Cinema Verite

Cinema Verite: In this week’s episode, Kelley and Julia discuss their top two movies that could be their biopics, also delving into the darkness of mental health when untreated in relation to childhood trauma.

Kelley’s Picks
The Wolfpack: is a documentary film about homeschooled siblings, the Angulos,  who are locked inside their Manhattan apartment and held hostage from the outside world by their father. They found the escape they needed from their reality through watching and re-enacting their favorite movies. Kelley has specific memories of her and her siblings using the same coping mechanism as the Angulo siblings; reenacting movies to escape from reality. Similar to Kelley’s homeschooling experience, it did not seem as though the Angulos had a real school structure. As a result of her similar experience, Kelley has a blog dedicated to evaluating homeschooling from an analytical perspective. It is evident that isolation has an effect on socialization and is the reason the bonds between the Angulo siblings were so strong. Play acting was a way for them to pass the time and bond with each other. This coping technique was their attempt at controlling their environment through a pretend reality.
The Babadook: is about a single mother, distraught over her husband’s death, with a son who begins to fear a monster that is in the house. She soon discovers the Babadook for herself and can’t escape it. Kelley found herself emotionally drained at the end because she realized the mom in the movie was her mom. The mom allowed the idea of the Babadook to manifest. The Babadook represents the mental illness manifesting in hers and her son’s life. You can’t get rid of the Babadook. Kelley’s mom was just as good at creating fear. She would allow the kids to read adult, Frank Peretti books about demons fighting souls that proved to be terrifying for the kids. Even with companionship with other siblings, they were always fearful to sleep. Feared what was under the bed, closets, in the shower, cabinet, any hiding space.

Julia’s Picks
Tangled: is a Disney animation of a classic tale. Beautiful princess Rapunzel was kidnapped as a baby and trapped in a tower by Gothel. Her magical long blonde hair has the power to provide eternal youth, and the evil Gothel uses this power to keep her young. At the age of 18, Rapunzel becomes curious about the outside world, and when a prince uses her tower as a refuge, she asks him to help her escape. Julia found that the manipulation techniques used by Gothel were similar to her mom’s. Like Julia’s mom, Gothel made the things that Rapunzel wanted to do come across as a personal attack, using Gas lighting.
Carrie: is about a quiet and sensitive teen who experiences bullying at school and abuse from her mother at home. She discovers that she has supernatural powers and gets invited to go to the prom, where things end up taking a dark turn. After watching this movie, Julia was terrified by how closely her mom and Carrie’s mom resembled each other. Sex and body image was another striking similarity. Like Carrie’s mom, Julia’s mom considered boobs and curves to be dirty and shameful. The opening period scene was relatable due to the insensitivity of the situation. Julia shared the same despair as Carrie and had no idea what was happening. Her mom just shoved a box of tampons into her arms and that was it

Transcript

Julia Avery : 0:00

The Family Ties podcast is a fresh and new series created and curated by two sisters Kelly Ritchie and myself Julia Avery on opposite sides of the United States. We want to share our journey of staying connected through the weekly discussion of topics that both affect and inspire us. These topics range from arts and entertainment, inspirational women and role models, science, global issues, psychology, life experiences, pet peeves, etc. Distance may keep us apart but Family Ties creates the perfect backdrop to remain connected, challenged, and always learning

Unknown Speaker : 1:04

Hi, welcome back to the family ties podcast. I'm Julia Avery and this is my sister Ellie

Julia Avery : 1:11

and co host Hi, it's Kelly here.

Kelley Richey : 1:18

Thank you for joining us for our second episode ever. As of right now, we are recording during the Coronavirus pandemic. Everything is closing down. The states are mandating curfews. It's it's that crazy time.

Julia Avery : 1:40

Right now. I'm at home. All of the animals are in here. You might hear them barking. I think the same thing goes for for Kelly Kelly. what's what's going on with that? Well, there's me and three dogs in this room, but since we are dealing with this Coronavirus, and we definitely, you know, both of us felt Like we should give you a heads up that, you know, things will be a little bit different, not as streamlined as far as like sound goes. All my roommates are at home and at large in the house. So you'll probably hear some doors closing some doggy sounds. But I feel like it's inevitable at this time. So just bear with us and maybe, you know, just giggle when you hear a dog bark. It's, you know, strangers walking by the house, that kind of thing. So, don't don't judge my sound quality too. Too much.

Kelley Richey : 2:32

Please know, I respect her because she and her roommates are practicing social distance

Julia Avery : 2:38

except for me, and I am still working. But I'm considered an essential. So

Kelley Richey : 2:46

you're definitely an essential in my life.

Julia Avery : 2:48

Oh, thank you. I really you know, you're my central. So anyways, Julie, what are we what are we going to be doing today?

Kelley Richey : 2:59

Today We're going to be hitting up our topics for psychology and art inspiration together. Um, yeah. So, um, every week we'll be kind of covering different topics. So this week, it's going to be the art in psychology and we've got some different movies and past situations that are kind of connected to them that we want to discuss and kind of delve into and, and share with you guys. So yeah, Kelly.

Julia Avery : 3:34

All I have to say is that during this talk, I'll be quoting quite a bit from an article I wrote about my mom for an art publication a couple of years back, because I think it really fits this discussion really well. The article was called Susie's Zoo because that's what our mom like to refer to us in her home as in addition to referencing the cartoon by the same name.

Kelley Richey : 3:58

It seemed pretty accurate though. To be honest, yeah.

Julia Avery : 4:00

So the nitty gritty of this episode is that basically I'm of the opinion that everybody could find a movie or two that could loosely describe their childhood if they had to pick one to offer as an example to like a friend or a colleague, which could help that person get a feel for their past. I have several these movies scarily or closely to my upbringing that when I saw them, I got chills. You know, my heart started to race and I think back on those films regularly, Julia pick two movies. I pick two and we're going to discuss them in depth. I can't wait to hear your first example Julia. So kick it off.

Kelley Richey : 4:39

So I'm going to go with and don't judge me because I'm not like a crazy Disney fan. I'll watch cartoons and stuff. Usually when I'm around people who are obsessed with it, just to be generous or kind. You know, thoughtful allows somebody else to pick something to watch Well, Heather, our sister Heather, she picked out tangled and it actually hit really, like, close to home with me. And I was really shocked. There's so it's basically about like the Rapunzel story. And this version of the Rapunzel is where the lady think it's gospel. She kidnaps Rapunzel keeps hitting the tower, but she convinces Rapunzel that she's her mother. And the whole dynamic of her has the mother and keeping her stuck in the tower is very similar to how we were suppressed at home. Like the manipulation with with Oh, you don't love me or you must not like guilt tripping constant guilt tripping as if like you weren't proving yourself enough for whatever and so you're always trying to open compensate and prove that you did love them and you understood that it was her way of like keeping you from outside influences keeping you from seeing that things were better outside and it's a very narcissistic kind of thing to she did this gospel I'll call her the mom just because that was the role between her and Rapunzel for the most part of the movie. So she like had this very narcissistic and was attitude mother knows best all the time. And any time Rapunzel would like kind of come up with things that she wanted to do or go outside of the tower and try. She would like make it seem like what she was wanting to do was like an attack on her constant gaslighting Dang,

Julia Avery : 6:51

I need to see this movie.

Kelley Richey : 6:54

I mean, I was like, wow, this is this goes deep. for Disney, it was like a pretty, pretty anti mom example. And, of course, she wasn't the real mom. Anyway, it was very much a kidnapping situation, but uh, I'm also an excessive need for praise, admiration and recognition. Even if it was like over like small things, so like, she wants to be considered a good mom, for instance, like, our mom was always like, making us feel bad because we made her feel like she was a terrible mom, so we'd have to constantly reassure her. No, you're fine. You're good. You're good. You're the best mom. Well, you're great. And then she'd be like, Oh, you made me feel awful. The Lord tells me that you don't love me.

Julia Avery : 7:54

Wow, I like that. I mean, it must be nice. To be that connected to the Lord, but my first choice for movies is called the wolf pack. It's a documentary about five brothers and one girl homeschooled and isolated from the rest of society and outside the world. And from the outside world inside of there, really tiny New York apartment. So they're only released from their monotony and their mindless boredom is play acting and recreating scenes from their favorite movies. This really reminded me a lot of us growing up Julia

Kelley Richey : 8:35

I don't know yeah, I can already see that I can already like see us doing the same things like I can. I've got memories just kind of coming back.

Julia Avery : 8:44

Yeah, I mean, just down to just using one example is we would play act sort of the rows back in the town and we would make costumes and I would make actual hoop skirts like out of wire hangers and Alia every layer We could we could possibly get. So this really already struck a chord with me. So basically, we were raised in a more strict conservative environment, where our movie options were a lot more limited and very tame, but we rewatch them and we knew them by heart the way those kids in the movie did. But instead of acting out scenes from like Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs, we would act out like old Disney live actions. The sort of the rows I mentioned, Fiddler on the Roof, or the sound of music. So especially with all of the musical numbers, oh, yeah. Oh, and let me also add Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. That's a whole other conversation itself, but that was one of my favorites, but we would we would play act that all the time. You may have been too young to remember how much this played a role in our lives Julia while we were living in a town but there were others later on that would you know, we'd go crazy over play acting. What were some that you remember that I missed?

Kelley Richey : 10:00

No, he would reenact like we're the ring spits between Frodo and Sam.

Julia Avery : 10:04

Oh, yeah. Me and Sarah were really good. She was excellent and Sam parts.

Kelley Richey : 10:09

Yeah, you and Sarah were the Frodo and Sam couple like

Julia Avery : 10:15

you guys were no joke.

Kelley Richey : 10:18

I mostly remember playing pretend like coming up with my own characters. Hmm. More More so than copying movies. While like we at least had the the woods to kind of go out and create little forts, true pretend houses and Yeah, kind of up the level of pretend. Well, I mean that dog

Julia Avery : 10:44

Yeah, I heard that. That's so cute. Um, I think very early on. Like, before you were born Julia. We were more or less just raised on the old Hollywood classic. So Janet would clamber for Fred Astaire movies and We were very enamored with anything that came on the screen basically, even if it's black and white or silent. Gary Cooper, though, was a particular favorite of mine. But essentially, I've just always loved movies. And it was my escape my magic growing up in a puritanical, homeschool, abusive home, where even like old Hollywood, black and white movies could be seen as evil and were screened for, you know, their content. movies were our form of escapism from our harsh reality. So we took him in a weekly trips to the library to select movies, most of them the same ones over and over. Mom had to approve the choice, then watch it first when we got home, then we could watch it. And the same principle applied to books. So just kind of wrapping up Wolf Pack. The, you know, lack of socialization causes the children to form really close bonds with each other and also causes them to be quite eccentric.

Unknown Speaker : 11:57

I need to see it. It's beautiful.

Julia Avery : 11:58

You should really watch it And I really want to see where the kids are now the dad is kind of like mom figure to us. Okay, he's definitely mentally ill. And I think he has a severe distrust of like the government or anything that's normal socialization. And so he like imagine if we were all kind of quarantine to, like this tiny one bedroom Brooklyn apartment. That's not nice and you can't you can't go outside you don't have other activities you go to or piano lessons. You are just in the house and it's not necessarily that you're even learning it didn't even seem that these kids were really doing School, which is also very reminiscent, yeah. The only difference or the big differences you know, location and then there are five boys versus five girls in our family. And then their one girl two or one boy, I found their play acting to be A form of not just the an escapism from their boredom and abuse and loneliness, but it was a way to pass the time and maintain bonds with each other. They learned to work as a team, they would create these costumes and they would work to perform the roles they saw on screen, build their sets. And

Kelley Richey : 13:18

it seems therapeutic as well. It's a way to cope with your situation.

Julia Avery : 13:23

Yeah. That Well, yes. So I also wrote that it was it seemed to be their attempt at controlling in a play world and environment. Yeah, you know, that they typically couldn't control

Kelley Richey : 13:35

so this book that they had freedom of choice over,

Julia Avery : 13:39

right, so I felt like I was watching, you know, a city five version of my childhood. Oftentimes, you know, we would extend our version of Sex and the City would be

Unknown Speaker : 13:50

Whoa, whoa, whoa, Joey.

Unknown Speaker : 13:53

No sex.

Julia Avery : 13:55

No sex, no sex. You know, so us, we would extend our play acting to the woods. It skirted our property line, and we built forts spent hours pretending to be the Boxcar Children. Do you remember those? Yes, I do. We basically loved pretending we were the kids before their grandpa found them and adopted them living out in the wild. So our imaginations had no bounds. And we, you know, create very elaborate plots and storylines to follow and act out. And it usually involves being orphans on the run, somehow, like adults always symbolize danger and ruthlessness. So that must have stemmed from our upbringing. Weird. But what strikes me the most is how those kids could stay so marginally sane, in a tiny New York apartment never going out. Never have activities or outlets allowed to them. we at least have the library or the woods or the outlet. So that's the wolf pack guys, you should go in and watch it. It's on Netflix. It is totally worth the watch. And I'm going to look into those boys and see where they're at. And maybe we'll give you an update,

Kelley Richey : 15:12

but at least let me know. Yeah, and then watch the bed. That sounds fascinating. Tell

Julia Avery : 15:16

me once you've watched it, and I really want to know what you think. What's your number two, Julia?

Kelley Richey : 15:23

My number two is Carrie. I didn't want to lead off with that one because I feel like that one is very predictable. But um yeah, carry with a religion and the oppression and the just how she viewed sex and any kind of like you like her boobs. Big considered.

Unknown Speaker : 15:51

Shoes,

Unknown Speaker : 15:51

dirty. Dirty pillows.

Kelley Richey : 15:53

Yeah. Um, it was just an I remember cuz like I got my boobs pretty early. And that terrified bomb. I couldn't have like, even if the shirt was baggy and didn't cling anywhere to me, you'd see the bumps. And she was like, I can see them. That was how can men hire?

Unknown Speaker : 16:16

That's like, I'm sorry.

Kelley Richey : 16:17

I don't

Julia Avery : 16:19

just short of taping them down.

Kelley Richey : 16:22

Yeah, there was one Christmas, I lost my shit because like, I had already, I was already wearing a shirt that was two sizes too big. It was like a bag. And she was upset because you could see the outline of my boobs underneath of it. And I was like she was she wanted me to change my shirt. And I was like, This literally happens with every shirt because

Julia Avery : 16:45

the fabric falls. You're like, I have a

Kelley Richey : 16:48

body. And when there are bumps, you see the bumps. I was like, what else do you want me to wear? I mean, you really, really want me to wear like a trash bag. And so I will went and I got a trash bag and I cut arm holes in the neck hole out of it and I put it over and I said Are you happy now? Now I was like up guess not you can still see the bumps because guess what? gravity

Julia Avery : 17:13

she was upset because I'm no

Unknown Speaker : 17:15

way

Kelley Richey : 17:16

with her. Anyway but yeah Carrie she's extremely controlling and, and her weird connection and oppressive nature that she's God for. There wasn't a it wasn't a healthy religious relationship it was like

Julia Avery : 17:40

never about joy. No or love.

Kelley Richey : 17:44

No it was. It was all all about pain and suffering and sacrifice and doom

Julia Avery : 17:50

gloom. Doom. Yeah, since she's like the preacher in the beginning of Pollyanna when he's giving his fire and brimstone sermons to, to the church and they're all just, it's just the most painful every Sunday, the most painful thing.

Kelley Richey : 18:09

Yeah. That's, that's what that was. I mean, I don't, I could go on and on about this, but I don't want to like, talk in circles. So I'll kind of like cut it off there because I feel like everybody's pretty much seen carry. And, you know, so you're just saying like, I'm long

Julia Avery : 18:28

winded?

Kelley Richey : 18:29

No, I, I have these little trails that I take side trails that I take when my mind goes and has a point here to make an appoint here to make and I'm afraid if I let myself talk too long. I'll get last time all these trails, it won't come back.

Julia Avery : 18:46

Well, that's, that's the whole point of, you know, discussion. So don't feel, you know, don't feel bad about getting lost. You know, we can always bring it back. But it is really interesting to think about these parallels. Because I thought the same thing about carry, like, it's been so long since I've seen the original and I do refuse to watch the Chloe Grace Moretz one, just because out of principle, like, I don't need it, but I do think that when you take, I mean, we could really even get more serious about this. Just taking Carrie as an example of an already awkward and shy teen who isn't trying to go out there and do ridiculously rebellious things like she, she wants a normal life and and she's still being she's still respecting her mother, but it's never good enough. So there's that, that fear of that constant abuse that no matter what you do, you're you're always going to be cursed. And of course, not all of us can get like telekinesis or telekinetic powers to like blast everyone who ever heard us that's, you know, that's a wish fulfilling revenge fantasy, but

Kelley Richey : 19:59

it does finish That relationship with their mom just unattainable expectations, like, the expectations for showing her love for the Lord, love for her, her willingness to basically be humbled before Christ. You know,

Julia Avery : 20:18

we're gonna get gross here and just talk about that opening scene, you know when she has her first period? Oh, yeah, just remember back. I don't, I don't know what your experience was like, but I do remember mine. When I got my first period she basically just had there was no comfort. There was no explanation. She basically put a tampon in my hand with the little instruction booklet. And that was that and I was terrified. I've never since you know, we weren't allowed to really do much. Touching yourself was really looked down upon and not just looked down upon it was like, you need to ask the Lord for forgiveness, but

Kelley Richey : 21:00

Oh, she would go through the laundry to find my underwear when I was like

Julia Avery : 21:06

11 I never.

Kelley Richey : 21:08

If she saw any spotting on it, she pulled me into the back rooms closet and spank me. Show me the underwear and we'd be like praying for an hour for the Lord to forgive me. That happened on a regular basis, she would go through my dirty laundry to look at my underwear.

Julia Avery : 21:24

But that doesn't that's not even scientific. Because,

Unknown Speaker : 21:27

no, because it's just discharge. Yeah.

Kelley Richey : 21:30

So I didn't even understand I didn't even understand what I was apologizing for. I didn't know what she was looking for. I had no fucking clue.

Julia Avery : 21:38

These are the things that other people may seem like an exaggeration, but this was, this was our everyday life. And I think it's important to not mince words, and to not just be like, yeah, mom's like the mom and Carrie, but kind of go dig a little deeper for sure like that. That opening scene. I remember my experience not being quite like that. Because there was nobody watching and laughing, but I felt terrified. So I will always remember that

Kelley Richey : 22:07

I was equally terrified. I thought I was bleeding to death. Well, and she had, she'd gotten me a box of tampons and just gave me the box. And I had to read, you know, read through it and figure it out. And

Julia Avery : 22:22

you remember the American girls Girl dolls and like, they'd have books. There was this one book I saw at Barnes noble one time and it was about female, like being a young girl and female hygiene and things like that. And it just started to describe, like, very PG, like what your period was. And she caught me with the book and I was punished, but and that was like American girls. But that's the only thing that gave me comfort. When I remembered back on what it said and the timeframe that I was able to look at it. And I was like, okay, the American Girl book says that this is normal for everyone. So I was like, Oh my god, no. So, but the next movie of mine, it's gonna be even more cheerful than Julia's. What's yours? Hello Julia. It's the I think this one really closely describes our childhood and the Australian horror horror thriller, The babba Duke. So while it's not the scariest movie to watch, I felt myself emote love that movie. I love it, too. I felt myself like really emotionally drained by the end of this movie, because I realized it was about my mom. So my mother is the mother in this film and the babba Duke is a horrific representation of her mental illness, and how it manifests itself in her life in the life of her son. No matter how hard she tries to deny it, burn it, hide it, tamp it down, or even like fight it. It keeps rearing its ugly head. You can't get rid of the babba Duke Julia.

Kelley Richey : 23:55

Yeah, basically and it's amazing how real it seems. When you're the you Problem. Like, it seems so real the terror seems so real to her and she's unable to see that it's anything else but just a PR problem.

Unknown Speaker : 24:11

Well, she just had. It's, yeah,

Kelley Richey : 24:16

I'm talking about mom, right. Like, like, the fears and her her mindset, her view on everything. That's the way it was.

Julia Avery : 24:28

It was it's always is like, I think this is sort of what you're trying to say is that people with moms issue and with the lady in this movie, they're not able to see it as something that they're doing. Right. That's Yeah, they, they have clever ways of disguising it as the fault of others or the mistreatment of others to them when it's actually them being the terrifying one and I think it's like when I First watch the movie I thought I thought this instantly and other people I talked to who watched it, who don't have insane parents or an insane parent. They didn't get it. They just said, Well, it wasn't very scary. You know, that monster wasn't scary at all. If you're watching it as like a movie, like a monster movie, then you're not really getting the point. Like it's, it's more subtle, and it's definitely got an under undercurrent of something else. It's not a straight up horror. To me. It's a psychological heart. It's about the mind, which those are my favorite horror movies anyways, but I basically just feel like all all mental illness, when it's left untreated, it goes nowhere. So for the mom in the movie, you know, at the end, she's shut it away in her basement. She's thinking she's got it under control, visiting it, feeding it daily, so it doesn't run wild. So we don't really know like Does this mean that she's now on medication? She's, you know,

Kelley Richey : 26:04

solving them managing it and taking care of the problem, right? Or is she in denial? And just keeping it alive?

Julia Avery : 26:15

Yeah, she's feeding it with she feeding it with, you know, medicine that can help her or is she just feeding it the more more and more fear and just kind of tamping it down? Or does it mean she's you know, doing some kind of self medicating, and it's only a matter of time you know, before the beast is back on the prowl again, I felt such fear for the boy I was like, at the end, I thought I was fully of the opinion that she was going to kill the boy at some point. We just wouldn't that was a different story that we wouldn't know. But that's the impression I got it was it was a pretty hopeless situation. It wasn't a happy ending the way it was kind of tried to treat it. And so it really depends on how you view the movie. What you see the symbolism But

Kelley Richey : 27:01

yeah, that's what I saw too. When I watched it, it just seemed like it an illustrated version of an interpretation of mental illness.

Julia Avery : 27:14

Yeah. I mean, after I watched it, I showed it to you. And I said, I need you to tell me what this movie makes you think of when it's over, because I didn't want to, like spoil it. And you told me immediately. That was a movie about her mom. And then we both you know, discussed it and you know, shed some tears, my mom's progression into mental illness or multiple personality disorder, bipolar, you know, depression, has all been a gradual progression over the years. So when I was really little, she was super strict, very demanding, physically abusive, especially when we did things that made her angry, but the crazy Suzy started to morph into being after you were born Julia, and then it continued to worsen. So um, She'd, you know, punish us for the most minute offenses and we would often be lined up down the hallway, waiting for spankings, like Yep,

Kelley Richey : 28:10

I remember that. And you could hear the other kid in the room crying.

Julia Avery : 28:15

It's interesting because it's, there's no way and we were always super good kids. There's no way that we could have all made such serious infractions on the same day of same time. It was just we were purely captives of her, her moods and her

Kelley Richey : 28:36

anger. And some days it was more physical and then some some days would be more mental like she would because we hadn't proven that we had loved her. She was going to go kill herself and she would get in the car and make a scene and make a scene of it would be so dramatic. She'd do that and then you guys like she would drive down the driveway. We had Long driveway like a quarter of a mile long with trees down like a three fourths of the driveway so you couldn't see the rest of it to the road. You couldn't see the road from the house. So she disappeared through the trees. And she'd be gone for for a couple minutes. And we're like losing our mind. We're all balling we feel like, Oh my god, she's gonna kill herself feel awful. And then she drive right back up, make a scene again. And be like, I want you guys to prove it. I want you guys to prove it. And we're like, how and she's like, if you really love me, if you really love me and the Lord, He will show you way. And we'd be like, he's not talking to us. We can't hear him. We don't know. And then she do it again. She drive down the driveway again. We were like, oh my god. She would do

Julia Avery : 29:49

that with you guys as well. She would threaten all of us older kids that like I forgot who that lady was who drove her car and to Lake and drowned or kids in the car, but she was like, I'm going to I'm taking Julian Schuyler and who knows maybe we'll run off the road and smash into the median or drive off the road and until like, and we were just distraught. And we couldn't stop her from taking you guys and so she

Kelley Richey : 30:17

took us I don't remember being taken. Yeah and being part of the homicides slash suicide.

Julia Avery : 30:24

Well, I'm sure Emily would. She'd have you guys in the car already and then come in and do her thing because I'm sure you guys would be distraught if you thought you guys were about to get you know, you know?

Unknown Speaker : 30:36

What, how old were we?

Julia Avery : 30:38

Skyler may may have just been a fresh baby. She was really really fresh.

Kelley Richey : 30:44

So I was like four years old.

Julia Avery : 30:46

Yeah. So it was early on and I mean, she did it a few times. On that really happy note, Julia, do you want to make an announcement

Kelley Richey : 30:55

we are taking a break for in AD

Julia Avery : 31:01

Did it. Okay, sure.

Kelley Richey : 31:03

So stay tuned. We have ads from some sponsors going through in just a minute. And we'll be right back. And we're back.

Julia Avery : 31:15

Talking to spend so long and so long. So, I'm going to wrap up babba Duke here.

Unknown Speaker : 31:23

Okay. But

Julia Avery : 31:26

I would say going back to Kirk, just crazy mental manipulation. It's hard for people to imagine but just trying to paint a scene for you guys.

Unknown Speaker : 31:35

of

Julia Avery : 31:36

like four to five children lined up in the hallway, listening to what is going on in the room. You're just the terror, so

Kelley Richey : 31:46

get belted to chairs for days in a row. It was her version of extended timeout. Yeah, it'd be belted to a chair so you could not move and you would only be allowed To get out to go to the bathroom, and then you get right back in your chair, and sometimes you would be in that chair like that belted for like three days, three to five days, or you'd be put

Julia Avery : 32:11

into the corner where you would stand and with your nose in the corner. I remember our brother would pick holes in the wall, which would earn him more time there. But you know, he's bored, so bored to child. So I, I think before continuing, you know, we should just kind of tell people that we know these stories, some of these stories may seem really upsetting. They're true. They happened

Kelley Richey : 32:38

and we're not talking about them to gain sympathy Arkel here is to bring back things so that we can learn from them, deal with them, confront them, because it's stuff that does still haunt me. And there are days that I go without thinking about it. But then I'll go through dark periods where it comes right back in hits me hard. So I'm not looking for sympathy I've, I've interpreted the situation as in the past as a way to try to define myself in other ways and, and use it to be better. So when we're talking about this, we just want you to know we're not, please don't feel sorry for us. You know, if you had a similar situation, we want you to know, yeah, you weren't alone.

Julia Avery : 33:29

And we want to hear your stories to

Kelley Richey : 33:31

tell us about it. And we're not even the worst case situation, but it's stuff that definitely affected us and was terrible, for sure. But we want to talk about it, deal with it, because we want to be better. We don't want this stuff to define us. And by doing that, you have to confront it.

Julia Avery : 33:49

head on. So is combining the arts and entertainment with psychology this week. It's essentially just using arts and entertainment to describe like paint a picture Help us kind of break down for you guys, how we how our brains were trained to think. And you know we'd like to get into some discussions about our views on mental health and how vital it is. And the the wonderful friend that I've had here in Colorado who is really she's the counselor she's, you know, got all these tips and tricks. I always want to we used to work out together as well but I always tell her when I see her like I tell everybody I want to be like Stacy, and I do I want to be like Stacey, and it's just one of those things where we have to take our mental health so seriously, especially right now you guys during this Coronavirus? I don't know if you know when this does air later on if we're still going to be in this crisis. I sure hope not but there is a very good chance of it. But I think we all just need to kind of take this moment. If you're at home i'd know recommended to Julia to download the headspace SAP, it's so unbelievably helpful. For me. I use it every day, a few times a day. And it can help you. I'm just kind of

Kelley Richey : 35:10

quiet your mind yet,

Julia Avery : 35:13

and not just quiet your mind. I think that's the misconception that we get with meditation is that, you know, you want to stop the thoughts. No, the whole thing is he describes in some of his meditations, and he talks about how we want to be like, people on the side of the street watching traffic go by, you may notice certain things about certain cars. And but in the end, you're just watching things happen and you're noticing it and then it's gone. It's not something you're just fixating on. I mean, unless you know it's a it's a purple car with like a green, you know, grill or whatever. But it's it's so vital to know that it is okay to have thoughts, emotions and feelings while you're meditating. But just being able to note them and You know, gently bring your mind back to the breath. It's not about deleting your thoughts it's about no you know,

Kelley Richey : 36:08

taking more control distancing

Julia Avery : 36:09

yourself from them some extent to be more of a

Kelley Richey : 36:14

tator mental social distancing. Guys this is perfect.

Julia Avery : 36:21

I like that Julie. That's great.

Kelley Richey : 36:24

So did you download the application? I did but I haven't tried I I don't have for free trial unless I know my cards gonna be able to take the payment when it switched a

Julia Avery : 36:36

site. Thank you an alert. I think I forgot. That could be a little more but whatever. I'm terrible with it. guys use the free trial. You will

Kelley Richey : 36:46

I've always been into meditation and stuff and there's free guided medicate meditations as well on YouTube that I use. There you go. Um, so those are free.

Julia Avery : 36:57

Maybe you should post some of those on the site Julia for people

Kelley Richey : 37:00

Okay, and some of them are also to help with go beyond just meditation. Some of them are suggestive. Depending on what areas you want suggestions as you're in a relaxed state. Whether it be dealing with a bad habit of yours for me, sugar,

Julia Avery : 37:23

yes, same. I'm doing the series on cravings.

Kelley Richey : 37:29

Yeah, so I mean, if anything, so meditation, and that meditation was also looked down upon from our mom. Oh, yeah, it was, it was seen as some sort of religious pseudo

Unknown Speaker : 37:41

religion.

Kelley Richey : 37:43

Yeah. And like a mind controlling and

Unknown Speaker : 37:46

not a god.

Kelley Richey : 37:48

Some kind of magic thing you know, and it's totally not it's it's um, it actually is very similar to what Christians versions of prayer Exactly. self reflection, but not in a religious manner. It's being scientific and practical about dealing and interpreting your problems and your habits and your actions. It's not about trying to say, you know, give another figure like a god, responsibility for all your problems that's with prayer, but with meditation is you're responsible for your actions. And meditation helps you acknowledge, okay, what are my habits? What do I find myself consuming my thoughts about like, what what do my thoughts consume me about because if you don't harness your thoughts and take more control, not quieting your mind completely you can find yourself doing self harmful things. You can find yourself stressing out anxiety many things and harmful ways to cope with your problems.

Julia Avery : 39:02

So I think we can just look at our mom as a moral cautionary tale, because let's just be honest, we we're all human beings, we all have things that we're proud of, we often have things that we're really kind of ashamed about. But I think what we have to keep in mind is like, the only reason I think I can talk about this is because I have forgiven her. And I have come to understand that I can't change any of what happened. I'm responsible for who I am now and who I become in the future. So that is where my focus is. But I think we should take a little chunk of time to give our mom a little bit of credit for being human. It's easy to vilify others. I want to make sure that we are fair and say that I think my mom's progression into madness was exacerbated by lot but let's just, you know have some sympathy here and I think that by the fact that she herself felt trapped and like a caged animal. She wants been a very independent, strong woman who's kind of rat reminds me a little bit of myself, who had found joy and passion in her work at the Busch Gardens Zoo and 70s. There she met my dad, he's like four, four to seven years younger than her I think seven before they, you know, fell in love them were forced to make an ultimatum, only one of them could continue to work there once their relationship was kind of found out. So of course, my dad was the one who kept the job. And my mom lost the thing that brought her the most joy in life. They married and immediately started popping out kids.

Kelley Richey : 40:46

The ones quit, she probably dealt with postpartum depression, but that one doubtedly

Julia Avery : 40:50

undoubtedly, it's weird because I would like to know before Janet was born, how they were In the world, as far as I mean, they were much dad used to be a hippie. He used to be a cool guy. I just want to know what the catalysts were, that led them to basically turning so conservative so quickly and joining like this really drastic, non denominational church that pushed the values of teaching our kids at home, the evil of public schools, the danger of secular music, and, you know, they sowed the seeds of extremist Christianity and hardcore right wing behaviors like early on,

Kelley Richey : 41:34

Jana and had that was a later development because like, I know that her dad, I know that she came from a family that believed in Christ, but they weren't. They weren't as extreme as she was Because see, look at how her sister Janet and Uncle woody turned out there. They aren't the same, they still, they're still what you'd call believers. But they did not take the same way she did. No, no,

Julia Avery : 42:04

no, the extremism in like the cult, like the cult of personality that may got involved in was very much like these really insane cults that we now see these documentaries about that we wonder how people could have gotten drawn into those things. So let's just kind of drawing it back to her for a second. Janet and Heather went to school for a little while mom drove the school bus. But then, you know, I think as the seeds of extremism was really pushed on them, they pulled Janet and Heather out of school, and they never looked back. The one thing that no one in the church or homeschool groups would ever know was that mom hated every minute of it. If she resented us, she resented us for stealing her freedom, eating up her time ruining her body or singer into a life of subservience that she was meant, according to Scripture to embrace and cherish as her role in life, but she fought it. I think what we

Kelley Richey : 42:59

also found Just responsible for the deterioration of hers and dad's relationship.

Unknown Speaker : 43:05

Mm hmm.

Julia Avery : 43:07

It's just one of those things where I think she'd lost complete sight of her identity. And the

Kelley Richey : 43:13

thing is, she didn't come from any of these issues in a medical way, practical way, because she was so immersed in in these extremist religious views which suppressed science. She didn't deal with these things. And and when you don't take care of the mental health issues that start to crop up, well, let's just heads it just,

Julia Avery : 43:37

let's just get this out of the way to that part of that, I think has to do with the fact that both mom and dad were vehemently against immunization. So they're part of that anti vaccine movement, or of course, you know, even consulting science, they disregarded it completely. But my dad always hated the doctor. He always thought that anything that you were dealing with emotionally or physically, it was all in your Head and that you needed to just decide not to be unhappy or decide not to be this way, you know, this is God testing you it's it's always some kind of test from the Lord. It's not ever something that's actually backed by scientific research or curable. It's all about the Lord. I just think that if mom had to suffer, you know, she was gonna make sure we would as well.

Kelley Richey : 44:23

Another thing that we should disclaim is that we are not attacking Christianity. If you if you are a believer, and you happen to be listening to us right now, we're not attacking your beliefs. But we are talking about his extremism and how dangerous it can be to allow it to define your decision making when and defy science, defy doctors to defy practical logical things and use it to manipulate and make unhealthy choices and to be in denial and just we're not talking You we, while we don't follow that same faith, we respect it. So please don't take this as a personal attack. We had a very specific experience with our parents.

Julia Avery : 45:11

But what if you are an extremist who hates the government or you know, thinks that the government is out to get you in to take all of your rights away, or you should beat your child for them to be godly? You know, if you are in the subset of extremist people, I really doubt that you're listening to this, but if you are, you probably aren't gonna like what you hear.

Kelley Richey : 45:31

No, and that's okay. You can just move on. There are literally thousands of other podcasts. So thanks for stopping by good trial run. It's like a, it's like a date. You know, we, we came we tried just not right for each other and that's okay, swipe

Julia Avery : 45:46

left. Basically, you know, the physical and mental abuse is something that I think just morphed out of occur extreme despair and I look at myself and I see how much I've always wanted to accomplish, and all the things that goals and aspirations I have. And if I suddenly was with somebody who and she wasn't forced by any means, so don't think that our dad forced her into some kind of life, I do think that she lost sight of herself. And, and the fact that with so many of these extremist Christianity groups, or any kind of extremist religion, even even, you know, Islam, let's just take that into consideration that our parents they will took a view of the type of lifestyle we needed to return to as you know, civilized people. But if you do that, all you need to do is look at the Middle East and look at Islam, and just point out and be like, that's exactly what they're living their, their version of their scriptures little, little different, but essentially, they're living old biblical times like in real time. Today, so if you love it, you can go join them. But you seem to really hate them because of the color of their skin and their differences in in religious opinion. But essentially, if you want to live like you're in the biblical days, there you go, you can get away with it.

Kelley Richey : 47:17

Another another thing to interpret is the how depression unmanaged leads you to making poor decisions like joining cults, or joining extremist groups or believing in extreme ideologies. When when you don't deal with your depression, you become very susceptible and open that risk of being influenced by bigger things that have a stronger mental standing like most most groups prey on the weak. And I'm not saying that you're weak when you're depressed, but you're definitely not at your strongest and you're very impressionable. So I think Like her, her depression and her decline was mostly because she just, she never did anything about it. And it just gets worse. And then you invite these very extreme and harmful ideologies into your life. And then it just gets worse from there.

Julia Avery : 48:16

So they're using religion as your your prescription versus real medicine and it's not gonna fix it. And you tied this back in nicely Julia to the very last little bit that I'm going to talk about the babba Duke with sorry, this just has such a wealth of, of wisdom. So you talking about preying upon the weak mom has had and has a bottomless supply of weaponry against us. And this reminded me of the scene from the bathroom where you know, she resents her son for her husband's death and she wants to make him pay in a way for causing her pain. So she creates like the story of the babba Duke to prey on his young mind and to instill fear in him so that he can't sleep well, since she sleeping, why should he you know, she's afraid of the future she wants him to feel fear and loneliness to. My mom was just as good at creating tangible fear as the mom in the movie. Mom never wanted us to feel secure about earthly souls and wanted us to always fear hell and death, no matter how many times you know, I asked forgiveness for sins and ask God into my heart. I always doubted my place in heaven because of mom. She made it clear we weren't trying hard enough. And it was very likely that we hadn't asked we saved the right way. I use air quotes. She'd read us like Frank bready novels and he was like this adult Christian fiction writer. He also wrote some kids books which were pretty fun about fighting it's basically about the fight between angels and demons over the human soul as we were in bed about to fall asleep. I would have sweating and screaming night tears as a result of the seriously dark material covered in those books. And

Kelley Richey : 49:55

he wrote with such imagery yeah for for child for children. Yeah, especially, I mean, it only takes mere suggestion with kids but his stuff was very strong.

Julia Avery : 50:06

But we're talking about adult books here. This was for adults, not for kids. So even with like the companionship of Janet or Heather as you know bedfellow because we all had shared that same room. I never slept easily. I feared what lurked in the dark and what was under the bed. What was hiding in the closet waiting for me to close my eyes, you know, and drift into unconsciousness. I even feared like the bathroom at all hours of the day. I feared what was waiting for me in there in the closet behind the shower curtain.

Kelley Richey : 50:37

I always check in the shower. Mm hmm. I'd always pull a shower curtain. Yeah,

Julia Avery : 50:42

I checked every hiding space before I could let my guard down. So this all stemmed from the fear a mom instilled in my heart, and she was methodical about feeding it she would watch mystery on ktT allow us to stay up late and watch it with her. Usually strict about content. She allowed the show centered around crime and murder, specifically murder which further terrified my sensitive sensibilities, you know, and I'd sleep even worse, the night terrors would be so bad to where you guys can call me down and I ended up having to sleep with mom and dad right in the middle of the two of them. I still felt very exposed to all the evils of spirits and malicious monsters

Kelley Richey : 51:21

who got everything that got monitored and watched first and, you know, everything that got filtered through somehow violence was always still okay.

Julia Avery : 51:31

Mm hmm. Yeah, that was okay.

Kelley Richey : 51:36

And that baffles me

Julia Avery : 51:38

as well. And you know, we'd kind of gotten into this section like trying to paint a picture of our mom because she felt all this fear and and depression and she wanted to share it with somebody she and she turned it into a psychological game, where she always wanted to be

Kelley Richey : 51:56

neat gave her control, like get her some controls. of the situation of her pain, what she was dealing with and because she started to have control that was that was her coping mechanism using it against us.

Julia Avery : 52:11

So like, you know, the mom and the babadook using that book to terrorize her son. He reacted and in turn became more clingy, fearful. They need he needed to sleep with her to feel safe thing kept her from sleeping as well. So it's like this weird cycle. You know, she wanted to be needed but also hated being needed, but also wanted him to be fearful. She wanted to be vindictive, and I just found it amazing. Only one other person I talked to took it the same way. So maybe you guys could should should go watch this movie and tell us if we're totally making all this up. Yeah, yeah. And you know, you know where you can do that. Where you can go to our website, www dot the family ties calm. You can find all of our social media. media links on there and you can hit us up on any one of those. You can write to us personally in email if you don't feel like advertising it to the whole social media world, we might get to a point where we can share some of your stories if you if you'd like. So, hit us up, watch, watch the movies that we were just talking about watched. We talked about tangled that Disney Rapunzel movie, Carrie, and then yours, Kelly, the wolf pack, documentary and then the bad at Duke.

Kelley Richey : 53:35

So Julia and I wanted to talk about this because, you know, we we love art, this is something we want to kind of talk about lots of movies and all kinds of forms of art. But essentially what we hope you take away from this is that you've heard the term cinema Verity. I find that although movies can be sensationalistic escapism and escapism, kind of focused on that, or fantasy, you know, rolled into one can also represent a form of reality truth, something that reveals bits of humanity in surprising ways. So I think we need to just view art as even if it's something super weird, it could hold some kind of explanation or some kind of way for us to cope with things, certain traumas that we have everybody shares, traumas, we all have them. So let's start addressing them and stop trying to you know, hide them or kick them under that, you know, yeah, let's let's not try and lock them in the basement like mom and dad Duke. Let's let's talk about it. Yeah. Let's find and the good thing about movies is imagery is super powerful. When you have movies or images and stories that you can strongly relate to. It really helps you visualize, and maybe see your own situation and in a better light with more clarity and

Julia Avery : 54:58

beautifully said Julia.

Kelley Richey : 55:01

And I'm difficult with words,

Julia Avery : 55:03

you'll find you'll also see this No, maybe some of the words that you'd like to say different than everybody. But a lot of Julia, I have to use the ladies room and I think that it is by to wrap up. I love talking to you though. I love talking to you too. You're so cool. Thank

Kelley Richey : 55:26

you so much anshel during this COVID crisis,

Julia Avery : 55:28

Julia, we are going to stay connected. Because, you know, we're so far away. We're still distancing ourselves. So we're practicing safe, socially responsible social distancing. Yeah, guys, Skype a friend. All right. We love you guys. Thanks for listening.

Kelley Richey : 55:44

Join us next week

Julia Avery : 55:47

for our next episode. Excellent. All right. Bye bye.