. I I mean, I
think one reviewer said it's a moving memoir
of trauma with an uplifting conclusion.
So It's incredibly well written as well. I
have to say, having read a bazillion books,
(03:19):
what I really appreciated
was
how
it's written in such a a well
well receiving way. Then you could consume it
at a at a rapid pace. It felt
very much
like I was there.
I got mad.
I got upset. I wanted to just rush
(03:39):
in and take you out of there. You
know, it brought up a lot of stuff.
I had a,
a childhood that was abusive.
So, you know, the the little girl in
me wanted to go and get the little
girl in you
and protect her. Thank you. I that means
a lot to me. I mean, it really
means a lot to me. You know, as
a I've been a writer a long time.
(04:00):
I didn't just one day wake up and
say, oh, I'm gonna write a book. I
I've been working you know, I've been writing
most of my life. This book was a
really hard choice to write for and I
really worked hard to make it consumable. I
guess that would be a word. You know,
make it easy for people because I knew
the subject is, you know, I was I
spare nothing in the subject. I made it
(04:22):
really raw. I chose to do that as
a deliberate choice because I wanted people
to experience
what to the best that I could, what
what childhood victims go through.
And, and I wanted them to feel what
I felt. But at the same time, I
wanted to make sure the writing was kind
(04:42):
of fast paced enough and quick enough so
that people I knew that the subject would
be somewhat
overwhelming at times, so I wanted the writing
to be easier.
So I really I really worked on that,
you know, to to make it simple, easy
for people to read. For such a heavy
subject, incredibly digestible. Even the way you set
up the chapters, they they moved I write
(05:03):
script. Right? So it moves like a script.
I think I I'm a visual thinker, so
that's probably part of it is I visualize
things. So it might be part of my
writing style anyway, but, again, that was really
deliberate. And, yeah, digestible was more consumable.
I
mean, I feel like that's the same thing.
Such a Pretty Picture is the name of
(05:24):
the memoir.
Before we
dive into just where you are now, let's
go back.
You grew up in New York
just without I want people to read the
book, so
clearly we've intimated what is going on in
the book. But can you give just an
overview of childhood? I'll I'll start with just
the beginning because it's it's easy, and it's
(05:46):
on the back of the book, so it's
not a big spoiler alert. I was four
and a half when the first time my
father gave me a bath.
And it's an early, early memory.
Truthfully, it's my clearest first memory. And my
I knew when he was bathing me, he
asked me to let him wash me with
his hand. And I could tell from his
(06:06):
his breathing and all I was really young,
but I knew there was something wrong. He
scared me.
And when my mother walked in to check
on us,
she saw what was going on. And, you
know, I it was, you know, in retrospect
now as an older as an adult, I
realized my father was masturbating. As a child,
I wouldn't have known what masturbation was.
(06:29):
She screamed,
fell to the floor. And when she woke
up, she was blind. My father caught her
and she was blind and it was something
called hysterical blindness. And I write
that my mother stayed hysterically blind for a
month
and she was, you know, remained
emotionally
(06:49):
blind for decades. So the story is about
my surviving
a long term childhood,
sexual abuse and other abuse
and about my and also about
realizing
I kept it very, very much a secret
for a long time and realizing that, you
know, holding the secret was as almost as
(07:11):
destructive as the abuse itself. So that's what
the book is about. You know, my hope
here is to raise awareness on childhood
sexual abuse,
incest in particular,
as well as
to give other people who are still suffering
or or not speaking,
maybe the courage to speak to somebody,
a therapist, a trusted friend, and also to
(07:33):
give them a glimmer of hope that healing
is possible. Because the fact that I wrote
the book, I obviously shows that I've healed,
but I have. So
And I saw that you give some of
the proceeds to RAIN, which is extraordinary.
Yeah. I'm actually giving all the proceeds away.
I'm I'm really lucky that I, you know,
I worked as an attorney for a long
time, and my husband and I talked about
(07:55):
it when I wrote the book.
And this is,
this is the book unexpectedly
turned into an advocacy
and a life of I'm really realized
that what, where I am in my life
right now, I'm no longer practicing law and
I am really fully dedicating myself to advocacy
on this issue. I just recently was
(08:17):
asked to join the advisory board for UCLA
rape treatment center and Stewart House, and I
volunteer at Stewart House once a week.
I'm getting involved in other organizations. So I'm
giving all the rest of the proceeds 25%
to RAIN. They they run a hotline, which
is national,
and the rest to local organizations.
(08:38):
If I'm speaking, I have some book events
scheduled.
And if I'm speaking in a community, then
I'm looking up the local rape treatment center,
and I'm gonna be giving anything that comes
from that bookstore
or that event also to that local center.
It's more of a, you know, authors don't
make a lot of money. This is symbolic
as much as anything. Let's be real. But
(08:59):
I really want to make this,
it's a passion now. Strange. I did not
expect that to happen, but I've become incredibly
public about this. So
That's healing though. Yeah. It's a new I
I call it, you know,
I I thought I was healed when I
started writing the book and I was to
a large extent. And, you know, I couldn't
(09:20):
have excavated these memories
and put this on paper without a lot
of therapy and a lot of healing.
But it gave me another layer of healing.
And to be honest, I went back into
therapy when I was writing the book because
I, I really felt the need to be
in therapy again
to to really
(09:41):
it was comp it's complicated,
you know, and you're you're you're telling not
only your secret, but the secret of your
family. And
I know it's gonna sound really counterintuitive.
Well, my father, I really didn't
I I can't really say I loved him.
I was relieved when he died, but my
mother, regardless of her failure to protect me,
(10:03):
I I really loved her.
I did. Some people might disagree with that
choice, but I loved her, and I kept
her in my life. And it felt a
little odd, you know, kind of
not that she has a legacy, but ruining
her legacy.
You know? It's kind of like the author.
My mother's not the author Alice Munro, but
I don't know if you're familiar with that,
but she, you know, her legacy was, you
(10:26):
know, her daughter, who's also named Andrea,
wrote about being abused by her stepfather, and
it's really changed the way people look at
Alice. And,
you know, it probably will change the way
people look at my mother. She's passed on
now, so it's a little easier. I think
when you are someone who has suffered complex
trauma,
(10:46):
for people that haven't experienced
that,
they don't quite maybe understand how convoluted
the feelings of love and devotion.
And
even though you you low key hate this
person, but you also love them, you want
their attention, you want them to love you
back, and it gets so confusing and so
(11:08):
convoluted.
And people say, well, why didn't you
tell someone or why don't you run away
or why don't you and it's because you're
also protecting your abuser.
Yes. And and I was and in the
book I write about, you know, as a
young, I write about being an adolescent and
a pre adolescent and wanting my father's attention.
(11:30):
And at the same time, hating my father's
attention
and feeling responsible
for the family. And, and for my mother,
you know, the blindness was a really,
you know, seeing that happen at that moment
in time, I internalized it. I mean, my
father didn't help by telling me it was
my fault,
but I internalized it for a long time.
(11:51):
I really viewed myself as responsible for my
mother's protection and happiness.
And your mother's violence towards you was, you
know, her internalized rage that she couldn't touch.
Right. And yeah, my mother was violent toward
me for a couple of years when I
was a child. And, and I write about
that too. It was as if she changed
(12:11):
turned her rage at my father
in outward toward me.
And, you know, I can't speak to why
my mother stayed with my father.
I I wasn't I'm not in her skin,
but,
you know, people ask me all the time
whether I think she was abused. And I
I just don't know the answer. I mean,
(12:31):
this kind of child abuse is generational. This
kind of trauma is generational. So if I
were a, a guesser, I would say somewhere
in her family history,
there was some kind of of of
sort of sexual abuse. I I would guess
that.
But I at far be my mother kept
everything closed.
(12:53):
Yeah. Well, it's definitely generally generational. And statistically
speaking, it's more likely, yes, that that's true.
Yeah. I would encourage that.
Do you think you would have written the
book had your parents still been living?
Well, my mom was alive when I wrote
the book. She Oh, I thought she had
passed already. Passed at when I wrote the
(13:15):
epilogue.
Ah, yes. This is Pam Houston, my, mentor,
one of my men writing mentors said,
you are not gonna completely finish this book.
So she wrote she was alive through many
drafts of this book.
My father was dead. I probably couldn't have
written it if my father was alive. It
(13:36):
would have taken a little bit more my
mother.
I kept a relationship with my father, for
better or worse, because I kept the relationship
with my mother and
that he was a nonnegotiable
deal. And what that relationship looked like,
it
wasn't your typical father daughter relationship, obviously.
(13:57):
My mother was still alive and I was
actually taking care of her on and off
while I was writing it.
She
kind of knew I was writing the book.
My mother was always the biggest supporter of
my writer. I have writing.
I have an MFA in creative writing. And
when I went back for it and, you
know, I had this night once through the
new fiction series where actors read my work,
(14:20):
my short stories,
and my mother flew out and She was
so proud of me. And everything I ever
published, she wanted to read.
And not that I published a great deal,
but I published. And,
she
knew
I was writing this, but she she said,
I know you're writing a book, and I
know it's about your father, and I don't
(14:40):
wanna talk about it.
So I don't know if I could have
published it. I think the the universe
I I, if she was still alive, it
would be a lot harder to be in
this position.
I, there's a big part of me. My
mother wasn't well when I was writing it.
And I, I knew it was more, not
that I wished for her death because I
didn't, but I knew it was more likely
(15:02):
than not that she would be writing process
takes a long time, you know, that she
would be deceased by the time it came
out. It did cross my minds.
But, yeah, I I yeah. That was part
of why I went into therapy.
For sure. Well, I would think that therapy
would be important
while writing this just because even
(15:23):
if you felt like you were healed, it
would still your body
doesn't understand timeline.
Your body is feeling
in the moment of the actual moment, as
much as it is in the future self
writing it. When I write in the book,
healing is not linear. I mean, this is
you don't walk out of, of any kind
of program or have any kind of moment,
(15:44):
even if you've had an epiphany, which,
without giving away too much, I sort of
had. But even if you have an epiphany
of healing,
you can't, you know, you can't walk out
and then one day go, oh, I'm perfectly
fine. I think that, in fact, it's almost
bad for people to think that way or
or not healthy, not because,
(16:05):
you know, it it puts so much pressure
on you as a as a survivor,
you know, to be able to you have
to understand that there's steps backwards and forwards.
And especially you reference CPTSD
when it's this, you know, complex
CPTSD.
It's still with you. I mean, I still
jump when somebody comes up behind me too
(16:25):
closely. Your body,
you know, your body stays.
You know, I interestingly, I found yoga,
through writing this book or toward the end
of this book. I was older, and I'd
always run and done a lot of spinning
and different activities. And I ended up finding
yoga as as a rule of of this
book, which has opened my body in ways
(16:47):
that I didn't even
realize. You know, I was always kind of
ahead on a body.
Yeah. I understand that completely.
When you move through the world,
do you look around and spot kids and
think, oh my God, I know something's going
on.
I can see it in in young women,
(17:09):
sometimes from their posture
and and sometimes
from children, if I see,
you know, certain ways that if a parent
is yelling and I can see children shrinking
into themselves.
And so it becomes more apparent. Although, you
know, sometimes it's it's
it's funny because, you know, doing the work
at Stewart House, what Stewart House is is
(17:31):
a treatment program that UCLA treatment center rape
treatment center runs. And it's really unique because
everything is at this one location
and all the police, all the therapists,
so the children don't have to go running
all over the place.
And my volunteer work is I'm the play
lady.
So which is the best job I've ever
(17:54):
had, I must admit. And the children walk
in and, you know, wow. You know, the
first thing is they're greeted by
me or another play lady or play
and they well, there's this big playroom, which
is filled with donated toys and and
really fun things to do.
(18:14):
And they they're they're you know, say, hi.
I'm here. I'm I'm the play lady. I'm
wondering if you'd be interested in playing. And
and
watching the children when they come in because
they're scared that body language is that body
language, that that turtled
they're turtles. And when they start playing, children
are still really young children particularly are still
(18:35):
really helpful.
You know, they can still
have those you see it. The joy comes
quickly to them
as opposed to, I think, the longer you
know, by the time I was an adolescent
or a pre adolescent,
I was pretty hardwired
to feeling bad and distrustful
about the world in general.
(18:56):
But yeah. So it's been really that's been
really fun being having that opportunity to to
be the play lady.
That's lovely. And to how important it is
to rewire the idea of play, because even
in the book, that was one of the
things your dad said to you. Let I
wanna play with you. Mhmm. And that how
that becomes bastardized
(19:17):
of what what real play is versus
not safe play. Wow. You know, you picked
up on something I wasn't even conscious of.
So there you go. That that's really true.
I had never even thought that till this
moment, which
gives me a note for therapy. But,
you know, it's
which is goes to the point that we're
(19:37):
all healing and learning from this. Sometimes with
the fingers put on the page,
the conscious doesn't even we're not even conscious
of. But that's exactly it. I mean, I
never felt like a child, like a true
child. I lost my childhood
before I even experienced it, it, and I
lost my agency before it even developed.
(19:58):
And I I don't think my story,
unfortunately,
is that unique
to especially any any
survivor of sexual abuse, but also, you know,
children
who grow up with violence, with hitting, with
being screamed at constantly. And that really,
you know, these household
(20:19):
where the children
turn into
objects of anger.
And, you know, we lose our agency. We
lose our ability to be happy.
Absolutely.
And I read somewhere a long time ago
that
physical not sexual
the the punchy kind, the slappy kind, physical
abuse or pinching or whatever it is, is
(20:41):
as
detrimental
to a child
psyche as the verbal abuse that it's as
if you're being punched if you wanna, you
know, apples for apples or whatnot. And I
I find it very I have to be
very careful because
it is
no two people experience
trauma alike, and
(21:03):
it does not matter, in my opinion,
what kind of trauma you experienced,
you experienced trauma.
And that if we try to out trauma
each other, it completely loses the point and
and jeopardizes the healing of it.
Correct. And I, you know, I hope my
book is you know, I know it's difficult
at points to read, but I hope that
it would be a message for other people
(21:25):
who've had other kinds of trauma because,
you know, the the point is this, we
can't out trauma each other and we can't
necessarily
experience it the same way.
And, you know, in some ways, I was
really fortunate
because I grew up in a family that
loved books,
and books really saved me. And the the
(21:47):
ability to read and write
really was for me,
important.
It allowed me some academic success
and the ability to be financially independent earlier
than, than a lot of people. And, you
know,
that's truthfully where I got a lot of
people ask, were you resilient? And I said,
(22:08):
well, that I think it's part of that.
Although resilience can can have a double edged
sword too. So Sure. It makes you hyper
independent, which makes it very hard to operate
in the world sometimes.
I do wanna the book thing really stood
out to me. I'm a big reader. I
was a big reader as a child. This
is
why it's so important not to ban books
(22:30):
because
they become a lifeline
to children.
Correct.
And I don't think anyone you know, I
read at a very young age kind of
precociously.
I would say very precociously.
Part of it was, you know, my father,
for all his bad, was a was a
professor of English literature. And my mother was
a person who I write. Books were like
(22:52):
air to her. She she she loved to
read. And, you know,
I started
and I think it's really
hard for adults to always say, well, this
book is appropriate or that book's not appropriate
for a child. You know, we have to
let children read at the level that that
they're at. I'm not saying that everybody should
(23:13):
be reading the way that I did. Perhaps
there should have been a little more monitoring,
but that's a whole different issue. I don't
know the answer to that. It's easy to
judge. That's how children get to experience the
the world that's not their own.
Yeah. It's incredibly
important for escape as well if they're in
situations where they don't feel like they can
escape. It creeps.
(23:34):
My other option was it was either reading
or self harm. So Yeah.
And and I think, you know, books are
better than sticking yourself with a pen or
cutting yourself.
I guess it's it's
a healthier option.
Do you
ever get visited by your father in dreams?
(23:54):
Not well,
I'm trying to think of the last time.
It's been a long time.
Not not right after he died, yes.
Not
anymore.
And I do get visited by my mother
sometimes.
And
I've actually
you know, this is gonna sound really rude,
but I do a lot of yoga. And,
(24:16):
you know, I've done some really intense
meditative
yoga experiences
where I've seen
doubt my mother come to me, but not
my father. He seems gone. I I
trying to think if he showed up recently.
Maybe I had one dream where we were
all together, my biological
(24:37):
family,
and there was like a flood and something
was going on. How did your sister receive
the book?
Oh, my sister is my first true love.
I hope that comes across in the book.
I went nervous the whole time reading because
I thought, oh god, you know, please, please.
It's bad enough that you're dealing with what
you're dealing with. I'm she didn't have an
(24:59):
easy time either. I mean, she she also
was hit a lot by my father. She
was she read it early. I had her
read it actually at first draft
because I said I'm writing this. I won't
write it if you're not okay with it.
And she was okay, and she's read it
all the way through. I I, you know,
dedicate the book to her. I had her
(25:19):
read it as I was writing it for
two reasons. One is I wanted to make
sure before I published it that that it
was before it got published and or started
sending it out for publication
that she would would sign off on it
because I didn't want to go any further.
And I also
wanted to have her read it for I
mean, it's all a historical
(25:40):
accuracy.
Obviously, our memories are not identical on the
way everything happened, but at least, you know,
we moved a lot as children and just
to to kind of get her take on
on these on particular scenes.
But she's been really supportive,
and she's really excited.
She's excited for me because she also knows
that I've been writing a long time, and
(26:02):
she's excited that I have a book, and
she's excited about this book. She's a therapist
by by training.
She's just recently retired, but she she was
a LCSW.
So I think she's open to the and
open to the book being published.
The therapists in the book, I wanted to
reach through the pages and just
(26:23):
absolutely throttle. Oh, the two. They were not
good. I mean, the first one,
you know, the second one, I really
I don't even give the excuse of time
to because it was already 1981
and, you know, the he
it was out there. The first one,
(26:43):
you know, was in the sixties. Things were
different, and there wasn't required reporting. I often
wonder my sister thinks that even though I
never quite told him a 100% what was
going on, and you'll read the book and
find out more about this,
But, my sister thinks that that would have
been required reporting at this point.
There was really no one to rescue me,
(27:04):
and the therapist that did finally help me
was a woman. And, actually, she was an
LCSW,
so go figure.
Yeah. Yeah.
Do you have children?
I do not.
I do not. I did not want to
have children. And I love children, by the
way. I really do. You know, I it
(27:24):
took me a really long time to find
stability.
You know, I write about some of it
in the book. And even after
the book ends, the period after, it took
me a little bit longer to find
someone that I could live with. And intimacy
took me a long time to to find,
but I, I have a husband now for,
(27:46):
that I've been married to for,
it'll be twenty four years next month. And
we've been together for over twenty five. But
by that time I was already
over. I was 42 when I met him
and 43 when we got married. You know,
we tried, but I didn't wanna have kids
until I was stable and until I found
somebody who was stable enough to have kids
(28:07):
with. And I just didn't my didn't find
that before.
You know, it was my opportunity to break
the cycle.
I completely understand that. But but I have
10 I have 10 nieces and nephews, and
I have
three four greats now.
Two, three.
Your sister had 10 kids.
They're not my sister. It's on my husband's
(28:28):
side. Okay. I was like, wow. That's a
lot.
No. No judgment. Wow. I can't imagine talking
to you. One kid. And
my husband's got my husband's got a from
a big family, but they they count. Absolutely.
No. For sure. One of the things and
again, no spoilers. But one of the things
that happens
(28:48):
with any kind of abuse with children is
that
as they grow up,
they tend to,
and this is a generalization,
but in my experience, this is what I've
seen. They tend to
get into situations
where abuse continues
in different forms by people outside the family
(29:09):
because it has set up
a feeling about oneself. And as you mentioned,
sort of that out of body experience or
being in your head and not your body.
And can you talk a little bit, especially
for the listeners who maybe are experiencing that
now, the
journey of
of getting your boundaries
back
(29:30):
and what that felt like for you and
how you reclaimed that part of yourself?
Well, it took a while. I mean, I
when I was growing up as a teenager,
I really I write that I didn't know
the the difference between
safety
and and danger.
And, you know,
I
interestingly enough,
I actually
(29:51):
couldn't be intimate. And and, you know, I
I got into some really dangerous positions as
a teenager. As an older as I became
an adult,
a lot of the men that I picked
weren't really abusive.
I was cause I just couldn't I didn't
stay very long.
I just kind of picked them for
to pick them.
(30:11):
And, I mean, I think the the last
relationship in the book, I don't know that
he it was abusive. It it was
maybe right on the border. He he could
you know, to be fair to him,
I was holding secrets and not that easy
to live with at that point. But
I never really got into the hitting relationships.
(30:33):
I stayed away from, I was afraid of
power.
I got, I was really afraid of men
having power over me, but I think that
it was more of a journey of of
going to therapy and starting to really look
at what I was looking for in a
partner.
You know, what would a partner
(30:53):
that I would like
look like? And sometimes
to be fair, I looked at the externalities
a little too heavily,
which isn't to say that my husband's not
a
good looking man. But I really went with,
you know, I I really wrote that I
was kinda just looking for somebody to sleep
next to to keep away the boogeyman. And
(31:14):
so it took a really long I had
to mature.
I I I don't think I became a
grown woman until I was 43.
And I had to mature into being a
woman and work
in therapy, kind of understand,
you know, what are the qualities that
I think I value in myself?
And those are the qualities I would value
(31:36):
in a partner. And then how could I
trust that partner to be safe,
which is, you know, I really started looking
at at my partner's
family relationships
that
not not necessarily at what they did for
a living, but who they were as people.
Mhmm. So it was a process, though. I
can't really point to any one moment in
(31:56):
time. I I have a moment in the
book where I I talk about having a
conversation
relationship with somebody. I won't spoil that because
it's a precious moment.
Absolutely. No. It's and again, it's it's tricky
sometimes in these interviews because I wanna
dive in, but I also want people to
read the book.
I know some of them people eat, people
do that. They, I feel like sometimes I'm
(32:18):
like, I'm giving away the whole book, so
why would they buy it? But, you know,
I say buying the book and reading it
is a whole different experience than hearing about
it in a podcast.
Yeah. Also,
the the thing about writing about this particular
topic is you are now standing on a
roof and shouting
about what happened. And I think the more
(32:40):
that happens,
the more people in their own lives will
feel like it's okay for them to also
stand up to their abusers or speak about
their abuse and get that poison out instead
of carrying the burden of it. And that's
my primary you know, one of my primary
messages in the book because that that's why,
actually, my editor and publisher helped me find
(33:02):
the title. I struggled with titles for a
long time. But when they when we found
it, I was like, yes. Because
what I really believed was that if and
this is what my mother believed. If you
created a pretty enough picture, if you were
smart enough or, you know, externally attractive enough
or just
pretended something
what didn't happen,
(33:23):
you could make that to be that could
be so.
And what I learned is you can't hold
these these things secret. You can't bury them.
I mean, some people have are able to,
you know, their brains allow them to, to,
to bury their memories and their subconscious. I
kind of wish mine had,
you know, they come out anyway. I mean,
(33:44):
you know, and now there's all these, these
newer things that are happening, books being written
and and stories about people using MDMA
and finding their memories.
I
didn't ever lose mine, but I really tried
to keep them buried. For a long time,
I tried, trust me, But I'm glad I
didn't because, you know, it made me the
(34:05):
person that I am today.
Yeah. I mean, honestly, that
could have developed into DID or any any
number of things. Yeah. And truthfully, the secrets
were killing me. I I
am very lucky that I didn't, you know,
kill myself.
You know, there were moments where I was
very close without you know, to to suicide.
(34:27):
And and I'm I I'm grateful every day
that, you know, I was able to get
the help that I can, could. And
I hope, which is part of the reason
that I'm speaking and giving whatever money I
can to to these resources is, you know,
today, so many of these nonprofits are losing
federal funding,
(34:47):
but there are still
it still exists that there are
organizations
that will help
people who even people who can't afford to
get therapy themselves.
You know, the rape treatment center here in
LA, we're very fortunate, but other places we
are as well.
And the rape treatment center gives
(35:07):
adults
one year through the rape treatment center of
therapy, and Stewart House allows for the children
to have a year as well as the
non perpetrating parent. Wow.
I that's really generous, but there are other
organizations
that provide
services as well and hopefully
in more parts of the country. You know?
(35:29):
There's so much to the non perpetrating
parent too that
the the looking the other way ness of
it all for so many families,
for myself too, like, showing up to school,
tear faced, you know, bloated, crying face with
a note,
and nobody's saying a thing.
(35:49):
You know? Nobody's saying a word, and it's
just the whole the whole of it, the
silence culture around it all
is devastating.
It's devastate and I think it's you know,
you're you're much younger than I am, and
I you know, it still happens. And,
you know, that's the issue. When I'm at
Stuart House and with the play lady, I
see the moms who bring their children in
(36:11):
and sometimes it's a dad, but sometimes it's
a step father, sometimes it's an who knows?
I don't find out
much about the cases for a lot of
different reasons, privacy,
and also because, you know, for court, if
they do go to court, so they don't
give us that information.
Our job is simply to play
and, which is a great job to have,
(36:32):
like I said. But when I watch these
moms, I go, God, you're my hero. Those
are my heroes.
Is the women
or men, if it's the other way, the
or and sometimes it's a mother and a
father
bringing the child in because it's someone else.
The parents who bring their child to to
therapy and are willing to acknowledge this This
(36:52):
is happening by someone
to their child. Those are my heroes because
I know
that, you know, there's there's gotta be some
shame connected with it, and they're able to
overcome that shame for their child's well-being.
It's amazing. I, you know, but I also
want, you know, young women who, you know,
(37:13):
there's so much of this, this is, you
know, sexual abuse
pervasive,
you know, Rain says one in nine boys,
one in nine girls and one in twenty
boys are sexually abused before the age of
18. And we won't even get into the
women after the age of 18. That's a
whole different story. And that's just what's reported.
Right. And that's what's reported. So
(37:34):
regardless of whether it's childhood or not childhood
or
you know, I think the the point of
my book is that keeping these secrets
to yourself isn't gonna help you. You need
to get some help. And and as a
society, we should be aware that this happens.
Yeah. What's next for you? I I have
an old novel that is not about this,
(37:56):
that I pulled out. And I'm that I'm
I'm kind of exploring
whether I want I took a little class
on on character with,
a a writer I know, Josh Moore, who
who's like a really, really good character person
and and,
recently just have something to take my mind
off of this.
And I'm playing with that potentially.
(38:18):
I I'm also
looking at, you know, writing some more essays.
I have found right now that that this
process of this book
is
so consuming
that there's not too much time for other
things. And then on a personal
advocacy,
I want to continue that as a trajectory.
(38:40):
Writing, I can write something else. But I
do want to continue that
as, you know, I'm lucky. I call it,
I'm of retirement age, but not really psychologically
ready for retirement. But I'm ready to do
something new. And that's what I've chosen. So
I want to continue to be out in
the world talking about this issue.
That's what's next.
(39:01):
I'm curious
how
your relationship, if you have one, if you
are an atheist, if you believe in God,
how how that has changed over your lifetime.
I'm kind of a person who believes in
a higher power, the universe.
I don't know that I and I can't
the universe can be called God. I I
(39:21):
don't have anything, you know, with that term.
I'm not a part of an organized religion,
but one of the things that happened, I
went through a period probably around college where
I was just didn't believe in God at
all, atheist.
But now I believe in something bigger than
me. I actually do. I meditate every day
and I pray every day. And I also
(39:43):
kind of my prayers are more about gratitude
than about asking for something.
So I do have a relationship with something
bigger. I just don't I don't know what
that looks like, and I'm not a part
of any organized religion,
But I'm not opposed to other people's organized
religions.
Yeah. That makes sense. Tell people how they
might find you. I have a website
(40:04):
right now. It's andrealeebeauthor.com.
I think we're working on maybe perhaps
changing it, but it'll have a hyperlink.
So it's andrealeebauthor.com,
and then I have an Instagram, which is
andrea
lisa
leeb. So that's my Instagram,
and you can follow me. And the book
(40:25):
can be purchased. I'm gonna just give a
pitch.
It's my launch date my publication date is
October 14,
but it is available for preorder
now. You can get it on the Simon
and Schuster website
on,
or look on the Simon and Schuster and
there's hyperlinks there's hyperlinks. My author website.
Amazon,
(40:46):
of course.
Bookshop,
of course.
Barnes and Noble. So, basically, anywhere where they
sell books, it's available for preorder,
and the publication date is October 14.
And as I said, my royalties,
I
am you know, I because I have the
opportunity to, I'm able to donate them
(41:07):
to RAIN and other rape treatment organizations.
So Fantastic.
And as a person that as I said,
I read constantly.
I've
this book is very well
written. It's easy to read. It's an important
read. You know, people have an idea that
this happens only in certain families or in
(41:28):
in
and this is not
a you know, these issues, these child abuse
issues are not related
to
socioeconomics,
to race, to religion.
You know, they happen in all families.
So I also wanted, you know, no matter
how, and my family had a pretty good,
(41:49):
pretty picture. You know? It was
a, father who was a professor,
a pretty mother, and two little girls, cute
little girls. How how good how how lovely
is that?
Yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely.
I wish you great success, and I think
it's incredible
what you do and what you have survived.
And I think that it's
(42:11):
so important that
beacons exist in the world because the ocean
is fucking big.
Yeah. When we see a beacon of light
that we can swim toward, it makes all
the difference.
I I think that's really true. Right? That's
a good way to say it. I love
that. I might steal it.
Thank you so much for taking the time
to be on the show. Oh my god.
(42:32):
Thank you. And thank you for saying the
book was well written. That means the world
to me. I mean, also because, you know,
as a writer,
you want people to like your writing. So
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's it's it's well written.
Absolutely. It's easy to read. And I don't
mean that
that it's pedantic. It's not that. It's
I I yeah. I understand. But
(42:53):
thank you for having me. I really appreciate
the opportunity
to talk with you this morning. It's been
lovely.
Absolutely. And thank you for listening, everybody.
Bye.
Bye. Thank you.
Bye.
Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human podcast
wherever you get your podcast.
(43:15):
Thanks.
Bye.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.