Mentally Oddcast Transcript: Kailin Kenerly

Audio version of this epside can be found here. 

00:01.71

wednesdayleefriday

Hi friends, it's me, Wednesday Lee Friday, and you are listening to The Mentally Oddcast, brought to you by Sometimes Hilarious Horror. This week, we have Kalyn Kennerly, who is an actress, singer, and all-around performer. ah They live with borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety,

00:24.83

wednesdayleefriday

and PTSD. Kalen is currently the lead vocalist of the metal band Soul, which is difficult to say. I'm not even going to try to say it two times fast. Hi, Kalen. Thank you so much for being here.

00:45.13

Kailin

Hey, Wednesday, thank you for having me. Truly a pleasure.

00:49.50

wednesdayleefriday

Oh well thanks. um Full disclosure, I know Kalyn because I went to undergrad with her parents and and that that's how we know each other. And ah it's it's funny because I talk to you way more than I talk to either of your parents.

01:05.44

wednesdayleefriday

um

01:05.59

Kailin

but Right. Wednesday held me when I was just a wee lass.

01:06.93

wednesdayleefriday

because you're

01:10.06

wednesdayleefriday

It's true. It's true. Um, so, you know, before we get into the heavy stuff, I'd like to start out by hearing the story of the first horror movie that you remember seeing.

01:21.45

Kailin

Oh, buckle up for this. Um, it's a combo because I can't remember which one came first. I want to say it's this one. So have you had the pleasure of meeting my pappy, my dad's father, Renee?

01:36.56

wednesdayleefriday

Yes.

01:37.81

Kailin

Okay, so Renee Kennerly, huge horror movie buff, movie buff in general, right? But he and I were hanging out in my grandparents' dining room, which was essentially the living room.

01:51.32

Kailin

Nobody ever actually sat on the couches. and And the TV was in the dining room and Night of the Living Dead came on.

01:59.56

wednesdayleefriday

Oh.

01:59.58

Kailin

And he said, we are going to watch this. I probably was about eight, eight years old. And I fell in love with it.

02:12.47

Kailin

It didn't scare me at all. And it made me like really appreciate that time with my Papi. And he put me on other movies after that. um But I will tell you,

02:24.18

Kailin

the horror movie that really got me. So I was spending the night at my childhood best friend's house. And her dad was also a huge horror movie buff.

02:34.56

Kailin

And so by proxy, she was. We were nine years old and they decided, let's watch Candyman while Caitlin is having a sleepover over here.

02:42.11

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah. ah

02:44.49

Kailin

Wednesday, it scared the shit out of me, dude. um I had nightmares for at least about a week. My mom said she was furious.

02:56.94

Kailin

um to this to this day.

02:57.14

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, I'm sure. Well, cause your mom, your mom is not a horror person. So she probably thought your horror intake should be about zero.

03:02.38

Kailin

No, she is not.

03:06.91

wednesdayleefriday

And, and yeah, Candyman is a harsh one. And I have to think that that is going to, uh, that's the kind of movie that's going to hit harder if you are more immersed in black culture, which I am not.

03:19.47

wednesdayleefriday

Well, I mean, I kind of am now, but like at the time that I saw Candyman, like when it first came out. It was very like, I was very cognizant of like, Oh, those ladies don't belong in that neighborhood.

03:31.03

wednesdayleefriday

Like, what? Nobody's going to like that.

03:32.66

Kailin

Oh yeah.

03:33.99

wednesdayleefriday

But, but you know, ah Oh, you're here for educational purposes.

03:34.72

Kailin

Oh yeah, no. White lady, what you doing up here?

03:41.22

wednesdayleefriday

You're, you're an academic studying us. Like you're Jane frigging good. All like that shouldn't have gone well under any circumstances, even if there was no candy, man.

03:46.21

Kailin

Dude.

03:50.76

wednesdayleefriday

Like how fucking rude is that?

03:53.33

Kailin

gentrify inner city like lore and like fuck around and find out that's that's the moral of that story is fuck around and find out yeah

03:53.49

wednesdayleefriday

Like,

04:02.70

wednesdayleefriday

coatats with a side order of don't cheat on your wife. um But but I don't know if you know that I actually have like Night of the Living Dead is is an enormous film for me as well.

04:08.00

Kailin

so

04:18.07

wednesdayleefriday

um And I actually when I was first writing for zombies on own news when I first started trying to be an internet writer, That was who I reached out to first. I reached out to George Romero because he was alive at that point. I reached out to Ross Streiner and John Russo, Kyra Shawn, Judy O'Day, who played Barbara.

04:39.87

Kailin

They're coming it again to get you, Barbara.

04:42.45

wednesdayleefriday

ah right. And it turned out that all of those people, well, George never hit me back, but everybody else was super gracious.

04:48.43

Kailin

Aw.

04:51.11

wednesdayleefriday

And, uh, you know, Russ striner, let me interview him and, and Judy O'Day and Kyra and I developed like, you know, a a chatty relationship online.

05:01.69

wednesdayleefriday

Um,

05:02.20

Kailin

I absolutely adore that.

05:04.49

wednesdayleefriday

i Started buying her jewelry.

05:04.84

Kailin

I love that for you.

05:06.16

wednesdayleefriday

Now, you know how H made me that logo. It's a W with knives Like my main W logo.

05:11.06

Kailin

Yes.

05:12.90

wednesdayleefriday

She is who turned that into a necklace for me because she is a wizard Yeah, yeah, so Kyra Shawn actually made that she has a her her Etsy store used to be called stone how stone house arts I don't know if that's still what it's called because it's gone through a few iterations But if you get near her jewelry, it is fantastic.

05:14.65

Kailin

Shut up.

05:32.03

wednesdayleefriday

She did like a crawling eye and

05:32.60

Kailin

Ooh.

05:35.05

wednesdayleefriday

She did the Krampus, and it's all stuff that, you know, you make it out of wax, and then you turn that into a mold, and then you pour the metal in there, and then you take it out and shine it up, I think is is the basic process.

05:47.20

wednesdayleefriday

And man, that W...

05:48.13

Kailin

Well, I'm going to need you to send me the link to that, please.

05:52.29

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, totally. Totally. Because, I mean, the thing about Night of the Living Dead is not only did it invent, like, the classic, the the modern zombie, You know, because people will say, oh, white zombie, that's the first zombie movie.

06:05.68

wednesdayleefriday

That's a completely different kind of zombie. Okay. The the modern zombie where the zombie is a reanimated dead person who wants to eat you. That is, that is singularly from Night of the Living Dead and.

06:15.74

Kailin

oh

06:19.42

Kailin

And dude, my pappy, the last thing that he said to me about this movie was, the black man made it all the way to the end. And his one fault was that he did not say something. And then got shot. So.

06:35.34

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, I mean, it's one of the most infuriating endings in film history, you know, right up until The Mist, I think.

06:41.77

Kailin

Truly.

06:45.56

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, yeah, so I'm so excited to hear that that was that was your first horror movie.

06:51.06

Kailin

very, very first.

06:51.13

wednesdayleefriday

um

06:53.64

wednesdayleefriday

So we talked a little bit about your diagnosis that you have borderline personality disorder, um depression, anxiety, and and some PTSD happening there.

06:59.60

Kailin

Oh, yeah.

07:03.59

wednesdayleefriday

So how did you come to get your diagnosis?

07:07.28

Kailin

Okay, so I'll give you the basic background of my mental illness as it slowly started to progress, or I guess quickly progressed. um A lot of people don't really understand or at least they didn't you know nowadays there's way more um god what's the word i'm looking for uh awareness and you know but when i was a kid let's see i was 11 years old so this was 2002

07:40.32

Kailin

Um, I would, I was in the sixth grade and and I would go into the cubby room of my classroom for the first hour and just weep uncontrollably. Um, my mom and I were arguing a little bit more frequently. And I think it was just because I was really sensitive and she was a young mother. Um, and see, she had me when she was 22.

08:05.09

Kailin

um And I don't think that she really understood the full symptoms of mental illness. And so when I was crying in that cubby room, my teacher literally thought that my mom was beating me, which is not the case at all, never was. And she called CPS.

08:25.19

Kailin

um

08:25.29

wednesdayleefriday

Wow.

08:26.32

Kailin

Yeah, Tracy Lowry was not happy about that. And I remember vaguely her just being like, what the hell, dude, like your teacher thinks I'm beating you. And I was like, I don't know why. um And then when I was 12, I was in the seventh grade. And I just started, you know, losing weight because I wasn't eating, which is not like me. I love food.

08:56.33

Kailin

and I wasn't talking as much and my grades were kind of starting to fail and that's when I started getting bad at math. Up until my sixth grade year I was actually really good at math and I kind of noticed that like that's around the time that like the only things that I really excelled in were ah history you know social studies and anything that had to do with English or lit. And I was just getting tired all the time and sad and then um I discovered my chemical romance was Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and it was just everything that my little 12 year old heart needed in that moment.

09:33.36

wednesdayleefriday

ah

09:39.57

Kailin

They're still my favorite band to this day and I'm 32. So 20 years strong. um So around that time is when I started self-harming. I was cutting myself. I was, you know, if my mom noticed, I would blame it on the dog jumping on me and scratching me because that's when we got our first puppy. um And I had multiple journals and my mom just couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. Like as far as my attitude and my grades and general

10:15.47

Kailin

malaise, I think that's the right word.

10:17.97

wednesdayleefriday

hu

10:18.12

Kailin

And one day, my grandma told her, Jeannie, right, you've met my grandma Jeannie as well. She told her that she should check my room for drugs.

10:29.12

wednesdayleefriday

Oh geez.

10:29.56

Kailin

Wednesday, I had never done a single drug in my life. I was such a straight edge kid.

10:33.53

wednesdayleefriday

Uh-huh.

10:34.58

Kailin

um The closest that I got was like doing some yellow shots when my family and I would go canoeing every year. And that was like, with parent supervision.

10:45.69

Kailin

Um, so my mom, this is the first time that I remember any actual trauma coming from my mother. Um, she tore apart my room, every single dresser drawer, my jewelry boxes under my bed, in my closet, in my clothes that were folded, um, my memory boxes, my books. And eventually she found my journals and read them.

11:15.98

Kailin

Uh, and then she looked at me and also, you know, she took the wooden spoon to my butt because I was trying to block her from, you know, doing these things.

11:24.31

wednesdayleefriday

Well, yes!

11:25.92

Kailin

Yeah. You know, it was like a huge invasion, especially considering that I repeatedly told her, mommy, I'm not on drugs. I'm just sad. And I don't know why. And she didn't believe me.

11:37.57

Kailin

Um, and then after she was done tearing apart my room, she said, clean it up and walked away. And, um, I've never talked to her about that, like since it happened. And she never found any drugs because I wasn't doing them. And she didn't see anything in my journal about drugs because I wasn't doing them. But that's when she found out that I was cutting myself. So she took me to a child psychiatrist and a therapist.

12:09.86

Kailin

who I saw until I was 18 years old because she specifically was just for children. um At which point I found, let's see, backtracking. I think I was 17 when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder specifically. um It's the less severe one. I think that's bipolar one.

12:35.97

wednesdayleefriday

No.

12:36.41

Kailin

Um, no, okay.

12:37.03

wednesdayleefriday

Bipolar one is the bad one.

12:39.15

Kailin

Okay.

12:39.38

wednesdayleefriday

That's the what I have!

12:39.78

Kailin

Well, they're both pretty. Okay. Whoo. Bipolar buddies. Um, then yeah, I have bipolar too. Um, so I had this terrible psychiatrist, um, who was not very informative, said you got bipolar disorder and put me on some meds and sent me on my way, but.

13:05.32

Kailin

All of the meds that he kept putting me on were making me ill or weren't helping. And then at one point, he gave me Zoloft and that was it. And it made me want to die.

13:21.32

Kailin

And so when I got taken off the Zoloft, he didn't taper me off slowly enough. Have you ever gotten the zaps from SSRI withdrawal?

13:31.33

wednesdayleefriday

Oh yeah, absolutely.

13:32.54

Kailin

Oh, God.

13:33.59

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah. I went through a situation where I couldn't get refills. My, my insurance decided that they needed a second opinion as to whether or not I required my medication. And during that time I i had run out.

13:42.99

Kailin

Oh wow.

13:44.76

wednesdayleefriday

So it was just, to say and that was when I was working at a service job. So I had to like get dressed and go to a place and be on my feet for eight hours and smile at people that were talking to me like I was an idiot.

13:49.72

Kailin

Oh no.

13:57.45

wednesdayleefriday

So that didn't, didn't go well, but yeah, I definitely.

13:58.19

Kailin

Oh.

14:01.41

wednesdayleefriday

have made the rounds with medications. They've given me things that were just wildly inappropriate. like if If someone is a manic depressive, you don't give them an antidepressant alone.

14:14.75

Kailin

Oh, you sure do not.

14:15.01

wednesdayleefriday

they put They put me on well butrin and I swear it made me want to murder people.

14:18.74

Kailin

Oh no.

14:21.67

wednesdayleefriday

Like I was so tense and freaked out all the time. It actually reminded me of my mom being on Sudafed all the time. She'd be like, why am I so tense?

14:30.12

Kailin

So, you know, that ingredient that they use for meth.

14:31.33

wednesdayleefriday

But you know, it was all Sudafed and Mountain Dew. Um, but, but no, the, um, Exactly. Like, it's like over-the-counter meth.

14:39.53

Kailin

Yeah.

14:41.80

wednesdayleefriday

So, but but no, I so feel the... My mom used to just go into my room and trash it just just to see. Like, I don't think she ever really thought I was on drugs, but she would get angry, she would decide I had too much stuff.

14:57.24

wednesdayleefriday

So she would just take away a bunch of my stuff. She'd just say, Oh, I, I don't, I never see you using that. We're going to throw that away. Like, what do you mean you never see me using it?

15:04.73

Kailin

No.

15:06.47

wednesdayleefriday

I use it in this route, which is up the stairs, which is where you don't go.

15:10.57

Kailin

sort

15:10.66

wednesdayleefriday

You know, she would only go, like if, if mom ever came up the stairs, shit was going down and it was going to be terrible.

15:17.12

Kailin

Oh no.

15:17.71

wednesdayleefriday

And I would end up the worst for it. So, so yeah, I, I so get it. Like, obviously i mine was also like violent and stuff, which, which yours wasn't, but that, I think.

15:30.65

wednesdayleefriday

the the hardest part about that was never the violence. It was always the the betrayal that having to look over your shoulder, the constant anxiety of like, so not only do I not know what's going on with me, but I have to be careful because whatever is going on with me is being mistaken for you know, laziness or defiance, apathy, you know, oh, you're just a smart ass, like all these different things that are like, no, I i would also like to figure this out.

15:51.49

Kailin

bad behavior.

15:59.27

Kailin

Oh yeah.

16:01.75

wednesdayleefriday

Would anyone maybe help me instead of judging me and treating me bad for it?

16:03.38

Kailin

Well dude. Yeah, and it didn't really help my case ah that I've always been a very defiant person, even before my mental health ah started to decline and my mental illness started to ah peek around the corner.

16:13.81

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

16:22.52

Kailin

You know, the first time that I went to the principal's office, I was in the second grade and my mom got a phone call in the middle of the day while she was at work. And it was like, Hey, this is the principal from Parkwood-Upjohn Elementary.

16:36.17

Kailin

And I just wanted to let you know that your daughter is in the principal's office because she's trying to tell me how to do my job.

16:43.71

wednesdayleefriday

Hahahaha!

16:45.61

Kailin

but So when you get to a point where um you're already known for being a little, you know, pushing buttons or just questioning authority, and then you mix that with the crying and the silence and the attitude and the flip flop of emotions.

17:07.71

Kailin

It's just rough. But also, you know, I started my menstrual cycle when I was nine years old, I developed physically very early.

17:14.34

wednesdayleefriday

Oh my gosh.

17:18.43

Kailin

um I had B cups in the fourth grade. um And I was already getting body hair and I was all stinky and like, just blah, And that's when we, well, it wasn't until I was 16 that we found out that I have polycystic ovary syndrome, PCOS. And I'm sure that that did not help with the ah bipolar disorder either. We've just got all of the the stuff thrown at us. But yeah, um so eventually I,

17:55.99

Kailin

went to a new therapist named Pam, this badass 60 plus year old lesbian who just owned a bunch of parrots and really saved my life.

18:07.51

Kailin

um And she eventually we got to a point where we realized that we had done our work together.

18:07.83

wednesdayleefriday

Nice!

18:15.78

Kailin

And she recommended recommended um dialectical behavioral therapy. And when I ah started doing DBT at ah this office out here in Kalamazoo, I met Rashida. And the way that it went about was I said, I want a black female therapist because I had had a brief stint with a male therapist who I got into an argument with about the police.

18:48.00

wednesdayleefriday

Oh geez.

18:49.58

Kailin

This was right after um one of the many murder porn videos of a black man getting shot ah while he was just trying to live his life and follow orders of, you know, a white male cop. And I came into my therapy session and I said, Hey, you know, David, I'm feeling really unwell today. And he asked why I said, you know, I watched this video when I shouldn't have and it's causing me a lot of trauma.

19:19.05

Kailin

And I said, fuck the police. And he was like, that's a very judgmental statement.

19:24.05

wednesdayleefriday

Whoa.

19:24.08

Kailin

And I said, yeah. Yeah. And I said, I stand by what I said. And he said, well, what if I told you my dad was a cop? And I am like, that's a big no-no.

19:34.65

Kailin

You don't bring your personal life into your sessions.

19:36.72

wednesdayleefriday

No, you sure don't.

19:38.62

Kailin

But Wednesday, I looked him straight in his face. I leaned forward and I said, then fuck your dad. And he was so not.

19:45.75

wednesdayleefriday

Well, I mean.

19:47.81

Kailin

He was so not happy about that. um

19:51.45

wednesdayleefriday

T.S.

19:53.78

Kailin

Yeah, he was so upset. And I immediately fired him as my therapist. So I found Rashida, this badass mother of eight Muslim black woman from you know the south side of Detroit.

20:09.12

wednesdayleefriday

OK.

20:09.11

Kailin

And she was just so cool. And I saw her from 2014. to 2022. And that woman saved my life. ah No doubt about it. She walked me through a lot of my substance use and um my ah you know suicidal ideation and helped me become just a happier, healthier person with a lot of communication skills. um But ah yeah.

20:44.50

Kailin

When I was seeing Rashida, that's when I also saw a new psychiatrist ah who's also a black woman upon my request. And she put me on the best cocktail of meds I've ever been on. um And I just feel way more stable. um But she's the one that diagnosed me with borderline. And once I got put on a mood stabilizer,

21:13.46

Kailin

I was like, this is what it feels like to be happy.

21:17.51

wednesdayleefriday

Right.

21:17.70

Kailin

Holy shit.

21:19.21

wednesdayleefriday

Yep, yep.

21:20.60

Kailin

So I'm on the motor gene.

21:24.94

Kailin

Raylar, which is that it's kind of like a bill of five, but a bill of five made me want to die.

21:29.25

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

21:30.66

Kailin

Whereas Raylar does quite the opposite. um And I'm on boost barone.

21:33.46

wednesdayleefriday

Yep, yep.

21:37.25

wednesdayleefriday

OK.

21:38.30

Kailin

And I think that's it. Yeah, but the PTSD was also a diagnosis that I got from my recent psychiatrist, current psychiatrist, um which, ah yeah.

21:57.23

Kailin

And then the depression and anxiety is just a given.

21:57.48

wednesdayleefriday

Um,

22:01.75

wednesdayleefriday

I want to actually follow up on something because we talk a lot on the show about finding the right therapist and finding someone that, uh, shares some of your life experience so that they are relatable to you. Could you maybe talk a little about how like, uh, things like race and gender and gender presentation play into that for you personally?

22:27.47

Kailin

Yeah, so i let's start with um kind of gender and we'll even throw in the fact that I'm like super queer, right?

22:39.60

Kailin

um My parents were both theater people.

22:39.80

wednesdayleefriday

Mmhmm.

22:42.88

Kailin

I didn't have to come out to them. I have so many friends that have the come out stories. I literally one day, my sophomore year of high school, I was just like, hey, I have a girlfriend. They were like, cool, can can we meet her soon?

22:54.86

Kailin

And I was like, fuck yeah, you can. um And so i've I've always just been able through my my mother and my father and my friends ah to really express myself as far as my sexuality goes.

22:58.08

wednesdayleefriday

Nice.

23:11.69

Kailin

Um, the older I got the more, um, I kind of felt some of the oppression, you know, but from like peers that weren't my friends. Uh, I got called a dyke a lot and you know, shit like that, but I'm over here like I'm gay as fuck. And I just make out with my girlfriend in front of them. And you know, all of those people, all half those people were probably just repressed homosexuals anyway. Um, but.

23:42.25

Kailin

um My therapist, Pam, the one that I had before Rashida, you know, just this badass lesbian woman who um I admired so much and who showed me that it's um it's not a hindrance, right? And you know, to be, she was a successful person who was openly gay and that just really like made me happy. um So as far as like the queerness aspect of it, um it was like pretty chill. um I will note that a lot of the people that made fun of me for my ah ah sexual orientation were people of color.

24:40.02

Kailin

and And let's see, that can lead us into the but struggle that we find ourselves in with the Black community as a whole and access to mental health services.

24:57.02

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

24:57.16

Kailin

um A lot of my friends who are Black and Hispanic even, it's one of those things where Oh, you know, you're just acting out kind of like how my mom thought when I was younger, but um you're just acting out. We're going to punish you with corporal punishments. We don't talk about this and that and this, right? That stays in the family.

25:26.25

Kailin

um And yeah, it's ah one of those things.

25:31.31

wednesdayleefriday

Well, and it it gets tied up with religion to some extent and and things having to do with like you know privacy as as part of morality, which is how a lot of different kinds of abuse ends up getting covered up because somehow the abuse itself is is not as as great a sin as exposing the abuser and making things happen and making people look and change their minds. I don't want to get like too far off topic, but I think a lot of that feeds into each other because there is a stereotype

26:05.75

wednesdayleefriday

of the affluent white person with too much time on their hands, dashing off to a therapist to complain about you know how difficult it is to be wealthy and pampered and shit. And I mean, those people exist. so I'm not going to sit here and pretend they don't exist. But I think that that stereotype can limit people outside of white culture who say, well, that's white people shit. I don't i don't want to get near that. Just sit on a couch and tell somebody your problem's that stupid.

26:33.76

wednesdayleefriday

and if If that's the attitude that you go into it with, it might not help you, but i but not necessarily, because if you have a good experience in therapy,

26:45.91

wednesdayleefriday

and you go there because you need it, like that is a net positive. and and I would be interested in knowing like how do you you how how would anyone get past that, past the idea that like therapy makes you weak, therapy is self-indulgent, therapy is you know all the things that that people say to keep from admitting that they could probably use some therapy. because I'm sure that you, like I know people who would greatly benefit from therapy, but who would not even discuss it.

27:21.69

Kailin

Oh yeah, so when I was younger, first going to see a therapist, I didn't want anybody to know, right?

27:29.80

wednesdayleefriday

you

27:30.24

Kailin

It's kind of like um when I was younger, if my bra straps were showing, I was like, this is how I go. I am mortified, right?

27:40.96

Kailin

And now I'm over here like wearing crop tops with my titties out and ah no bra half the time. um And it's the same thing with ah therapy, you know, it it took me a while to realize that not only is it good for people with mental illness, but it's good for everybody.

28:04.12

Kailin

You know, like, yes, the the people in the community of neurodivergence definitely are the ones that truly need it.

28:04.72

wednesdayleefriday

Mm-hmm

28:14.24

Kailin

But ah mental health services are so important for people who don't have depression yet, but might from any life, you know, problem, loss of a parent or a family member, son and homelessness, houselessness, sorry, um you know, any sort of injury, financial problems, like everything.

28:26.00

wednesdayleefriday

Yep

28:40.92

Kailin

that could possibly happen in life that becomes a huge stressor. It's kind of like going to the doctor, right? Like you go for checkups, that way if something does change, you know how to nip it in the bud.

28:48.03

wednesdayleefriday

Yep.

28:54.58

Kailin

It's the same thing with therapy. And I think that everyone really should benefit from having a therapist regardless of whether or not they have a mental health diagnosis.

29:05.61

wednesdayleefriday

well yeah and that's That's a great point that people are supposed to go in for an annual physical. How difficult would it be to get just an annual, hey, how are you doing? have you you know Do you still like the things you used to like? Do you still like the people that you live with? How's all that going?

29:23.01

wednesdayleefriday

just ah

29:23.62

Kailin

Well, and my my doctor's office actually has that every time ah I go in for my annual physical. They do have a questionnaire about, um you know, have you lost interest in things that you used to love or how often do you think about death or how often do you think that the world would be better without you, et cetera?

29:43.76

Kailin

Do you feel safe at home? That one is a really important question ah because

29:50.05

wednesdayleefriday

I think I was at Planned Parenthood the first time someone asked me that. Are you safe where you live?

29:55.65

Kailin

but Do you feel safe at home? Yeah, that's ah that's a really big important question um because that really factors into the other aspects of the previous questions.

30:07.30

wednesdayleefriday

Oh yeah. Yeah, I mean, I just think about what would have happened or what could have happened if someone had asked me that when I was 10.

30:09.73

Kailin

Yeah.

30:18.24

Kailin

Yeah.

30:18.48

wednesdayleefriday

Because at my last doctor's appointment, I have H come in the room with me because I have issues. so um And the doctor, there was a point at which the doctor said, I'm sorry, I need your husband to step out.

30:30.58

wednesdayleefriday

And that's when he asked me the questions about, do you feel safe at home? Are you you know are you safe where you are? Is anyone making you do anything you don't want to do? You know, all that sort of stuff.

30:40.28

Kailin

yeah

30:41.42

wednesdayleefriday

And obviously my husband treats me like I'm the queen of everything, but I was so appreciative that that was the standard to say, no, I want the doctor and this patient.

30:52.31

wednesdayleefriday

And I could have had a nurse if I'd wanted one, but like no one in my life was allowed in the room so that they could speak to me privately and know that anything I said would be kept in confidence.

31:02.32

Kailin

Yeah. Yeah, which like when they first say, okay, you know, you're, um, essentially, you know, patient advocate or, you know, security buddy, you got to get out of here, right? It can be so nerve wracking, especially if it was your first time, like hearing those questions in a doctor setting. Um, and then there's that as, as a assigned female at birth, you know, a fab person, it's one of those things that I appreciate so much, not to say that men and, uh, young boys don't get abused either because

31:40.37

Kailin

That's a whole other subject that we could go on about all day.

31:42.79

wednesdayleefriday

and Sure, sure.

31:43.62

Kailin

ah But, you know, predominantly it's, ah you know, every woman or AFAB person I know has a story about some form of trauma um associated with men or their parents um hurting them.

31:59.95

wednesdayleefriday

Well, and and almost as many people have the story of the time that they needed help and were not believed.

32:07.34

Kailin

Yeah.

32:07.51

wednesdayleefriday

you know, which is something that is so avoidable that we could be doing so much better about as a society. And I'll tell you, like we were talking about race issues earlier, and one of the things that gives me considerable shame as as a white person is that I never, I don't think that I thought people were lying about police violence, but I did think that people were exaggerating. The idea that cops would just beat the hell out of someone because the person said the wrong thing or would even kill someone for reasons that were not necessary. Like I could not get my head around that because I was very much raised with the officer friendly stereotype.

32:54.96

wednesdayleefriday

And then to find out that like, ah just just to to have to sit with the shame of like, oh, and people tried to tell me that and I just straight up didn't believe them.

32:55.13

Kailin

Yeah, it's mind-blowing.

33:06.92

wednesdayleefriday

And I took the word of these people that we now know are professional liars, you know? And even now, like, cause I mean, I'm sure you've worked jobs like as I have where there's a camera on you all the time and

33:12.14

Kailin

Yeah.

33:19.81

Kailin

Oh, yeah.

33:20.98

wednesdayleefriday

If I pretended that the blockbuster camera mysteriously malfunctioned, I would not be welcome to manage at the blockbuster anymore, you know, because that's that's not how it works.

33:21.50

Kailin

Yeah.

33:30.85

wednesdayleefriday

You don't like, oh, whoops, of course. You know, if if ah there's an altercation at a blockbuster, you have to deescalate it or you lose your job. You can't just open fire on people.

33:42.21

wednesdayleefriday

Lucky for people.

33:42.40

Kailin

yeah yeah so lucky who we're are all lucky

33:47.76

wednesdayleefriday

um But, you know, I actually I would like to talk ah about, I know that you are a fan of of theater and performance, not just because you kick ass at it or because your parents are both theater people, um but I think theater um as a collaborative art and a a community you know situation that people who are neurodivergent, people that that deal with depression and anxiety, often find a home among theater people because of the tremendous empathy, the community, the understanding, and and the sort of, I mean, a lot of otherized people do tend to be drawn to ah the theater arts. um whats What's your take on that?

34:38.33

Kailin

Okay, so my dad. ah This it immediately makes me think of my dad. So when I first told my dad that I wanted to be an actor like him when I grew up, because he's an actor at a very um successful Shakespeare Festival, he looked at me and said, are you crazy?

34:56.82

wednesdayleefriday

Yes.

35:01.23

Kailin

And I was like, kinda. And he was like, okay, then. He said, you've got to be crazy to be in this business.

35:11.90

Kailin

You have to be crazy to be in theater. And that always resonated with me. And the more that I did theater, the more I realized that that man was very right.

35:23.90

wednesdayleefriday

Yes.

35:25.19

Kailin

um So yeah, that's that's my hot take on that is words to live by. Are you crazy? Then you're going to do great.

35:36.01

wednesdayleefriday

Well, they say that if in theater books where you're supposed to be deciding whether or not you want to go into theater, they say that if there is any other discipline that you would rather get into than this and you're trying to decide between two things, do the other one.

35:36.00

Kailin

oh

35:52.16

wednesdayleefriday

Don't do this one because theater is too hard.

35:53.75

Kailin

Oh yeah.

35:55.68

wednesdayleefriday

It's too thankless.

35:56.07

Kailin

yeah

35:57.10

wednesdayleefriday

Like I got a job in theater after undergrad. Um, Uh, it was after, um, I worked for Acorn, which is another lovely tale and why I hate the alt, right?

36:10.08

wednesdayleefriday

But, um, but, uh, my paychecks, my last two paychecks before Christmas bounced from the theater. And that, that was a new experience for me having a paycheck bounce because, you know, I still had this very, uh,

36:19.53

Kailin

Shut the front door.

36:28.92

wednesdayleefriday

like old-fashioned conservative idea of like, you know, cops are good guys and people in government are smarter than we are because they have more education and they know more and, you know, your work is your work and they're pretty much infallible.

36:41.67

wednesdayleefriday

You got to do everything they say and then they pay you. And then when all of those things turn out to be bullshit, it's like I spent my whole 20s just being like, wow, this is fucked.

36:43.92

Kailin

Yeah,

36:52.62

Kailin

yeah it's the they pay you part that they were missing.

36:52.84

wednesdayleefriday

How did this get like this?

36:57.95

Kailin

You know, it's like, um if I'm gonna put up your bullshit, you better give me my money.

36:58.71

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah.

37:01.54

wednesdayleefriday

Well, and that's the thing about theater people is they're like, well, you know what?

37:02.06

Kailin

The fuck?

37:05.38

wednesdayleefriday

We can't afford to pay you yet, but we still have three more performances. You going to be here? Yes. Like, because theater people are, you know, we're like, like writers, you know, it's like, well, maybe I'm not going to make any money at it, but I think it's important and I'm going to do it and I don't want to let anyone down.

37:12.67

Kailin

Yeah, I guess.

37:24.77

Kailin

Yeah, our lives for the theatre.

37:28.78

wednesdayleefriday

Well, you know, well, and it's so funny because I just saw recently where, you know, Trump people were putting out Craigslist ads to get people to go to rallies and they were offering to pay people.

37:28.79

Kailin

um

37:40.52

wednesdayleefriday

Which is so stupid because it is and it makes them look so bad that they're just outright saying that.

37:41.07

Kailin

How sad is that? so

37:46.80

wednesdayleefriday

And what I was saying was that if they would list it on Craigslist as a casting call and say that they were like, like, filming a political movie or something, how many people would show up?

38:00.15

wednesdayleefriday

And even when they find out what it is, a lot of them probably wouldn't leave, you know?

38:01.44

Kailin

ah

38:06.52

wednesdayleefriday

It's like, well, it is an acting credit and I'm already here and they're going to pay me. So, you know, maybe Jordan Klepper will show up. um

38:14.33

Kailin

I don't know, bro, I got to draw the line somewhere.

38:19.85

Kailin

Somewhere. You know, somebody has to, has to put up some form of a line.

38:25.90

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, I get it.

38:25.96

Kailin

No, but really, you're, you're probably right. A lot of people probably would say because they're like, I need the money. Right. Because with my, my dad, he's been working at that Shakespeare festival since I was four.

38:41.31

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah.

38:41.61

Kailin

And my mother runs an auditorium for um a university, and she's been working in ah that theater since I was four as well.

38:46.86

wednesdayleefriday

who

38:55.56

Kailin

And it started with her working in the ticket office at the student theater attached to ah the auditorium, right?

39:04.41

wednesdayleefriday

Yep, yep.

39:06.27

Kailin

And then once She got out of the ticket office. She started ah to be the marketing director. Well, first marketing, then marketing director, and now she runs the whole building, and I'm so proud of her, right?

39:15.63

wednesdayleefriday

huh

39:19.32

Kailin

um My stepmother is a director, and that's how she and my dad met. um And ah she goes where the money is. So she's, I mean, as so many actors, any theater person does, but ah she has been,

39:30.01

wednesdayleefriday

yeah

39:37.67

Kailin

to, let's see, she goes to l LA, uh, frequently and Seattle and, uh, you know, Ashlyn Oregon and just, she's all over the place and I am just in awe. I was like, I'll call her on FaceTime and be like, Desdemona, where are you this day? Right? Not even this week, right? It'll be like, you know, she's in like three different places in one week and it's, uh, it blows my mind, but it's not the norm.

40:06.54

Kailin

to have such successful careers or I wouldn't even say such successful because like I find them all to be successful.

40:17.03

Kailin

If you're doing your work, you're doing your work, but to be in the same place for so long or to have your name in so many ah different spaces to the point where you do have the opportunity to travel all over the country to do your art

40:19.43

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

40:36.45

Kailin

that ah is just really beautiful to me.

40:39.95

wednesdayleefriday

It is that's huge.

40:42.01

Kailin

And it's something to be very proud of. um I am gonna plug my dad for two seconds again, because on top of working at this Shakespeare Festival for so long, he was on Broadway for a short amount of time um in his early fifties, right?

40:47.90

wednesdayleefriday

okay

40:59.94

Kailin

Which like most people, when they get their start on Broadway, they are, you know, these fresh, you know, late teens, early twenties that can, you know, sing and dance eight shows a week and all of this stuff.

41:08.20

wednesdayleefriday

Yep. Yep.

41:13.57

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah.

41:15.00

Kailin

Right. And then you've got, you know, Kevin fucking Cannerley out here working with ah Uzo Adupa right in this really great play that I had the pleasure of being able to see.

41:22.20

wednesdayleefriday

Right.

41:26.87

Kailin

And so like, yeah, my parents are an inspiration to me every, every day.

41:32.62

wednesdayleefriday

Right on. Actually, you know what I love that your dad does is audiobooks. He is dope with the audiobooks.

41:39.92

Kailin

Oh, yeah. It's so funny. i ah I had multiple friends when he did Lovecraft Country.

41:47.56

wednesdayleefriday

Uh-huh.

41:47.92

Kailin

I had multiple friends ah call me and be like, Caitlin, is this your dad? And I'm like, yeah, that's my dad.

41:53.03

wednesdayleefriday

yeah

41:58.13

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, I didn't even know that he was doing them for a while.

41:58.13

Kailin

So it's a

42:00.61

wednesdayleefriday

The only reason I was at audie Audible was to check on my audio books and they recommended to me like, oh, you should listen to talented Mr. Ripley. And I'm like, wait, I know that dude.

42:12.37

Kailin

they I went to college with that guy.

42:12.57

wednesdayleefriday

Crazy. see and And the running man, too. And you know, it's funny because i I bet your dad is going to listen to this and I bet he is wondering if I'm going to tell any ridiculously embarrassing stories about him because we did live in the same house for like two years.

42:17.39

Kailin

Yeah.

42:26.43

Kailin

Well, I sure hope you do.

42:28.97

wednesdayleefriday

Well, you know, it's a funny thing because in undergrad, there would be stuff going on that people would say, WOD, that was my nickname, WOD.

42:39.47

wednesdayleefriday

They say WOD. that's That's tacky. Come on. That is tasteless. That is utterly tasteless. What if you want to run for office someday? And I'm like, not a concern. But the thing is that at the time I was like, there is absolutely nothing that I have said or done here that would embarrass me in any way. And I can tell you, I am so fucking lucky that Olivette got the internet the summer after I graduated.

43:05.07

wednesdayleefriday

Because if there was any visual evidence, I mean, it's bad enough that every picture of me that has survived from my under but undergrad days, I am either giving someone a the finger or I'm too drunk to stand up.

43:18.42

wednesdayleefriday

it it

43:19.21

Kailin

I'm here for the giving someone the finger. I have my fair share of Facebook profile pictures that are me just flipping the camera off.

43:24.90

wednesdayleefriday

I mean, there's there's a few theater things. ah Because I think there's there's a picture of me from Top Girls um that when I was in the play Top Girls.

43:36.29

wednesdayleefriday

Well, the most amazing thing about being in Top Girls was that, like I was saying earlier, I got to interview Judith O'Day, who played Barbara in Night of the Living Dead.

43:36.29

Kailin

Nice.

43:45.53

Kailin

Hell yeah.

43:46.09

wednesdayleefriday

And when she was in grad school, she was in top girls. So she was so excited that I, and i I didn't know that, obviously. I found that out when I was doing research on her for the interview.

43:57.61

wednesdayleefriday

And so I was so excited that I got to bring up that I was also in top girls. Cause you know, that's, that's not a,

44:03.12

Kailin

That's really fun when you can like, when you can nerd out with ah you know theater people or like-minded people, people that we look up to, um and be able to like have those like, oh my god, you did this, I did this, and just start talking about all the intricacies of the play, um or you know whatever hobby or job it might be.

44:08.78

wednesdayleefriday

yeah.

44:23.96

Kailin

um

44:24.04

wednesdayleefriday

Right?

44:24.60

Kailin

My favorite is when I meet a new person for the first time and we immediately geek out about something while all the people around us look at us. We're fucking batshit insane, which we usually are, but that is neither here nor there.

44:38.43

wednesdayleefriday

who But like it's actually harder usually for me to geek out with theater people because I'm not a great fan of musicals. There's like three or four musicals that I kind of like, but I've never seen Rent, I've never seen Wicked, I've never seen Cats, you know like all the the major things that people see.

44:52.00

Kailin

oh Wednesday.

44:56.11

wednesdayleefriday

like I didn't see Hamilton until it was on Disney Plus and then I sat there like, why am I crying? Why does this whole thing make me wanna- This is so emotional.

45:06.43

wednesdayleefriday

Why am I giving a fuck about Alexander Hamilton in the first place?

45:06.77

Kailin

Right.

45:10.50

wednesdayleefriday

He's like, got milk commercial. This isn't important. why And by the end, you're just like, he should be on all the money and you're so great.

45:15.00

Kailin

So so here's.

45:23.15

Kailin

So here's my take on the musicals that you just mentioned. Rent ah is the first musical I remember seeing. I know it's not the first musical I saw, but it was, I saw it when I was nine years old and I was like, I'm going to be in this play one day.

45:39.78

Kailin

And last year, I wasn't like in it, in it, but I was. I was an understudy for the two female ensemble members in

45:50.50

wednesdayleefriday

So like all the work of being in it without ending up in it.

45:54.82

Kailin

Yeah, it was great.

45:58.14

Kailin

But I got paid $150 a week for like two and a half months just to sit there and write notes and learn music that I already fucking knew.

46:09.20

Kailin

um And let's see, what was the second one you said? There was rent, wicked,

46:14.76

wednesdayleefriday

ah Wicked and cats.

46:15.72

Kailin

Right. So we're tying in Dita Menzel into two things. Wicked, I absolutely adore. And every time I hear Defying Gravity, I get goosebumps so my nipples get hard, but I can understand why some people don't like Wicked it or just like, don't give a fuck about it.

46:31.67

wednesdayleefriday

I love the book. i read I read the book and I thought the book was, I mean, I love like flipping the perspective, you know, because that was kind of new.

46:34.79

Kailin

Oh yeah.

46:39.14

wednesdayleefriday

People weren't really doing that, like taking old characters and then, you know, giving us another side of the story. Like that was before like Maleficent and Cruella and all these things happened.

46:49.80

wednesdayleefriday

so I was really taken by that concept. And I do like some musicals. I loved Annie when I was a kid. Annie was like the musical. Well, Annie and Grease were the big musicals when I was a kid.

47:02.49

wednesdayleefriday

um

47:04.54

Kailin

So I absolutely love Greece, Andy, I could like, I could like live with or without it.

47:04.60

wednesdayleefriday

Yes.

47:12.59

Kailin

ah It's, it's great.

47:12.72

wednesdayleefriday

yeah

47:14.96

Kailin

And it was it Sarah Jessica Parker from ah Sex in the City, amongst other things. Is that her name or am I thinking about, I don't know, the main horse face lady.

47:27.47

wednesdayleefriday

I don't know.

47:29.04

Kailin

Horse-based lady, she played Annie on Broadway.

47:31.96

wednesdayleefriday

Really?

47:33.24

Kailin

Yes.

47:34.69

wednesdayleefriday

I did not know that.

47:36.58

Kailin

I could be wrong, but I want to say that I was watching a documentary about her and she played Annie on Broadway. And the main take that they have from everyone that they've ever interviewed is that if you were the little girl that played Annie on Broadway, your voice is fucked as an adult.

47:55.86

wednesdayleefriday

Wow.

47:56.01

Kailin

Because again, yeah, like imagine

47:57.35

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, because it's it's loud and it's high. So yeah, I guess I could see that.

48:00.91

Kailin

exactly yeah and then as far as cats goes i fucking hate cats it's like two plus hours of just like the first song i don't remember how long it is but it's called like jellicle cats or something like that and that's the whole thing be because jellicles can jellicles do and jellicle and it's like okay we fucking get it you're jellicle cats like

48:20.66

wednesdayleefriday

Yep, yep.

48:31.51

Kailin

oh yeah it was there is not a plot

48:32.62

wednesdayleefriday

Um, cause that's, cats, that's another thing where like I've read the written material and was like fine with it. Um, but I think my, my issue with cats is that it seems too mainstream to be as vague and experimental as it is because there is no plot really. It's like, wait, why do you I mean, I get why they're doing it. Like I get why theater people like it, but.

48:59.62

wednesdayleefriday

Why do housewives that don't like anything good, like, why did they, like, lose that, like, you know, like the live, laugh, laugh people that are just like, oh, cats.

49:07.64

Kailin

ah yeah

49:08.91

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah. ah Yeah. Not my scene, but.

49:12.01

Kailin

Yeah no, I will say one thing though because I've seen cats twice um The set and the costumes are really fucking cool Yeah, like the set the costumes are really cool ah the movie

49:24.43

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, I'm sure.

49:29.42

wednesdayleefriday

because I've seen some world-class makeup for cats, certainly.

49:32.58

Kailin

The movie I refused to watch because what the fuck was that shit show? um And then as far as Hamilton goes, I saw Hamilton once in Chicago the day after Trump was elected.

49:48.58

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, jeez.

49:49.22

Kailin

And and I went with my mom and a couple of her employees. And ah there's a scene where the king gets a message, you know, somebody's like whispering in his ear and you just hear the king go, they elected who?

50:07.83

Kailin

And the entire audience just lost it.

50:08.25

wednesdayleefriday

ah but Wow.

50:12.33

Kailin

Like it was a combination of cackles and just the most defeated groans I've ever heard in my entire life.

50:22.51

Kailin

And then I went again in Detroit with my auntie, my dad's sister, um My Nana, my dad's mom, had no interest in going to see this musical and her employer had bought her two tickets to a a private gala um and the viewing of Hamilton, where like a lot of very prominent politicians were there and it was hard for me to not walk up to one of them and be like, what's it feel like to be a boot maker?

50:54.27

wednesdayleefriday

yeah ah They won't tell you.

50:56.77

Kailin

Like, oh my god. But then also like, do you know who Big Sean is?

51:03.60

wednesdayleefriday

No.

51:05.09

Kailin

Okay, Big Sean is a rap artist. ah His most popular song that I know at least, I guess it would be more like his most popular song with me because I don't listen to any of this other music. It's called I Don't Fuck With You. And it's my mom's favorite rap song.

51:23.46

wednesdayleefriday

Cool.

51:24.37

Kailin

ah It's I don't fuck with you, you little stupid ass bitch. I ain't fucking with you. Um, he sat in front of me for that entire, uh, showing. Uh, and yeah, so I, I saw it twice and it's just very long. That's why I have two complaints. It's very long and Lin-Manuel Miranda out of all of the people throughout history that you could write a musical about.

51:54.60

Kailin

You chose Alexander fucking Hamilton?

51:58.05

wednesdayleefriday

yeah ah

51:59.29

Kailin

Like, I want a musical about Nat Turner.

51:59.54

wednesdayleefriday

ah

52:02.87

Kailin

I want a musical about Frederick Douglass. I want a musical about...

52:05.20

wednesdayleefriday

I was just going to say Frederick Douglas is the man 

52:10.16

Kailin

Exactly.

52:15.00

Kailin

Oh my God, please.

52:16.07

wednesdayleefriday

Can you imagine?

52:19.91

Kailin

It's just, I'm so, i I love what it did. for the theater community. I love the music. Don't get me wrong, when the Skyler sisters come on, I'm like, oh, there's nothing rich folks love more than going downtown and slumming it with the poor.

52:34.65

Kailin

I could sing the whole thing.

52:35.78

wednesdayleefriday

yeah

52:37.43

Kailin

And then ah I recently actually did a miscast cabaret for your listeners. I don't know what that is. It is a collection of people that do different songs from different musicals, but it's specifically characters that you would never be cast in if you were actually auditioning for the show.

52:59.22

Kailin

So I am a very curvy, busty, thick,

52:59.99

wednesdayleefriday

Ha ha ha ha ha!

53:06.47

Kailin

ah black female presenting person. And I sang You'll Be Back, which is the king of England song from Hamilton, as well as I believe from Book of Mormon, which like I'm quite the opposite of a white Mormon man.

53:26.92

Kailin

So yeah.

53:28.21

wednesdayleefriday

ah Dude, I get you and Andrew Reynolds confused all the time. What are you even saying?

53:35.26

Kailin

ah We're both pretty chipper.

53:35.39

wednesdayleefriday

Us new be like, wait, weren't you on girls?

53:38.94

Kailin

ah

53:41.19

Kailin

We got so off topic. I love you. so

53:43.69

wednesdayleefriday

Well, here's the thing. At at the risk of like deflating the mood, there is a question that I have been asking guests recently with permission. I don't throw this to people unannounced, but we ah we ask about a time in your life when you felt that your life was threatened by another person, that it was a sincere threat on your life, and it turns out that This has happened to a lot of people that they were in a life, a literal life threatening situation because someone, often someone in their life had threatened them in a way that seemed credible.

54:10.93

Kailin

Oh, yeah.

54:20.98

wednesdayleefriday

Can you talk about that, please?

54:22.97

Kailin

I sure can. um Before we do that, can we take a short break?

54:28.01

wednesdayleefriday

Oh yeah, totes.

54:30.19

Kailin

Okay. Give me like five minutes to prepare. I see no countdown.

54:37.12

wednesdayleefriday

OK, so just go ahead.

54:39.79

Kailin

Okay, so when I was 17, it was that the summer before my senior year of high school, I started dating um a boy that I had had a crush on since middle school.

54:57.64

Kailin

Am I allowed to say people's names or do we need to like, like it it's public it's public record, but yeah, let's just,

55:00.69

wednesdayleefriday

Let's not.

55:07.22

wednesdayleefriday

you know we try We try not to say names of people who aren't famous.

55:12.02

Kailin

Okay. Um, our first name's okay as opposed to full names.

55:15.49

wednesdayleefriday

Yes, first names are fine.

55:16.76

Kailin

Okay, cool. Okay. So his name is Jordan and Jordan didn't drink. Jordan didn't even smoke weed when we first started dating.

------------------------------------Tech Pause----------------

00:00:02.06

Kailin

Okay, so when I was 17, it was the senior year. Yeah, my senior year of high school. Um, I started dating this guy named Jordan, who I'd had like this huge crush on since middle school. And I was like, Oh my God, it's actually happening. Um, he was like the super hippie dude with like long hair and played the electric bass, which I thought was so hot. And yeah. So when Jordan and I first started dating, he, um,

00:00:34.13

Kailin

didn't smoke weed, he didn't drink, he was going to school, and he had a part-time after-school job. And then slowly those things started to disintegrate. um He started smoking pot, then he started drinking, and then he dropped out of high school, and then he quit his job, and then he left the band that he and a bunch of my friends were in. In hindsight, it was very clear that he was on drugs.

00:01:03.87

Kailin

But my young, naive ass had had the privilege, truly, and I will call this a privilege, of never knowing what true addiction looks like up until the age of 18.

00:01:18.81

Kailin

um Because the first year was like totally chill and fine. um And then it just, it got so, so bad. um It was, let's see, cocaine and then eventually meth.

00:01:36.57

Kailin

And also he was an alcoholic and yeah, bad, bad combo.

00:01:40.03

wednesdayleefriday

Oh geez.

00:01:43.18

Kailin

And then, um but at the time it was just like he was losing a lot of weight and he was just getting so mean. It was, it was the anger and just the pure, it felt evil.

00:02:00.48

Kailin

Um, the way that he would just speak to you sometimes and it was just so flippy floppy. Um, he just became this completely different person and everybody around me knew.

00:02:13.39

Kailin

And he was stealing from our friends and his mother, you know, her electric got cut off once because he had, uh, withdrawn all of her money from her bank account to buy drugs.

00:02:16.20

wednesdayleefriday

Oh geez.

00:02:26.77

Kailin

Uh, he sold his electric base. which is why he quit the band because he wanted to buy drugs, you know, and I just, I didn't know. And I lost so many friends because all of those people just assumed that I knew because how could you not know? But I truly didn't. um So after a while, I was just like, I can't do this anymore. ah He was leeching my joy

00:02:59.38

Kailin

It was the first time that was the first time that I that I was changing to be something that somebody else wanted.

00:03:00.13

wednesdayleefriday

Mhm.

00:03:16.20

Kailin

you know I thought that it must be me. like why Why would somebody treat me this way if I wasn't you know responsible?

00:03:18.81

wednesdayleefriday

Mhm. Mhm.

00:03:27.28

Kailin

And I felt like my light was just being shadowed. And so truly, and so I broke up with him.

00:03:34.14

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's, that's, it's oppressive. It's an oppressive thing to live with.

00:03:41.50

Kailin

It was my freshman year of college. My grandmother, who was my best friend, died two weeks into my freshman year of college. And we had had to put my dog down earlier that year as well.

00:03:56.06

wednesdayleefriday

Oh.

00:03:57.50

Kailin

She was my very first dog and so I was going through it plus I had 17 credit hours as a declared theater major and I was just stretched so thin and between all of that and the verbal abuse um And emotional abuse that I was receiving. I finally had had enough and I broke up with him Well, he decided that he was just gonna Stock me he started stalking me.

00:04:27.52

wednesdayleefriday

Hmm.

00:04:28.81

Kailin

It turned into unwanted phone calls and just showing up at places he knew I'd be because we had some friends in common who then I learned were not my friends.

00:04:44.93

Kailin

One of them would actually call him and tell him when I was going to be at their house just so that he could laugh at my reaction to when he showed up.

00:04:57.51

wednesdayleefriday

Holy shit.

00:04:57.48

Kailin

And yeah, it was evil. It was just a really dark time in my life. And so it turned into, you know, the unwatched phone calls showing up where he knew I would be. And he would just say the most vile shit.

00:05:22.77

Kailin

He threatened to kill my new puppy. He threatened to cut my little brother's head off and leave it on my dad's doorstep.

00:05:35.98

wednesdayleefriday

Jesus.

00:05:36.12

Kailin

He threatened to burn my house down with me, my mother, my pets, my stepfather, all in it, and then shoot himself in my backyard.

00:05:48.55

Kailin

ah Yeah, and he just told me that I was going to be nothing, that I was nothing. And that he never loved me and that the all the years that we had been together that will be here and some change that we had been together that he just kept me around because he wanted to fuck me.

00:06:12.06

Kailin

And that just between the the friends that I had lost and the abuse that I had endured, I sank into this terrible depression and, uh,

00:06:27.22

Kailin

started cutting myself again, which I hadn't done in years. And um one night I was hanging out with some friends in their dorm room and we were all hanging out in our pajamas and Jordan started calling me and threatening me and saying that he was going to, you know, show up to my dorm and break my friend's teeth with a hammer.

00:06:55.46

Kailin

because my friend was telling him to chill out. He called me over and over and over again. I can't even tell you the obscene amount of times that I received a phone call from him in a one minute period.

00:07:09.99

Kailin

um I had had enough. I had reached a point where I had had enough and I called the police and they said, we can't go to his house. We can only take a statement from you.

00:07:26.15

Kailin

And I had gotten to this point where like, I wanted to do something for myself because the police just felt useless, which as we just discussed, they often are.

00:07:38.69

wednesdayleefriday

Mmhmm.

00:07:42.62

Kailin

So I went to his house and the way his house is set up is he's got a basement main floor and a second floor. And his mom and his siblings sleep on the second floor and he slept in the basement.

00:07:55.25

Kailin

So. He was drunk and high when I got there. And ah I went down to the basement. and I looked at him. I just screamed, why won't you just leave me alone?

00:08:09.36

Kailin

you know And I was like, if you hate me this much, if this is really how you feel about me, why don't you just leave me alone?

00:08:10.45

wednesdayleefriday

uh-huh

00:08:17.77

Kailin

And he looked at me on my face. He walked over. And he just got this look of just. foulness in his eyes and he said, because fuck you. That's why.

00:08:29.86

Kailin

And then he started, you know, poking the bear. He was like, you look really mad. You look like you want to hit me right now. And I was like, no, I just want you to leave me alone. And I'm sobbing, which brought him joy.

00:08:42.96

Kailin

You could see it on his face that he was just so amused. And he spit in my face Wednesday.

00:08:51.20

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, my God.

00:08:51.38

Kailin

He And it wasn't just, he hawked a loogie and spit in my face, which one is foul and two is legally assault.

00:09:03.60

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

00:09:04.16

Kailin

So I reared back and I slapped him, open hand slapped to his face so hard that I broke one of his teeth and I watched him spit it out.

00:09:18.61

Kailin

And that's when he was like, you came into my house without my permission. You just assaulted me. I can do whatever I want. And I was, that was the first time that I truly felt fear for my life ever.

00:09:33.16

Kailin

It wasn't just the first time that I've been like, yes, it wasn't like, Oh, I once walked into the middle of the road and a car almost hit me and I jumped back or, you know,

00:09:34.47

wednesdayleefriday

Well, that's terrifying.

00:09:44.32

Kailin

whatever that this traumatic experience was the first time that I had ever feared for my life. And I tried to leave. And he decided I wasn't leaving. And he grabbed me by the back of my hair and pulled me back towards him. And I got away and i I'll preface the rest of the story with this. I'm a black belt in Taekwondo. And that was not enough.

00:10:14.30

Kailin

to stop him from attacking me. Because if, I don't know how much common knowledge this is, but when people are on meth, enough meth and drunk enough, one or the other already, you can take a lot of pain and a lot of, you know, punches before you're actually like down, down, you know what I mean?

00:10:29.96

wednesdayleefriday

Mhm. Yes.

00:10:37.38

wednesdayleefriday

Mhm.

00:10:39.51

Kailin

And he was on both. So, He ripped my sweater off of me and I got away and then he grabbed me again and I was stomping on his feet and like back kicking him in the nuts and digging my keys and my nails into his arm and biting him like literally fighting just so that I could get up the stairs out of his basement to get to my car.

00:11:06.40

Kailin

And when I got to the top of the stairs, he was underneath them and he grabbed me by my pant leg and my pants fell around my ankles. So not only am I at the top of these stairs with my pants around my ankles, but he's trying to yank me down this full flight of Michigan basement stairs. And um the only thing that's keeping me from falling is this door knob that I'm holding onto literally for dear life.

00:11:35.35

Kailin

And I'm screaming for his mom, but she's two stories above us sleeping because it's like 4 a.m. on a fucking Tuesday. And finally she starts banging on the basement door and going, what what is going on? What's going on? And he let me go. So I open the basement door and I pull my pants up and I run out and I just apologize to her profusely, which I don't know why I felt like I had to apologize to her, but And then I just ran to my car um and I drove away. I went to my friend's house and he's holding me while I'm just sobbing and telling him everything that happened. And, you know, he was friends with Jordan as well. um We all, you know, went to middle through high school together. And this is a friend that I've known since the fourth grade. So he and I are very, very close. We still are to this day.

00:12:35.44

Kailin

And he's holding me, I'm inconsolable. And his little brother comes into his room and says, hey, Kalen, did you park on the street? And I was like, yeah.

00:12:46.50

Kailin

And he said, do you hear that noise?

00:12:49.46

wednesdayleefriday

Oh my God.

00:12:50.08

Kailin

And and it was like this rhythmic thumping. And I said, yes. And he said, that's your car.

00:12:58.82

Kailin

And I'm just like, what? So. I go out into the living room which looks out into the front of the house and I look through the window and there's Jordan just swinging away at my car with a baseball bat and um I turned my phone off when I left his house because he was you know calling me again and So I didn't get phone calls that were warning me that this was going to happen.

00:13:34.53

Kailin

um So after I left his house, he grabbed his little brother's baseball bat and started walking. And he knew where I was going to be. On the way to ah my friend's house, there was a man jogging.

00:13:57.61

Kailin

And Jordan started, you know, he was screaming and like swinging the bat and hitting trees. And when he saw the guy jogging, he threatened him with the bat and started calling him like all these fucking, ah you know, homophobic slurs.

00:14:15.70

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, jeez.

00:14:15.74

Kailin

So yeah, what a great guy. of And so that guy runs down to the closest store, calls the cops. The cops are on their way.

00:14:26.59

Kailin

When he gets to my friend's house and he starts ah swinging the bat at my car, the neighbor was out walking her dog. And she was like, Hey, stop that.

00:14:37.03

Kailin

So he ran at her and started threatening her with the bat. So then she called the police. And so they were already on their way. And then they just knew where to go. Right.

00:14:48.49

wednesdayleefriday

Uh huh.

00:14:48.72

Kailin

So the whole time, and at this point, my friend's mom is up and It's this whole thing and he's standing on the hood of my car, taking the bat straight down onto the hood. So it's all these little circular spots when the cops show up. Right. So it's not like he did it and then got away and then the police showed up. They watched him do this. Um.

00:15:15.25

Kailin

He broke every window, hit the body of my car. Luckily, you know, I guess not luckily, but you know, at least he didn't slash my tires or fuck with my headlights or tail lights, but every window had to be replaced and he didn't stop when the cops showed up and they almost tased him.

00:15:33.67

Kailin

Um, I'm going to say right here and right now that he is a white man. And if it had been a black man doing this,

00:15:38.92

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm. I was going to say, that's why he lived.

00:15:44.60

Kailin

That's why he lived. And um yeah, they threatened to tase him. They threatened to pepper spray him. And that's when he got off the car, dropped the bat, and you know allowed them to arrest him.

00:15:57.16

Kailin

He didn't struggle. And I open up my phone. Oh, and his mom showed up to my friend's house. And she's looking at me and apologizing for her son.

00:16:06.50

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, geez.

00:16:10.98

Kailin

And that just really broke my heart because she was one of the just sweetest, funniest, witty women that I've ever met in my entire life. She made a really good impact on my life.

00:16:22.98

Kailin

And it's such a shame that her son made the worst impact on my life. Honestly, probably on her life too.

00:16:30.84

wednesdayleefriday

Well, I think that's, that's why you apologized because she had to be aware that this is the person she raised and this is what happened to them.

00:16:30.81

Kailin

whom Exactly.

00:16:38.93

Kailin

Yeah.

00:16:39.91

wednesdayleefriday

That, that is a terrifying story.

00:16:40.76

Kailin

Yeah.

00:16:43.63

wednesdayleefriday

So where is Jordan now?

00:16:43.64

Kailin

Yeah. The worst but So, um, before I tell you that, I get these, um, messages on my phone. The first one's from these, his mom saying, Hey, Kaylin, uh, Jordan just left the house with a baseball bat. I don't know where you are, but please be careful. Right. The second one is from my mom saying, Jordan just called me, uh, calling me a fat bitch and all of these other terrible things. And.

00:17:16.07

Kailin

I guess you're messing around with him again. And I don't know what's going on, but she didn't think, are you okay?

00:17:21.55

wednesdayleefriday

Wow.

00:17:27.28

Kailin

She thought there you go once again, going to this person that treats you this way.

00:17:34.14

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, I've been there.

00:17:34.23

Kailin

um

00:17:35.72

wednesdayleefriday

Boy, have I been there.

00:17:37.25

Kailin

Now, when I told her what happened, that's when she was like, oh, I'm sorry, right? But she just assumed. Um, the third message was from my friend Allison who said, Hey, um, Kaylin and Jordan just called me asking if you were with me and you're not. Um, he told me to tell you that you have one more chance. I don't know what that means, but I hope you're okay. Click. who And yeah, I got all these messages.

00:18:12.73

Kailin

after the cops had taken him away already. So he went to jail and ah I, you know, had to go to this court date and nobody would go with me Wednesday.

00:18:28.05

wednesdayleefriday

Oh my God.

00:18:28.43

Kailin

Not a single friend, not even my mother.

00:18:33.25

wednesdayleefriday

What? That is horrifying.

00:18:35.25

Kailin

Tracy Lowy did not go to my court date. Sorry, I, yeah.

00:18:39.21

wednesdayleefriday

I mean, ah well, of all the times when you would need support, man, even going to court for when people aren't trying to kill you is, and is taxing and and difficult and you and you need support, but

00:18:52.94

Kailin

Yeah.

00:18:53.08

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, I'm, I'm horrified to hear that you did not have the support that you need. I'm so sorry. I wish, I wish I had known because I like to think that I would have accompanied you.

00:18:58.77

Kailin

So I went. Yeah.

00:19:03.27

wednesdayleefriday

That's, that's not an alone trip.

00:19:04.39

Kailin

Well, my Papi, my Papi said to me, I wish that I had known this was happening because I have friends all over Michigan and other states and he would not have been a problem for you anymore.

00:19:18.48

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah.

00:19:19.52

Kailin

My father had just been visiting. and he left the day before this happened.

00:19:28.87

Kailin

And I keep thinking about how that night would have gone completely different had my father been there. um And it's it's a lot of what ifs, but the main thing is is I went to the YWCA and ah gave them my statement so that they could help me fill out

00:19:39.07

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah.

00:19:52.03

Kailin

Sorry, I don't know if I hit the mic just now. They gave me, ah they helped me fill out my statement to give to the courts so that I could get a personal protection order, a PPO.

00:20:02.19

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

00:20:03.44

Kailin

And usually it takes like a week, sometimes even two for a judge to look at it and approve it.

00:20:08.90

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

00:20:11.51

Kailin

I turned it in at like 4.30 PM on a Thursday and it was approved at nine in the morning on Friday.

00:20:20.04

wednesdayleefriday

Nice.

00:20:22.11

Kailin

And so I, because nobody would go with me to the court date, I didn't go, which you're not supposed to do.

00:20:30.43

wednesdayleefriday

Oh.

00:20:35.25

Kailin

I got no legal repercussions from it, but all that they had to work with were witness statements ah and the PPO ah paperwork that I had filled out.

00:20:52.66

Kailin

So it's not like they didn't get my statement, but I didn't get a chance to tell my story because nobody was there to support me. Um, and he was 19 at the time, but got some like, you know, lucky white kid with a future ahead of him, uh, nine months in jail, uh, on some sort of like, uh, minor.

00:21:16.62

wednesdayleefriday

You.

00:21:20.35

Kailin

as in like underage technicality, even though he was a year above 18.

00:21:24.54

wednesdayleefriday

Wow, I've I've never even heard of that. That is not.

00:21:29.88

Kailin

Yeah, it's cray cray. And so he went to jail for nine months. um But what he did was a felony.

00:21:38.26

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

00:21:38.26

Kailin

It was his, I later found out second felony. um The first one was him trying to, you know, make a false check, because drugs, right?

00:21:48.47

Kailin

um But

00:21:49.10

wednesdayleefriday

Uh huh.

00:21:50.36

Kailin

I don't know if a lot of people know this, domestic violence um that isn't actually like murderous and all of that fun stuff is only a misdemeanor.

00:22:05.09

wednesdayleefriday

Typically, yeah.

00:22:05.36

Kailin

But malicious destruction of property, like what he did in my car, that's over $1,500 in damage is a felony.

00:22:17.95

wednesdayleefriday

Well sure, women aren't worth nearly that much under the eyes of the law.

00:22:18.37

Kailin

So my Exactly. <unk> So my life is worth less than a car. And that will blow my mind forever.

00:22:29.82

Kailin

um I'm not shocked, but I, I just I can't wrap my head around it. It's impossible. Yeah.

00:22:40.24

wednesdayleefriday

Well, and then you know women go through these things without help, without support, and then are chastised when they suggest that maybe the police are not all they're cracked up to be.

00:22:40.87

Kailin

But

00:22:52.79

wednesdayleefriday

Um, if I may bring that around to its logical conclusion, um, I can tell you as, as a ah white lady that I have never in my life called the police to help with the situation and had police arrive and improve the situation.

00:22:52.87

Kailin

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

00:23:10.22

wednesdayleefriday

That's never happened.

00:23:11.83

Kailin

Oh, yeah, no, they're not good at deescalating anything.

00:23:12.24

wednesdayleefriday

They, they either didn't show up or they showed up and did nothing or they showed up and made a bigger cluster frog.

00:23:19.02

Kailin

That's the best part is when they just don't show up.

00:23:23.09

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I mean, that happened once when I lived in Royal Oak of all places, you know, Royal Oak is not a poor neighborhood.

00:23:24.21

Kailin

Yeah.

00:23:31.75

wednesdayleefriday

It's a, it's very like upper middle-class, I guess you'd say, but I was home for, from school one day and someone parked in our driveway.

00:23:32.82

Kailin

It is not. Yeah.

00:23:41.84

wednesdayleefriday

We lived, um my mother lives on 13 miles. So it's a major road. You know, people aren't like turning around in driveways there and someone pulled into our driveway. got out of the car with a long gun and walked around our house.

00:23:56.94

Kailin

oh Shut up!

00:23:58.80

wednesdayleefriday

And I did not know who they were. And we hadn't lived there very long. We'd lived there less than a year at the time. So they were probably looking for the last family that lived there. And I called the police and I said, I am a 16-year-old girl. I am home alone from school. There is someone walking around my house with a gun. And I told them exactly where I was. And 20 minutes later, after this person had gotten back into their car and driven away, the cops drove slowly in front of the house. Didn't stop.

00:24:30.10

Kailin

Wow. oh

00:24:32.77

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah. Yeah.

00:24:34.43

Kailin

Yeah, really gotta love that. Oh, but yeah, so um didn't hear from Jordan ever again, because personal protection order.

00:24:45.94

Kailin

But later I found out that he was arrested in Allegan, Michigan.

00:24:46.13

wednesdayleefriday

huh

00:24:52.99

Kailin

um for breaking and entering into a storage unit or a semi-truck trailer carrying something.

00:25:06.14

Kailin

You know, it was one of those ah broad ah spectrum terms, basically like but some sort of storage unit or locked facility, breaking and entering and attempted theft.

00:25:10.57

wednesdayleefriday

Mmhmm. Mmhmm.

00:25:19.08

Kailin

So that's another felony. Um, the last time I checked on the Michigan, uh, criminal registry, he is on the run from his, uh, parole.

00:25:37.16

wednesdayleefriday

Wow.

00:25:37.41

Kailin

And that's like since 2015.

00:25:42.84

wednesdayleefriday

That is so wild. I mean, I don't want to give this guy any deference, but I wonder if that was not...

00:25:48.73

Kailin

It's impressive, right?

00:25:50.55

wednesdayleefriday

Well, I mean, it's a situation where I wonder if he didn't just become mentally ill, you know, like the symptoms started presenting when he was in high school, got away from him, you know, self-medicated, which most people do.

00:26:04.12

wednesdayleefriday

But if you self-medicate with drugs that are hard enough,

00:26:04.34

Kailin

Yeah.

00:26:07.36

wednesdayleefriday

You don't have that period of like, wow, maybe I'm doing too much. Maybe I should talk to someone about this.

00:26:12.34

Kailin

Nope.

00:26:13.46

wednesdayleefriday

Like you don't get any of that because it's too much too fast.

00:26:17.89

Kailin

Oh, I did find out that he was diagnosed with bipolar one um because they they forced him, yeah, they forced him to go to a psychiatrist ah because of the behavior that he was exhibiting.

00:26:23.03

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, well, that that. ah

00:26:34.09

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

00:26:34.59

Kailin

ah which I thought was like a luxury because again like exactly and let's also talk about how most criminals don't just get sent to a psychiatric unit when they're acting some type of way they just get sent into gen-pop or isolation and they either

00:26:39.52

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, how many people do you know that don't do crimes and don't hurt people and still can't get the therapy they need? You know?

00:27:00.09

wednesdayleefriday

Mm-hmm. Yep.

00:27:02.95

Kailin

you know, continue that behavior and cause problems, or they're just locked in a cell by themselves making things worse. And here's this kid that just committed these horrible atrocities, not even kid, young man, right? Committed these horrible atrocities. And he had that opportunity to get the help that he needed.

00:27:30.19

Kailin

which I'm simultaneously thankful for and bitter about. And that's something that to this day I'm still working on figuring out where that comes from.

00:27:40.02

Kailin

But yeah.

00:27:40.30

wednesdayleefriday

I mean, you can be simultaneously sad for someone and know that they are just a garbage person that you don't want in your life anymore.

00:27:40.70

Kailin

the

00:27:50.27

wednesdayleefriday

like Those things can exist simultaneously, certainly, especially when it's someone that you used to be a ah good friend to.

00:27:50.86

Kailin

Exactly. Yeah. it's It's just such a shame.

00:28:01.67

Kailin

you know i i Every once in a while, I feel empathy for him. But then I have PTSD flashbacks that just completely erased the empathy.

00:28:14.91

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

00:28:19.36

Kailin

ah Once when I was working in retail, I had a woman. I have amazing, thick, giant, curly hair.

00:28:25.79

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, yeah.

00:28:26.52

Kailin

You've seen it in all its glory. um And one day this woman, this white woman walks up behind me, grabs my hair from the back goes, Oh, great hair.

00:28:39.87

Kailin

And then just walked away.

00:28:43.10

wednesdayleefriday

You didn't have to tell me that it was a white woman.

00:28:43.21

Kailin

And I had, Oh yeah.

00:28:45.38

wednesdayleefriday

No other shade of woman would do that.

00:28:49.24

Kailin

And I had a millisecond to remember that I am in a public place and that I am working and that no one is attacking me.

00:28:54.96

wednesdayleefriday

yeah

00:29:01.24

Kailin

And so because like I said, he grabbed me from behind by my hair. And I didn't see this woman walk up. All of a sudden, there's just somebody grabbing the back of my head.

00:29:11.82

Kailin

And my you know, there's fight, flight or freeze. And I'm fight.

00:29:14.95

wednesdayleefriday

Yep.

00:29:17.88

Kailin

I've had many a person startled me and get elbowed in the stomach before.

00:29:23.78

wednesdayleefriday

Well, people don't have a right to touch you.

00:29:24.24

Kailin

So exactly.

00:29:26.24

wednesdayleefriday

I mean, at that point, like, yeah, you're allowed to do what you need to do to feel safe.

00:29:29.71

Kailin

But I would have lost my job.

00:29:32.97

wednesdayleefriday

Well, maybe not.

00:29:33.14

Kailin

Exactly. But in that moment, you know.

00:29:34.87

wednesdayleefriday

Maybe not. I mean, do you, uh, there would have been and some meetings, but, um, I would argue that it would not be in keeping with the ADA to fire you under those circumstances.

00:29:47.97

wednesdayleefriday

If if you had lashed out.

00:29:48.38

Kailin

I mean, I think I would have lost my job and then sued.

00:29:52.67

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, you could be a wealthy woman.

00:29:53.61

Kailin

But yeah.

00:29:53.99

wednesdayleefriday

and

00:29:55.19

Kailin

but um Yeah. So. I just, um, it took me a minute, but by a minute, I made a millisecond to realize that I'm not being attacked. Uh, somebody's just a, uh, a racist, creepy person who, you know, fetishized my hair, didn't introduce herself or see me as a person, just saw me as great hair. And then just kept walking. I didn't even see your fucking face.

00:30:28.65

Kailin

But all this to say, my my eyes closed and all I could see was what I saw in front of me the night that he grabbed me by the back of my head and attacked me, right? And if I hear loud metallic noises, um I immediately think about the noise that the baseball bat made hitting ah my car and there are certain types of drunk people that I can't be around.

00:31:04.87

Kailin

Like I can handle drunk people.

00:31:05.78

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

00:31:06.59

Kailin

If you're a married drunk or a goofy drunk, even if you're sloppy ish, I can handle it. Angry drunks, I refuse to tolerate because that, and I also had another partner later in life.

00:31:20.91

Kailin

I didn't date anybody from the ages of 19 to 21 because of the trauma that I had ah you know received that I had been gifted with.

00:31:32.75

wednesdayleefriday

Yep, yep.

00:31:36.21

Kailin

ah um But ah the person that I dated when I was 21 was also really abusive ah because he was an alcoholic.

00:31:49.59

Kailin

And when he got drunk, he would just be so mean. And it's it's the look

00:31:55.35

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

00:31:57.25

Kailin

in their eyes when they're thrown that I can't handle. And so if I'm around a person who isn't being belligerent, but has that look in their eyes, it triggers me and brings me right back to that mind as well.

00:32:13.22

wednesdayleefriday

And it can feel like, like they have a psychosis and I don't mean to armchair shrink anybody, but when you drink for long enough and you drink enough, it, it does put you in a different head space where.

00:32:13.55

Kailin

So yes.

00:32:28.80

wednesdayleefriday

I mean, it, it is like a ah break from reality because it's, it's, well, it's often very, like the anger is very blame oriented, regardless of the reality of who may be to blame for situations.

00:32:37.58

Kailin

Yeah.

00:32:42.50

Kailin

It's a you made me do this. Oh, also Wednesday, I had to drive that car for another five years.

00:32:51.24

wednesdayleefriday

Oh shit, that is awful.

00:32:53.19

Kailin

Every day, that car was a constant reminder of the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life. And I had to drive it for five years.

00:33:05.42

Kailin

And everywhere I went, Oh, are you a game changer? Oh, what happened to your car? And sometimes I would just lie and say that a deer, a deer ran over the hood of my car or like a couple of deer ran into the road.

00:33:13.70

wednesdayleefriday

Oh yeah.

00:33:19.75

Kailin

And that's why the body and the hood looked the way that it did. Um, it did look like, like once it got rusty, it looked like my hood had been shot up. Right.

00:33:30.38

Kailin

Cause remember I said he brought the bat straight down.

00:33:32.45

wednesdayleefriday

Uh-huh.

00:33:32.57

Kailin

So it was all those little circles.

00:33:33.57

wednesdayleefriday

Yep.

00:33:35.19

Kailin

Yeah, so that's why people would think that like, you know, I had just had a a whole round fired at me while I was driving. But when I told people the story, 99% of the men and assigned males at birth would respond with, wow, he loved you that much.

00:33:59.06

wednesdayleefriday

Ah!

00:34:00.62

Kailin

Or what did you do to make him do this?

00:34:06.86

Kailin

And I still get that question sometimes. And it used to just make me cry and shut down. And then other times I would be like, I did nothing wrong.

00:34:18.33

Kailin

And they would just kind of like laugh it off. And now I'm like, why the fuck would you ask me that question?

00:34:23.97

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, yeah.

00:34:25.67

Kailin

Right. Like I've learned to have a voice in it, but yeah, then. it was usually those two questions or that statement and that question, wow, he really loved you that much.

00:34:38.57

Kailin

And what did you do to make him do that? Whereas all of the women in assigned female at birth people I knew were like, I am so sorry that that happened to you.

00:34:51.54

Kailin

And then most of the time would then shared their most traumatic experience with a man with me.

00:34:55.07

wednesdayleefriday

Right.

00:34:57.77

Kailin

And It just, it puts a lot of things in perspective and it's really sad.

00:35:02.40

wednesdayleefriday

Well, given that most of the women that we all know have such a story, at least one story, some have plenty, and it it floors me because, you know, there was a big trial recently

00:35:09.62

Kailin

Exactly.

00:35:15.67

wednesdayleefriday

where Eugene Carroll was talking about ah multiple instances in her life when men had been inappropriate with her, like ah you know something like a babysitter's boyfriend.

00:35:28.25

wednesdayleefriday

or something you know and and One of the things I kept hearing was, oh, what are the odds that that would happen to someone more than once?

00:35:29.89

Kailin

Uh-huh.

00:35:37.02

wednesdayleefriday

like what are the odds that a thin blonde white girl would be hassled by men multiple times like what in the fuck kind of oblivious ass question is that you know it's it's shocking

00:35:38.11

Kailin

Wow.

00:35:50.23

Kailin

It just... Ugh.

00:35:53.33

wednesdayleefriday

And but the thing is, it's like I said at the beginning of the show, there are shit that there's shit that happens to people and the people say, hey, excuse me, this thing is happening. Can somebody help me? And, you know, I there were points in my life where I was absolutely guilty of saying, oh, come on, you guys, I'm sure it's not as bad as you're saying.

00:36:12.60

wednesdayleefriday

You know, and, and, you know, variations of that.

00:36:13.35

Kailin

Yeah.

00:36:15.44

wednesdayleefriday

Like, what did you guys do to inspire it? Were you resisting arrest? You know, why did you make the cop have to hit you? And, and it's so embarrassingly absurd now.

00:36:23.33

Kailin

Well, dude. Yeah, i I saw this meme like last week that said if cops did their jobs the way they're supposed to, there wouldn't be a song called Fuck the Police.

00:36:41.35

Kailin

because there's no song called Fuck the Fire Departments,

00:36:44.78

wednesdayleefriday

Right, right.

00:36:47.20

Kailin

right? So yeah, maybe people would trust them and not have a whole ass song called Fuck the Police. But when people say, you know, not all meds,

00:37:04.53

wednesdayleefriday

Well, I think Occupy Wall Street gave us a good long look at what precise side the police are on.

00:37:13.53

Kailin

Ugh.

00:37:14.51

wednesdayleefriday

because you know they they showed up looking for a fight. I've gone to a lot of places in my life that had the potential to get slightly rowdy. um I've never put on full riot gear because i I knew that I would not be inserting myself in such a situation.

00:37:32.82

Kailin

Yeah, it's scary.

00:37:33.26

wednesdayleefriday

but um

00:37:36.90

wednesdayleefriday

It is. so so let let's um if we If we look at the totality of that, I wonder what advice you would give to someone in a situation where they are fearful of violence happening, but but that violence has not actually taken place yet. like what do you What do you think are like like warning signs? cause i mean I don't want to say like you probably saw this coming, but Like in my experiences with with violent men, it wasn't like by the time people were actually throwing hands, it was not a surprise.

00:38:06.53

Kailin

Yeah.

00:38:15.35

wednesdayleefriday

but But at the same time, you don't want to leave.

00:38:15.95

Kailin

Yeah.

00:38:18.39

wednesdayleefriday

You don't want to abandon someone because abusers are hurt people. They are having big feelings.

00:38:24.50

Kailin

They are.

00:38:25.46

wednesdayleefriday

And you know as women, we are trained not only to put our own anger inside of us and not take it out on other people, but also that it's our job to make everyone feel better.

00:38:38.61

wednesdayleefriday

How do we get around that?

00:38:39.01

Kailin

Yeah. It's like, i I want to be your partner, not your fucking therapist. um there are there's There's a role that partners play in each other's lives, especially when it comes to neurodivergence.

00:38:57.06

Kailin

I'm not asking anybody to fix me. I'm asking for people to stay around and love me while I fix myself, while I work on myself.

00:39:03.59

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

00:39:07.74

Kailin

um Nobody is my project. I am not anybody else's project. And so when it comes to the roles, the traditional roles of men and women, ah so often ah a female partner, whether it be a girlfriend or a wife ah is seen as the one that is supposed to be that therapist, right?

00:39:37.36

Kailin

it's It's not about a partnership. It's like playing doctor and mom.

00:39:44.06

wednesdayleefriday

Well, yeah. And then when the relationship gets to the point where usually long after you, you do recognize that it's hurting you, it still feels like you're a quitter and you failed at making the relationship work, you know, and that's, and, but, and for some people, like, I mean me certainly, and I, I imagine you to an extent.

00:39:58.55

Kailin

Yeah. So.

00:40:07.85

wednesdayleefriday

that you have those voices in the back of your head whoever they are that are like see you failed see you fucked up again how do you feel now sally give up well and when you go through school being told

00:40:13.80

Kailin

Yeah. her Like, exactly. what did you Why did you ever have hope in the first place?

00:40:25.11

wednesdayleefriday

that you're you're lazy and you're not trying and you want attention all the time. and just you know These things that are all manifestations of your mental illness, it makes it that much more difficult to stand up to yourself in your own mind, let alone in front of other people.

00:40:40.22

Kailin

Yeah. Yeah, so my advice, my advice as far as red flags go is um watch the company that they keep.

00:40:42.40

wednesdayleefriday

you know and certainly

00:40:54.39

Kailin

You might have friends in common, but also see what their other friends are like. um Do they defend people when those people are not around?

00:41:05.39

Kailin

Do they defend you when you need defense, when you are around or not around, right? I know this isn't always true, but if all of your friends and family are telling you that this is unsafe or this person is not good for you, you have to take a step back and listen to what they're saying and ask yourself, is this true? Right? Cause this isn't one of those things where it's like a white family with a white daughter who stayed in a black man.

00:41:40.98

Kailin

And they're all like, you know, get that person out of your life. We don't take kindly, right?

00:41:46.57

wednesdayleefriday

Right.

00:41:46.57

Kailin

This was one of those things where like, I had friends that were like, Kalen, you have changed Kalen. You cry about this person all the time.

00:41:54.01

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

00:41:55.05

Kailin

Kalen, you're on and off again, right? Just all of these things, my mom, my dad, my like my closest friends, we're all just like, Kalen, this isn't good for you.

00:42:05.17

Kailin

And we got to love this response. You just don't know him like I do.

00:42:12.23

wednesdayleefriday

Yep, yep, yep.

00:42:12.55

Kailin

He loves me. You just don't get it. Nobody gets it.

00:42:15.23

wednesdayleefriday

yep

00:42:16.92

Kailin

And it's like, bitch, they all got it. Right? Like, and I know that sounds harsh. Like I'm not actually calling myself a bitch, but it's like, Kayla, I'm like, they, they understood and.

00:42:26.94

wednesdayleefriday

Well, you know, there's ah I don't know who originally said it, but there is a piece of advice that goes something like, your soulmate isn't going to make you cry on a regular basis.

00:42:39.44

wednesdayleefriday

Your soulmate is not going to make you feel like you're nothing.

00:42:39.81

Kailin

Nope.

00:42:43.31

wednesdayleefriday

Soulmates lift each other up. And if you are not being lifted up and if someone will not let you help them lift them up, then that's, that's not your soulmate.

00:42:53.70

wednesdayleefriday

And it's probably codependent if you know that and you still feel like you can't leave because man.

00:43:00.40

Kailin

Yeah.

00:43:01.45

wednesdayleefriday

after i left my family of origin i went no contact in 1994 and so suddenly i was everything was on my own you know like i was kinda crashing with a bunch of dudes i was doing holidays on my own like nobody was giving me any christmas presents and just like

00:43:12.66

Kailin

Yeah.

00:43:20.91

wednesdayleefriday

You know, my family was really screwed up, but my mother was very into the trappings of things.

00:43:20.90

Kailin

Yeah.

00:43:25.67

wednesdayleefriday

She wanted to look like a functioning family. So we did get Christmas presents and we had decent clothes and we had, you know, lunch every day and stuff like that, like all the normal middle-class stuff.

00:43:38.09

wednesdayleefriday

But then there was like emotional terror and hitting and, you know, whatever, but the thing.

00:43:38.62

Kailin

Yeah.

00:43:44.80

Kailin

Well, I mean, yeah, like they want to take away the signs of abuse on the symptoms of abuse that aren't ah behavioral, right?

00:43:48.97

wednesdayleefriday

Yep. Yep.

00:43:54.77

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

00:43:54.90

Kailin

Because like once you're getting abused, your behavior changes.

00:43:58.52

wednesdayleefriday

Yes.

00:43:58.92

Kailin

Or if you've been abused your whole life, your behavior also changes either into where you're acting out and You are a disturbance or you're angry or something like that or you just shrivel into yourself Right um Yeah

00:44:15.03

wednesdayleefriday

Yep, yep. Yeah, like I was this weird combination and of like acting out because I did I was I had this like pay attention to me. There's there's stuff happening to me. Please pay attention to me. You know, and I wanted to be like the smart kid at school the creative kid the kid that like, you know, I was like starved for any kind of like good approval and stuff and and like teacher attention.

00:44:40.15

Kailin

yeah

00:44:40.59

wednesdayleefriday

and you know Because that's one of those ways that all of that plays in. And the thing that's remarkable about it is when you become an adult and find out how typical it is.

00:44:52.17

wednesdayleefriday

Because you go through these long stretches where you think no one would understand this if I explained it. And it turns out that, like no, that's exactly what the DSM-IV says would happen under these circumstances.

00:45:04.23

Kailin

Yeah. Yeah. I saw this sign at a bar in Seattle once that said, no trauma bonding a allowed at the bar.

00:45:13.77

wednesdayleefriday

yeah you You need a booth if you're gonna do that shit.

00:45:16.81

Kailin

But I'm just so I'm over here like some of my my best ah connections have been made from trauma bonding at the bar. I don't even drink like that. Like I don't go to the bar to drink. I go to the bar to do karaoke every Tuesday night at my little home dive bar here in Kalamazoo. But like Yeah, a lot of of the friendships that I've made over the years have been, you know, not just trauma bonding in bars, but trauma bonding in other places.

00:45:45.08

Kailin

You know, like I said, when I tell people that story about Jordan, they are usually, you know, next to be like, well, this happened to me.

00:45:45.43

wednesdayleefriday

Oh yeah.

00:45:52.95

Kailin

Or the reason that I told that story to somebody is because they just told me a story that was, you know, similar.

00:45:58.24

wednesdayleefriday

Yep.

00:46:01.59

Kailin

yeah Another bit of advice I could say is,

00:46:07.34

Kailin

it's It's hard to take the advice of people. I can tell you all the red flags that I noticed. I can tell you, you know as soon as soon as they hit you, leave and don't ever come back. Or when they start hitting objects that aren't you, leave and never go back as soon as they make you feel less than yourself, leave and never go back. But when you're looking at the world,

00:46:37.62

Kailin

through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.

00:46:46.50

Kailin

And and that that's just, that's really hard.

00:46:46.60

wednesdayleefriday

Wow. ye Yep. Yep, yep.

00:46:54.35

Kailin

That's really, really hard to navigate.

00:46:56.41

wednesdayleefriday

Well, I mean, there are so many areas of life where we know intellectually what the right thing to do is, and we have all sorts of great reasons why we're not gonna do that just yet.

00:46:56.37

Kailin

and

00:47:08.59

Kailin

Yeah, well...

00:47:08.70

wednesdayleefriday

Except that when it comes to domestic violence, that's the kind of decision that can leave you unalived.

00:47:15.01

Kailin

Murdered? Yeah, straight up.

00:47:17.25

wednesdayleefriday

Oh yeah, Zuckerberg's not here. We can we can say it.

00:47:20.92

Kailin

good Yeah, no, that's that's a ah point that I was just about to make is sometimes you can't get out without, um you know, becoming unalived and you can ask for help from a million people. And that also can put those people in a dangerous situation where they become unalived as well. But I'll tell you one thing, every time I've had a friend that's called me and said, hey, my boyfriend just beat the shit out of me, which has happened at least three times from multiple friends.

00:48:01.70

Kailin

um And I mean like one friend at least three times. I get a posse and we roll up. I'm dead serious because I don't want what happened to me to happen to somebody else that I love. And I will go to jail for my friends.

00:48:23.43

Kailin

yeah i

00:48:24.68

wednesdayleefriday

Well, I would hope if there's a takeaway from hearing a story like this for people that are not involved and haven't had these experiences. is to believe people when they tell you what their experience is, to listen and and really, you know, because just just listening and saying, my God, i'm I'm so sorry that that sucks that that happened to you is so much better than like the alternatives of saying, you know, well, why did you cause that?

00:48:39.25

Kailin

facts.

00:48:57.97

wednesdayleefriday

Or what boy did he? Oh, he must have loved you to hit you that hard. I mean,

00:49:02.84

Kailin

Exactly.

00:49:04.23

wednesdayleefriday

It does sound absurd, but people do say it and we don't have to. You know, we'd all like to think that the people that we know are not abusers, but the longer the internet exists, the more we learn that, yeah, lots and lots of people that we respected and admired are not worthy of it.

00:49:23.00

wednesdayleefriday

Neil Gaiman.

00:49:23.68

Kailin

Yeah.

00:49:24.16

wednesdayleefriday

Um, I'm sorry, man.

00:49:27.59

Kailin

What did Neil Gaiman do?

00:49:27.86

wednesdayleefriday

That, that just cuts, that cuts me in my belly. I can't, I can't with that. Um, we, I really want to get away from this topic for a bit if we can.

00:49:38.55

Kailin

Yeah, let's switch things up a little bit.

00:49:39.80

wednesdayleefriday

Um, yeah, we're actually rolling up on two hours and this actually, I wanted to ask, um, you're singing heavy metal. Now, is that because of anger?

00:49:51.33

Kailin

Okay, so one of my friends ah in the band, Humza, he's actually the ah person that created the band in the first place when we were in high school. um And over the years, all the other ah instruments and vocalists have been different people, but Humza said for the first time ever that it actually feels like one big cohesive band.

00:50:19.37

Kailin

So one day, Humza was like, hey, Kalen, you're not a metalhead. And I was like like, that wasn't a question. It was a statement. And I was like, yeah, you write. I am not. ah But he was the first person to be like, hey, will you please do vocals in the metal band? And so he was like, but would you be doing this music if you were the one that started the band? And I was like, no.

00:50:47.89

Kailin

But I love our music. um So when I moved into the house that I currently live in, I live with two people that I went to high school with.

00:50:52.11

wednesdayleefriday

Ha ha ha!

00:51:01.33

Kailin

ah Both are badass black drummers who play all sorts of different music. One of them is more metal heavy with R and&B influences and the other one does metal, jazz. He teaches several different um ah African drumming classes. I cannot remember the exact countries and locations, but he has like three different drums that he knows how to play, I think, plus you know the kit for the band. um And I can tell you my favorite metal band is Protest the Hero.

00:51:43.47

Kailin

um Turn Suits to the Sea on the Kazaia album is just, ugh, it's about women's rights and how men treat women and how they all deserve to get shot.

00:51:57.73

Kailin

Yeah.

00:51:59.62

wednesdayleefriday

Oh my, I disavow that statement.

00:52:01.07

Kailin

yeah

00:52:04.84

Kailin

I just love that statement as well. But um it's a it's a great song. Anyway. ah I'm in this band because two of my roommates are in the band. One of them plays the drums and the other one plays the keys. And then ah Hubza plays the guitar. And then I asked one of my other friends to play the bass once I joined as vocalists. And then my best friend moved in with us and I asked her ah to join it as backup vocals. And she also does beats behind everything.

00:52:41.87

Kailin

and It's just this beautiful, ah almost all people of color band, our basis is white, but four of us are black and Hamza, his family is from Pakistan. So the reason that I do it, or the reason that I started doing it was for the community aspect of it, because these are all people that I absolutely adore and have known for a very long time. um They had the lyrics for all but one of our songs, but they didn't have the melodies for any of our songs. And so it was up to me to listen to the instrumentals over and over again and create

00:53:32.87

Kailin

the melodies for all these songs. And that was like the first time that I really had to challenge myself musically in a creation way.

00:53:44.09

Kailin

Um, cause I'm used to just sight reading music to sing or when I played my flute back in the day, right? Like, but that was pre-written and this only did not come with sheet music, but it, it came with no melodies, a copy.

00:53:50.06

wednesdayleefriday

Mm hmm.

00:53:58.99

Kailin

And I was just like, wow. I feel so cool right now. And um I taught myself how to scream and watch a few lessons on YouTube so that I don't like kill my voice because I'm already a smoker.

00:54:16.72

wednesdayleefriday

Right, right.

00:54:19.00

Kailin

And I snore because I've got the, ah what should we call it, the sleep apnea. So my my voice isn't great already to the point where like, if I'm screaming into a mic, I better do it right.

00:54:32.93

Kailin

um But now it's about the catharsis aspect of it.

00:54:33.09

wednesdayleefriday

Right.

00:54:38.88

wednesdayleefriday

Okay,

00:54:40.12

Kailin

And the community, you know, like, I, I love being able to do something creative.

00:54:43.45

wednesdayleefriday

yeah.

00:54:48.57

Kailin

And I love being able to get my screens out in a way that would the sound would normally trigger everybody in my house. But when it's happening in a creative, constructive, and like fun, expressive way, I could just like get it out. And all of these songs were written by Hamza or Justin when we were 16. And so they're like these really like cute little emo goth

00:55:22.61

wednesdayleefriday

yeah

00:55:22.88

Kailin

uh or sorry like emo metal songs um mixed with like just like anger you know what i mean it's that like beautiful that that beautiful teen angst oh yeah oh yeah yeah so it's just this beautiful teen angst

00:55:25.03

wednesdayleefriday

Yep.

00:55:32.71

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, no, I get it. My, my high school poetry book is kicking around here somewhere. So yeah, yeah, I get it. Like, Well, my my my old poetry notebook is more like, oh, I love this boy.

00:55:45.88

wednesdayleefriday

No, wait, I love this boy now. Oh, I love this other boy now. Why don't any of these boys love me?

00:55:50.49

Kailin

the

00:55:52.16

wednesdayleefriday

Why? Why? You know why? Because everything's stupid and the world sucks. Turn page.

00:55:58.64

Kailin

bla

00:55:59.27

wednesdayleefriday

um yeah All right, so.

00:55:59.84

Kailin

yeah No, but my favorite song by us is called sexy burning music and it doesn't sound like most of our other songs and sexy burning music used to have lyrics but Justin the drummer lost them.

00:56:16.84

Kailin

And so they were like, Kalen, you should write sexy burning music. And I was like, well, based off the title, I'm just going to write a bunch of like not vague sexual innuendos and really bad metaphors involving fire.

00:56:31.44

wednesdayleefriday

Hahaha!

00:56:31.85

Kailin

And they were like, okay, go. And one day in a drug fueled manic induced fit, I wrote all the lyrics to sexy burning music.

00:56:44.85

Kailin

And it probably wasn't the healthiest way to to be creative and write a song, but it's so much fun. And it's something that I'm very proud of the end results.

00:57:02.23

Kailin

Yeah, sexy burn of music.

00:57:04.48

wednesdayleefriday

Nice, nice.

00:57:04.46

Kailin

Like the first, all the choruses are different. And the first chorus is just, this is the sexy burn of music that you crave coming all over your face like a tidal wave. This is the sexy burn of music that you crave.

00:57:16.97

Kailin

Put this on your speakers. You're guaranteed to get laid. and But it's it's so silly.

00:57:21.29

wednesdayleefriday

yeah

00:57:25.84

Kailin

And when I first sang it, everybody in the band was just like, yeah. So the validation was nice.

00:57:35.64

wednesdayleefriday

Awesome!

00:57:37.39

Kailin

I never thought that I would be in a metal band in my entire life, though.

00:57:37.64

wednesdayleefriday

That is so great.

00:57:40.51

Kailin

no

00:57:41.60

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, I was surprised to hear it myself. Well, this is the part of the show where I asked the guest if they have anything they want to ask me.

00:57:53.71

Kailin

You know, this is my favorite question to ask anybody, whether it be a complete stranger or somebody that I've known my entire life, like you. It was instilled in me by my father. And it's a question that he asks me and all my siblings every day.

00:58:12.84

Kailin

So my question to you is, what was the best part of your day from the moment you woke up until before we started talking?

00:58:22.79

wednesdayleefriday

Oh.

00:58:24.21

Kailin

It can be the smallest thing or a really big thing, but what was the best part?

00:58:28.60

wednesdayleefriday

Well, i I have a friend who was having a tough time and I had not been hearing from them as much as I normally would because when they're depressed, they retreat.

00:58:41.78

wednesdayleefriday

And I was able to hear from them today.

00:58:42.14

Kailin

Oh, yeah.

00:58:45.09

wednesdayleefriday

And even though they're still having a tough time, We were able to connect for long enough that I was able to get like an honest assessment of where they're at and to convey my sincere you know hopes that that things get better. I don't want to give any detail.

00:59:01.98

wednesdayleefriday

but

00:59:02.45

Kailin

Yeah.

00:59:03.56

wednesdayleefriday

But yeah, I mean, I was able to connect with someone who is important to me. And like, I know that he heard me when I said, I am here for you.

00:59:13.74

wednesdayleefriday

And we can talk about this. And I'm confident that you're going to get through it. Okay. You know, and it didn't fall on deaf ears. So, so that was good.

00:59:23.10

Kailin

That makes me really happy. That makes me really happy. I think that like That's one of the more beautiful things about being a neurodivergent person is being able to love other neurodivergent people the way that they need to be loved the most.

00:59:45.29

Kailin

Not to say that neurotypicals can't do it either because my mom is the most neurotypical person I know and she, she's really good.

00:59:49.82

wednesdayleefriday

Well.

00:59:54.78

Kailin

at loving me and making me feel, you know, like things are going to get better and feel heard and cherished, but like for you to be able to do that for your friends and for them to hear it, that's, yeah.

01:00:03.87

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, I think.

01:00:07.89

wednesdayleefriday

Well, yeah and so many people do that for me, you know, because I got plenty of my own business going on.

01:00:12.98

Kailin

Exactly.

01:00:16.03

wednesdayleefriday

And I mean, I have one friend in particular who is neurotypical um who said to me straight up, listen, I know that you've got stuff going on. So if there are ways that I can be a better friend to you, I want you to tell me what those are.

01:00:32.17

wednesdayleefriday

And it's just such a simple, like, I'm opening up the lines of communication. you know One of the things on this show is that I'm inviting people that have these kind of issues.

01:00:38.79

Kailin

Yeah.

01:00:45.25

wednesdayleefriday

Specifically, not everybody talks about those issues. So there are people, like, basically I haven't found a tactful way to say, hey man, you're you're crazy, right?

01:00:57.38

wednesdayleefriday

Come on my show. Hey, I noticed that sometimes you sound like you're out of your goddamn mind. Is that is that because of something organic? like i There's no real way to to broach that because there are people that I'm fairly friendly with online that do talk about their their mental illness and I'm keeping a list of who they are and who I plan to approach.

01:01:20.23

wednesdayleefriday

But there are some people that like, I don't, like I can see it, but I don't know if they know.

01:01:20.69

Kailin

Oh.

01:01:28.10

wednesdayleefriday

And maybe that's not how you want to find out that you have a mental illness is a complete stranger saying, come beyond my mental illness podcast.

01:01:37.50

Kailin

Well, if you ever need somebody to interview, I have so many friends that are artists that would just love an opportunity to, you know, go on a tangent about all of their trauma just like me.

01:01:37.56

wednesdayleefriday

So.

01:01:53.48

wednesdayleefriday

Right? Right? And it's so helpful.

01:01:54.70

Kailin

yeah So I got you boo.

01:01:57.85

wednesdayleefriday

All right, sweet. So it is time for the Mad Lib. I hope you are ready for this.

01:02:02.48

Kailin

Oh, I'm ready.

01:02:02.83

wednesdayleefriday

Um, okay.

01:02:03.58

Kailin

I was born ready.

01:02:05.33

wednesdayleefriday

So the first one actually is person in room, uh, female. So I guess that'd be me.

01:02:11.88

Kailin

We're gonna go with Wednesday.

01:02:13.55

wednesdayleefriday

Yes. All right. Uh, an adjective.

01:02:20.69

Kailin

Tiny.

01:02:22.85

wednesdayleefriday

A noun.

01:02:25.95

wednesdayleefriday

Actually, I need one, two, three, uh, three nouns, singular ones. Nope.

01:02:35.13

Kailin

Balloon.

01:02:36.18

wednesdayleefriday

Okay.

01:02:39.36

wednesdayleefriday

Uh-huh.

01:02:41.74

Kailin

um

01:02:46.94

Kailin

Jewelry box. Pocket watch.

01:02:56.90

wednesdayleefriday

I need one more noun, actually, one more singular noun.

01:02:57.56

Kailin

so Okay, sorry, I thought you said three.

01:03:00.97

wednesdayleefriday

I did, I lied, it was a false lie, flagrant, deceit.

01:03:01.03

Kailin

um Well in default. because

01:03:12.76

Kailin

Don't know why he popped into my head, but let's go with that.

01:03:16.56

wednesdayleefriday

All right, um oh, you know what's funny is that the next one is actually a celebrity.

01:03:24.38

Kailin

Is Willem Dafoe married to a famous person?

01:03:28.27

wednesdayleefriday

I have no idea. Isn't that weird?

01:03:31.55

Kailin

Is Willem Dafoe married?

01:03:33.64

wednesdayleefriday

I, I really don't know. I don't, I don't know if he is straight or like who he would be married to. Like I'm trying to guess.

01:03:41.10

Kailin

You know, I'm always impressed I'm always impressed with celebrities that can like just keep their personal lives as quiet as possible.

01:03:47.46

wednesdayleefriday

Right.

01:03:47.53

Kailin

hate Like people don't know shit about them.

01:03:49.69

wednesdayleefriday

Right. Even people when they get hounded, like, what do you know about Claire Danes' marriage to Hugh Dancy?

01:03:50.10

Kailin

All right. oh

01:03:55.13

wednesdayleefriday

I know nothing about it except that it exists.

01:03:58.30

Kailin

I didn't even know that it existed. So there you go.

01:04:00.86

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, yeah.

01:04:03.01

Kailin

um Okay. Let's, let's put Willem Dafoe in the celebrity one then.

01:04:08.23

wednesdayleefriday

Nope, nope, we can't. It's already written down and nope, I used a pen.

01:04:09.47

Kailin

Oh, we can't, we can't do it. Okay, I have to come up with another celebrity.

01:04:14.02

wednesdayleefriday

Yes.

01:04:14.63

Kailin

All right, my one true love, Daniel Radcliffe. Fuck JK Rowling, but Daniel Radcliffe is amazing.

01:04:21.27

wednesdayleefriday

Well, did you see jungle?

01:04:24.23

Kailin

I did.

01:04:25.75

wednesdayleefriday

I mean.

01:04:25.71

Kailin

I watched that movie a lot.

01:04:27.87

wednesdayleefriday

Do you not? I mean, the first time I saw that, I like just walked around in a fog. like a homemark is is ah I did not take that well because I did not know it was a true story.

01:04:35.35

Kailin

Yeah, dude. Yeah, it was an episode of I shouldn't be alive.

01:04:42.76

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, I guess that would make sense.

01:04:44.09

Kailin

Yeah.

01:04:44.60

wednesdayleefriday

Wouldn't it? All right. So wait, we need, we need one, two, three, four plural nouns.

01:04:45.80

Kailin

Yeah, you can watch that episode.

01:04:53.25

Kailin

um

01:04:56.63

Kailin

Is bite marks a plural noun?

01:05:00.14

wednesdayleefriday

Yes.

01:05:01.71

Kailin

Let's go with that. I'm looking at my grandpa's taxidermied bear right now, and it's all snarly.

01:05:06.41

wednesdayleefriday

Nice.

01:05:07.92

Kailin

which is why it made me think, white marks, cheeses, and candles,

01:05:15.77

wednesdayleefriday

ah Two more.

01:05:29.71

Kailin

goldfish, cue,

01:05:33.20

wednesdayleefriday

I need a letter of the alphabet, an adverb,

01:05:44.66

Kailin

running, right?

01:05:44.94

wednesdayleefriday

uh, no, an adverb. but That's a verb.

01:05:49.56

Kailin

Okay, what is an adverb?

01:05:49.81

wednesdayleefriday

I need an adverb. So like a word that describes a word that describes a verb usually ends in like a L Y or an ISH, something like that.

01:05:57.93

Kailin

Oh, okay, yes, excuse yes, is yes, yes.

01:06:03.03

Kailin

Speedily, is that that an adverb?

01:06:07.30

wednesdayleefriday

Yep, and a number.

01:06:08.79

Kailin

Yay, I did it, 13.

01:06:12.97

wednesdayleefriday

ah Adjective. I need one, two, three, four adjectives.

01:06:20.68

Kailin

Ugly.

01:06:24.48

wednesdayleefriday

All right.

01:06:34.16

Kailin

Oh,

01:06:37.01

wednesdayleefriday

All right, and one more adjective. Nope, I lied, two more. And don't forget colors are adjectives too.

01:06:44.12

Kailin

um

01:06:47.02

Kailin

oh brown.

01:06:48.34

wednesdayleefriday

Sometime.

01:06:52.41

wednesdayleefriday

All right.

01:06:53.15

Kailin

and oh my god this I don't know why like I have a million things in my room let's let's go with another color purple oh

01:07:06.06

wednesdayleefriday

It's harder for crea- Okay. All right. I need another celebrity.

01:07:14.50

Kailin

my goodness so many famous people in this one um

01:07:15.52

wednesdayleefriday

I know, right?

01:07:23.17

Kailin

Ted Danson.

01:07:25.32

wednesdayleefriday

ah Why not indeed?

01:07:27.08

Kailin

Because why not?

01:07:30.63

wednesdayleefriday

And finally, a part of the body.

01:07:36.76

Kailin

Pinky toe.

01:07:42.03

wednesdayleefriday

All right, this is called You're Invited. And it is a letter, okay? Dear Wedness, I would like to invite you to a tiny sleepover party this Friday night at my balloon.

01:07:59.64

wednesdayleefriday

I live on the corner of South Willem Dafoe Street and Daniel Radcliffe Lane.

01:08:03.85

Kailin

Oh.

01:08:05.99

wednesdayleefriday

Please arrive speedily at 13 o'clock and don't forget to bring an ugly sleeping jewelry box and a soft pocket watch to rest your pinky toe on.

01:08:19.81

wednesdayleefriday

we'll have pet We'll have pizza topped with bite marks for dinner and we watch we'll watch a thoughtful movie.

01:08:21.93

Kailin

shit

01:08:30.41

wednesdayleefriday

When it's time for bed, we'll all change into our candles and turn out the cheeses. Then we'll tell brown ghost stories and talk about all the cute goldfish at school.

01:08:45.17

Kailin

yeah

01:08:45.58

wednesdayleefriday

RSVQ to me by email at I love Ted Danson at TedDanson.com. Hope you can enjoy our purple party.

01:08:59.46

wednesdayleefriday

See, that's Mad Libs for you, irreverent. it

01:09:03.45

Kailin

Oh my gosh. Oh, there were a couple of ones in there, uh, that, okay. So I have this, uh, band name list. That's like from 2017 up until now.

01:09:17.67

Kailin

And it's just like things that my friends and I say that sound like they could be a band name, album name, song name.

01:09:22.85

wednesdayleefriday

yeah Yep, yep, yep.

01:09:25.22

Kailin

And most of the time, like lately, it's just been like odd sentences that we end with by panic at the disco. So whole I'm gonna i'm go un need to re-listen to this bad lib later.

01:09:40.12

wednesdayleefriday

Right, right.

01:09:40.22

Kailin

and yeah because i so I heard a couple of gems that might be Panic at the Disco songs.

01:09:45.60

wednesdayleefriday

Well, you know, I actually came up with the phrase mentally odd about 15 years ago, maybe a little more. It was like, I posted about it on my live journal. That's like how long ago it was.

01:09:57.67

wednesdayleefriday

And then was like, I need to save that phrase. I need to do something with it. And then my first horror collection of short stories was creepy, stabby and mentally odd. And I was like, okay, yeah, that's good.

01:10:09.07

wednesdayleefriday

That's good. But, but what else?

01:10:09.85

Kailin

Which I absolutely adore, by the way. And I love that I and i love that i have a signed copy.

01:10:13.48

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, really?

01:10:16.84

wednesdayleefriday

Oh, well, yeah, I think I might've even spelled your name right.

01:10:20.52

Kailin

I think you did because you asked me.

01:10:23.24

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, probably.

01:10:23.48

Kailin

You were like, how do you spell your name properly? Or you know, you've read it on Facebook and math.

01:10:27.57

wednesdayleefriday

That sounds like something I'd do.

01:10:28.04

Kailin

But the first book that I ever read by you was Kiss Me Like You Loved Me.

01:10:35.43

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah.

01:10:35.47

Kailin

And I think we've had quite a few conversations about that book. Um, but that's why I, uh, wanted to read more of your stuff was because like, it's, it's so dark, but it's so good.

01:10:51.93

Kailin

So thank you for that book.

01:10:52.11

wednesdayleefriday

Aww. Well, thank you.

01:10:55.14

Kailin

Truly.

01:10:55.20

wednesdayleefriday

so Um, yeah i yeah I should send you the new one, actually, because, uh, spitefully stabbery spidery stuff.

01:10:59.91

Kailin

Please.

01:11:02.62

wednesdayleefriday

Like I was shocked at how soon that came together. Um, cause like I wrote the first president's son book and then I wasn't, cause you know, in 2022 I almost died.

01:11:14.46

wednesdayleefriday

So I didn't get like, I didn't get much writing done as you know, I had stuff going on.

01:11:16.47

Kailin

I do remember that.

01:11:20.87

wednesdayleefriday

Um, but then it.

01:11:21.38

Kailin

I'm quite happy that you did not.

01:11:23.32

wednesdayleefriday

I know, right? there's That sentiment is ah like more widespread than I was expecting, frankly. um Because honestly, there were, and I will not give any names, but there were two different people who had always joked with me about how great H is, who were like, oh, so you're getting better, huh?

01:11:46.52

wednesdayleefriday

Be be going back home to to your husband?

01:11:47.33

Kailin

Oh, oh, oh my.

01:11:48.52

wednesdayleefriday

Like, yeah, bitch, I am.

01:11:53.13

wednesdayleefriday

Yeah, why?

01:11:53.24

Kailin

They were just like, can't wait.

01:11:54.88

wednesdayleefriday

I've told H, man, because he's he's like, oh, what would I do without you? I'm like, there will be a line there. There, you know, in fact, you will want to hire someone to make sure that line is orderly, because it would be like memory on the Sopranos, like Bobby's wife died.

01:12:11.58

wednesdayleefriday

And like every woman whose husband was murdered on the show showed up with casseroles and stuff. Oh, Bobby, hi, how are you here?

01:12:18.50

Kailin

You know, I, I wouldn't remember that.

01:12:20.60

wednesdayleefriday

You need a wife.

01:12:22.06

Kailin

But my mother definitely would.

01:12:24.02

wednesdayleefriday

yeah Yeah, I mean, and and I get it. I get it. He's a keeper for sure.

01:12:31.17

Kailin

He's a handsome feller.

01:12:32.93

wednesdayleefriday

He really is.

01:12:33.10

Kailin

And he's so sweet. And like, ah just like looking at your relationship with each other online, always makes my heart smile, like your anniversary stuff and your birthday stuff, he like,

01:12:45.31

Kailin

He does things that are so thoughtful and so you, right? And like my last boyfriend didn't get me anything for my birthday, took me on a camping trip with his friends and told me that if I didn't come with him that he wouldn't be spending his birthday with me. You know what I mean?

01:13:09.67

wednesdayleefriday

You know, a good rule of thumb is that if your person, your person should always be happy to see you.

01:13:09.87

Kailin

but like

01:13:19.68

wednesdayleefriday

And that, I mean, if I was going to give relationship advice, which I don't, but if, if I were going to do that, that that's the advice that they should, you know, if you're not sure about the relationship, if you're not sure how they feel.

01:13:34.52

wednesdayleefriday

If they give a heavy sigh when you come into the room, if they roll your their eyes when you ask how their day was, like, nah, f that. Your person should always be happy to see you.

01:13:46.65

wednesdayleefriday

Man, when I was in the hospital, H worked all day, and then he rode his bike to the hospital because we don't drive.

01:13:47.19

Kailin

I love that.

01:13:53.94

wednesdayleefriday

Every single day, except one day, I was preparing for a procedure and said, no, you don't want to be here for this.

01:13:54.18

Kailin

Yeah.

01:14:00.26

wednesdayleefriday

Please don't come for this. But every other day, I was there for 17 days.

01:14:03.08

Kailin

Oh, wow.

01:14:04.90

wednesdayleefriday

and he rode his bike up there every single day like some teenager. and

01:14:09.90

Kailin

that That is a keeper right there.

01:14:12.92

wednesdayleefriday

Well, the the nurses were jealous. like you mean like i mean Apparently it was unusual. like The roommates that I had at the hospital, their husbands were not coming to see them every day.

01:14:25.21

wednesdayleefriday

and I was just floored by it.

01:14:25.73

Kailin

That's fucked up.

01:14:27.50

wednesdayleefriday

Well, because they had cars and shit. like i was you know they'd They'd call and they'd FaceTime or whatever, but it's like they're in the hospital. They're like trapped in a bed all day.

01:14:37.97

wednesdayleefriday

And if they're not in their bed, it's because they're getting poked and x-rayed and whatever. So yeah, but you know, I could spend the next three hours bragging on my husband for sure.

01:14:43.37

Kailin

Yeah.

01:14:49.45

wednesdayleefriday

Caitlin, I am so glad that you could be here for this interview. I am i really appreciate how how ah open and raw you've been with your story. I think.

01:14:59.76

Kailin

Well, thank you, Wednes. Always a pleasure.

01:15:02.62

wednesdayleefriday

good Indeed um I want to remind all of our listeners that we are sponsored by sometimes hilarious horror magazine And if you want to support us the best way to do that is to head over to coffee.

01:15:05.03

Kailin

it

01:15:15.33

wednesdayleefriday

That's KO hyphen fi slash sometimes hilarious horror and Subscribe to the magazine show us some love because we sure need it um All right, we'll see everybody next week