Archive for category Relationships

Date: May 18th, 2010
File Under: Public Service Announcement, Relationships
66 comments

Episode 78: Held Captive for 140 Days: Lisa Ling’s Sister Breaks Her Silence

She broke the law and was caught in the middle of an International stand off between the US and one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Held captive for almost 5 months in North Korea, Laura Ling has never talked about her ordeal. Oprah show reporter, and Laura’s sister, Lisa Ling, helped orchestrate top secret negotiations at the highest levels to free Laura. This is the first time they have appeared together to discuss this, they have written a book about the saga called Somewhere Inside.

Laura Ling is a reporter for Al Gore’s network Current TV. Her job takes her to some of the most dangerous parts of the world. Last year she and producer, Euna Lee were reporting on the thousands of Koreans who try and flee the communist regime by river. To get a better shot, they crossed on to the Korean side of the river to film, which they knew was forbidden. When they returned to the Chinese side they were captured and violently assaulted by North Korean border guards.

Oprah asks Laura to describe what and why they were doing? They never intended to cross the river, she said, they wanted to get images of the area. They worked with a guide or fixer who crossed the ice and motioned for them to follow. Oprah shows the map of the river dividing the countries. There is no wire or signs between countries, but you know that you are getting closer to North Korea, says Laura. After a minute they turned to leave and two guards came after them with rifles. They turned and ran back to China. Laura stumbled and Euna stopped to help her but the guards were upon them. Their guide got away. He did come back and he was walking very slowly, and according to Euna, he said to the guards, ‘Take me instead.’ But when they tried to grab him, he dashed off. Laura and Euna grabbed at the bushes to try to stay in China as long as they could. The guard above her kicked Laura and knocked her in the face and shoulder as he continued to drag her across the ice. The other soldier was doing the same to Euna. Laura was screaming sorry which seemed to make him more angry. He struck her on the head with the butt of his rifle and she blacked out.

North Korea cuts their citizens off from the rest of the world with no internet access, the TV is filled with government propaganda and cell phone ownership can be punishable by death. School kids are taught that America is the enemy, democracy is wrong and that communism is the only way. Kim Jong-Il is the supreme ruler who is a God-like figure, both worshipped and feared. His picture is everywhere and as the commander of one of the largest armies in the world, he is unchallenged. North Korea only allows images of military parades and happy and healthy citizens to be seen by the outside world. A video of poverty, famine and rampant disease smuggled out of the country tells a different story. Experts say thousands of North Koreans attempt to escape every year. If caught they face torture or death.

Laura was trying to cover a story on the defectors; many of the women are forced into marriages or prostitution in China, a story which neither government wants told. Laura and Euna destroyed their tapes and ate their notes when they were left alone at the beginning of the ordeal. They did whatever they could to destroy that evidence. Lisa says that North Korea controls everything, they do not want any outside information to penetrate.

They were held prisoner for almost 5 months in North Korea- they came home last August. Oprah asks Lisa if she feared that she’d never see her sister again? Lisa says that they kept hope but there was the fear that nothing was out of the question. So many things were unprecedented. Lisa called everyone that she knew, but when Oprah called her she realized the enormity of the problem, when even one of the most powerful women in the world can not help. Oprah said prayers and thought about Laura. Immediately Laura recognized that they wanted her to make a confession. She was questioned as to wether her company was connected to the government. They brought in a dossier of Lisa’s visit and asked if the two of them were trying to bring down the government. Lisa went in as part of a legal medical delegation four years ago. She didn’t tell them she was a journalist. Laura tried to downplay her family connections and did not say that Lisa was a journalist who worked for Oprah. She heard that if she confessed she might get forgiveness, and she had to trust that this was the right thing to do. She was in a cell with Euna for the first couple of days. If the slats were closed then they were just sitting in the dark. She was sentenced in June, a couple of months later. She was transferred to Pyongyang, where she was under guard but in a regular room. There were no showers. The power outages happened multiple times a day and there were water outages. She says she developed a system to wash where they would allow her to heat a kettle of water, and she would mix it with some cold water. Then she would scrub down and just splash it on. She was sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. She was petrified when she heard that. She had tried to prepare herself for a long sentence, but when she heard the words she could barely stand up. The judge said no forgiveness, no parole. Laura spiraled into a deep depression, refusing her meals and huddling into a dark corner of the room for quite a while. She had heard about the horrific conditions of the labor camps. The thought that so many innocent people were going through this gave her strength. She had thought that she might be pregnant, but when she found out she wasn’t she was crushed, she thought that she’d never get to have a family with her husband.

The story created a media firestorm, for the first time in history two American citizens were put on trial. After months of tentative negotiations, former president Bill Clinton went to meet with King Jong-Ill. When Clinton arrived, Laura was walking down the hallway with a group of North Koreans and saw a secret service agent with an earpiece. She felt the presence of her country. Clinton was like an angel come to save them. She explained to him that they had apologized and hoped that he could apologize on their behalf. He said that had been done but that their was some more to be done but he was hopeful. Laura says that he was the only person who could save them and they are so very, very grateful. When she heard that Obama may come to their aid, she said, with all due respect, they may aswell send her to the labor camp now if they thought Obama was going to come.

Oprah says that Laura’s husband Ian is the sweetest person on the world. He wrote a letter at 5pm every day, in the same spot every day and he’d take photos of himself in that spot so he could visualize everything. She says that those letters were everything, they were her oxygen. 5pm was the time she could dedicate to thinking about him.

During the whole time, Orphan asks if she was thinking, how did this happen? Laura says that she was so angry at herself, she would hit herself to punish herself for putting her family through this. Oprah asks what she says to those who criticizes her actions. She says she was their to raise awareness about the horrific conditions in North Korea and that story never got told. Lisa says that the family was devastated. She did a lot of interview and not a day went by when people would ask how her sister was doing. It was hard for her to not be able to say how her sister was doing, so she stopped going out. Their parents were a wreck. Her mom stopped showering. The hardest thing is to hear your father crying over and over, says Lisa. Oprah asks about Euna and asks why they didn’t write a book together. Euna is doing well, says Laura, she is spending time with her husband and daughter. They spent a total of six days together in captivity. Euna is writing her own book about her own story. Laura will always regard Euna as a member of their family. They talk frequently. Laura is now very pregnant, with the baby due in June. Oprah congratulates her. The book, Somewhere Inside, is in stores today.

Before the January earthquake their were about 380,000 orphans in Haiti. Experts estimate that there are now over 1 million. Conditions are unimaginable, there is little food and water, widespread disease and the threat of child slavery. Looking at those faces, some of you may want to go adopt a child, but is that the best thing, asks Oprah. A few days ago Lisa Ling followed a 7 year old girl from Haiti who has been adopted by an American family. Take a look.

At the airport, Claire is greeted with screams in California as she joins her new family. She was left as a baby in an orphanage where eleven weeks ago she was sharing a twin bed with four other orphan girls. Now she lives in a 4000 square foot home in a gated community. There is a manicured yard and a private lake and a home movie theatre with a fully stocked candy counter. Claire shows Lisa her room with her queen sized bed, plenty of toys and clothes. In Haiti she had one meal a day of rice and beans. Now she loves pancakes and ketchup together. The abundance of food is a big challenge for Claire. In the beginning it was as if every meal was her last. She’d eat till her stomach got distended and she’d throw up. It was a battle of how much food she could eat at every meal. At school there has been a lot of adjustment. She is very aggressive- in Haiti it is survival, a coping mechanism; here that behavior does not work. Each week they call the orphanage but the calls are hard on Claire. The first week she broke down in tears thinking of all the kids there. She down’t want to go back to Haiti. The family were preparing for an empty nest and now they have had a complicated change of life. It has been difficult but the rewards are far greater, says Debbie. Debbie and Scott are telling their story so people go in to an adoption with their eyes wide open. Lisa asks them to respond to the old story of a white family saving a black child. Scott says that they don’t see race, they fell in love with Claire. She has living parents but she was given up at age 1 as she was malnourished. Brandon, Claire’s brother says that it has been hard because Claire gets all the attention. Debbie says that it is very rewarding to see the changes. Scott says that they will never know what is going on in her mind. Claire has a photo of her family in her room, Debbie wants her birth family to be present in Claire’s life at all times.

11 weeks ago Claire came home with Debbie and Scott, it took them nearly 3 years to get Claire to come home with them. Debbie says that they went on a mission trip with her brother and Claire was the first little girl that they met and they really connected. It took about a week for them to hear that she was ok after the earthquake. She got a humanitarian aid visa which hastened the adoption. After the earthquake hit, there is an instinct to try to save all the children. Oprah says that is why she built a school because you can’t bring home every child. Oprah says that the children just want to be loved, they don’t care about race or color or sexual orientation. The crowd applaud. Debbie says that Claire is flourishing. Oprah asks if they have experienced racism. Debbie says that a man in the grocery store gave Claire an evil look, as if he would spit on her if they were close enough. Oprah asks what they will do when Claire is old enough to notice? Debbie’s goal is to teach her and the rest of their children to love unconditionally. They have talked about it in their family and they are all on the same page. It is important that Claire knows that she is wonderful and special and that they celebrate her culture. Oprah applauds them and says that we are all alike in our hearts but not in our hair. To see Debbie part and braid Claire’s hair makes Oprah say congratulations.

The last time Lisa was here she refused to sign the No Phone Zone Pledge, so they modified the pledge to accommodate people like Lisa. Lisa will sign to no texting. Oprah thanks her and Laura.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

Laura Ling, one of the two American journalists sentenced to 12 years hard labor in North Korea is the sister of Lisa Ling, journalist on the Oprah Show.

When Laura was captured, Lisa called everyone she knew to help, and Oprah Winfrey called her to show support.

Bill Clinton came to their rescue, like an angel, and Lisa and Laura wrote a book about the experience.

A family in California living in a gated community adopted a 7 year old from Haiti and say that at first she really struggled with the abundance of food in the house.

They have a movie theater with fully stocked candy counter in their basement.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

We are all alike in our hearts but not in our hair, says Oprah. (With the possible exception of the North Korean government).

Date: May 13th, 2010
File Under: Public Service Announcement, Relationships, Tragedy
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Episode 70: A Tumor Covered Half Her Face And the Brothers Who Nearly Starved

It was a headline that made us sick- 4 young boys starved by their parents. No one knew what was going on until a 911 call from a neighbor. He reported that a young boy who looked about ten was eating from a trash can at 3am. The boy said he was 19. The police investigated the New Jersey home and found 4 young boys with emaciated bodies starving to death. Bruce, 19, weighed 45 pounds. Treshawn, 14, weighed 40 pounds. Terrell, 10, weighed 28 pounds and 9 year old Michael was found wearing baby clothes and weighed 23 pounds. All four boys had been adopted years earlier by Raymond and Vanessa Jackson. Friends described them as a loving couple and kind parents. Vanessa and Raymond claimed the boys had eating disorders- the boys said that they were given only raw oatmeal and pancake batter to eat. The police found a lock on the refrigerator and an alarm on the kitchen door. Bite marks around the house backed up one of the boys claims that he was so hungry he chewed on the windowsills and wall plaster. The boys were filthy and had lice and rotten teeth when they were found. The county prosecutor said that this was the most horrific case of child abuse and neglect that they had seen over the years. Vanessa and Raymond were charged with 28 counts of aggravated assault and child endangerment. Raymond died of a stroke during the investigation. Almost two years after he was seen eating out of the trash, Bruce faced Vanessa in court- he had grown nearly a foot and gained nearly 100 pounds. He testified that they were yelled at, cussed at and hit with brooms and rulers and sticks and shoes. She pled guilty to one charge of child endangerment in exchange for a reduced sentence. She served 4 years of a 7 year prison term and was released in February of this year. She continues to deny that she ever starved or hurt the boys.

Oprah says that they talked to Vanessa’s daughter who said that her mother had no interest in talking to Oprah. Oprah says that any time anywhere she will meet with Vanessa so that she can explain this to Oprah. TreShawn weighed 40 pounds at age 14- he was about the weight of a five year old, a typical 14 year old weighs 115 pounds. Terrell weighed 28 pounds at age 10- the average weight of a 2 year old. Michael was 23 pounds at age 9- the average weight of an 18 month old toddler. That was 7 years ago, those boys have been through a living hell and are here with their story, says Oprah. They come out and Oprah hugs them. She says that they are looking good. Bruce is not here but he is the hero of this story- had he not gone out at night looking for food they might still be locked in the house. They said that it was a house of horror. They never knew how much they would eat or when they would eat. Sometimes Vanessa said they had one minute to eat so they would always stuff food in their mouth. They went to her as babies, the youngest was one, and they were fed for two years then they were adopted and everything changed. They went to church and stuffed their clothes or had to wear three or four sweaters so they looked healthy. TreShawn tried to tell his teacher who didn’t believe him, he’d ask for food. The teacher didn’t believe him but Vanessa found out he was talking and they were home-schooled and locked in the house.

Today, the three boys live in rural New Jersey with their adopted parents James and Amber Parish and their 8 year old biological son, CJ. There is an abundance of love. The boys described their childhood with one word, hell. Terrell says that they would get a bowl of water and some soggy bread. Some times they would be fed nothing at all. One of them crept in to the kitchen and found bagels and cake- Vanessa grabbed the closest thing to her and started beating him. If they were caught stealing food they had to sit on the stairs for hours at a time. Of the ten years that he was there, TreShawn says that he spent seven years sitting on the stairs in a total lockdown. He said they would just wait for bedtime so that they could sleep and didn’t have to think anymore.

James says that when they came there was a lot of anger and hate, TreShawn thought that he was put in that home to die. Amber says that she doesn’t know how a mother could not give her kids food and love. No one has been through what those guys have been through, it is a blessing that they have survived.

The boys say that their lives will always be tainted by their experience. They will never take love or family for granted. Life now is a dream come true, they have freedom from starvation.

Oprah says that they were starved of so much more than food. Terrell says that he lost his childhood, being able to go to school and play with friends. He lost all of that. Oprah asks how they feel about Vanessa’s sentence. Terrell says that they messed up the years, and that she should have served the years that they suffered, times each kid. The audience applaud. TreShawn says that Bruce is their hero. Oprah tells them that his attorney says that Bruce loves and misses his brothers very much. He is safe and in the constant care of professionals. The boys nod.

Oprah asks if people checked on them? People came but the boys would be pushed upstairs into the attic. Oprah asks if they ever talked to someone- they weren’t allowed to talk. Social Services went to the Jackson house 38 times and they were about to bring another child into this home. Shocking, shocking, shocking says Oprah. Oprah asks what they would say to Vanessa if she were listening- TreShawn says that her true judgement will come when she comes before God. Terrell says that God is watching and knows what she did and she needs to live the rest of her life knowing that she hurt them. Michael says that he would like to thank her for showing him that he could survive and accomplish things and that kids know what they are saying, and that what they say can be true.

The boys were adopted by James and Amber, their angels. The first time Amber saw them she thought they were little boys, she couldn’t believe their ages. When Michael asked if she would be her mom, she melted like butter. She says that after all the kids have been through they chose her, they are her babies. James says that they know that Dad and Mom love them, no matter what happens. Oprah calls them heroes- they come in with their youngest son CJ. Oprah hugs them and says God Bless You. James was working for the welfare system and was given this case. James and Oprah both stop and cry. The boys needed a mentor, a positive role model and that was James. He worked with them to try and bring them back. The boys were placed in James’ grandmothers home who does emergency placement foster care. He started as a mentor and after they have been in the system for a time they need to see if they were adoptable. Oprah says that teenagers plus boys plus African American means a triple whammy. That there probably wasn’t alot of takers out there for the boys, she says. At the time the parents had CJ, then one day CJ wakes up and has three brothers. CJ says that they could play together and bike ride together and play X-Box so it was all cool. Oprah asks how this could happen. James says that protocol dictated that in the past social workers could only look at the child in question during a visit. Now it has been changed because all the kids in the house need to be checked on. He says that once kids are adopted the check ups stop. Oprah asks Amber how the boys would eat. She says in the beginning they would eat lightly, they looked scared of food and would often throw up. Now she can’t stop them eating. The boys say that they finally understand that the food is not going anywhere. Initially they were timid but would overeat until they vomited, says James. Oprah says that initially they were angry towards women. TreShawn says that he kept seeing Vanessa’s face everywhere he went- he would lash out at any woman he spoke to. They have had a lot of therapy and have dealt with the flashbacks. For CJ he was only 3 when the brothers came so it was fun for him. The rest of the family have embraced the boys and love them.

Oprah asks what Amber and James would say to Vanessa Jackson. Oprah says that it is hard for anyone to imagine that she would adopt these children yet sit in church every a Sunday with a lock on the refrigerator at home. Amber says that Vanessa was not a mother, she was the monster in the closet and she owes her boys an apology. She wants to hear that and she wants to be there. Terrell says that unless Vanessa means it, sorry means nothing. James says that she only got a slap on the wrists. Oprah says that the laws indicate how we really feel about our children- it is unspeakable that Vanessa is out. TreShawn says that an apology doesn’t help, his heart is cut really deep- he wanted to become her son and after he said yes she started to abuse them. Oprah asks if they feel that they have a new chance at life. TreShawn says that his father teaches him everything- to talk well, to keep trying at school, to give 100% at sports so that people see he is trying to be his best and they don’t take pity on him. The crowd applaud.

All four brothers were awarded a large sum of money in a lawsuit against the State of New Jersey and they received full scholarships to go to college. Oprah says that it has been wonderful to have them all here today and she thanks them for coming on the show.

Until recently going out in public was pure torture for 29 year old Ana Rodarte, she was laughed at, pointed at and children even cried in fear. She has turned down numerous TV requests to tell her story- she wanted to be here today because she trusts the Oprah Show to help tell her story. Ana has neurofibromatosis (NF), sometimes called Elephant-Man disease. You may have seen the play and the movie but the term is highly offensive to those who live with NF, says Oprah. Its a disfiguring, incurable disease which has literally destroyed Ana’s face. As you listen to the story, says Oprah, think about how we all judge each other on appearance.

Ana says that her parents noticed a bee-sting like lump when she was a few months old which grew bigger and bigger. She just wanted to be normal, but other kids didn’t want to play with her. She wanted to know why God was so mean, and her parents told her it was just the way he wanted her to be. Throughout her childhood she had many surgeries. After each one the tumor would grow back. It broke Ana’s heart and eventually she lost faith in the doctors. At age 14 she didn’t want to go to school as the tumor was growing at such a rapid pace. After high school, her friends all moved away and she felt very alone and depressed and she secluded herself for 2 or 3 years. She tried to find a job but felt she was discriminated against based on how she looked. She would leave the house maybe once a month. There were times when little kids would see her and start crying. It’s very hard emotionally to lead this life- growing up she built up a wall around herself. By the time she was 22 the tumor had grown so much that it covered up her left eye. Ana would struggle with reading and eating. She suffered many headaches and chewing on the left side would result in her biting the tumor.

She was 24 when she met Dr Batra, she felt that he was talking to her more as a friend than a doctor, and then she knew he wanted to go ahead and hope that he would be different from other doctors.

Oprah says that obviously it is difficult for Ana, so please welcome her. Ana comes out and Oprah hugs her and says welcome, welcome, welcome. Ana was born in Mexico and her parents came to the US for better medical care. They didn’t know what to do in Mexico. Oprah says that on the tape Ana said that she thought as a child that God was mean, and asks her how it is now. Ana says that the experience serves another purpose and that it is not hard for her now. Oprah asks what the tears are for- Ana says that they are for the video, sharing her own emotions. Oprah asks what it would feel like when kids would cry or scream when they saw her. It was heartbreaking. Her family would force her out in public, which she appreciates now. Oprah asks if her disease prevents her from dating and wanting children. Ana does not want children as she does not want to pass on the disease, but she does date. Oprah asks why the term Elephant-Man Disease is offensive. Ana says that the disease has a name and she doesn’t see why people have to call it Elephant-Man Disease.

Four years ago Ana began a series of risky surgeries to remove the tumor from her face. She says that she feels more confident now when she looks in the mirror, she resembles more of a normal person, she is friendlier with people and she doesn’t block them out any more. Oprah asks if Ana can live a normal life. Ana says she could if people would stop judging her on appearance. She wants to tell people that there is help, that people shouldn’t shelter themselves from society. After several doctors said that the tumor was hopeless, Dr Munish Batra offered hope to Ana. The surgeries were paid for by his charity, DOCS- Doctors Offering Charitable Services. Oprah invites the doctor up to the stage.

Oprah shakes his hand. He says that he saw Ana in the office and was amazed that she hadn’t had help before this time. NF is genetic and passed from parent to child- there is a 50% transmission rate that it will be passed on. He was not surprised that Ana had shut herself down- such a big part of our identity is our face. Oprah thanks him for being who he is and doing what he does through DOCS, and thanks Ana for being here.

A viewer, Donna, said in an email that as a stay at home mom she only got a chance to text and talk in the car. After watching the No Phone Zone show, she took the No Phone Zone Pledge and the very next day she could have been in an accident, if she had been not paying attention. Oprah thanks Donna and says that the episode is online so families should watch it and then take the pledge.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

Oprah says that the laws of a country indicate how we really feel about our children.

A “loving couple and kind parents” starved their children of so much more than food.

Our face is a major part of our identity.

Having a tumor cover your face makes it hard to connect with people, especially when children cry or scream when they look at you.

Ana has a tumor removed from her face and says she could live a normal life if people would stop judging her on appearance.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

It is inconceivable that a couple would adopt children only to starve and beat them. It is utterly inconceivable that this would merit only a 4 year stint in prison.

Date: May 10th, 2010
File Under: Relationships

Episode 65: Rielle Hunter’s First Television Interview

Four years ago, few people had heard of Rielle Hunter, a videographer hired to document John Edwards as he campaigned across the country. Then, rumors of an affair began to surface. The media reported that John had cheated on his wife of more than 30 years, Elizabeth Edwards, with Rielle and secretly fathered a daughter named Quinn. Oprah travels to the North Carolina home Rielle shares with her daughter to meet Rielle.

Oprah asks is it true that no one in your life thinks that this is a good idea for you to be talking to me? Rielle says that “no one thinks it’s a good idea, but I feel in my heart that it’s the right thing to do.” Oprah asks “why did you want to talk now and you have not spoken before?” Rielle says a lot of it didn’t feel right to speak before, and it felt more right after Johnny claimed paternity publicly. Oprah clarifies, Johnny meaning John Edwards? Yes, says Rielle, I do. It’s his birth name. Oprah asks why you call him Johnny? Rielle says “When I first met him, I couldn’t get the word “John” out, you know? He didn’t seem like John to me. So I said, “This may sound weird, but can I call you Johnny?” And he said: “Well, that’s my name. So, yes.”

Oprah says “So you’ve been described in a lot of different ways. Gold digger. Home wrecker. New-age airhead. Do you think that you have been unfairly judged?” Rielle says “Yes, I believe it’s…well, it’s not accurate. That’s not who I am.” Oprah says “Well, the intention of this interview for me is to find out who you are. So let’s start with gold digger. Were you after John Edwards because of money? Fame? Attention?” Rielle says “No, I was not ever after him. I met him, and there was a very strong connection, an attraction. There was no me pursuing, wanting something from him. None of that.” Rielle says that she is absolutely not a home wrecker. “It is not my experience that a third party wrecks a home. I believe the problems exist before a third party comes into the picture.” Oprah asks why does she think people see her so negatively? Rielle says “Well, because of the affair, and also because a lot of people bought into the myth of the marriage…the Edwards marriage as being a storybook story and it was so perfect and so wonderful, and I destroyed it. So it fits into the two-dimensional story line.” Oprah says “Help people to understand, if you can, or help me to understand, because the world sees you as that person. You are viewed as the mistress who came in and stole the politician. So what do you want people to know about that?” Rielle replies “First of all, in order for that to happen, you must be invited in. People aren’t property. You can’t steal someone else’s husband. You can’t steal someone’s wife. It’s not property.” Oprah says “So let’s go back to how this started. How did you meet? When I interviewed Elizabeth Edwards last year, one of the things that struck me is she said she couldn’t believe or didn’t even understand a woman like yourself who could stand outside or stand at a bar and say to a married man, “You’re hot.” She made a point of saying that, “Who does that?” So I’m asking you, who does that?” Rielle says “Well, I did… It happened because I saw him inside the Regency.” (a hotel in New York City) “We were in there, and we noticed each other and there was a mutual staring going on. But it was just a connection like…“ Oprah asks “Did you think, “Oh, there’s John Edwards?”” Rielle says she did not know it was John Edwards. Rielle says “I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the Kerry/Edwards campaign. I had a lot going on in my life at that time. I wasn’t big into politics.” Rielle says “He was looking at me, and I was looking at him and he got up and left. Then my friend went over to who he was sitting with and asked, “Was that John Edwards?” And he said, “Yes, it was.” I went over and started talking to that man, as well. His name was Tony. We went over to Tony, and I said, “I can’t believe that was John Edwards. He’s so hot.” And Tony said: “You should have told him that. You should have come over and told him that. He would have loved to hear that.”

Oprah asks How did it come about that they connected? Rielle says “It was nothing. Another friend of mine came to join us, and I had no more thoughts of John Edwards. Zero. Then, we were walking out of the Regency to go get dinner, and then he came around the corner and saw me standing on the street. And he lit up. He was just so excited. I mean, just lit up like a Christmas tree. White lights, just like bright as can be. I just turned to him and said, “You’re so hot.” And he practically jumped in my arms, and I said to him, “I can help you.” And he said: “I want your help. I need your help.”” Oprah asks “Did you feel the connection that you had sensed when he was across the room?” Times a hundred says Rielle. Oprah asks what he said to her? Rielle says “I want your help. I need your help. And I said, “Do you have e-mail?” And he said, “No. Here. I’m staying here. Call me. This is the name I’m staying under. Call me.” I said, “How long are you staying?” He said, “Until tomorrow morning. Call me.” Oprah asks “When you said to John Edwards, “I can help you,” what did you mean?” Rielle says she wanted to help him “See his authentic self. Be more his authentic self so people could see who he really was.” Oprah asks how she was planning on doing that? “I had no plans. None at all. Just my heart felt I could help him,” says Rielle. Oprah asks “When you left wherever you were to go to his hotel room, was there no part of you that says, “Maybe I shouldn’t do that?’” No, says Rielle. Oprah asks if she knew he was married? Rielle responds “I did know he was married, but I didn’t know what their marriage was like.”

Oprah asks “Did you have that conversation about helping him?” Rielle says “We had a very, very long conversation, yes…about helping, and he wanted help. He wanted to be more authentic. He wanted to live a life of truth. He wanted to change his life.”Oprah says, “In all this time you’re having this conversation, you’re also feeling this heat, this vibe, this magnetic force… and you can sense that he’s feeling it too? Rielle says “Yes. It was obvious.” When Oprah asks if she stayed the night, Rielle says “I think that that now I say, “Okay, now fade to black.” Here’s the thing: This whole journey has been so hard for me. I am a really private person with my personal life.”

Oprah says “But you can just forget about your personal life being private because you’ve been so exposed?”Rielle says “No, but here’s the thing. I’ve been so exposed with a bunch of lies, because what’s been said about me—all my personal life has been written about and exposed—the facts are incorrect. It was all incorrect. That also bothers me because I am very much a person committed to truth.” Oprah says, “Now it’s the next day. Then began what?”

Rielle says there were a series of long conversations on the phone… four hours at a time. Oprah says “So the next day, you’re on the phone for four hours. Several days later, you realize what?” Rielle: I’m in love. Oprah asks what are you thinking about his situation? Rielle says “Oh, this is very difficult because … being a person who’s committed to truth and living a life where you’re not hiding, it’s almost like a cosmic joke to fall in love with someone who’s living a big lie. I had such judgment about anyone living a lie.”

Oprah asks Rielle if she thought about John’s wife? Rielle says “Oh yes, definitely… I think about his wife and his children. And it was very hard. Very, very hard. What’s so hard about it is that the power of the love does override all the issues that come up and all the judgments and all my: “This is wrong. What you’re doing is wrong.” Oprah says “So you are obviously a person who is on a spiritual path. You’ve mentioned truth here several times. What part of you could make that okay then to be with this married man with children?” Rielle says “Because he was available. He wanted to be with me, and their marriage had problems for many, many years… He has been honest with me since our first meeting completely.” She says that he disclosed everything to her in his life. Oprah says that there are choices on the journey, did she ever think he should call her after he sorted out the mess of his life? Rielle says that their hearts were louder than their minds. Oprah asks how did Elizabeth Edwards come to know about this affair? Rielle says “On the morning of December 31, [2006], she found the cell phone that I bought for him. And called me, and I answered the phone. I said, “Hey, baby,” and she hung up on me. I bought him a cell phone that looked just like his work phone so he could talk to me wherever he was and, whenever he was, people would think he was on his work phone. He calls me back a little later saying that it’s over. “We’re done. We’re over.” I assumed that she was standing there when he said that, and he was in a traumatic state. His worlds had just collided, and he hung up the phone.”

Oprah asks what did she do? Rielle says “I didn’t cry. I had the thought: “What do you mean we’re over? We’re just getting started.”” Oprah says But you didn’t cry. Rielle says “Not then. I cried a number of times over the next few days. I cried hysterically a number of times over the next few days. It was a terrible time.“ Oprah says that Elizabeth found out shortly after and he announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Did he talk to you about the fact that he was going to announce his running for President of the United States? Rielle says that he was in extreme conflict about it. “He didn’t know if it was the right thing to do because he had personal problems and an inner conflict about having all these personal problems that could happen at any moment and an inner pull to wanting to serve. Plus he was, I believe, addicted to campaigning, and that was going on. And he had a staff who wanted him- all their paychecks and all of their livelihoods depended on him announcing. And Elizabeth wanted him to.” Rielle did not think he should run. “I think that he has a great capacity to serve. I’m conservative in that way. I believe in truth. I think you need to get all your ducks in a row and live a life of integrity before you step out into the public.”

Oprah says that sounds beautiful but can she understand that people find this hypocritical. Rielle understands the contradiction, agrees that it’s huge. Oprah asks “Would you also agree, or not, that you were out of alignment, you were in contradiction, you were out of integrity with yourself?” Rielle says “No, interestingly enough. That’s what’s just so weird about it. I followed my heart, and I believe it was the right thing to do, which is weird. I get how weird that is. I didn’t make a commitment to Elizabeth. I wasn’t the one lying to her, and I was supporting him in his process, and his intentions never wavered. I knew what he wanted. He just had a really unique way of getting there, to live a life of truth… So I felt like I would just continue supporting him and loving him until he got to where he needed to be.”

In March 2007, Elizabeth and John held a press conference announcing her cancer had returned but the Presidential campaign would go on. Rielle and John’s daughter Frances Quinn was conceived in May 2007. Rielle says the baby was conceived at he end of May. She didn’t know she was pregnant until July. Oprah asks “At what point in there did John have the announcement that they were going to renew their vows?” July. Oprah asks “So when John Edwards is renewing his vows with Elizabeth Edwards, he knows that you are pregnant?.. How can you make that okay? You’re pregnant, carrying this man’s child. You knew it was his child, because you weren’t seeing anyone else.” Rielle says that “I wasn’t seeing anyone else… We both knew it was his child.” Oprah asks How did it make her feel? Rielle says “Terrible. My own judgment of someone who stands before God and makes a vow crushes me on the inside. I mean, just crushes me that someone can do that, that anyone can do that, because of the way I’m built. I could never do that… I understood where he was in his process.” Rielle says that she never thought about getting out because her married boyfriend turned into the father of their child. Oprah asks how he reacted to the news of her pregnancy and Rielle says that he was “very gracious.” Oprah says, “come on,” and Rielle says that he was. He was in the campaign at the time. Oprah laughs when Rielle says that he was gracious. She asks Did John Edwards ever ask you to get an abortion? Rielle: Never. Oprah: Implied that you should get an abortion? Rielle: Never. Oprah: So he was fully supportive of you having his baby. Rielle says “I wouldn’t say “fully supportive.” I think that he had a lot of issues with the timing, and it created a lot of conflict within him. It was not great timing from our perspective.” Oprah: Meaning he was running for the presidency. Rielle says “He was married to someone else. He was in the middle of running for the presidency. It’s not great timing.” Oprah asks if she was hoping to get pregnant with his baby? Rielle says “I don’t know consciously if it was hoping. I was so in love with him. When you’re in love with him, that gets activated.” Oprah asks if they were using birth control? They never used birth control. Oprah says “Well, then. Then you knew it could happen at any time?” Rielle replies “I would have been fine if it happened. I was in love with him.” Oprah asks if John thought she was using birth control and Rielle says no.

Seven months into the pregnancy, a tabloid reporter snapped Rielle’s picture, and their secret was almost exposed. Instead of confessing the truth about Rielle’s pregnancy, a new cover-up was concocted. John’s friend and aide, Andrew Young, claimed paternity. Andrew and his wife, Cheri, went into hiding with Rielle, jetting between hotels and private homes until she gave birth.

The National Enquirer got the picture of her on December 12, [2007], in North Carolina. Rielle says that John was “extremely angry, and he screamed at me. He’s not a screamer.” Oprah says let’s talk about how the Andrew Young paternity scheme came about. Rielle says “That was exactly in that moment. I was on the phone in Andrew’s office, in Andrew’s house. Johnny was screaming at me on the phone, and Andrew was sitting directly across from me. He said: “Just tell him I’ll say it’s mine. I’ll say it’s mine.” I heard him say that, and I looked at him like he was insane, like I was not even going to repeat it. I thought: “There is no way I’m going to tell him that. You are out of your mind, and that ain’t happening. That was a bridge too far for me. You are not claiming paternity for my child.” Oprah states that Andrew Young describes it a completely different way. He says he got a phone call from John Edwards saying, “Will you do this?” Rielle says “Now, that may have actually happened. But this happened before that… This was the night before that, so somehow Andrew spoke to Johnny after he suggested it to me. Because I didn’t repeat it.”Oprah clarifies “So you’re saying the idea for taking responsibility for being the father of your child came from Andrew Young…Why did you go along with it?” Rielle says “That’s my biggest regret.” Oprah asks again, “Why did you go along with it?” Rielle says, “My biggest mistake. I made a big mistake to go along with it. It took me about three days to get on board. I was fighting tooth and nail. This was just a bridge too far for me… They came back to me and said Cheri had agreed, that I was the only one who was not agreeing. I couldn’t believe Cheri agreed. How could she agree to this? She was my out. I really thought that that would be…” Oprah says “That his wife is not going to agree.” Rielle says “Ever going to go along with that. Ever, ever, ever. And Johnny called me back and said, “Andrew says yes and Cheri’s on board, and you’re the only one who won’t get on board.” It was a horrid time, Oprah. Devastating. Devastating.” Oprah asks “When you finally said yes, you said yes because of what?” Rielle says “Well, because of my daughter… I thought that she had so many things against her. That would be a bad thing for both of them, a really bad thing… If she at all blamed herself for…if he got out of the race because of her, me being pregnant with her. And if he always had that thing in his head, “I could have been president,” and some blame toward her at all. And if she somehow flipped it in her head that it was her fault coming into the world. That was too hard for me. So that was the only reason I said yes.” Oprah says “So you were thinking about your daughter when you said, “Yes, I’m going to go along with Andrew.” Can you honestly say to me that there’s no part of you that was also thinking about yourself in that?”Rielle, wiping away a tear says, “No, I didn’t care. Something happened in me. Maybe it was there all along, but something in our relationship happened when I became pregnant. It did not become about us anymore. It became about her.”

Rielle gave birth on February 27th, 2008, And John Edwards met his daughter on March 19. Rielle says the meeting was “Filled with love, very emotional for me.” Oprah asks what was it like for her watching him do that interview with Bob Woodruff? Rielle says “It was surreal. It was surreal.” Oprah: And he is asked directly, point blank, “Are you the father of that baby?” Of Quinn. And he lies about it. Rielle: Yes. She says there were a lot of tears when she watched it, she was devastated. Rielle didn’t want him to do the interview, but Elizabeth did. She wanted him to tell the whole truth, but she didn’t know about the baby. He came clean after the interview and told her. Oprah asks who he was afraid of finding out, the public or Elizabeth, and Rielle says Elizabeth. John called Rielle afterwards and said that it didn’t mean anything. Oprah splutters a little. Rielle says that he was trying to fix what was broken- not a defense, but he was trying to hold on while drowning. Oprah says “He’s denied you, denied your child, lied on national television point blank, close up. What makes you think he’s not lying to you?” Rielle replies “ I know him like the back of my hand. I know when someone’s lying. I can feel it. He’s not lying. He’s messed up. He was screwed up. He was trying to make his life one of integrity.

Oprah says “Well, this is making no sense to a lot of people I’m sure. You’re talking about him trying to get to his truth, and all we’re seeing is lies and lies and more lies and more lies.” Rielle says “Right, trying to cover and keep the way life was. “I’m trying to fix it. I’ve got to fix it. I’ve got to make it better, so I’m going to keep lying.” … It wasn’t working. Life had changed, who he was had changed, who he is was changing. The old remedies didn’t work anymore.”

Former aide, Andrew Young dropped a bombshell in January 2010. In his tell-all book, The Politician, Andrew says he and Cheri found a sex tape John made with Rielle. Rielle says the Youngs took the tape from her, but the one thing she doesn’t dispute was that it’s her and John on the video. Oprah says “So let’s talk about the infamous sex tape. First of all, why did you all decide to put yourselves on tape having sex? I’m assuming that’s what’s on the tape, right? Sex.” Rielle says, “There is sex…I don’t think there was a lot of thought going on in the heat of the moment. It was something behind closed doors that was private, and I believe should remain private. So it was meant for that, and then, after the fact of doing this, because of being a public person and because of it being taped, we said: Well, that was not a great idea. Let’s do something to prevent anyone from seeing it, because we don’t want anyone to see our private business. So I took action to destroy the tape and kept it in my personal belongings so no one would get ahold of the tape.” She thought she had destroyed it by cutting it up.

Oprah asks why didn’t you burn it or stomp on it or throw it in the incinerator? Rielle says “Right, that was the first thought now that comes to me, “Why didn’t I burn it?” I have no idea why that thought didn’t occur to me then.”Oprah says, “Tell me this. Was John Edwards upset with you that that tape had not been destroyed?” Rielle replies “I think he’s as mortified or exposed as I am. I mean, it’s not a good thing for either one of us. It’s violating on every single level.”

Just as that media storm was dying down, there was another one. It wasn’t the article in GQ that caused an uproar, it was the photographs. Oprah thought that GQ interview was really a solid representation of Rielle. It was really a good interview, but she couldn’t understand the photos. Rielle says what a mistake that was- huge mistake. Oprah says “It seemed like such a contradiction of what you’re saying in the article. What you’re saying you want us to see, you want us to see that you’re not the home wrecker. You’re not the flashy broad who comes in and takes the politician.” Rielle says “It’s not that I want you to see that. I want to express who I am. And you can see whatever you see. But I’m not those things, and the photos make you believe, or go along with that story line, that that’s who I am. Big mistake. One I will never repeat again. Live and learn.” Oprah says “I know I’m going to sound like Dr. Phil here, but what were you thinking?.. Because you actually have to take your pants off.” Rielle says “Right. What I was thinking was, “I would like to have one sexy shot where the world can see me as a beautiful woman, as opposed to all those photos that are out there of me looking like some Wicked Witch of the West—the ugliest thing you could ever imagine.” So there’s definitely ego in that. Look where ego gets you. Oprah reiterates “Big ego move on your part.” Rielle says “Big ego move. Big mistake. No excuses, though. I made the mistake. I take responsibility for the mistake. It won’t happen again.” Oprah asks “What did Johnny think about those photos?” Rielle says he said, “”Where are your pants?” He knew I was upset about them, but I think that he felt protective. He wished he would have been there to say, “No, don’t do that.””

Oprah asks what’s the status of the relationship now? Rielle says “It’s private., Oprah, it is. Because what we’ve been through, I need a boundary. We need boundaries on our personal lives.” Oprah says she accepts that and says that it seems odd that now John is no longer with his wife, all the secrets could come out- she doesn’t know why Rielle couldn’t say that. Rielle says that she needs boundaries, and that John does see Quinn. Oprah asks Does he know you’re doing this interview and how does he feel about that? Rielle says “He didn’t think it was a great idea, but he supports me if I feel like in my heart I need to do it.” She still loves him very much. Oprah asks if John still loves her? Rielle says “I believe he does. You would have to ask him, but in my experience, the answer is yes… It’s my experience that he loves me. Oprah: Do you trust him? Rielle: Very much. Oprah: Do you want to marry him? Rielle replies “I’m not sure I want to get married ever. I’ve been married, and I mean, I can’t say never. I don’t know if that’s something I want. I don’t need marriage to define who I am. It’s not a pull for me.” Oprah asks “When this is all said and done and we look back on this time of you, Rielle Hunter, the mistress and all of that, what is it you want people to really understand about what has happened here?” Rielle says “All of their feelings that they’re feeling and hatred that’s directed toward me has to do with their fears or their anger and disappointment and sadness about their mother cheating on their father or their father or their husband or their spouse. It has to do with them, and it doesn’t have to do with me, because they don’t know me.” Oprah: Why can’t it just be that they think that it’s wrong? Rielle replies “People can think that it’s wrong for me to do that. They can think it’s wrong for anyone to do that, but it still has to do with them thinking it’s wrong. It doesn’t have to do with me. It’s their judgement… Based upon their life experience, it has to do with them.” Oprah asks What is the lesson in all of this for you? Rielle says “There’s been a lot of them because I have become a better person from the process—more compassionate, more patient, more understanding, more aware. And so has he.” Rielle wants people to know her true authentic self, following her heart. Her intention is never to hurt anyone. Oprah says Do you think you hurt Elizabeth Edwards? Rielle says “I think Elizabeth has been hurt by this whole process. I think Johnny’s been hurt by the whole process. I think everyone in his family has been hurt by the whole process.” Oprah says “That was really good, but you didn’t answer that question. Do you think you hurt her?” Rielle says “Do I think I hurt Elizabeth? You would have to ask Elizabeth that. I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that.” Oprah asks Do you regret being a mistress? Rielle says “No, because I learned a lot. It went against every part of who I am and everything I believe, but I learned so much from it. So I don’t regret it, but I would not repeat it.”

Oprah asks Rielle what her life is like now. Rielle is a full-time mom, Quinn gets child support and John helps support Rielle’s life in her house. Oprah asks one more time the status of their relationship and Rielle says that it is private. Oprah thanks her and they shake hands.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

Rielle Hunter wanted to help John Edwards be more his authentic self so people could see who he really was.

Despite the media scrutiny and Oprah interview, Rielle Hunter is “a really private person” with her personal life.

She believes that you need to get all your ducks in a row and live a life of integrity before you step out into the public.

She does not know if she hurt Elizabeth Edwards or not.

She does not regret anything that happened because she has become a better person from the process—more compassionate, more patient, more understanding, more aware.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

Any issues you may have with the John Edwards/ Rielle Hunter affair/ pregnancy/ cover-up, are to do with you, and that doesn’t have to do with Rielle, because you don’t know her.

Date: May 6th, 2010
File Under: Public Service Announcement, Relationships, Transformation

Episode 63: A Rhodes Scholar, A Convicted Murderer: The Ultimate Twist of Fate

Did you ever wonder how many people have the same name as you and how their lives are different to yours? Actually you can Google to find out names., says Oprah. “When you hear this story, it’s going to turn the way you think about free will and fate upside down,” Oprah says. The similarities are striking. Two boys from Maryland were raised by single mothers in rough neighborhoods. Surrounded by drug dealers, gun violence and gang activity, each man struggled to make a name for himself. The name? Wes Moore. These men may share a name, but they had very different destinies. One Wes Moore is a Rhodes Scholar, a White House fellow and a Wall Street hotshot. The other Wes Moore was convicted of killing a police sergeant and will spend the rest of his days in a 6-by-8-foot prison cell.

As a toddler, Wes, the book’s author, had a loving family, successful parents and a nice home in Maryland. Then, when he was just 3 years old, his life took a dramatic turn. His father died suddenly from a rare virus. Unable to raise three children on her own, Wes’ mother, Joy, moved her family to the Bronx to live with her parents. Crack was just moving into the neighborhood. They saw so much fighting, both dogs and people, and there was a lot of drugs- so much that Wes says that they didn’t even notice it anymore. Joy enrolled her children in a respected private school across town in an attempt to protect them from the drugs and gangs infiltrating their neighborhood. Young Wes soon discovered how hard it was to straddle both worlds. “I was very lost during that period,” Wes says. “I found myself quickly becoming too rich for the kids in the neighborhood and too poor for the kids at school.” Wes became a troublemaker. He says he set off smoke bombs in lockers, skipped school and was even picked up by the police. When Joy realized she was starting to lose her son, she decided to take action. After years of telling Wes she would send him away to military school, she made good on her threat. Wes’ grandparents mortgaged their home so they could afford to send their 12-year-old grandson to a Pennsylvania military school.

“I didn’t want to be there,” Wes says. “I ran away five times in the first four days, but I started to begin to think about why I was there and about the opportunity that this was to really reshape my identity and do something different.”Over the next six years, the troubled teen grew into an academic superstar and community leader. When Wes graduated, he was the highest-ranking student out of 750 military cadets…and his accomplishments didn’t end there. Wes landed an internship with the mayor of Baltimore and earned degrees in international relations and economics from Johns Hopkins University. Then, at age 22, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford.

The semester before Wes left for Oxford, he was studying abroad in South Africa when he heard about another man called Wes Moore. On February 7, 2000, a jewelry store robbery ended with the murder of an off-duty Baltimore police officer, Sgt. Bruce Prothero. Bruce was chasing four armed robbers when he was shot at point-blank range. He left behind a wife and five young children. One of the men wanted in the police officer’s murder was also named Wes Moore. Joy says she was terrified for her son. “There are wanted posters all over our neighborhood looking for ‘Wes Moore,’” she says.

Investigators were on the hunt for four suspects, including a man named Wes Moore and his brother Tony. After 12 days on the run, the Moore brothers were captured. To avoid the death penalty, Tony pled guilty to the shooting and was sentenced to life in prison. The other Wes Moore, a career criminal, claimed he was not at the murder scene, but he eventually was found guilty of first-degree felony murder.

That Wes Moore remains in prison, the other went on to have a very successful career and has written a powerful new book, “The Other Wes Moore.” Oprah welcomes Wes to the studio and congratulates him. Oprah asks him how disconcerting it is to know that the police are looking for someone in your neighborhood with your name? Wes says he was haunted by his criminal counterpart’s story. “It was something I couldn’t escape,” he says. “It was something that just kept on eating at me. I knew I just had to learn more, and I had to understand: How did this happen? How did two kids from similar neighborhoods, from similar type of backgrounds, end up in completely different places?”

Years later, after Wes finished his time at Oxford and began a career in finance, he decided to reach out to the other Wes Moore. “I said: ‘You know what? The fact that this is still eating at me means I need to do something about it,’” he says.In 2005, Wes wrote the other Wes Moore a three-page letter and mailed it to him at the Jessup Correctional Institution. The letter started with a simple introduction: “Dear Wes: Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Wes Moore, and I learned about you through articles in the Baltimore Sun. … The coincidence of us having the same name was what initially caught my attention. But it was the other details that drove me to want to learn more.” The day after he mailed the letter, Wes says he thought he’d made a mistake. “I wasn’t sure how he’d react,” he says. “I thought, in retrospect, even after I wrote the letter I thought my questions seemed odd.”

To his surprise, Wes received a response from the other Wes Moore one month later. “He first just thanked me for reaching out to him. He said, ‘When you’re in here, you think people don’t even know you’re alive anymore,’” Wes says. “He said how much it meant for him to receive that letter, and then he just began to rattle off answers to the questions I asked.” Wes learned more about this convicted murderer’s mother, brother and children. Over time, the first letter sparked dozens more. After exchanging dozens of letters, Wes decided to visit the other Wes Moore in prison. “Having the chance to actually see and sit across from the other Wes Moore was something that was just a completely surreal experience,” he says. When he had to give his photo ID to visit Wes, it was strange to visit someone with the same name who is no relation. He says that you never forget the sounds and feel of a high security correctional facility. At first, Wes says they were cautious around each other. “We were telling each other answers that we thought the other person wanted to hear,” he says. Then, Wes’ questions got more pointed and poignant. Wes asked the other Wes Moore things like, “When did you first know you were a man?” “The time he first realized was when he felt like there were actually other responsibilities that he had on his shoulders,” Wes says. “Then, I remember him throwing the question back at me, and it was a question I hadn’t even really fully thought about yet. I think both of us were talking about … not having fathers in the home.” Oprah thought that was an interesting point- the other Wes Moore said his father chose not to be in his life, while Wes’ father died. He only has two memories of his father, once when he was 3 and he hit his sister and his mom sent him up to his room and his father came up and explained that you don’t hit women, and took him downstairs to apologize. The only other memory he has is when he watched his father die.

The day after receiving his prestigious honor, the Baltimore Sun ran a story about Wes. “they did a piece on my life and my childhood and how I was a local kid who had just received this full scholarship to Oxford,” he says. “But the thing that really hit me was, at the same time, there was a whole series of articles about the murder of a police officer.” One day he decided to write a note to the other Wes Moore. The unlikely relationship started when Wes in prison wrote back, 5 years ago. Oprah shakes Wes’ hand and says that he is a writer too.

Wes set out to discover how two men with similar backgrounds and the same name could lead such different lives. Now, he knows there’s no simple answer. “I think raising children is complicated,” Wes says. “I think particularly in this environment, and particularly for those who grow up in the most precarious communities, it is a very challenging and daunting prospect to raise a child.” Wes credits his family and mentors for his success. “I was so fortunate and lucky to have people in my life who said: ‘You know what, Wes? We’re going to get you across that finish line, kicking and screaming if we need to. But we’re going to get you across that finish line,’” he says. “They were there for support. They were there to give my mother the leverage that she needed.”

Oprah would have thought that he would conclude that he had education and exposure. “I think education taught me critical thinking. I think education showed me a world I never knew existed,” Wes says. “My grandfather used to say that education is like a skeleton key. If you can get that skeleton key, it can open any door. The fact that his grandparents were wise enough to know how important and valuable it was to get him out of the environment. They didn’t give up, and his mom was desperate. Oprah says that she was in Milwaukee for a while with her mother and she got a scholarship to a school in the suburbs, where she was one of two black kids and had to ride the bus home with the maids. It has very hard to straddle these two lives at a time when you are just finding out who you are, she knows how Wes felt.

When Wes ran away from the military school for the 5th time, he ended up in tears in the woods. He was allowed one call home, and he called his mom to ask if he could come back. She said no, because too many people had sacrificed in order for him to be there. He decided that he could give it a shot, and here he is today.

The prison where the other Wes Moore is serving his life sentence denied The Oprah Show’s request for an interview because he’s a convicted murderer and the relatives of the police sergeant did not want him interviewed. “I certainly respect that,” Oprah says.

Oprah started the show by asking what people whose names are shared have different lives. Oprah asks how they are similar? After dozens of meetings and letters, Wes uses his knowledge to speak to the other Wes Moore’s character. “He’s is very similar to a lot of us,” Wes says. “He’s conflicted. He loves his children. He loves his mother.” In fact, Wes says he was surprised to discover how men in such different positions are ultimately more alike than they are different.

“That was actually one of the things I really discovered about Wes as I first got to know him— just how similar we were,” he says. “I realized how passionate he is about his children and how much he wants to help other people who are now in prison.”

One of the most jarring moments in the relationship was when 34 year old other Wes met his 3 year old grandchild. Wes had his first child when he was 16, and his daughter had his grandchild at 16. Wes’ mother had her first child at 15. The cycle has not been broken, says Oprah.

Wes’ book is in bookstores as of today. The Oprah Show asked their mothers how their lives came to be so different. Mary Moore, the mother of the other Wes Moore, says she lost control of her son when he was just a boy. While the single mother worked to support her family, she says her children were left home with little supervision. “I could barely afford to pay bills, nevertheless a babysitter,” she says. Joy Moore needed more support after her husband died so she decided to move to New York. Mary says that “the trouble was here. It was all around, so you couldn’t avoid it.” Joy was trying to shield her son from the drugs around but she was losing the battle. Mary was losing the battle when her son stopped going to school. Mary says her son became involved with drugs and started committing crimes when he was just 11 or 12 years old. “He figured that doing crime, selling drugs was a way out…a way to get the things that we couldn’t afford,” she says.

Joy speaks of the military school threats which became real. Mary couldn’t give her kids the supervision that they needed. Joy says that kids need to think that you care before they care what you think. That was her motivation.

Mary and Joy hug each other on the Oprah stage. Joy says that she has wondered about Mary since the first letter that was shared with her. Joy says the fact that Mary got accepted into John Hopkins as an African American woman and couldn’t go, was a terrible thing to learn. Mary was curious when she heard Wes was trying to find out about her son. Oprah asks her if there were things she could have done differently. Looking back, Mary says she wishes there were some things she’d done differently. “I just wasn’t aware of the options that were out there,” she says. “I didn’t have the resources. I didn’t have the education. I didn’t have the support.” She says that her son is doing well in prison, He is now a muslim, he is mentoring, he has ideas. Mary says that she does think what could have happened to her son if he had turned out more like this Wes. Wes has always claimed that he wasn’t at the crime scene, says Wes in the studio.

Wes in the studio was reluctant to write the book and dig into both of their lives, but he thought about the phrase, “all it takes for evil to conquer is for good people to do nothing.” Wes in jail said that he had wasted all his opportunities. Oprah thinks about how the family of the police sergeant, and what they will feel in this. “I think when you read the book and you understand the stories, you see that in no way is this a glorification,” he says. “There are important lessons that can be learned from this story,” says Wes. The facts that Wes gets one hour of visitors, two hours of outside time, and is away from his family is not glory.

Wes says he certainly learned one chilling truth—the other Wes Moore’s story could have been his. “After doing 200 hours of interviews with Wes and his family and my friends and my family, I realized how little separates us from another life altogether,” he says. “Had it not been for some significant and pretty creative intervention in my life and a lot of luck and support, and quite honestly, some tentative steps in the right direction, I could have easily gone down the wrong path.” Oprah thanks them all.

Oprah asks how much your name changes who you are? Would Oprah still be Oprah if her name was Susie or Jane? Does the name Oprah have anything to do with who she has become? Jim Killeen, an out of work actor, Googled himself, found 24 others with the same name around the world and decided to seek out some of them. He thinks there is something in the human condition that unites them. He hired a camera crew and producer to follow his journey. He meets a retired detective called Jim Killeen in New York, a CEO Jim in Australia, Jim a Catholic priest in Ireland, an engineer in Scotland who also looks like him, St Louis Jim, a father of 8, Jim a self-proclaimed swinger in Denver. In all he met 6 men and asked each of them, what is man’s purpose? Jim in Australia says to find soulful ways of living and being, Jim in St Louis says to serve others, Scottish Jim says to be the best person he can be for his family, Irish Jim says our purpose as human beings is to love.

Oprah asks why that question- Jim says that he asked 30 questions. Oprah asks if he feels a special connection to other people called Jim, and he says yes, he feels like there is a Jim club. Oprah says Jim, John and Mary are all big clubs. He says that Jim Killeen is great because it is a small club. Oprah asks what he learned about himself in the process? He was single and his father had just passed away and along the way he found that people are basically good- it was a self-selective group because the nasty Jim Killeen’s maybe didn’t reply. Oprah says that the journey is a documentary, Google Me, and that anyone can Google themselves.

He asks them about religion, their favorite drink, their age and weight. Oprah asks if it was difficult to track them down. Jim says that it starts off as a rope that gets thinner to a thread and then it breaks and you can’t track down any further. Jim feels that there are universal thing that people have, all the Jims’ wanted to make the world better place. And they were all generous enough to allow him and the film crew into their homes and lives. All seven Jim’s gathered in Killeen, Texas, confusing the receptionist considerably. They didn’t expect to feel such a great connection but they did. They found it was magic. Jim had everyone’s DNA tested and found that the person that he looked least like, the Priest, he was related too. What a world, says Oprah, thanks Jim Killeen.

Oprah had never met anyone called Oprah except for one time in a mall when someone said that her daughter was called Oprah but she didn’t know how to spell it. A few years ago, Oprah met a 12 year old girl, “the other Oprah Winfrey.” Linda Winfrey, her mom, said that she was named after a positive role model. Oprah said that she didn’t like her name as a child, but little Oprah likes her name because Oprah is a great role model. She says that she has always liked her name and she loves school. Little Oprah is now 15 and she still loves her name.

Oprah has a No Phone Zone Pledge check in. Teresa from Boulder Colorado signed last week, and she has started singing in the car again. She thanks Oprah for starting the campaign. Oprah says that we should all sing. Anyone can upload a video with a tip to Oprah.com. Goodbye everybody.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

Oprah reveals that you can Google your name to see if anyone else has the same name.

Support your children and educate them: education is like a skeleton key. If you can get that skeleton key, it can open any door.

Kids need to think that you care before they care what you think.

Would Oprah still be Oprah if her name was Susie?

Maybe the Oprah Show producers have never heard of Dave Gorman.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

Other people share your name! Google them! They are just like you! Or you know, maybe they are not.

Date: April 28th, 2010
File Under: Betrayal, Celebrity, Public Service Announcement, Relationships
2 comments

Episode 57: Accused of Molesting Her, Mo’Nique’s Brother Comes Forward

Academy award winning actress Mo’Nique has been outspoken about being molested by her older brother Gerald. In fact, Mo’Nique told Oprah that she drew from the pain her brother inflicted on her to portray Mary Jones, the vicious and vile mother in Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire, the role that earned her an Oscar. “I knew very well who that monster was. I knew Mary Jones,” Mo’Nique told Oprah. “So when he would say, ‘Action,’ that’s the monster that I became.”

Gerald and Mo’Nique have not spoken for years. For decades, Gerald has denied the claims his sister has made against him and refused all interview requests. A few weeks ago Gerald contacted Oprah and said that he was ready to talk. Before agreeing to do the interview, Oprah says she spoke to Mo’Nique. While she didn’t want to be involved, Oprah says Mo’Nique gave her blessing because if her brother’s account saves another family then it will be worth it.

Oprah asks Gerald why he wants to be here today. “I’m here today to first acknowledge what I’ve been in denial for for 37 years, and that is I did assault and inappropriately touch my sister in manners that were not comfortable for her,” Gerald says. “And for that, I apologize and I’m humbly sorry that those actions had taken place between her and I.” He just wants to say he is sorry to her. He has not spoken to her privately. He says that he is not angry that Mo’Nique has publicly described him as a monster, Gerald says he is happy for her. “I’m proud that she was able to finally get to a place that she could relinquish her pain and relinquish her hurt,” he says. When his sister said that he contributed to her pain so much that she could play the role so magnificently, Gerald had to understand her pain.

Oprah asks if that was the first time that he could acknowledge that? Yes, the first time that he caused pain to her and had pain caused to him when he was molested. He was not aware previously of the pain that he had cause his sister. “I accepted it as being the norm,” he says. He allowed himself to be involved in spiraling acts such as drugs and alcohol. Oprah asks how old he was when he began the abuse, and if he was doing drugs at that age. The abuse started when he was 13, when Mo’Nique was about 7 years old. “I started using cocaine, heroine, alcohol at the age of 11. I used these drugs to hide my own pain.” He never told anyone that he was being abused. Oprah asks if he can share who was abusing him without naming names. “They were all close” he says. Oprah clarifies that there was more than one abuser, yes says Gerald. He did the drugs to hide his own pain and shame. But then he became the perpetrator to abuse his sister. “Fear at that age kept me from acknowledging my own abuse.”

“The drugs weren’t an excuse. They just allowed me and afforded me the opportunity to do the things that were in the back of my mind as a kid that I always wanted to do,” he says. He breaks down a little and apologises to Mo’Nique. He says that it continued for a minute, and Oprah asks what does he mean by a minute. It went on for a year or two, he says. Oprah asks if it was regular. Gerald says “not regularly, but put it this way it happened more than I wanted it to.” Oprah says that one time is too many, and Gerald agrees.

Oprah asks if he told Mo’Nique not to tell. He never said anything to her. “Most of the time, the abuse that I did with my sister took place while she was asleep or the appearance that she was asleep.” In an interview with Barbara Walters, Mo’Nique says that she did not tell her parents until she was 15 because she was afraid. She said the only apology she ever received from Gerald was when he said, “If you think I did something wrong, then I’m sorry.”

Oprah looks at Gerald and asks him what he makes of that. Gerald says he said those words because he couldn’t admit that he had done anything he shouldn’t have. It was denial. He couldn’t admit it to her that he did something wrong. Now he can say that he did it and he is not proud of it and he is sorry. “I can only hope by coming forth today, since I couldn’t reach out to her, that … somewhere along the line with the apology and the truth of it finally coming out after 37 years, that yes hopefully somewhere, somehow as siblings we can come back together as brother and sister and say: ‘You know what? This happened. I’m sorry that it happened. I’m sorry that it happened to you, and that I was the perpetrator, the one that did it to you. However, I understand your pain, I understand your pain. I, too, was there. Now lets share this together and move on.’”

When they were growing up, Gerald says that he and his sister were close, he had her trust which allowed him to abuse her. Gerald guesses that Mo’Nique felt hurt and betrayed but they still had a bond. They were still brother and sister and he thought that everything was great. They kept the abuse a secret. The hardest thing was to admit it and apologise to his parents, it’s a hard thing to tell your parents this. He betrayed everyone’s trust. Today there is no more betrayal and lies, “here I am y’all.”

Mo’Nique says that he used candy to lure her. Gerald says that was not the case. He did not groom her. Oprah says that most abusers groom the children by making them comfortable and gaining their trust with niceness and gifts. There is a calculated process. Oprah thinks it is interesting that Gerald said that he didn’t have to groom- he was the big brother and therefore already had his sister’s trust. Gerald says that he broke that trust and bond. He could be the monster, because the little girl looked up to him.

Oprah asks him about when he partially apologized. He says that he was in denial. Oprah says that he must have been feeling the same things over the abuse that he had suffered, how could he not recognize the feelings that his sister was having? Gerald says that he couldn’t believe that he did it to her. Oprah asks what he felt when he first heard Mo’Nique say that he was the monster. “I’m not the monster, I’m her older brother.” Oprah asks if he sees that it was a monstrous act to a seven year old? Yes, he is bigger and taller than she is so to a child he is a monster. Oprah asks if he watched Precious. Yes, several times, he says that his sister was truly amazing. Oprah says that the first time she saw it she called Mo’Nique and said “you’re going to get an Academy Award for this, get your dress ready.” Oprah asks how it feels to be the fuel for Mo’Nique’s pain in the performance. Gerald says it makes him feel like “a piece of crap.”

Oprah says that she understands that 15 years after molesting his sister, he was convicted of molesting somebody else and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Oprah’s experience has been that when someone molests, it is usually never just one. Gerald says that he has molested two people. He has apologized to the other parties involved. Oprah says that not everyone who has been molested later molests children themselves, she was molested and never has molested children. Oprah asks if his abuse was the reason that he molested. Gerald says “I hid my own molestation and pain and guilt and shame because I thought it was my fault that these things happened to me. So I internalized that and I hid behind the drugs and alcohol and then that spiraling thing in my mind, as a child, I wanted to express my sexuality, so I took it out on my sister.” The drugs allowed him to do what he wanted to do in his mind.

He has larceny, misdemeanor and assault also in his past, Oprah asks if he would say that those years of being molested by others started him on a downward spiraling path. Yes, any person who has something done to them in a humiliating way can spiral down and he was one who lost his way. Oprah mentions the show she just did with child molesters and asks Gerald how he felt when his sister told and he lied and said that it didn’t happen? Gerald says he felt ashamed and that he had betrayed her but he was afraid of what would happen to him so he denied it.

They show the clip of Mo’Nique accepting her award and saying that this is time for anyone who has been touched to tell. In the Barbara Walter special, Mo’Nique says that the last time she saw her brother was when she was in the hospital after she had had the twins. She did not want him to touch her children. Oprah asks Gerald what he remembers about that. Pat of what she is saying is correct, he says. “I went to the hospital to see my nephews Jonathan and David. … I picked up my nephew and held him, and I couldn’t hold him for so long because they were in the incubator, and I gave my nephew back to the nurse,” Gerald says. Later that same day, after he’d left, Gerald says Mo’Nique called him. “She said: ‘You know what? I don’t want you to call me or come see me or be around my boys.’” Gerald says he knew what she was saying but he couldn’t acknowledge it. He didn’t realize that she didn’t want him to be around her children. Oprah says that most people who tolerate abuse know that they do not want the abuser around their own children. Gerald says that he didn’t make that association.

Oprah says that some people may think that he is only doing this to get into the good graces of his sister now that she has an Academy Award. He says that he is doing this to publicly acknowledge what he did and to apologies to his sister. He wants to bring unity back into the family. He wants to give Mo’Nique the apology that she wants and deserves. Now he wants to bring the family back together.

Oprah asks if he would have reached out if his sister had not received an Oscar? She says that Mo’Nique was already famous but getting the world’s attention has made her more famous. Did that have any influence on his decision? He says no.

Mo’Nique said that she was 15 when she told her mother that she was sexually abused by Gerald. Her mother says that Mo’Nique told her that Gerald tried to lay on top of her long ago. Her mother asked Gerald and he denied it. She asks which of your two children do you believe? She told Gerald that he had to leave while she digested this. Mrs. Imes sent Gerald away to live with his grandmother. He returned two weeks later, and it appeared to the family that everything was back to normal. The way it played out was like it never happened. Mr Imes says that the incident never goes away, he sees his son and thinks how could you? Mr and Mrs Imes are in the studio audience, Oprah asks why did they let Gerald come back so soon. Mrs Imes said that she was hurt and had to gather her thoughts. She believed Mo’Nique and let her know that she believed her. She asked Mo’Nique if she needed to talk to someone else to talk and cleanse. Mo’Nique said that she was fine, she just wanted to tell her mom what had happened. Oprah asks if this was at the time- no it was later, Mrs Imes learned of the 7-11 age range of abuse for the first time in Essence Magazine and on Oprah’s show. Mo’Nique told her when she was 15, by which time the abuse had stopped. Gerald came back from the grandmother’s house for a visit and “It was just like we were mad yesterday but today we’re not,” Mrs. Imes says. It was like it was back to normal. Oprah asks Mr Imes if he feels that it was brushed under the rug. He says no, it was talked about. Mrs Imes says that it was hard to accept. Not until recently did they find out that his son had been molested. “You think of behaviors like this, and you accord them to other people, other families,” he says. “When it comes on your doorstep, when it comes into your household, for myself, there was a total state of confusion.” He didn’t know what to do.

Gerald feels that this could have been dealt with in-house, so that it was not publicly exposed. Mrs. Imes says she was hurt when the family secret became public. They have always been a closed family, she was upset for them all. “This is something I felt should have been discussed first privately within the family,” she says. Oprah asks if they were aware as parents of their daughter’s pain and shame and it’s affect on her. No, it was never portrayed, says the mother. That is what we do, says Oprah. Oprah sees that it is interesting to the outside word that Mo’Nique was able to take her pain and release it as an actress. Mrs. Imes says “I only hope with doing this, this can cleanse her heart.”

Mr. and Mrs. Imes say they haven’t spoken to Mo’Nique in two and a half years, but they’re still extremely proud of their daughter’s accomplishments. “I watched in glee. I was happy for her; I was excited for her. I think I was jumping and hollering more than the audience that was there,” Alice says. “For the Golden Globe, for the NAACP, for the Oscar. I’ve always been very, very proud.” Oprah asks if all this is the reason that they haven’t spoken for so long. No, Gerald has nothing to do with this, says Mrs Imes, with Mo’Nique choosing to separate herself from the family. Oprah says that she is not in the family, but certainly Gerald has something to do with this, it is all connected. Today, yes, Mrs Imes nods.

Steven, Gerald and Mo’Nique’s brother, is in the audience. He says “that this isn’t what it looks like. It’s been blown out of proportion. We’ve always been a close-knit family and after the molestation, Gerald and Mo’Nique resumed a good brother and sister relationship.” Gerald has always supported Mo’Nique and come to her aid in any and every way that he possibly could. Steven does not want the world to see that Gerald is a monster. He says that Gerald has always tried to make amends and has done an excellent job in doing so, up to this point in his life. “Which is why he has not said so. He is confused as to what has taken place between then and now for her to come out like this, that’s where the confusion lies. So as you are sitting looking at me smiling, this family is not in the turmoil that it is portrayed to be.”

Oprah says that statistically 1 out of 4 girls has been molested or touched by the time that they reach adulthood. Oprah knows that she is not alone in the room. Gerald asks Oprah to do him a favor- “not just girls’ he says. Oprah says that she is beginning to understand that more males are being molested than we realize. But the truth is that it is confusing. It is your brother or neighbor or auntie, whoever it is. The truth is that you are trying to put on your ok face when you still have that hurt, pain or shame. It is confusing to the person who has been abused and the person who is abusing. There are mixed messages because you still have to get on with and live with that person. Mr Imes says that he is not excusing the behaviour, but when did Gerald become a monster? Oprah says the first time that he laid a hand on Mo’Nique inappropriately. Mr Imes says that he witnessed the behaviors after this went on with her big brother. Mo’Nique would still ask for help from her big brother. This confuses him, the behaviors that went on for the rest of their lives.

Oprah says that it is difficult, but that she’ll say this one thing. Oprah was abused by several people, one of whom was one of her uncles. Years later she was in her father’s house and her uncle was there and Oprah made breakfast and scrambled eggs for her abuser. As an adult with her own talk show she said to herself, what the hell am I doing acting as if nothing happened? The reason she went along with this, which is probably the same for Mo’Nique and millions of others, is that you go along because that is what the family wants you to do. Gerald says stop, that is not what they want Mo’Nique to do. Gerald understands her pain, he was there. He didn’t go along with his perpetrators. Everyone is different says Oprah, everybody does the best they can in the moment. Oprah asks Gerald where he is now with his life.

He says that he has learned with his spiritual advisor to live in the power of the now, to stay in the now. Oprah loves that. “It’s not about what you did yesterday. It’s not about what you did 10 minutes ago. It’s not about what you did a week ago. It’s about what have, what you are, right here, right now,” he says.

Oprah asks Gerald how will he feel when he leaves the show that everyone who has been molested, if this has happened to you, “holler, scream, shout.. Knock the door down, make it happen.” Oprah shakes his hand and thanks him for calling her. She thanks the family and the Bishop for his spiritual guidance, “that’s what got you here, you can’t do it without the spirit,” she says. Go to Oprah.com to join the No Phone Zone team. April 30th is the special No Phone Zone event, join Oprah then. Well done, she says to Gerald. After a short pause the audience politely applaud.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

Big brothers do not have to groom little sisters before molestation, they already have their trust.

Most people who tolerate abuse in their own lives know that they do not want the abuser around their own children.

The pain and shame following abuse may not be apparent to those on the outside, this does not mean that it does not exist.

Everybody does the best they can in the moment to get through, everybody deals with the pain and shame of abuse in their own way.

You can break the cycle. Do not abuse if you have been abused.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

Mo’Nique was sexually abused by her older brother Gerald who now has a spiritual advisor and wants to apologize and say he feels her pain.

Date: April 26th, 2010
File Under: Marriage, Public Service Announcement, Relationships, Tragedy
2 comments

Episode 55: Stay Alive

Oprah would like us to listen to a tape recording of a 38 year old woman stuffed in a garbage can with duct tape around her wrist, ankles and face. The operator asks what she needs and the woman reports she is in the back of a green Dodge 4×4 and her husband is trying to kill her- she’s in the back of the car and doesn’t know where she is going. The operator asks if she is handcuffed and she says that she is bound by masking tape.

That was the frantic voice of Teri, a mother of two who should be dead but survived, says Oprah. Oprah is so tired of seeing headline after headline of women hurt or killed at the hands of their abusive partners. Based on the statistics, Oprah assumes everyone is with, or knows someone who is with, a man who is capable of becoming violent. That is why she is really happy to have Gavin De Becker back who has advised everyone from the CIA to World Leaders on how to be more safe. His book, which he wrote 10 years ago “The Gift of Fear”, is a gift that Oprah thinks everyone should give their daughter. Gavin says when a man kills his spouse or girlfriend, it is often predictable and preventable. He has developed MOSAIC, a new tool that will save lives. Oprah welcomes him back. This is his passion in life, if he was to be killed by a bus tomorrow, this is the thing which he would be most proud of, he says. It is artificial intuition, basically. It takes the factors of a situation and breaks them down, and sees the pieces of the puzzle and puts them back together so a woman can see the full picture for the first time. Say a woman is interviewed by the police and she says, yes he hits me but only after he has been drinking, or yes he is sexually abusive but only after a hard day at work, with MOSAIC there is no way to back away from the issues, they are addressed one by one. The early versions were used to assess threats for justices or the CIA, and all of a sudden it hit Gavin that these people were not getting attacked very often and he thought that the strategy should be made available to women, as one is killed by a partner every 4 hours. Oprah says that the stories we see on the news again and again scare women; being abducted or attacked by a stranger, but most are killed by someone that they know. Particularly women, says Gavin. If you look at the 3100 women who are killed each year in the US, the majority are killed by a husband or boyfriend. You can use the MOSAIC questionnaire for yourself or on behalf of someone else, it is totally anonymous. The link is on Oprah.com, it is a series of 48 questions which help assess how much of a threat an abuser poses to a family.

What is so interesting to Oprah after many interviews with domestic abuse victims, is that women always says that he doesn’t hit, but he does push- there is something that makes women think it is ok as long as there is no actual hitting. Gavin says that this is just one of the indicators- others include symbolic violence (tearing up wedding pictures or gowns), another is the pace of the relationship- when it is accelerated in the beginning that is a control strategy, another is persistence. We often confuse perseverance and persistence. Perseverance is good, but persistence does not mean that you are special, but that he is controlling. Oprah never forgot The Gift of Fear (which is now on Kindle and all women should read), if you say no to anyone in any situation and the other person persists, then you should ask why are they trying to control me. Gavin says that anyone who persists after no, be it salesperson or 2 year old, they are trying to control you. Gavin says that when a man says no it is the end of the discussion, when a woman says no it is the beginning of a negotiation. A man learns that if you buckle at the beginning of a relationship, it can cycle on- he learns that your no does not mean no, it means start the negotiation. Oprah says wow, how fantastic to have that information.

Terri, the caller in the 911 call earlier, is what Gavin calls a textbook example of how an abusive relationship can escalate to homicide. First, see what happened when Teri took Gavin’s MOSAIC test the other day. Teri answers the questions revealing the situation prior to her being beaten with a baseball bat and shoved into a garbage can and left for dead. She had a restraining order and a divorce… MOSAIC expresses results on a scale out of 10- Teri’s situation was ranked at a 9. Had he abused alcohol, a serious factor, it would have been a 10, says Gavin. Oprah asks Gavin if he agrees that Teri sitting here is a miracle. He says it is. He says it is chilling and macabre but the reality is they study thousands of women who are killed; he has never interviewed someone who basically was killed- only by medical intervention and great policework is she alive. Oprah welcomes Teri and says that she knows that the story will save many people. They will probe into Teri’s story so that the audience can apply that information into their life.

Teri, a mother of three, came dangerously close to becoming a statistic. When she met David, she thought he was the perfect mate for her, “Good job, churchgoing, fun-loving, wanted kids,” she says. “What else could I ask for?” After three months of dating, Teri says David started talking about marriage. “I wasn’t really ready for that. It was too soon. But he persisted and persisted, so of course I said yes.”

Teri had doubts before the wedding. Her parents and friends saw the warning signs, and she did too but she didn’t want to acknowledge them.

On her wedding day, Teri says her dad asked her to reconsider. “He turned to me and said, ‘We can turn around and walk out the door,’” she says. “I thought to myself, ‘It’ll be fine.’ She thought once they were married, everything would work out well.

Teri and David’s Hawaiian honeymoon should have been paradise.. “Probably about the second day we got into a dumb little argument about what to wear on a hike. He said: ‘I’m your husband. You listen to me. You do what I say,’” she says. “Because I said no to him, I got a couple blows to my head with the palm of his hand.” Teri says she tried to write the incident off as a fluke. “Maybe that’s all the stress that was built up from getting married,” she says. She thought maybe she could make it all better.

Oprah says that nothing that she says here today is meant to be in judgement of Teri, Teri nods. Oprah knows that Teri is here to help people. Before the wedding, Teri thought: ‘I don’t know if I want to do this. I’ve seen his temper. My parents told me they didn’t like him. He wasn’t very respectful to my parents or to his own parents. And I saw this. But being the type of person I am, I thought ‘Well, I’ll marry him and I’ll fix it. I’ll make him happy. He’ll be a better person when he’s married to me.’ I fooled myself.” Oprah asks Gavin to walk us through the red flags. First Gavin says that “being the type of person I am” is now the type of person that Teri was. Now she has the courage to do what she is doing. Intuition is there, showing the warning signs. Teri knew that things were not right. It is not typical for a father to say that they can leave just before the wedding. Gavin says there’s a big difference between cold feet and running for your life. “If you say: ‘I don’t know if I’m ready. I don’t know if I want to be in a marriage,’ that’s a different animal from: ‘I have fear. I have fear of this person,’” he says. There’s no role for fear in marriage. Fear is the real indicator there. The other thing is the profoundly accelerated pace. You don’t have to do it if it is too fast.

Oprah asks Teri what questions stood out for her when she took the MOSAIC test. The huge standout for her was, Does he take responsibility for his actions. He never did, with her, his job, with anything in his life he always blamed others. Oprah says that she never gets the moment that you are hit it is humiliating and degrading- what did Teri tell herself to overcome that? Teri says “The first thought that came into my mind was, ‘I’m leaving,’ But he had the flight tickets. He had the credit card. He had everything. I felt sort of stuck.” “But then I started thinking, logically, ‘Well, my parents don’t want to come down to Hawaii and get me.’” Then she thought maybe she’ll listen t him and do what he wants next time to make him happy and then it won’t happen.

Oprah asks if her danger signs went off. The first thing she did was to pick up the phone to call the police but she didn’t know if 911 worked in Hawaii. Gavin says all her original instincts were correct. “So it comes up into your mind, which is a total gift, these ideas, these plans, and then we start to debate and prosecute our own ideas and go through this process that lets us stay in situations we don’t want to be in.”

Oprah says that Teri was divorced, is it true that most spousal murders happen after the spouse leaves? Absolutely, Gavin says, most spousal murders happen after the woman leaves. “About 77 percent of the time,” he says. “That’s why you need help because separation, estrangement, that’s the time that the homicides happen.” Oprah asks if the situation escalated after the divorce? Teri says yes, it continued to escalate. “We had police intervention many times. We shared custody of our two daughters, so there was always that back and forth. We always had to see one another,” she says. “The name-calling, the hitting—it just continued to get worse and worse. The thumbing the nose at the court orders. Anything he could possibly do to stay in control and to say, ‘I am in charge.’”

Oprah asks Gavin to address what people should do when they have to communicate- when there has to be contact because of the children. Gavin says that it has to be addressed and it does not lend itself well to a magazine article or TV show. The biggest message Gavin can share is you cannot do this entirely alone. The good news is you don’t have to, there are resources such as thehotline.org and women shelters in the community. Often it is the last place women want to to go to, but it is like an emergency room- you go when you have to. A battered women’s shelter knows what to do about the kids and the bank account and the emergency plan. They can help. One of the things we often hear is “I was hit” and people ask if it is a clue. It is not a clue, it is the conclusion, it is the end of the mystery. Being hit says that it is over and done. Being hit does not work in relationships and it does not usually get better. It is a rare circumstance that it happens once only and the relationship improves, says Gavin.

Oprah says that we often mistake control for being really loved- Gavin says abusers are typically controlling and exercising complete control means giving the other person a lot of attention. “We’re brought up to think attention equals love,” he says. “Control doesn’t equal love.”

Gavin De Becker has used his thirty plus years in the security business to help women find out if they are at risk of being murdered by an abuser. One Saturday, January 31, 2004, five years after her divorce, Teri drove to her ex-husband David’s Wisconsin house to pick up the girls. When she arrived, David told Teri the girls were playing hide-and-seek and invited Teri inside, which seemed odd. Oprah says that the funny feeling Teri had about that is like a little whisper to says that is strange or odd. This is what can happen when you ignore it.

“My gut was saying, ‘Why is he letting me come in his house?’” Teri says. “Right away I knew, this is kind of weird. He hasn’t allowed me in his house since the day I left. But I was cold. My car was running out of gas,” she says. “Most of all, my kids were hiding. They wanted me to come find them, and I didn’t want to disappoint them.” She overlooked, and talked herself out of, that feeling. “I walked into the foyer, and I remember saying, ‘Gee, I wonder where they are?’” she says. “And, bam, a blow to the back of the head.” Teri says David continuously struck her with a baseball bat, numerous times. “He said: ‘You always said I abused you. Now you can see what abuse really is.” When he was trying to strangle Teri. “He was saying: ‘Go to sleep. Just go to sleep. Just stop breathing,’” she says. “He was mad again that he was ordering me to stop breathing and I wasn’t.”

Teri says David then duct-taped her wrists and ankles and her entire face. “He then had this big garbage can. I could feel he was putting me in it,” she says. “I’m bleeding everywhere. I’m in this garbage bin, and he’s filling it up with snow. What started going through my head was, ‘I’m going to die today.’”

Oprah asks what happened next. Teri says she didn’t die. “He put me on the back of his truck and actually he went back in the house and I knew it had to be to get the kids,” she says. “Knowing that they were 4 and 6, it would take a few minutes.” Remembering she had her cell phone in her pocket, Teri managed to dial 911. She tells people to practice dialing 911 with their eyes closed. “It took just a few minutes and I heard sirens. But by that time, he came back to the truck, started it up and we were on our way,” she says. The police were looking at his home for something and didn’t know that we were on the road. “I heard the sirens pass me right up.” Teri didn’t know but when she was in the back of the truck, David went to Milwaukee and dumped her car. He went through a drive through and had the girls in the cab at the front. “At one point I thought, ‘I’m going to stick my hand out, because the lid wasn’t on the garbage can, and somebody is going to see a hand hanging out and call the police,” she says. “His truck stopped after that. He came back. I was either hit in the head with a baseball bat or kicked.” At that point her phone rang, she doesn’t know who called and none of her friends will admit to it. “He took the phone. He got back in the cab, drove around. I was blacking in and out. I had no idea how long it was.”

As she learned later, David had driven across state lines to Illinois and stopped at a storage locker. She was lifted up inside the garbage can and dragged into the locker. He left her inside an unheated storage locker in January. “All I remember is boxes and all these things being slid against the floor,” she says. “I had no idea where I was.” Teri says intuition told her to play dead. Then, Teri says David stacked anything he could on top of and around the garbage can. “There was no way I was getting out of there,” she says. She heard the door closed and figured that he had left. Teri was trapped for more than 20 hours in the freezing cold. Doctors estimate Teri only had an hour left to live when she was discovered—her body temperature dropped to 84 degrees.

Det. Chris Schooling was one of the police officers on the case and he is in the audience. Oprah asks how they found Teri. He says there was an amber alert put out. Authorities were tipped off by Teri’s first call, which they interpreted as a woman who had difficulty breathing. The deputies made forced entry into the home and they saw signs of struggle and some blood. Interviews with neighbors escalated suspicion as one reported seeing Teri’s car hitched to David’s truck. An Amber Alert was issued. David was arrested at work right after leaving Teri in the storage locker. Teri eventually lost all of her toes to frostbite. Oprah asks what happened after he was picked up. “He’s picked up, and he’s real matter of fact,” Det. Schmaling says. David was very articulate, they told him that ‘There’s an Amber Alert. Where’s your wife? Where’s your kids?’ and he said, ‘I just dropped my children off at Elmwood Park, Illinois, to a girlfriend’s house’ and hasn’t seen Teri since the Wednesday prior.”

Oprah asks Gavin how women can stay safe if they still have to see their exes because of the children. Gavin says that it is the toughest question. Gavin says all abuse cases are tough, but it’s even more difficult to leave when there are children involved. Seek help, Gavin says. Women looking to leave a violent situation with their children can turn to TheHotline.org, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-SAFE) or contact a local battered women’s shelter. “There is no other way to develop all that you’d have to do,” he says. “It’s like going into the witness protection program. There are so many parts to an escape plan.”

Oprah says that the most important thing to say to women in this situation is that you have to have a plan, and the shelters and hotlines will help you to get a plan. Gavin says that a relationship that is difficult to be in, will also be difficult to exit. That leverage is often used to keep women in by the men. Most often, women are told that they will be killed if they leave. It takes courage and you can not do it alone.

Oprah says that what most people didn’t realise is that the option is you will be killed if you leave or you will die a little every day that you stay. Gavin says that he interviewed a woman who said that she feared she might be killed. Gavin said that he asked what advice the woman would give her teenage daughter, and she said she would tell her daughter to leave. The woman didn’t know what the difference between her and her daughter was- Gavin told her that the teenager has the mother and the mother does not have herself. She had lost herself so much.

Oprah asks Det. Schooling how they found David. After six hours of interrogation, which was basically begging and pleading on the part of the police, David wouldn’t tell them. David asked for a break at 3.30am—and detectives went through his wallet, which was packed with business cards. “He goes back to his cell, wraps himself in a warm blanket and falls fast asleep. Unbeknownst to us, she’s lying there dying,” he says. “So we go back, we take a look at this wallet, we find a business card. That business card is to a storage facility in Wheeling, Illinois.” They were suspicious that a Racine County, Wisconsin man had a storage locker in Illinois. Wow that is good detective work says Oprah. The crowd applaud. Det. Schmaling and his partner, Det. Keith Dobesh, called the number on the card. “The storage facility said he had been there the prior day,” Keith says. “They had gone out to the unit, and they had actually heard her voice inside the unit pleading for help.” Wow, says Oprah. They told the facility to hang up and call 911 and that is when they found her.

Wow, says Oprah. She asks Gavin what we learn from this. As always the message is to listen to your intuition. “We learned that being out of a relationship, particularly if there’s custody and children, you’re not really out of it. You’re just out of it on paper,” he says. “Getting truly out of it takes a lot of work and a lot of effort, and you can’t do it alone.” Oprah asks if you are ever truly out of it when someone is violent. In cases where men don’t let go and persist, there are cases where women relocate to different states. It is like the Witness Protection Program. There are so many extreme answers, and we look for the simple answers. Questions are complicated, not simple, especially when you have kids. “The best thing is identifying these warning signs before you get into relationships and before you get kids, when it’s possible,” he says. Oprah says that she never forgot from Gavin’s book, that we are the only animals who will have that feeling of intuition and walk into the fear. Any other animal without reason or thinking will leave. Gavin says that an antelope does not go and check if a lion is in the bush, if he feels it is the case. That is where it is about instinct says Oprah. It is about intuition and respecting your opinion and recognizing that your opinion is as valid as his opinion, says Gavin. Which is not how it culturally works.

Oprah asks Gavin what Teri could have done to prevent this form happening. Gavin says that earlier in the relationship, it would have be eneasier to end it. “At those times, the men are usually less invested emotionally. It’s much easier to end a relationship early than it is to end it later on because of that emotional investment.” Gavin says, “I often say the first time a woman is beaten, she is a victim. And the second time, she is a volunteer,” he says. “That’s a very controversial thing for some people because they think I’m blaming the victim. But what I’m actually doing is saying, ‘If you don’t recognize that staying in that relationship is a choice, you’ll never recognize that leaving the relationship is a choice.’” Staying in a relationship for a long time is the number one thing that people can do differently. A lot of people believe that they can’t leave. The history of marriage is about property, the woman is the man’s property. Gavin had a case recently where a 24 year old man was having sex with a 17 year old girl. He is going to do 28 years in prison because of that, if she had been 18 there would be no crime, because at 18 you don’t belong to your father anymore- you are your own property. Gavin is not saying that marriage is bad, he likes marriage but he does not own his wife, he does not own his kids. The culture says that she doesn’t have the freedom when she is married, she is led to believe. There was a part of Teri that believed David when he said she was married now to him and that he was in charge. It’s like you are bought and paid for, says Teri. Wow, says Oprah.

David is now serving a life sentence for kidnapping and attempted murder. (The crowd applaud) Though he’s behind bars, Teri says she still fears him. “He’s an angry, bitter person that will never ever change,” she says. He is not trying to be a better person. Teri says he never showed any remorse in court. “The judge even said to him, ‘Would you like to say anything?’ And he said, ‘Not at this time.’ And the judge said, ‘This is your time,’” she says. “He didn’t even have the decency to get up and say, ‘I don’t care about Teri, but I’m sorry what I did to my kids.’” Nothing. Thank you Teri, your story is going to save some people today, says Oprah. Oprah is glad that Teri is alive to tell her story.Oprah says so many women stay because they say that he is doing this to me but he cares about the kids, what does Gavin have to say about that? Gavin says that a relationship that is violent is not good for anyone. As a young girl sees her mother receive those blows, so is she likely to in the future. As a young boy sees the father deliver those blows, so is he likely to. That is what you are teaching your kids. Kids don’t do what you say, they do what you do, says Oprah. Thank you Teri and Mr De Becker, says Oprah. Gavin’s cutting edge MOSAIC assessment is available to everybody watching today for free, it may save a life. Go get this book, the Gif of Fear, it is a must read. Everybody in the audience gets a copy (they cheer). Oprah also says that she sounds like a nag but make your car a no-phone zone. Bye everybody.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

If you say no to anyone in any situation and the other person persists, then you should ask why is that person trying to control you.

When a man says no it is the end of the discussion, when a woman says no it is the beginning of a negotiation.

There’s no role for fear in marriage.

Your instincts are a gift, follow them.

A relationship that is difficult to be in, will also be difficult to exit.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

We are the only animals who will ignore our intuition and walk into the fear: every 4 hours a woman in the US is killed by her partner.

Date: April 9th, 2010
File Under: Marriage, Relationships

Episode 50: In The Bedroom: Sex Therapy With Dr Laura Bergman

Way back in 1993 one of the earlier topics of the Oprah Show was called My Love Life is Deader Than a Doornail. Based on the emails she has been receiving, Oprah thinks it is time to revisit that topic. The Oprah Show is sending their resident sex expert, Dr. Laura Berman into the trenches to see where it all goes down—or doesn’t—inside bedrooms across America. Before they get into it, now is a good time to send young children out of the room so they won’t be asking “Mommy, what is a vagina?”, says Oprah.

Shayna and her husband, Dan, have been married for eight years. Oprah says that when the team first saw them they thought there is no way that this cute young couple are not having lots of good sex. But Shayna says that it is so bad that she doesn’t even want to kiss her husband. So they sent Dr Berman in, take a look.

Shayna 32 has been married to Dan for 8 years. Dr Berman arrives at their house. They have 3 kids between them already, they are a mixed family. “There was a lot of chemistry when we first got together,” Shayna says. “We couldn’t get our hands off each other.” Since getting married, though, Dan says the sex has dwindled. “In the beginning, we’d probably have sex a couple, or a few times a week,” he says. “Then that week turned into two weeks turned into probably two, three times a month.” Shayne is sad that her relationship has come to this. One of the biggest obstacles in Shayne and Dan’s sex life is that Shayna doesn’t like kissing, on the mouth or anywhere else. “It makes me feel repulsed,” she says. “It makes me feel disgusted, and it makes my skin crawl.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, Dan has started to take this personally. “It makes me wonder sometimes if it is me—if she’s just not into me, or if she’s not into me or turned on by me anymore or if I’m lacking somewhere,” Dan says. Dr Berman asks what would happen if she asked them to go kiss somewhere. Shayna wouldn’t want to. She wants to want to but doesn’t understand why she doesn’t want to. “Foreplay consists of Shayna having her vibrator and me sitting there pretty much waiting till she’s ready to have sex, “ says Dan. Dr Berman asks about manual foreplay or massage. That’s ok, she says, she likes massage. Dan says that his wife will barter for massage. “If I give her a massage, she’ll have sex,” Dan says. Dr Berman asks what else they barter for sex. “Just everyday things that I don’t like to do” says Shayna, like making their three children’s sandwiches or filling the gas tank. “It’s like, if I have to do a chore, then you have to do a chore.”

Back in the studio, Oprah says to Dan that hearing his wife say that she is repulsed by kissing, what does that feel like? Dan says it is the first time he heard that but it doesn’t make him feel good, he doesn’t know if it’s his looks… Oprah says “you’re cute”. “Thank you Oprah,” says Dan, ”you’re beautiful. We’ll talk,” says Dan. They laugh, Oprah says OK, later. Shayna hasn’t always hated kissing, she says. “I remember that person that I used to be, that couple we used to be, and I really didn’t understand what had happened over the years,” she says. Oprah says that is unusual- because she likes kissing, and most women do. But often women don’t want to kiss because it leads to foreplay. Dr Berman says that kissing is a big part of most women’s libido. Oprah says that the first thing that Dr Berman does with couples is to take a sexual history, just like a doctor would take your medical history. It took some digging to find what was at the core of Shqyna’s problems in the bedroom. There is always something.

“I grew up with just my mom and my sister, so there was no man in the house at all,” Shayna says. “I was 14 at the time I remember her meeting her husband now, and it was very difficult because I just remember them going on dates or her even just laughing with someone else, and I felt betrayed. … I felt like it was disgusting. I didn’t want to think about it. I was angry.”

Dr Berman asks if she can integrate being a mom and a sexual being, can she be both? Shayna says she doesn’t know how to integrate both being a mother and a sexual being. She wants to be able to do both. Dr Berman asks how her need to be seen as the perfect mom by those around her plays out in her sex life? Shayna is not able to let go and allow herself to be a sexual person. “I feel like I would destroy their worlds. Like they would think that’s disgusting or gross,” she says. “I don’t want to be responsible for them ever feeling mad.”

Dr. Berman says that Shayna is giving her kids everything that she didn’t have, and the reason that she was traumatized by her mom’s sudden sexuality was because you lost her. She asks if her kids will lose her? Never, says Shayna. “I’m not saying that any child should see their parents having sex or know the details of their sex life, but the best family structures, the best relationships that children experience, is the balance,” Dr. Berman says.

To allow your children seeing you being intimate, not having sex but kissing and touching and loving is the way that they grow up and apply that back to themselves says Oprah. “You’re their model of what a loving, intimate relationship is. So, you don’t want them knowing the details of your sex life, but to have a sense of the sensual and sexual chemistry between their parents is important.” Says Dr. Berman. What makes Shayna feel safe is her false sense of control of everything around her, including Dan, says Dr. Berman. Oprah says that a lot of women use having sex, or not, as a form of control.

After four hours of therapy, to start the work of getting intimate again, Dr. Berman gave Dan and Shayna two shared homework assignments. Assignment #1 was to spend 15 minutes kissing, with no sex. Assignment #2 was to spend time talking. Not about the kids or the roof or chores… Shayna thinks they’ll have nothing to talk about. They went out to dinner and talked about what they appreciate about each other and their fantasy vacation. They had a great time. Shayna has a foreboding feeling about the kissing homework. She tries to center herself to get out of the routine. Two minutes later they give up. “It was a big failure,” Shayna says. She doesn’t know if she should fake it because it still makes her feel gross and she doesn’t know how to get over that. Dan is frustrated because Shayna gave up so quickly.

Back in the studio, Oprah asks who initiated the kiss. Dan said that they went to the bedroom. Shayna says that “I was supposed to initiate the kiss when I was ready. He was holding me and right away I started to feel pressure because I felt out of control. I had this flood of emotion. I started to think about all of the things riding on this moment.” Oprah notes the control issue. “The way I soothe myself is I try to find things that I can control, so the only thing I can control is being a good mom, because that’s the story in my mind of who I am. That’s where I feel safe. … I thought about my kids, and then I felt disgusted and I couldn’t even lift my face up to his.” Dr. Berman says that they figured out that Shayna likes kissing but is afraid of being turned on by her husband. In her mind she feels that if she is turned on then her children will lose her, because that is what happens with her mom.

Shayna and Dan’s second homework assignment was to take a field trip with Dr. Berman. The strategy was that Dan will help Shayna confront her deepest fears. It will help with control issues and let her put more trust in Dan. She is asking them to climb the rock wall. “When I walked in and saw the rock wall and realized I was going to be climbing it, I thought I was going to faint,” Shayna says. Shayna said to Dan that she can’t do this either, she is ruining everything. Shayna tells Dr. Berman that she is really afraid of heights, she can’t even look at the climbing wall. Dr. Berman says this is a symbol of their relationship. Shayna is getting mad and scared and blocking out her husband and everything around her. She is going to let Dan literally support her. Dr. Berman says that it is ok to cry. Shayna is literally supported by her husband- Dan holds the harness so she can’t fall. Shayna and Dr. Berman climb the wall together. After a few steps, Shayna says that it is not as hard as she thought it would be. Dr. Berman tells her to let go, she cries, she holds Dr. Berman’s hand. She is afraid to come down. Dan gently lowers her down, and she hugs Dan at the ground. Dr. Berman says that the transfer of control to Dan is really important and healthy for their relationship and that this will translate into their sex life. Dan and Shayna kiss.

Shayna says that she feels really good right now, really free and that words can’t express how she feels. She did something that she didn’t think she could do. Before she was so afraid she couldn’t look at it, but now she sees after doing it that it is just a wall. “A wall is just a wall, a kiss is just a kiss” says Dr. Berman. She already gave me one, says Dan. She wanted to, this was something they did together, this was so cool, says Shayna.

Oprah asks what just happened. Dr. Berman says that when people are stuck emotionally, they talk but often finding a physical manifestation of the problem makes a connection for them. In Shayna’s case she had to put her trust in Dan and let go, and she didn’t fall, she actually let go. That is huge, says Dr. Berman. Of course not all their problems are solved but a huge lightbulb just went off. Oprah recaps that Shayna was repulsed a couple of days earlier, was she not thinking about the kiss? “It literally felt like a spiritual awakening. I had not been able to let go for so long, and physically letting go, I was able to see what was on the other side, and it felt like freedom,” she says. What is on the other side says Oprah? Freedom, I felt empowered, like a different person says Shayna. From letting go of a rockwall, says Oprah. Isn’t that amazing says Dr. Berman? Yes, where is that rockwall? replies Oprah.

Dr Berman asked them to repeat the kissing for 15 minutes assignment. Yesterday’s homework was an A+ says Dan, it went really well adds Shayna. Dr Berman asks why they are smiling. They had sex this morning says Shayna. You cheated says Dr. Berman. But I wanted to, says Shayna. She says that she’s feeling happy for the first time in forever and she wanted to live in this moment. Dr. Berman says that they might slip back a little now that they will go back to routine but she is thrilled that things are coming together so quickly for them. Oprah asks why they weren’t supposed to have sex. Because they had such a dysfunctional pattern of sex, it was about bartering- they were having sex but were not physically or emotionally together. Dr. Berman likes to take sex out of the equation in these instances so that the couple can build a renewed relationship. In this case, she would have been happy if they had kissed. She was surprised that there was enough of a release in Shayna that she could cheat on her homework. Oprah asks what was different this time. Shayna said she stopped seeing things through the eyes of her children. “I think I finally realized that I am allowed to be Shayna outside of mother. I’m allowed to be a wife,” Shayna says. “It doesn’t mean I don’t love my children, and it doesn’t mean I’m not going to be there for them. Just that physical release of control to me felt so empowering that I was able to let go.” Oprah asks if the sex was different this time… Dan nods. Oprah recounts that at the beginning of the show Dan said he would sit and wait while Shayna used the vibrator, so when she was almost at orgasm he would say ok I guess it is my turn. Right, says Shayna. How was it different? Dan said it started with a kiss straight after the wall, lots of kissing, lots of foreplay. Shayna was able to relax and enjoy it, be in the moment with the feelings. Dr. Berman says. “Their work is just beginning because they made this huge breakthrough, but now it’s about keeping the momentum going, especially now that they’re back in their regular lives and she’s back in mommy mode. That’s when the real work begins, to be able to keep the mommy mode going, feel good about that and to keep being Shayna and to keep being a wife.” Thanks so much to Shayna and Dan says Oprah, that was very brave of them to let us into their private life.

Last year the New York Times reported that married couples have sex 58 times a year—that’s a little more than once a week. They also found that 15 percent of people say they aren’t having sex more than ten times a year. On average, Dr. Laura Berman says sexless marriages are the number one problem she sees in her couples therapy practice. Linda and Doug say they’ve had sex only a handful of times over the past five years, and they’ve had no sex at all for the past two years.

Before Dr. Berman arrives at their house, Linda says that she is feeling a little nervous. Doug wants to make sure that they get something out of it. Linda is 39 and has been married for nine years to Doug and they have three children. There’s a connection with her husband that is lost because they are not having sex and they want to change that. “The dynamic of our sex life changed after we got married just because more things started getting into our lives,” Doug says. Linda says. “I feel like we’re living two separate lives caring for our three boys,” she says. “It’s hard to see the man that I originally fell in love with.” They chat with Dr. Berman in their bedroom. It’s been 2 1/2 years since they had sex. Doug feels removed from his wife. 2 1/2 years ago they conceived their third child. “I want to feel that he’s attracted to me, that he’s excited to be with me,” Linda says. “I questioned whether I was still attracted to Doug.” Doug says he’s questioned whether his wife is still attractive “It’s like she’s so worn down she’s just trying to get through the day,” he says. Linda is very concerned about the future. Dr. Berman says that they sit next to each other but it is almost like there is this invisible wall between them. They don’t touch, there is no physical connection happening. “If this doesn’t get fixed, I think our marriage is at stake” says Dug.

Oprah asks how the weeks turned into months turned into 2 1/2 years without sex? Doug says that you alllow yourself to focus on how busy you are and the kids and you stop talking and get separated from each other. You almost kind of lose track of how you did it,” Doug says. “Before it was so natural, so easy. We really wanted the connection.” Oprah asks if it was spoken of- yes, says Doug but it was an angry conversation. “When it was spoken of, it wasn’t productive at all,” she says. Dr. Berman says that there was a lot of blame and anger and they were both pointing fingers at each other. “When we spent time together, it was a lot of those logistics: ‘Who’s doing what? What do we have to get done?’ You know, kind of domestic stuff,” Doug says. Linda says that they ended up getting used to it.

Dr. Berman asks Doug how things work physically. He says that things still work but that Linda seems a little disinterested. Things still work but not at the level they used to. He finds that Linda seems critical of the process which is hard to deal with. Dr. Berman asks Linda about her sexual history. Linda cries and says that she has never told anyone this, Linda told Dr. Berman she had once been forced to have sex against her will. “I could have put him in jail, if I had told someone,” she says. “I was essentially raped.” She didn’t want to tell anyone that she was kissing someone and that this happened. She says that it feels incredible to tell someone. Linda says she’s never told Doug about her sexual past. “With Doug, it is just something I don’t want to do that often.”

Dr. Berman says that the rape and subsequent secret keeping was a big piece of what caused Linda to shut down and Doug had no idea what was going on. Rape changes a person’s relationship with sex, Dr. Berman says. “Your power is taken away, and it’s a major sexual trauma. So not to have told anyone, not to have had a chance to work through it in therapy, not to have had a chance to heal and be carrying that secret around, the weight of that secret—when she knows that that was part of what was making her hold back—that was part of what was helping her shut down.” When Linda finally told Doug about the rape, he says he had mixed emotions. “I was angry and empathetic at the same time. I was kind of back on my heels and wanting to be there and not sure what to do.”

Their first assignment from Dr. Berman was simply to touch each other. “They had to get naked. They had to spend like 10 to 15 minutes, each of them on the other. No genital touching. No breast touching. Not about arousal. Just about sensuality and touch,” Dr. Berman says. OK says Oprah, how did that work? Doug says “It was great because of the connection, but then our conversation at the same time, you know? It wasn’t about anything outside the bedroom. It was just us talking,” he says. Linda says that it was so nice to focus on each other and their relationship.

The couple’s second assignment was a step out of your comfort zone field trip to Tantric yoga. They are going to learn how to non-verbally support each other and learn techniques for getting on the same page. The only thing Doug knows about Tantric yoga is that it is supposed to be erotic. The Yogic version of having sex, the tantric yoga exercise was supposed to help Linda and Dough reconnect with themselves and each other. The instructor wants them to relax as they both carry alot of tension in their bodies. Ideally they will be able to see each other in the now and forget their bagage. They realize that their bodies have tension and tightness they carry with them daily. They let out a yell of all the last ten years’ tension. The yoga was awesome, they say. For their third assignment, Dr. Berman sent Doug and Linda to the Pump It Up Kids Zone. “The idea is to kind of bring you here to a place where we can let your silly side out a little bit and have some fun together,” Dr. Berman says. When you try something new and adventurous, it triggers the dopamine centers of the brain which is the part that lights up when you are in a new relationship in that initial stage when you cant get enough of each other. One way to stimulate that is to do novel exciting things together. “It was kind of neat to have a giggle,” Doug says. It made them feel connected to have a good time without the kids says Linda. The last field trip is to the G boutique, a sex shop filled with outfits, devices and aides for their sex life. Dr Berman tells them not to get too overwhelmed. They found it great fun to step out of their comfort zone, it was Doug’s favorite field trip.

Linda and Doug’s final exam: to have sex. “It took a little longer than we thought just because after those three intense days, we got into a pretty heated argument that evening,” Doug says. “I think some of the stress and stuff were hitting us, and we really had to reflect upon what Dr. Berman had told us about communication, how to talk. And, I think we got back to a good point when we went to bed, but we still hadn’t had sex yet.”

The next morning, Doug says he and Linda started cuddling and connecting. “Linda kind of jokingly said, ‘We really need to do our homework,’ and it was really inviting and connected, and so we did our homework, and it was great fun. It reminded me how that used to be with her, more than five, ten years ago. It was fantastic.” Dr. Berman says that as soon as she gives a couple permission to have sex they sabotage it- in this case with an argument. But what she thought was so cool was that therapy together gave them the tools to communicate and get through to the other side to feel closer to each other. Arguing is not bad, but you must use it as a tool in your relationship. Oprah says that after 2 1/2 years without sex, does doing it once give them a 6 month pass or do you re-engage. Doug says they are scheduling for it so they don’t fall back into old patterns. “I really found that knowing that it was scheduled, I was really looking forward to it.” Dr. Berman says that they have to schedule time for each other and time for sex because they have crazy schedules and have not been committed to each other in this way. Oprah asks if scheduling sex takes the romantic spontaneity out of it, but Dr. Berman says it’s necessary. “It’s a mind shift that you have to make because our instinct, our belief and the way we’ve been socialized, is that sex is supposed to happen spontaneously,” she says. “But in most of our lives, our crazy, busy, kid-ridden, mortgage-ridden lives, if you wait for it to happen spontaneously, it’s not going to ever happen.” If you can embrace the scheduling and get excited for it, then foreplay can start in the morning on those days. Oprah says that foreplay starts with men helping around the house, that is the most fantastic foreplay. The crowd applaud. “Put your dishes in the sink, play one,” says Oprah. Thanks for being so open lInda and Doug

Dr. Laura Berman’s new book “The Book of Love” is in stores now. Oprah points out Dr. Berman’s husband and says that she has heard that they have a great sex life. Dr. Berman says that she thinks that they do, she works hard on it, but that her husband sometimes says that she should practice what she preaches more on the relationship stuff. Her husband says that he is the luckiest man in America. Dr. Berman says that is why they have such a great sex life. Oprah says that she thinks that there must be alot of pressure to have a good sex life if you are Dr. Laura Berman. While they are here, Oprah wants to ask if they have taken the No Phone Zone Pledge? Dr. Berman says that she was hesitating because she doesn’t text but she does use her Bluetooth in the car. She is going to take the leap but it requires her to make some lifestyle changes. That’s what it is all about, lifestyle changes, says Oprah. Go to Oprah.com and take the pledge. Goodbye everybody.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

Problems in the bedroom always have a source somewhere else.

Parents are the model of what a loving, intimate relationship is to their children.

A wall is just a wall, a kiss is just a kiss; leave your baggage and see each other in the now.

The New York Times reported that married couples have sex 58 times a year.

To stimulate the dopamine centers of the brain which light up when you are in a new relationship and cant get enough of each other, do novel exciting things together.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

In our crazy, busy, kid-ridden, mortgage-ridden lives, if you wait for sex to happen spontaneously, it’s often not going to ever happen.

Date: February 24th, 2010
File Under: Betrayal, Celebrity, Family, Marriage, Public Service Announcement, Relationships

Episode 34: Sex, Lies and Scandal

People across the country have been talking for weeks about the guy who took the fall for former senator John Edwards. He lied and said he was the father of John’s love child. Oprah has seen him on 20/20 and on a bunch of other shows, but she still has questions for him. Just in case you have been living under a rock, here’s a quick recap of his story.

Andrew Young was the right-hand man for John Edwards for more than a decade. He was next to the rising star through good times and bad. When tabloid stories broke suggesting that Edwards had fathered a love child with his mistress Rielle Hunter, Young did what most can’t fathom- the married father of three took the bullet for his boss and said the baby was his. In his new book The Politician, Andrew details how he helped his former boss carry on a two-year affair behind his wife’s back, while she battled cancer. It didn’t take long for the story to unravel- the lies, the cover up, and rumors of a sex-tape destroyed the career of the presidential hopeful.

Oprah welcomes Andrew Young to the studio. Oprah doesn’t normally watch other people’s TV shows, but she was watching the 20/20 piece and yelling at the TV. She thought that Bob Woodruff did a great job, but she wanted Andrew to answer more fully if looking back on this he sees that this was stupid. He says its stupid, immoral, ridiculous. Andrew says that he is scared to death of public speaking so perhaps his emotions didn’t come across. Cheri, his most wonderful wife, and he have lived with this for several years and she stayed with him through all this. Oprah says that is what we really don’t understand. Andrew says John Edwards was more than just his boss. He and his wife had worked with the Edwards’ and become close personal friends. He had volunteered for his Senate campaign in ‘97 and ‘98. And when he first met them, they were the most inspiring people to work for. He loved them. Andrew says he and John grew closer as their friendship evolved and John became like a big brother. They went to basketball games. Oprah says that in the book Andrew says Edwards was like a father to him, and Andrew clarifies that Edwards reminded him of his father.

Andrew’s wife Cheri, is a pediatric nurse. He says that 10 days after the Iowa caucasus, they had 12 hours before the National Enquirer would release photographs. Oprah backs up a little and says that Andrew had known of, and helped to cover up, the affair since 2006. The National Enquirer was going to reveal the discovery. Edwards called them at Petsmart when they were buying a turtle aquarium. He threw in what you’d expect—he said that the presidency is at stake. He talked off good versus evil, but the closing thing he said was, “Andrew, Elizabeth is about to die.” … He made them all believe that Elizabeth was going to die within a matter of weeks, it was imminenet. What he said was it would be a short term thing so that his wife didn’t die in disgrace, it wasn’t about the presidency. Andrew and Cheri had only 12 hours to make a decision. They made the wrong decision on so many different levels, but they truly believed in John Edwards. Andrew loved him like a big brother and loved Elizabeth like a big sister. He asks, does that make it right? Absolutely not.

Oprah asks what part of him could make it ok to tell that lie, that’s what she really can’t understand after reading the book and watching the interviews. She finds it to be bigger than taking the fall for John Edwards, it was about deceiving all of America that would vote for him. Oprah asks if a part of Andrew asked if he thought that this was the most crazy thing ever when he got the call. Andrew says he was sitting in a minivan outside of Petsmart looking at Edwards on the cover of Newsweek and it makes the argument about how he could win the presidency,- it was like a surreal bubble that came around him. He knows it doesn’t make sense. There was a part of him that was always on call when John needed help, if he was in hot water. He has records of all the phone calls, after the story was released, within 24-48 hours derogatory things were being said about Andrew by Edwards and the campaign.

When Elizabeth heard of the affair, Edwards said that he slept with Rielle one time, but that Andrew was having an affair. Andrew says that didn’t make any sense as Rielle was traveling with him all the time and he was at home with his family in North Carolina. Elizabeth then became angry with Andrew, as she thought he was immoral. But, he says, it was more than that, whenever she was suspicious of anything, he had become the one that she had come to blame things on. He was worried- the Edward camp had fired a lot of people. Elizabeth insisted that John fire Andrew, but John kept him because he was the fall guy. Andrew says that he should have noticed that he was being blamed whenever something was going on. Oprah asks if there were other women and he says there were things that he should have noticed. In the book, which he wrote when his father was dying, he writes no holds barred, warts and all. He speaks of all the ridiculously stupid things that he did to his family, to his wife. He tried to tell the truth about what modern presidential politics are like and how cutthroat it is.

According to Young, Edwards began his affair with Rielle Hunter in 2006, 10 months before he began his campaign. In May 2007, Hunter became pregnant while the campaign was in full swing. Edwards then hatched a plan that Young would claim to be the father. In December the press snapped a photo of a visibly pregnant Hunter and speculated that Edwards was the father. Young released a statement saying that he is the father at Edwards’ request, and he and his family and Rielle Hunter went into hiding at high end homes and hotels bankrolled by two of Edwards supporters.

Oprah says he talks of the comparison of love and devotion for his father and for Edwards, but she is wondering at what point do you feel that you are selling your soul? His Dad was a minister and got Andrew involved in politics- he had an affair of his own that destroyed his career. Obviously Andrew went through a lot with a therapist. Oprah thought that this would mean that he would do the opposite for Edwards. Andrew says it doesn’t make sense, it was as if he was trying to put Humpty Dumpty back on the wall to save his family from what they had gone through. There was a part of him that didn’t want this to happen to Edwards.

Oprah says take politics out of it; If Edwards was just his friend, and was doing something stupid, wouldn’t you just say stop that? Andrew says that most of your friends aren’t some of the most charismatic, powerful people in the world who intimidate you. Edwards was his friend, but also his boss. Oprah asks if they thought that they’d get away with it. Andrew says that they did get away with it that no one in the mainstream press… Oprah interrupts to say that no one in the public believed the story so they didn’t get away with it. The crowd applaud. Andrew asks to finish his sentence- from December to July when he was caught, Edwards led all the polls. Oprah says that the baby was down the road when Obama was meeting with Edwards about possibly being the vice president. She says that they all knew this- did they think they’d get away with it? Young says that in Washington, there’s a sense that once someone becomes president they can get away with anything with the billionaire lawyers. They didn’t think it was right but they were so far in. Oprah says it makes her so angry that they would all take the risk that Edwards could become Vice president or Attorney General, it’s not right. Andrew says that they were cut off from their families and were scared to death. Andew says that when he first met the Edwards’, their son had just died. All the things that Edwards wanted to do for poverty and healthcare- Andrew just loved him. He agrees that this means nothing if he lies about the baby and the relationship- what else could he deceive us on? Young says it gets worse- Edwards asked him to steal a diaper so he could prove it wasn’t his child with a DNA test. He kept out of that one. They were also asked to find a doctor who would fake the DNA result, and Edwards offered to sign an affidavit with the National Enquirer to say that he hadn’t done any of this. Oprah says she heard them say that the presidency was at stake, and this is why they did it- why would they want this lying deceiving person to be president when they have his mistress in their house? In December they did believe in him, despite those faults. Oprah apologises that she won’t let him answer the question, she’s just so frustrated. She says sometimes you make a decision, and you’re in the mess, and the mess just gets messier and messier. He says it’s like a rabbit hole- he worked 16 hours a day, 7 days a week for 8-9 years, so after this he was home with his kids and getting to put them to bed. Oprah says yes, but they were home with the mistress. They go to break.

They show the footage of John Edwards denying that Hunter’s baby is his in an interview on Nightline with Bob Woodruff. He denies that he knows who the baby is, and says that he would gladly take a paternity test. Edwards says that he doesn’t know if Andrew Young is the father. Oprah shakes her head and says “oh, please”. That was Edwards lying, she says. Cheri, Andrew’s wife is now in the studio. Oprah asks what they thought when they first saw that tape. They watched it together and it sent shivers up their spines. Andrew says he couldn’t lie that good if Cheri caught him drinking a beer in the garage. Edwards makes you believe him even though its all lies. He is sorry for what they did but also sorry for people across the country who gave money they couldn’t afford to the campaign, slept in gyms, and volunteered. A woman in the audience says that she gave $500 to John Edwards and she’d like her money back. The crowd applaud. Oprah says on behalf of all wives, what spirit allowed Cheri to say yes Rielle could move in with them. Cheri says he told me, Edwards wants me to claim the baby. She looked at him and simply said: “Why in the world would you even tell me about this? You say no. We have done enough.” She wants to let everyone know what they did for that family over the previous 8-9 years. They did everything, they both did. Cheri would cook breakfast. Whatever he wanted, whatever they needed. When they came back from D.C. and didn’t have a car, they used Cheri’s car. She was without a car. Or Andrew was without a car. It was extreme. They never, never said no. Andrew was so valuable to them.

Later that night, Andrew and Cheri had a long conversation and she still wasn’t on board. They had a call with John and Rielle, which Cheri just listened to. John said this was his chance. They’ve worked so hard, he was so close. Then he spoke of Elizabeth, that she was very ill. She was going to pass very soon. He could not, could not let her know this. They had two huge things in their lap- the presidency that he could win, and the family. Oprah interrupts to ask why they wanted him to be president when he was willing to carry on such a deception. Cheri says she didn’t think of that, only of her responsibility. Oprah says it’s every person who donated. Cheri says that the last two years have been hell, and they are paying for the consequences. Oprah asks if they wanted a role for themselves in DC if he became President, because that motivation she could at least understand. Andrew says he wanted to take the kids and work in different consulates, experience different countries. Cheri says that by this point they had done so much, invested so much, and this was Andrew’s career. He believed in Edwards so much; “America was fooled. We were all fooled”.

Oprah says would they have come clean if Edwards had said he would take care of them and set them up. Young says that they waited 2 years and that Edwards had promised that this would be a very short term thing. Within 2 weeks of Andrew’s book being published, after 2 years, Edwards announced that he’s the father, signed the custody papers and goes to see Rielle and so all these things happen as the book comes out. Cheri says that living these lies has been horrific. She was criticized for being happy in an interview and she was just so relieved that the truth was out. The lies that Elizabeth has told about them, mostly Andrew… Oprah asks if they feel that they also betrayed Elizabeth. Cheri says yes, and she’s very sorry that Elizabeth has a terminal illness but the thing that she doesn’t understand as a nurse (Oprah wipes away Cheri’s tears) working with childrens and families with various terminal illnesses- she doesn’t understand Elizabeth because of how she’s treated them. She’s seen interesting things with how she’s treated others, but they’ve always been safe. She doesn’t understand the voicemails – why would Elizabeth, if she knew the truth, why would she target her? And if she thought that Andrew was the father, why did she target her? The voicemails were downright bizarre and threatening. She called and said take care of your concubine… Oprah says that they must understand why Elizabeth is so upset. Andrew tries to interrupt and Cheri stops him and says that he listens to her now, he agrees, the audience laugh. Cheri tried to protect Elizabeth- Oprah asks if she protected her by harboring the mistress of her husband. Cheri says that now they know that they were wrong, wrong, wrong in their decision. Oprah says that in an interview with her, Elizabeth said that if the baby is or isn’t Johns, it has nothing to do with her, which Oprah thought was interesting. Any wife who has been lied to and deceived knows that- and she and Elizabeth talked about this off-camera- the feeling that everyone else knows but you. Andrew says that it has broken his heart that his best friend lied repeatedly and drove over him with a dump-truck- he can’t fathom what Elizabeth has gone through.They had to step up and take care of their own family. Oprah says she is surprised that Edwards didn’t take better care of them.After the baby was born he didn’t speak to them. They were in California away from their families and support structure.

For 8 months, they moved from house to house with Rielle. They show photos of Rielle very pregnant then with a newborn. Cheri admits that it looks like they were a happy family and they weren’t but they had to make do, for the children. Rielle stayed in one end of the house and they stayed at the other end. Oprah asks if they all got along. After a pause, Andrew chuckles and says no. Cheri says that they were polar opposites. Oprah asks what they were thinking? Andrew says that the baby was born in February and in March the Senator stopped speaking to him. The night the baby was born, Andrew called Edwards and told him to call. Edwards refused. A switch went off for Andrew, when he realised that not only was he disposable, everyone was disposable. On July 22nd, Edwards called and said he’d been caught, which was eerily like what happened with his father years before. Edwards was crying and distraught, Andrew said Senator please, don’t make a comment until they know what they have. Edwards got caught in the lies and half truths he told Elizabeth. the only person the Woodruff story made sense to was Elizabeth. He told her that Rielle had made him come to the hotel room because Andrew hadn’t paid child support, and that she was going to blackmail him about their one night stand, unless he paid child support. And that is why Elizabeth said why don’t you take care of your concubine on the voicemail says Oprah. Cheri wants to go back to talking about when they were living in California, when they wanted to get out. They didn’t feel that they could, they were controlled by three attorneys and millionaires and billionaires. They lived in California, they were building a house in North Carolina and didn’t know how the next month would pan out, how they’d pay for the house, where the kids would go to school. They had their health insurance paid for them…

Oprah asks if he was offered a lot of money for the alleged sex tape- Andrew says its not an alleged sex tape, it shows Edwards but not Rielle. They got alot of email offers but never took them up. Oprah asks what the tape shows, Andrew says no comment and Rielle says she’ll speak. Andrew says no and grabs her hand. Oprah says go ahead. Cheri says that Edwards is naked, performing sexual acts and the woman is holding the camera. Oprah thanks her for the information. Oprah asks if they ever thought of selling it- the mean thought may have crossed their minds but they never acted on it. They found it in July 08 and told him in August 08- Oprah says that she would be very nice to anyone with that tape. Andrew says that the Edwards’ had successfully got them kicked out the house they were renting- Oprah says that makes no sense- Cheri says the tape allowed them to get through the last two years of hell. Finally after being controlled by millionaires, Edwards got busted, they got dumped back in North Carolina and their house wasn’t done. This was the worst time for them but they’d found the tape in a bedroom that Rielle had stayed in. Oprah says that Edwards had to be out of his mind to be filmed naked when running for the presidency of the United States. Andrew thought it was narcissism gone wild. On top of this it was 3 1/2 months before the election and he was having sex with a visibly pregnant woman while his wife is dying of cancer. They left the tape in Andrew’s house that they were renting with realtors trooping in and out. Cheri says that the tape was her security after the millionaires and billionaires that had been controlling them. Was she going to do anything with it? No, but she had something to prove from what happened. Oprah asks what they learned from this, that there are huge life lessons to be learned from this. Rielle is suing them to return the photos and videos to her, and says that their statement that there is a visibly preganant woman on the video tape is false and her invasion of privacy has been horrifying. Oprah asks for their final thoughts- in the book Andrew speaks of his fathers betrayal and that he tried to make peace through the brother, father, friend figure- John. His dad taught him that we can make a positive difference from our actions. Andrew was seduced by the politics, power and money when the job with this viable world leader dropped into his lap. The things that matter the most, Andrew says he already has the. The lesson is that most of us have what we want already, money doesn’t change that. It made their marriage stronger. Cheri says that they have always had a strong love and trust for each other and with this they hit rock bottom and made it through. Now they are closer, the kids are great, she has her husband back and the kids have their daddy back and he listens to her. The book, The Politician, will have you screaming at the pages, according to Oprah. Both John and Elizabeth Edwards have released statements saying that the book contains false allegations and exaggerations. Edwards claims that Andrew Young is motivated by financial gains and media attention. Oprah appreciates that they allowed her to ask the questions that she still had, and hopefully the Young family can go home and don’t have to do another interview.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

Oprah doesn’t normally watch other people’s TV shows.

Filming a naked sex tape while running for the US Presidency is stupid.

Having an affair while your wife publicly battles cancer and you run for President is not a good thing to do.

Even if your boss is like a father/ brother/ friend to you, claiming that his love child is your love child will not be easily understood by others.

Narcissism gone wild will always end in tears.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

Sometimes you make a decision, and you’re in a mess, and the mess just gets messier and messier.

Date: February 18th, 2010
File Under: Family, Relationships

Episode 30: Miraculous Family Reunions

Have you ever had a falling out with a family member or friend? It happens to most of us at some point in our lives and we’re just too stubborn to make the first move , or unwilling to forgive and then it festers. Many people have at least one person they have unfinished business with, or are holding a grudge, too scared to be the first to apologise

Ask yourself, is it worth it? Troy Dunn sees every day how these issues can damage our lives. He is a high profile investigator specialising in reunions. He says he has brought almost 40,000 people back togather. Every week he tracks down birth moms and dads, missing friends, and lost relatives on his reality show, The Locator. 20 years ago he started searching for his mother’s birth parents. He is part detective part therapist. They show footage of him reuniting a birth mom with her daughter, they are delighted. Not everyone gets the happy reunion that they wish for. They show footage of a woman waiting to meet her birth mother- she is alive and well but won’t be coming to the meeting. The daughter is devastated. For others it’s a dream come true- a family of sisters split up and placed in foster homes as young children find each other.

Oprah welcomes Troy to the studio. He says that one of the greatest myths is that time heals all wounds- it’s not true emotionally, maybe physically it is. Oprah says that Dr Phil used to be here and now has his own show, as does Dr Oz who used to be on Oprah’s show, she remembers that Phil taught her that time don’t heal a damn thing- it’s what you do with the time that helps you heal or not. Troy says that any wound left untreated gets worse; sometimes to protect ourselves we decide that we don’t want that person in our life and there comes a point at which our wound has created paralysis. Mary says that she is being eaten alive by guilt that she has felt for the last 25 years Her family asked Troy to step in. He went to visit Mary and her biological daughter LaKya. 32 years ago, Mary suffered many miscarriages and had a stillborn baby. To help heal their hearts, she and her husband became foster parents. Tamisha was two years old when she joined their family. They just loved her, she lit up their lives. To Mary, Tamisha was hers, she called her mommy. They wanted to adopt her but were unable, they were under the impression that she would go back to her birth mother. They lived happily for 5 years, during which time Mary had a healthy baby girl. When Tamisha was 7 years old, Mary was notiified by social services that Tamisha had been adopted by another family. They came in, took her things, and took Tamisha. Tamisha was crying and Mary had to stay in the house trying not to scream. She feels she never got the chance to explain anything. Troy says that Tamisha was basically an only child, then Mary had a baby and then Tamisha was sent away. Mary has struggled for years with the guilt, she just wants Tamisha to know that she loved her from the very start.

After 7 days of searching, Troy tracked down Tamisha in New York. he wanted to find out what she remembers from her early years with Mary. Tamishawas traumatised, she was crying hysterically trying to hold onto Mary. It was her home, she was devastated, it took her two days to stop crying. She felt like Mary had her own child and then she wasn’t needed anymore. Oprah says that is terrible for a child. Troy asked Tamisha if she would be willing to meet Mary. Troy tells Mary that he found Tamisha and spoke with her and it was almost like the 32 year old lady turned back into a 7 year old talking about the worst day of her life. She has wrestled with feelings of rejection. for her whole life. She is in the building, not in New York , she is walking in right now. They cry and hug. Mary says to her that she never stopped loving her for the last 23 years. Tamisha thought that Mary didn’t want her. It took a long time for her to call her adopted mother mom. Oprah says boo hoo boo hoo. That was almost a year ago. Mary and Tamisha are here in the studio. Oprah says we are passing the Kleenex in here. Tamisha didn’t know what was going on that day she didnt understand how she could go to a new home when she was at home. She thought she was being replaced by Mary’s biological daughter. Tamisha’s adoptive mom is in the audience. Tamisha thought about Mary and had flashbacks at school when the others talked of their childhood. Before the reunion she hadn’t seen photos of herself before the age of 7. Mary wished that she had been able to explain what happened and what was going on. Once Tamisha went to her new home, Mary was not allowed to make contact. Social Services said she was doing fine. Troy says it is the way the system is set up, to keep distances for safety’s sake. It has no consideration of feelings. A 7 year old can not distinguish between a birth or adoptive or foster mom, she just knows who loves her. Oprah says it’s true what they were saying during the break, blood is not thicker than water, Troy thinks they should stop saying that. “Who loves you when you need them, that’s your family”, Oprah says that phrase should be their new thing. She loves that, Troy says she can have it. Oprah felt it was almost primal to see them meet again- Mary says seeing Tamisha again released alot of those concerns, knowing she looks so well. Oprah observes that Tamisha has lost weight since then, Tamisha says that her confidence has grown and she is a more active participant in life. Troy says people don’t have peace until they find all the pieces. Oprah says he is a quote-a-minute. Troy says the calmness and understanding from peace gives you a glow. Mary’s birth daughter says they grew up knowing all about Tamisha. Clement, Mary’s husband says that Tamisha was a great girl, like she still is now. Oprah calls them a wonderful foster family.

Troy’s new series premiers on WE TV on March 3rd. If you want to track someone down, why wait? The hardest news he has to pass on is that people were too late, that he found them but they passed. If you wait for timing to be everything, you’ll end up with nothing. Cindy is struggling with terminal cancer and wants to find her dad more than anything in the world. She may only have 4 months to live. With 4 children, she still feels the void of no father. Her parents split before she was born. She met him at age 12 and spend a few nights with him. Just as they were getting to know each other, her mother took her and left town. She was heartbroken that she never saw him again. With limited info, Troy met Doug, Cindy’s father. He got married when he was in the military, and by the time he got home, his wife had left with another man. He never got to see Cindy until she was 11-12. After Cindy’s mom moved, no one would tell him where they had gone. He wants to be in contact with Cindy. Troy took Doug to see Cindy for the first time in two decades. They hug and cry. She shrieks, they missed each other.

Cindy is coping, she says she has had a rough day today. Cindy and Doug join Oprah by satellite from Alabama. Her Dad moved in with her and takes her to all her doctor’s visits. He doesn’t want to miss anymore of her life. He takes the kids to school everyday and takes the kids to ballgames. She has two 14 year olds, a 12 year old and a 9 year old. Doug never gave up hope. Troy has a great deal of respect for how sensitive daughters can be. He won’t bring a dead-beat dad into a daughter’s life. The crowd applaud. Its important to him that they pay child support and show him that they tried to get in touch. He says that Doug is a walking heart. There are 3 sides to every story- his hers and the truth. He normally has to piece together the truth and always fact checks. Oprah says that every child wants to know why didn’t you try and find them. Doug says that he tried but got no information. Troy said that Doug documented his attempts to his satisfaction. Oprah asks Cindy if she finds this to be a miracle. Cindy says that every day for her is a miracle, she surpassed her predicted 6-8 months of life expectancy, she has been alive now for a year and half since the diagnosis. She feels robbed of her family that she could have had for her whole life. Her dad has missed out on so much,her kids, her wedding. She doesn’t know how much longer she has left but she feels robbed. Oprah says that focusing on what is in the moment will help Cindy heal, not dwelling in the past. She thanks them for joining the show by Skype. God Bless Them, may you be healed and witness and share the miracle.

Pam Slaton is a genealogist. This mother of two makes a living tracking down missing people. Working 7 days a week and pulling all nighters she never gives up. Family is her passion; her own and other peoples. One of her most famous clients was one of the founding fathers of Hip Hop, Darryl McDaniels of Run DMC He found out her was adopted at age 35. Pam found his mother. She says it is extremely rewarding to tell people that their search is over. She always wanted to know who her birth mother was, despite loving her amazing family. She wanted to know who gave her life, she finds it a basic need. Pam takes on Linda’s case; a birth mother looking for her daughter. She ran away from home at age 15, she lived on the streets for a few months before returning to her violent home When she found out she was pregnant, she thought that the baby would love her and that she had would finally experience real love. When she was 7 months pregnant, her social worker told her that he mom wouldn’t let the baby into the house. She raged and felt she had no choice and gave the baby up for adoption. She and Pam went back to the home for unwed mothers where the baby was born. Linda hadn’t been there for 42 years, she says it’s surreal. Linda says that the moment she gave up her daughter after the joyfulness of giving birth- she doesn’t want to go back and visit that. She knew that the last time she held her was the last time she would hold her. Linda got a college degree, worked on Wall Street, got married and had a son, but something was always missing, because you can’t find peace until you find the pieces.

Pam found Linda’s daughter. Her daughter says she’s lived her whole life dying for a family, she’s never had one. She is overwhelmed. A few days later Laura flew 2000 miles to meet her birth mother. Her childhood was difficult, she has never had anybody who cared for her. Pam tells Linda the news. Linda cries. Pam tells her to get herself together to go meet Laura. Pam tellsLinda not to be scared. Linda and Laura finally meet. They cry and hug.

Linda and Laura are in the studio, they only met yesterday. Oprah asks how it was to wake up this morning- Linda says it is too surreal, meeting Laura and finding out that her story is not what she dreamed of for Laura’s life. But seeing her with her brother, she is so proud of her and she says that they both love each other. Oprah says that what was so moving to her is that Laura asked Pam in disbelief if Linda had been looking for her. Laura says that as a child, you have no idea why you are given up, and to find out that your birth mother wanted you, that chases away all the other thoughts. Linda had named Laura, a name with meaning. Pam says that this is validation that the birth mother has never forgotten their child. It heals a piece of the child, its a gift. Oprah says that everyone is looking to know that they matter, and to have been given a name would mean that you matter. Linda met three of her grandchildren, what a day. They are amazing little children, says Linda, Laura has done such a fabulous job. She says you never know what the person has gone through and if you made the right decision, she questioned herself all those years, but seeing those little ones… God, that’s amazing. Oprah says that Troy says that things don’t always end up well. This has only been 24 hours and Oprah is sure this will get more intense and there may be anger and resentment. Its hard to stay in the I loove you stage. Pam says that it is a balancing act and that it can be anti-climactic. The search and find is such a rollercoster of highs and lows, an amazing expecrience. Then you realise that you are in a position where you are strangers but you are supposed to have this love and you have to manage it. Linda says that after meeting Laura yesterday, she had a complete meltdown because she had a fantasy life for laura, living in a castle, and that wasn’t there. Laura says that she had a very hard life. Oprah asks Linda’s son how it feels to meet his sister. He always knew about his adopted sister and he couldn’t be happier.

Oprah says that they have used enough tissue in the show today. Oprah asks Troy to speak to thse holding back on reconnecting with their loved ones. Troy says that as we come to grips with our mortality, especially those towards the end of their life-clock, you think of the loved and unloved ones. There is still time to move the unloved ones over to the loved ones list. There is still time. Pam addresses the idea that a birth parent search is a rejection of the family you have. She says people just need to know their chapter one, where they originated from, it does not mean that there is a lack of love. Oprah says excellent.

Thanks to Pam and Troy. There are 19 states banning texting when drivig. If yours doesn’t, speak up . Speak up, speak out ,and write to your representatives and make your car a no-phone zone now.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

One of the greatest myths is that time heals all wounds.

Who loves you when you need them, that’s your family.

People don’t have peace until they find all the pieces.

Everyone is looking to know that they matter,

There is still time to move the unloved ones over to the loved ones list.

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

Make peace with your loved ones: If you wait for timing to be everything, you’ll end up with nothing.

Date: February 15th, 2010
File Under: Betrayal, Family, Public Service Announcement, Relationships, Tragedy

Episode 27: Raped By His Mother- A Victim Comes Forward

Last Monday Oprah talked to 4 child molesters, who revealed in chilling detail how they lured children into their sick world. What they did was evil, but what they said can help your children. Today we turn your view of child molestation upside down when we look at what happens when the molesters are women, even mothers. This is Gregg Milligan’s graphic recount of what he went through every single day as a boy. This was his childhood home where he and his oldest brother and younger sister lived with their mother. He didn’t know his father, his mother was his whole world. The physical abuse started long before the sexual abuse. When he was 8 years old he was fondled and touched by his mother, and he was made to touch her. When perhaps she thought she could take it further, she did, she’d make him have sex with her, moving his body agains hers. If he didn’t respond physically he would be beaten and choked and thrown from the bedroom. He had to help her reach orgasm – until that happened he was her prisoner in her bed and she’d make an awful screaching sound when she reached orgasm, then she’d hit him and push him. When he went to bed at night he couldn’t get the smell of her of his hands. By the time he was 9 or 10 it felt consensual, he wanted to die, to be rid of this ugly feeling of being his mother’s lover.

Back in the studio Oprah says we are talking here about a ten year old boy. Gregg’s mother died nearly 14 years ago but he recently came out the shadows to tell his story. We don’t hear about mother-son abuse much, but it does happen. She asks Gregg about the sense that the abuse felt consensual- was that because it was pleasurable? He says it was never pleasurable, it was always awful, but his body started to respond to the stimulus. As he grew older and his body matured, he responded physically with an erection. He couldn’t differentiate between the biological and the mental response. Oprah asks if he thought it was normal? He says yes. Oprah qualifies that you don’t have a language for it as an abused child. Later as an adult you can articulate it, but as a child he thought all boys had this relationship with their mothers. Oprah asks if there was any seduction? He says the beatings were consistent, and the sexual abuse started the same way but when the sexual abuse started he would be told mother needs you, rather than shouted at to stand still. It was manipulative and gentle. The beatings were worse if she didn’t reach orgasm- he tried hard to help her orgasm quickly so he could go back to his room. Oprah says part of the shame of abuse is because there is some pleasure; being touched is supposed to feel good and that’s why we are all doing it. As a child, the newly aroused feelings are confusing. Greg says if his mother had been gentle and kind and sweet he is sure it would have been diffeerent. But because of the brutality of the physical abuse it was very different. Her anger if she didnt reach orgasm, and the dismissiveness with which she told him to get out if she did reach orgasm was always there. After she’d reached orgasm, she’d say that he did it to her, that he seduced her and that this was his doing. He believed that and was completely confused. He thought that this was love at first. Oprah asks for a picture of him to be shown on screen at age 8 or 10. She asks that everyone who feels responsible for their abuse to look at a picture of themself at the age it happened and ask what a child of that age could have done to stop the abuse. Gregg sees a young boy who was given no choice but to allow this to happen in his photo. He couldn’t have stopped it and wouldn’t have stopped it- his mother was the center of his universe and he loved her. Oprah reiterates her stance that molesters in the bushes do exist but mainly it is friends and relatives who are the abusers.

Gregg says as a child he was physically tortured and violently raped by his mother. 35 years later he is still tortured by his past. He is working on it, but at age 46 he is still trapped inside his childhood house. What was taken from Gregg and any abused child will be gone forever. Part of him was taken and died- the innocence that every child deserves was taken. Before age 11 there was no one that he could have told. There were teachers but he was desperately afraid of his mother. She was his only parent, she was feared by her kids and in the neighborhood. It wasn’t just the fear of his mother, it was the absolute shame that this was taking place. Even today Oprah asks which is easier to say, that he was abused or that he had sex with his mother? He says abused. It is easier to admit to physical abuse rather than sexual abuse. Oprah says that in all these years, Gregg is the first person she has spoken to who was forced to have had actual physical intercourse with his mother at such a young age, and that is interesting for her to talk about what that experience does to you as a person. The experience itself was that his mother had control of his body- they were both small people, close to emaciated, and she would control his physical body to pleasure her. It was worse than the physical abuse- it forced him to shut off what was happening. He had to pretend that it wasn’t his mother doing this because she was the only person that he had in this world. He needed his mom. Oprah says the stories behind the smiles are never revealed in childhood photos. Gregg wanted them to think he was normal, he craved normalcy and acceptance to be like the other children.

After a year of being raped by his mother, the abuse took a turn for the worse. His mother frequently prostituted herself at local pubs, soliciting men in the neighborhood. The men soon followed for Gregg- his mother would justify prostituting him out by saying if he didn’t they’d go hungry, lose the house and be out on the street. She said that if he didn’t comply the men would come back and cut off his genitals, and Gregg believed her. Oprah says his mother sounds like a monster. He recalls his mother prostituting herself when he was seven. Oprah wants Gregg’s information to help viewers. Kids don’t have the words- so asking them if they have been molested is unhelpful as they dont understand the concept. Greg was 8-9 the first time; a man came over, money changed hands and his mother left. The man undressed him and performed fellatio, He struggled desperately to not let his body respond to the stimulus. It worked that time and the man, frustrated, left. It became worse when he got older and couldn’t always control the biological response to the stimulus. That was the worst when he got an erection, then it felt like it was his fault, that he wanted it. Oprah says she so understands that. Oprah asks if he understands that the little boy in the photo could not possibly be responsible. He understands now, but it took years. Oprah says that the abusers use your biological response to justify their behavior, to say that you liked it. His mother would convince him that it wouldn’t have happened had he not responded sexually, with her or the other men. Oprah says that this is horrific and that his mother was obviously a damaged person with a lot of pain in her life and no ability to love her children. But in all cases, the sexual act itself is minor compared to the emotional and spiritual damage done. Gregg agrees wholeheartedly. The shame is crushing and is what destroys you. The shame changes what you are as a human being. It caused Gregg to act and react differently. He withheld emotionally and academically. He was afraid to play with other young boys- his mother would say he was immoral, homosexual and perverted. He believed that it was not normal behaviour to find affection or friendship. Oprah asks if he finds it is a marvel that he is alive and and sane and able to marry and have a life beyond this? Greg say that there is definitely something bigger and better than all of this out there.

In the photo album of his childhood, Gregg and his siblings have forced smiles- if you look closely you’ll see bruises, scars, greasy hair, unkempt clothes and fear. Fear is exactly what the abusers want you to feel. No one in the neighborhood ever stepped in to help. Neighbors saw what their mother did to the kids, and they’d tell their own kids to stay away from the family, further ostracizing them from the rest of the neighborhood. Due to her advanced alcoholism, she could no no longer control her bowels, so she would walk up and down the street urinating and defecating while screaming obscenities. Kids would ask if his mother was the whore, the crazy woman? There were obvious signs that he was abused- he was emaciated, his clothing smelled awful. His nicknames were stinky, smelly, brains- because he couldnt read write or tell the time. If you really want to hurt someone, make a joke that a boy is having sex with his mother. It was meant in jest, no one could fathom that it would be true, but it was. Oprah asks what he would do when that joke was made? Gregg would laugh along to appear as normal as possible. Oprah says every child wants to fit in and be normal. Greg just wanted to fit in and be normal, even though he couldn’t tell the time at age 10.

Gregg’s sister April is here, she was also sexually abused by their mother. She is two years younger than Gregg. April knew something was going on with Gregg, but she was instructed to stay in her room at all times. Her mom would come and grab her hand and take her to her bedroom. To April it was spending time with mom. Her mom would make April fondle her mother’s vagina, and she would do the same to April. This went on for a couple of years until Gregg stepped in, thank god. Her saviour saved her life. He said no more, you’re not going to abuse my sister so he took the abuse. A man came to the house when he was about 9 and april was 7. Money changed hands and Gregg assumed the man was there for him or his mother. But his mother called April out the room which had never happened. She then instructed Gregg to follow her to her room. Gregg grabbed april, his mother grabbed him and slammed him against the wall. Gregg told April to hide, and he went to the living room and he had to be abused by the man instead, while his mother went to her room. He says it was the best decision that he ever made. She never tried to prostitute April again. He was beaten after the man left yet Gregg said he would never let it happen again. He would always insert himself into the situation so that April never had to do this. April knew he was protecting her, she knew as a child that something was not right- with regards to touching and private areas. She knew with her mother that the sexual abuse was wrong, she was afraid of her, she would try and hide. She knew when a man arrived that it was not a good feeling.

Gregg says the house always smelled of sex and alcohol. He had to get all three of the kids out because one day he wouldn’t be there and April would be raped and it would be his fault. When Gregg was 11, they were removed from the home and the abuse stopped. The shame went on for years after. Greg spent two weeks stealing money from his mother’s purse to run down to the corner store and use the payphone to call and say you have to help us, you have to get us out of here to an older sister. After two weeks, a sister did come and physically remove them from the house. Their mother died in 1996. Oprah asks how their relationship was. Gregg worried about her, he loved her very much but avoided her because he was afraid of her. Preparing for this show, he saw a photo of his mom at his college graduation,standing next to him. He didn’t remember her being there , he cut her from his life entirely, didn’t communicate with her. He was still afraid of her as an adult. Oprah says that when you’ve been abused by someone you love and trust, it is very confusing as children love even the abuser. It is hard to understand but it is confusing and shameful for the abused.

Every nightmare starts the same, Gregg feels his mother forcing him to have sex with him, he sees her face, he can smell her breath of wine and whisky. He wakes up clawing at the bed; screaming, weeping, shouting out. The dreams are vivid and real and they are every night. Gregg’s wife Sarah is in the studio. She says Gregg will cry out and struggle in his sleep, he makes choked out, fearful cries. She sometimes wakes him up or she’ll hold him. Oprah asks how you begin to put a life back together with the shame and the guilt. Oprah says she’s speaking in broad generalities, and she knows that, but many people cannot have intimate communication and for others it goes the opposite way. Oprah became a promiscuous teenager, looking for love in all the wrong places. For Gregg, as a teenager and into his 20’s he became very promiscuous with multiple relationships and short relationships. Sarah and Gregg met at work and she heard about all this maybe a year or so into the relationship. Oprah says this is enough to make you pack your bags and run, and Sarah says no, never. Gregg was very quiet at first, he was fearful of the shame of telling, afraid to tell her. He was scared that she would judge him or find him perverted. The trust and love he had for his abuser, an unhealthy love, had to become a safe healthy trust and love for someone else. Oprah says the ramifications of being abused by someone as close to you as your mother means that you simply don’t know how to love. You don’t trust anyone.

Despite everything that happened to Gregg before his 12th birthday, he went on to graduate high school, college and got his master’s degree. The crowd applaud. Education saved him by allowing him to be more independent and functional, a contributing member of society and people started to pay attention to him when he spoke,especially when he asked for help. He has a 23 year old son who is in the audience, Gregg the second. Oprah asks how it feels to hear this- it makes him, sad, he loves his dad and he’s a great father who is easy to talk to. Oprah asks Gregg if fatherhood helped him heal- absolutely, one of his greatest fears was turning out like his parents. To be able to raise his son with love and no violence, it affirmed to Gregg that it might be ok, that it can be done. Oprah says that it is a choice; every abused child does not have to choose to become an abuser. Gregg says we need more people to make that choice. Oprah thanks everyone for being here. Gregg is the spokesperson for RAINN, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. If anybody who has heard this story today wants to talk about what has happened in their life or what is happening in someone’s life, the number is on the screen. There is a reason why the last 4 digits spell Hope. 1-800-656-HOPE. Before they go, photographs of 12 year old Joe from Spring Lake Michigan are shown onscreen. A driver on a cellphone ran a red light and killed this little boy. Joe is not here to speak for himself so Oprah asks us all to take the pledge and please do not use phones in the car.

WHAT WE LEARNED TODAY:

The stories behind the smiles are never revealed from childhood photos.

The innocence that every child deserves is taken by sexual abuse.

Kids don’t have the right words- so asking them if they have been molested is unhelpful as they don’t understand the concept.

Every child wants to fit in and be normal.

It is a choice, every abused child does not choose to become an abuser

A VERY QUICK SUMMARY:

The shame of sexual abuse is crushing and is what destroys you. The shame changes what you are as a human being.

another one year projectThis year we follow the words of Oprah Winfrey

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