September 13, 2025 • 9 mins
At the age of fifty-nine, Anne has never been to a concert. Then, she reluctantly goes to a Bruce Springsteen concert—a man she knows nothing about—to spend time with her son and daughter-in-law. For three-plus hours, Bruce Springsteen’s energy, humanity, and enthusiasm lift her out of her lifelong depression and makes her feel alive.A year later, due to increasing classroom violence where she taught, Anne walks out the door thinking, I’m never coming back. But, getting into her car to go home, she realizes that because she suffers with severe recurrent depression, without the structure and focus of teaching she will be at risk for falling into a deep depression. She’s been inpatient twice at a psychiatric hospital, had three regimens of electroconvulsive shock therapy, and tried over twenty medications. Anne needs a new and different plan. Then she remembers: in four months Bruce Springsteen will be touring in Australia. So even though Anne hates to travel and be alone, she books the trip -- eight concerts, five cities, twenty-six days. She hopes that harnessing some of Bruce Springsteen’s energy will keep her out of the abyss. Anne doesn’t go on this trip to change. But much to her surprise, she returns home a different person.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is your brand new book, High Hopes, a memoir.
What was it like for you to be able to
be open, honest, transparent and willing to share with a
world that can probably really relate with you in so
many different ways.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, that's how I am. That's how I am every day,
every minute of my life. And I feel that sometimes
by sharing our stories with each other, we can offer
one another inspiration, hope, and even some fun. I feel
strongly that stories can really help people feel connected and
be validated and know that they're not the only ones
(00:34):
and that it's okay to struggle and you try and
try again and you're not alone.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah. One of the things that I've learned in my mantra,
in fact, since I started writing back in July of
nineteen ninety four, and that is share your story or
someone will write it for you. I don't want someone
to write my story. I want to be able to
jump in there and do it myself. And that's exactly
what you did with High Hopes. This is an opportunity
for people to tap into you while learning something about themselves.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well. I have to say I'm a writer, but I
always had trouble writing about myself. So if an editor said,
write five thousand words about that tree in your backyard,
I could do it. But if I looked at the
tree and thought I want to write about that, I couldn't.
But when I came back from this trip at the
age I didn't go on this trip to change, but
I changed. And when I came home it was the
(01:22):
first time in my life I had a positive ball
of energy and also a story about me that I
was proud of, a story I wanted to tell. And
that was my goal, was to try to tell this story.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, because I mean everything that I studied about you,
you're like me. You don't like to travel, but yet
you took a trip to Australia.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well you're about the I think you're the only other
person who's told me you don't like to travel either.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
No, I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Okay, Well we're kindred spirits. No, I don't like to
travel at all, but I suffer with severe depression. I
had been hospitalized impatient twice. I'd had three regimens of
ECT electrical combousive therapy. The last one was disastrous that
had horrible, long lasting side effects. So the day, at
(02:11):
the age of sixty the day after having one desk
too many thrown at me at the community college where
I was teaching, I just walked out the door. It
was the fifth week of a fifteen week semester, and
I just thought I deserved better than this. I am
never coming back. But as I was driving home, I
was immediately panicking because I was terrified. With my son's
(02:32):
grown and living on opposite coast and my husband traveling
without the structure and focus of the classroom, I'd be
back in the abyss. And I was sixty years old.
I knew myself as well as any mental health people.
I was not going back in the hospital. I wasn't
doing more ect And then I remember I had gone
to my first concert a year earlier with my son
(02:54):
and daughter in law, a Bruce Springsteen concert, just to
spend time with them. I believe it or not. I mean,
I'm sure I knew he was a rock star, but
that's it. I had never been to a concert, and
I went just to spend time with him. And as
the crowd mysteriously rose in Unison and I rose two
up on the face was the face of a man
(03:16):
with the biggest kind of smile I had ever seen,
and for the first at the end, for three plus hours,
that man's energy, humanity, and enthusiasm lifted me. For three
plus hours, he made me feel like I had a chance.
He made me feel alive. And I went to a
few more concerts. Cephal But then as I'm driving home
a year later, thinking I need a lifeline, and I
(03:40):
need it really fast, and I remembered I had seen
somewhere he was going to be Tory and Australia in
four months, and I just thought, that's it, and I
went home without even taking off my code. I googled
Australia travel agents, wrote to the first five who popped up,
and I booked a trip with the first one who
(04:00):
called me the next day. Eight concerts, five cities over
twenty six days. And I'll tell you I was terrified.
I was absolutely terrible by but I didn't have a choice.
And people think that, oh, you must have thought it
was going to be fun because it's Bruce Springsteen or concerts,
But when you're as depressed as I am or was,
(04:23):
you don't think about fun. I was just I was
looking for a lifeline. I just was going for the
structure and focus. But a lot So it was eight concerts,
five cities over twenty six days, and a lot happened
in my head. And it was the kindness of strangers
in Australia and also moments of magic of Bruce Springsteen's
(04:45):
concerts that for the that just helped me see myself
in and my place in the world in a new
and different way. His magic for me. He creates magic
on stage and it with my heart, soul in mind
opened and I felt things I had never experienced before.
(05:07):
And that was the beginning of a transformation. I came home.
I was sixty. I'm seventy two now. I mean, people
say to me, what would your younger self say about
what you're doing now? If I'm seventy two, If if
you had asked my seventy one year old self, what
would you think? I would never have expected what I'm
(05:28):
doing now? I mean, and I just baby stepped my way.
I really believe in trying. I'm writing my third memoir.
It's called She Tried, And She Tried, and She Tried.
It's something I used to tell my kids. I wanted
on my tombstone, because that's what I do, even in
the most you know, just so depressed that you just
want to collapse on the floor, which is how I
(05:50):
felt a lot. And on this trip too, I felt
that a lot. But I just picked myself up and
I pushed and I try, and it has led me
since I came home. It's just led me. I've been
bade me, stepping my way to the point where now
I have two memoirs that the first one was published
(06:12):
last year, the second one on September twenty third, high hopes.
I have moved from We were from from Philadelpha to Chicago.
Now where permanently in New York City, and I am
a social media I have over seven hundred thousand followers
on social media and that's just in the last year.
I'm a late in life influencer and I just did it.
(06:33):
The publisher said, you need to go on to social
media to promote your book. The first one Maddy Mile
and me and fifteen years ago someone had put me
on Facebook, and that was social media to me. But
one day my dog walker came in. I asked her
if she knew anyone who did social media. She gave
me the name of this nineteen year old computer science
(06:53):
major here at Cuny City University of New York, and
now I call his names are SENNI I call him
Maestro or Steven Spielberg, and he's the boss. But that's
all started with this trip. None of this would have
happened if I had not overridden my fear, my terror
(07:14):
of going alone for twenty six days at the age
of sixty, across the world. And if I hadn't done that,
I don't know. If I hadn't gone, I sometimes don't
wonder what would have happened. I wasn't planning to go
to this concert with my son and daughter in law,
and then a few hours before the show, I thought, well,
I'll just push myself off the couch because I want
(07:36):
to spend time with them. They had gotten married six
weeks earlier. I was undergoing my third regiment of ECT.
My memory had gone, so I didn't even remember their wedding.
So as we were sitting there waiting for the const
my daughter in law brought her wedding gown. They were
in Boston, we lived. She brought her wedding gown so
she could show it model if for me, and then
(07:57):
as we were sitting there waiting for the concert to begin,
they were telling me stories about the wedding and showing
me pictures, and I was just so happy and content
to be able to share these forgotten moments with them
that it wasn't until the crowd mysteriously rose in Unison
that I realized we've been sitting there for two hours.
(08:18):
Oh my god. Then, as you know, as if the
energy of the crowd just pulled me up and the rest,
as they say, is history. But if I hadn't been open,
you know, I wonder what would have happened to me
if I just just said, you just go to the
concert without me. I don't have the I don't feel
like pushing, I don't feel like trying. I just want
to go to bed.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Please do not move. There's more with Anne Abell coming
up next, the name of her book, High Hopes, a Memoir.
We're back with Anne A. Bell because I really do
study depression deeply, because it's just something that we need
to learn more about. I have to ask you, though,
through Native American spirituality, what it sounds like you did
in Australia was you went on a vision quest, and
(08:58):
during that vision quest you discovered inside your heart how
to live in the present place of right now. So therefore,
as you were in your now, all of a sudden
you began to feel something that was just very important
in your life. It's such an inspiring story because people
will not tap into their now. They would rather live
in a past that they think they have control over.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yes, well that's actually a really big thing because first
of all, it's not just enough to try while you're
doing it, because I'm realizing this in retrospect too. While
you're doing it, you just have you need to be open.
Like if I had sat there at the concert and go,
I really don't want to be here, Oh my god,
this is but I did my heart. I was just open.
(09:36):
When I went to Australia. You know, there were a
lot of really hard moments. I was having trouble with
one of my sons. I mean, I was also going
through a lot, but even one thing I learned, like
like I'd be feeling horrible, just really
This is your brand new book, High Hopes, a memoir.
What was it like for you to be able to
be open, honest, transparent and willing to share with a
world that can probably really relate with you in so
many different ways.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, that's how I am. That's how I am every day,
every minute of my life. And I feel that sometimes
by sharing our stories with each other, we can offer
one another inspiration, hope, and even some fun. I feel
strongly that stories can really help people feel connected and
be validated and know that they're not the only ones
(00:34):
and that it's okay to struggle and you try and
try again and you're not alone.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah. One of the things that I've learned in my mantra,
in fact, since I started writing back in July of
nineteen ninety four, and that is share your story or
someone will write it for you. I don't want someone
to write my story. I want to be able to
jump in there and do it myself. And that's exactly
what you did with High Hopes. This is an opportunity
for people to tap into you while learning something about themselves.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Well. I have to say I'm a writer, but I
always had trouble writing about myself. So if an editor said,
write five thousand words about that tree in your backyard,
I could do it. But if I looked at the
tree and thought I want to write about that, I couldn't.
But when I came back from this trip at the
age I didn't go on this trip to change, but
I changed. And when I came home it was the
(01:22):
first time in my life I had a positive ball
of energy and also a story about me that I
was proud of, a story I wanted to tell. And
that was my goal, was to try to tell this story.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yeah, because I mean everything that I studied about you,
you're like me. You don't like to travel, but yet
you took a trip to Australia.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well you're about the I think you're the only other
person who's told me you don't like to travel either.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
No, I don't. I don't.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Okay, Well we're kindred spirits. No, I don't like to
travel at all, but I suffer with severe depression. I
had been hospitalized impatient twice. I'd had three regimens of
ECT electrical combousive therapy. The last one was disastrous that
had horrible, long lasting side effects. So the day, at
(02:11):
the age of sixty the day after having one desk
too many thrown at me at the community college where
I was teaching, I just walked out the door. It
was the fifth week of a fifteen week semester, and
I just thought I deserved better than this. I am
never coming back. But as I was driving home, I
was immediately panicking because I was terrified. With my son's
(02:32):
grown and living on opposite coast and my husband traveling
without the structure and focus of the classroom, I'd be
back in the abyss. And I was sixty years old.
I knew myself as well as any mental health people.
I was not going back in the hospital. I wasn't
doing more ect And then I remember I had gone
to my first concert a year earlier with my son
(02:54):
and daughter in law, a Bruce Springsteen concert, just to
spend time with them. I believe it or not. I mean,
I'm sure I knew he was a rock star, but
that's it. I had never been to a concert, and
I went just to spend time with him. And as
the crowd mysteriously rose in Unison and I rose two
up on the face was the face of a man
(03:16):
with the biggest kind of smile I had ever seen,
and for the first at the end, for three plus hours,
that man's energy, humanity, and enthusiasm lifted me. For three
plus hours, he made me feel like I had a chance.
He made me feel alive. And I went to a
few more concerts. Cephal But then as I'm driving home
a year later, thinking I need a lifeline, and I
(03:40):
need it really fast, and I remembered I had seen
somewhere he was going to be Tory and Australia in
four months, and I just thought, that's it, and I
went home without even taking off my code. I googled
Australia travel agents, wrote to the first five who popped up,
and I booked a trip with the first one who
(04:00):
called me the next day. Eight concerts, five cities over
twenty six days. And I'll tell you I was terrified.
I was absolutely terrible by but I didn't have a choice.
And people think that, oh, you must have thought it
was going to be fun because it's Bruce Springsteen or concerts,
But when you're as depressed as I am or was,
(04:23):
you don't think about fun. I was just I was
looking for a lifeline. I just was going for the
structure and focus. But a lot So it was eight concerts,
five cities over twenty six days, and a lot happened
in my head. And it was the kindness of strangers
in Australia and also moments of magic of Bruce Springsteen's
(04:45):
concerts that for the that just helped me see myself
in and my place in the world in a new
and different way. His magic for me. He creates magic
on stage and it with my heart, soul in mind
opened and I felt things I had never experienced before.
(05:07):
And that was the beginning of a transformation. I came home.
I was sixty. I'm seventy two now. I mean, people
say to me, what would your younger self say about
what you're doing now? If I'm seventy two, If if
you had asked my seventy one year old self, what
would you think? I would never have expected what I'm
(05:28):
doing now? I mean, and I just baby stepped my way.
I really believe in trying. I'm writing my third memoir.
It's called She Tried, And She Tried, and She Tried.
It's something I used to tell my kids. I wanted
on my tombstone, because that's what I do, even in
the most you know, just so depressed that you just
want to collapse on the floor, which is how I
(05:50):
felt a lot. And on this trip too, I felt
that a lot. But I just picked myself up and
I pushed and I try, and it has led me
since I came home. It's just led me. I've been
bade me, stepping my way to the point where now
I have two memoirs that the first one was published
(06:12):
last year, the second one on September twenty third, high hopes.
I have moved from We were from from Philadelpha to Chicago.
Now where permanently in New York City, and I am
a social media I have over seven hundred thousand followers
on social media and that's just in the last year.
I'm a late in life influencer and I just did it.
(06:33):
The publisher said, you need to go on to social
media to promote your book. The first one Maddy Mile
and me and fifteen years ago someone had put me
on Facebook, and that was social media to me. But
one day my dog walker came in. I asked her
if she knew anyone who did social media. She gave
me the name of this nineteen year old computer science
(06:53):
major here at Cuny City University of New York, and
now I call his names are SENNI I call him
Maestro or Steven Spielberg, and he's the boss. But that's
all started with this trip. None of this would have
happened if I had not overridden my fear, my terror
(07:14):
of going alone for twenty six days at the age
of sixty, across the world. And if I hadn't done that,
I don't know. If I hadn't gone, I sometimes don't
wonder what would have happened. I wasn't planning to go
to this concert with my son and daughter in law,
and then a few hours before the show, I thought, well,
I'll just push myself off the couch because I want
(07:36):
to spend time with them. They had gotten married six
weeks earlier. I was undergoing my third regiment of ECT.
My memory had gone, so I didn't even remember their wedding.
So as we were sitting there waiting for the const
my daughter in law brought her wedding gown. They were
in Boston, we lived. She brought her wedding gown so
she could show it model if for me, and then
(07:57):
as we were sitting there waiting for the concert to begin,
they were telling me stories about the wedding and showing
me pictures, and I was just so happy and content
to be able to share these forgotten moments with them
that it wasn't until the crowd mysteriously rose in Unison
that I realized we've been sitting there for two hours.
(08:18):
Oh my god. Then, as you know, as if the
energy of the crowd just pulled me up and the rest,
as they say, is history. But if I hadn't been open,
you know, I wonder what would have happened to me
if I just just said, you just go to the
concert without me. I don't have the I don't feel
like pushing, I don't feel like trying. I just want
to go to bed.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Please do not move. There's more with Anne Abell coming
up next, the name of her book, High Hopes, a Memoir.
We're back with Anne A. Bell because I really do
study depression deeply, because it's just something that we need
to learn more about. I have to ask you, though,
through Native American spirituality, what it sounds like you did
in Australia was you went on a vision quest, and
(08:58):
during that vision quest you discovered inside your heart how
to live in the present place of right now. So therefore,
as you were in your now, all of a sudden
you began to feel something that was just very important
in your life. It's such an inspiring story because people
will not tap into their now. They would rather live
in a past that they think they have control over.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yes, well that's actually a really big thing because first
of all, it's not just enough to try while you're
doing it, because I'm realizing this in retrospect too. While
you're doing it, you just have you need to be open.
Like if I had sat there at the concert and go,
I really don't want to be here, Oh my god,
this is but I did my heart. I was just open.
(09:36):
When I went to Australia. You know, there were a
lot of really hard moments. I was having trouble with
one of my sons. I mean, I was also going
through a lot, but even one thing I learned, like
like I'd be feeling horrible, just really
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