The Ben Maynard Program
"Tell Your Story". Everyone has a story. Not just the famous. This is a guest driven program but when we are "guest free", It's just YOU and ME! I love music and we will talk a lot about it. Enjoy the ride!
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The Ben Maynard Program
Rachel Thompson talks Surviving Abuse, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy in Music
What happens when you blend a 30-year career in big pharma with a passion for digital marketing? Meet Rachel Thompson, our esteemed guest and the founder of Bad Redhead Media, who reveals her transformative journey from the corporate world to empowering authors through savvy book marketing strategies. Rachel pulls back the curtain on the evolution of digital marketing, sharing her invaluable tips from her 30-day book marketing challenge, perfect for authors with tight budgets. As we explore the shifting landscape of social media, Rachel's insights into navigating platform changes like Twitter's rebranding to X offer listeners a roadmap to mastering online presence.
The episode takes a heartfelt turn as Rachel bravely recounts her survival of sexual abuse, exploring the long-lasting emotional impacts. Her story isn't just about survival; it’s about the resilience needed to navigate relationships and friendships post-trauma. Adding another layer to our conversation, we hear from a male survivor, addressing the unique societal pressures and the complex healing journey that often goes unspoken. These candid discussions serve as a powerful reminder of the importance of open dialogue and the necessity of addressing inappropriate behavior for lasting emotional health.
As we wrap up, we reflect on the therapeutic power of music and extracurricular activities in coping with life's challenges. From the nostalgic tunes of classic rock to the simple joys of engaging in sports, we explore how these outlets provide solace and foster resilience. We touch on the intricacies of family dynamics and mental health, emphasizing the need for supportive environments and healthy coping mechanisms. Join us for an episode rich with personal stories, practical advice, and heartfelt reflections that promise to resonate long after the episode ends.check out her website. badredheadmedia.com
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Hey there, everyone. Welcome into the Ben Maynard program. Let's take care of this business here. Thanks for being here. Before we get started, a little bit of housekeeping to take care of.
Speaker 1:As you know, this program is available on multiple podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, amazon Music and Spotify, or if you just search the Ben Maynard program, you'll have multiple options to choose from. Buzzsprout is where my website is, so if you can find your way there, that'd be swell. However, if you can't resist this pretty face right here, or maybe that pretty face right here, or maybe that pretty face right there and you're watching on YouTube, then please subscribe to the channel, give me a thumbs up and leave a comment. I love your comments. I read every single comment and I reply to them as well. You guys know I do. Last but not least, follow me on Instagram. All one word Ben Maynard program. With that, plenty of ways to take in this show for your dancing and listening pleasure, and it pleases me greatly to bring yeah, I've got to figure this out right there. Yeah, that way To introduce to you, as everyone can see, author Rachel Thompson and I say author, but there's so much more to Rachel and we're definitely going to get into that.
Speaker 2:So thank you so much, rachel, for being here. Thank you for having me, ben, and all the prep. You're really good about that. I've met a lot of podcast hosts who do very, very little prep, so kudos to you on that.
Speaker 1:Oh well, thank you. I'm still such a novice at this, even 53 episodes into my podcasting career, I'm still such a novice. I'm an idiot. I don't really. I just I've said it before recently that you know this podcast is held together by scotch tape and chewing gum. Really, because I just don't know what I'm doing. And I try, and I try and fortunately, I'm hoping that coming up here soon I'll get a little better at things and change some. I don't want to say, change some things, but do things better, that maybe the audience won't notice, but I'll certainly notice and it'll make for a better show. I have a friend of mine who used to do this kind of stuff and now and he got away from it, now he's getting back into it and he's showing me his equipment and and everything else oh okay, look, we got to do this and we got to figure this out and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:So I, I do appreciate you saying that, though, because I, I want to, I want to make this as professional as I possibly can, you know, but but still, you know, um, I still want to keep all of the um, the sense of humor and all that kind of stuff in it too. I don't want to be just drab and serious. You know every single episode, from start to finish.
Speaker 1:People are going to get out of this thing so but you know, you had, um, you had reached out to me, I, I, you know, I was blown away, Really, I really was blown away. And you reached out to me and you showed an interest in wanting to be on this, on this show. So I was like, absolutely, let's do this. And I looked through, you know, I looked through your, your I don't want to say well, I guess your profile and I saw, I saw some things and I was like, no, this is yep, this is it, this is going to be good.
Speaker 2:So yeah, thanks again. Appreciate it, of course. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right. So, as I said, we're going to get into a lot of stuff, but this is where I want to begin, if I could. And yeah, these things are going to come on and go off and come on again. So you've authored several books to my count eight, Am I right?
Speaker 2:Correct, yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, I got something right. Good job, but on multiple subjects too, and so you have a series on marketing. So can we just start right there and talk about that a little bit?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started my business about 13 years ago, in 2011, called Bad Redhead Media. Things have changed a little bit, as you can see. I'm no longer a redhead, but the name sticks it's your brand, it is my brand. So I started doing that because I had about 30 years of big pharma experience prior to starting my own business and I hated it to starting my own business and I hated it, but I was good at it. You know, I was good with the marketing and the training and the sales and all that. So once I left and started doing more creative work which is what I really wanted to do and I started writing books the marketing part the digital marketing part was just kind of starting and people weren't understanding why do I have to be on Twitter to sell a book to a publisher? Like that made no sense to people.
Speaker 2:Right Now people understand and publishing houses expect authors, regardless of whether you are traditionally published, hybrids, indie, self. There's a couple different ways to go. You're still going to be doing all your own social media, blogging or newsletters, all that kind of stuff. A website setup comes down to the author. So people hire me to help them with not only social media, but you know every aspect of marketing running promotions and giveaways and building their newsletter subscribers. You know all kind, all of that stuff that goes into building your author platform is what I focus on.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:What I found was a lot of people are on shoestring budgets. They can't afford to hire me to do all this for them. Do all this for them. So I wrote the 30 day book marketing challenge, which I've updated it three times now, and I still need to do another update because I mean, twitter's course is now X, so that's a big change. But the apps update weekly, if not more, and so every time I would put something in writing, a week later it would already have changed. So I kind of stopped updating the book in that regard. But I am working on an update as a course and that's what people have asked me for.
Speaker 1:So that's like like an online course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like they can purchase it and you know, I'll give them like three tasks a week and then they'll come back, and then I'll give them like three tasks a week and then they'll come back and then I'll give them the next three tasks. So it's more interactive, and so I'm looking forward to that. I'm really enjoying the trend of being able to share information beyond the purchase of a book, and so I think there's a lot of options that way. I think that's kind of neat.
Speaker 1:I think that's kind of neat. It sounds really neat too because there's a lot of people that have books out there different strategies for different types of things and someone buys the book. They can read it front to back multiple times and still not have a grasp wholly on what the book is trying to instruct them to do. So it sounds like not only is the book available but people can have that personal touch, they can reach out to you and have that contact ask you the questions that they can't get answered by just reading a book.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's great. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:I also wrote one thing I didn't realize when I first started. I mean, I knew nothing about websites, blogs, any of that. I realized that most authors who were writing blog posts and or newsletters were not doing any kind of SEO optimization and they didn't know what that was and what that is. I don't know what it was and what that is.
Speaker 1:I don't know what it is either search engine optimization.
Speaker 2:So when, let's say, you put in information it's called metadata you put in information on the back end of this podcast, right, so you're going to put in the keywords that we key topics, that kind of thing, those are the things that can help you. Key topics, that kind of thing, those are the things that can help you rank better in search engines. The more you do so, like you know, the more you talk about the Ben Maynard program, the more it's going to come up in various search engines.
Speaker 1:Okay, so is that why hashtags are important?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah Is that why hashtags are important yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I put hashtags at the end of every episode, but I feel like it's like it doesn't to me anyway. Like I said, I'm an idiot at this stuff.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you're not? Yeah, trust me. But but I, I do my hashtags and I don't I don't know if well, I try to stay relevant to that particular episode. There's there's like three or four that will be at the back end of every single episode or description, because that's what I am, but but then there's the hashtags that are relevant to that particular episode and I don't to me. I just don't see it driving a larger audience To me. I mean, this is a very, very small. I have a very small audience and certainly would I like to grow it. Yes, of course, only because I feel like my content even though I'm not you know, it's not high tech, I don't play music and all this kind of stuff I believe that my content and the delivery of my content is very strong, and so I want to get it out to people. But I don't know, like I said, I'm just a dummy people but I don't know.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I'm just a dummy. No, no, you're not. Honestly, so many people come to me and say I don't know what, I don't know, so I don't know what to ask you.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:I'll look over, you know. I mean I'm not in any way pressuring you. I'm just saying if you hired me, I would look at all of your stuff and try to figure out a plan for you so that when somebody types in podcast on a on specific topics whether that's music or books or whatever you want to be known for you start, you start coming up. So I always say social media is kind of like a deposit in the in the Google bank, so every little mention of you goes into that particular vertical is what they call it.
Speaker 2:So you have like let's say your keyword or your vertical of interest was music only. Let's say that's all you did. Then, when we go to music podcasts, we want Ben Maynard program to come up, so that's where social media comes in yeah. Well, I think my like for me, and then we're going to get off, we're going to get away from me Okay, but but I think you're a show man, yeah, I know, but I but look, I do.
Speaker 1:We're not going to make this episode about me, this is about you, but. But you know I do. We're not going to make this episode about me, this is about you, but. But you know I do enough episodes about me and you know, or try to make them about me anyway. Those are my live streams on. Friday nights that I get about six. I get about six viewers.
Speaker 2:It's OK, though that's OK, it doesn't have to be a huge amount of people, just so you know. I mean they always say, if you can get your dedicated 1,000 fans or 100 fans, start small and then grow and exponentially, those people will be the ones who are your core, that are going to stick around.
Speaker 1:You know, I would say, and you would probably know better than I, but most people who do a podcast are probably looking to make some money on it. You know, get paid, whether it's a little bit or a lot of it. I of course I don't have. You know, I don't aspire to be the next Joe Rogan or anything like that. I don't believe there's a $100 million contract coming my way from anyone anytime soon. And, to be honest, I make absolutely zero on this podcast, which I'm okay with. It costs me money to put it out, but I do it because I love this. I love doing this.
Speaker 1:I always had an interest in radio and I would have my morning shows that I would listen to, and you know, I just fell in love with it. And I certainly love music and we'll get into that too. But I thought I want to do that, but there was really never an outlet to be able to legally do it, and if you illegally did it you probably couldn't transmit beyond the end of your street. So then podcasting came about I don't know what 15, 16 years ago, and it was a real slow build, and maybe in the last six, seven, eight years it's just blown up. And so I thought, well, if I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it. And I just thought, ah, you know, what do I want to talk about? Well, I want, I want to tell stories and I want people to come on and tell their story. And I love music, I love my music, so I want to give my music commentary. So those are, like my two key things Tell your story and music commentary. That's where I kind of keep it.
Speaker 2:And I mean that's a step in the right direction, because most people don't even know what their branding is. They think branding is some crazy concept made up by, like Mad Men in New York City in the 1950s or something.
Speaker 2:And truly it really is. What are you most interested in? What are you excited about? What are you terrible at and want to learn how to be better at? Those are the things that people think, oh, those are just topics of interest. Well, that's where you start with the branding process. So a lot of authors don't know what their branding is or they reject it because we're artists and we don't want to feel like we're products. But truly, I believe anybody is going to be selling a product or a service in some way, shape or form. Even though you're not in this for money, you still want people to come and listen to your show, so obviously that would be important in getting the work out there.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, and that's all. And really, to be honest, I mean, from the beginning I said, if I got just a thousand people to watch or listen to this show a week, I'm good. Yeah, I am good. So, anyway, all right, look enough about me in this show, because this is why you're here. You're here to talk more about your books and that type of thing. So are all three of the marketing books? Are they kind of the same type of topic or are they geared to something different?
Speaker 2:They're geared to different topics. So the 30-day book marketing challenge is broken down by basically social media for the first couple weeks and then into the second and third week you go into newsletters and blogs, and then the fourth week is a little bit more about SEO and I found that a lot of authors wanted more information on the SEO, the search engine optimization. So I wrote a small little 99 cent book on just on SEO, and then I also wrote a little 99 center that you can get there on Amazon.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to pop up on my iPad right here. I'm trying to pop them up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have three business books available because I found that I needed to spend a little bit more time going into branding, because that's the one concept that people are just like. I can't do that. I need help. So I did a book just for authors. Anyone can benefit from it. You don't have to be an author. I work with a lot of small businesses and I've worked with some nonprofits, so basically it's just figuring out how to strategically utilize social media. So you have a plan. Most people, regardless of what they're selling. So I'll talk about writers, of course, because that's my demographic.
Speaker 2:But, it could be anybody trying to sell music, books, shows, whatever. The more you're interacting with people, the better you'll show up in the algorithms, and so a lot of people just feel like they can go on social media and go buy my book, buy my book, buy my book, and we all get turned off by that. That's just a commercial. Be there to interact with people. Again, you don't have to have 100,000 followers to do well as a book, as an author selling books, but I think it's helpful to be in more than one place Because, for example, let's just say, I have two clients right now who are older PhDs right now, who are older PhDs, one in Russian literature and one in psychology.
Speaker 2:And so they're. They both have written fiction novels. So it's an interesting case of branding. How do you brand somebody who's like the premier guy for Russian literature, right who has a book that? I mean, it's about Dostoevsky, but it's not. Anyway, I'm getting off point here. We had to brand them a little differently because not only are they very professional and known as professionals, but also they're writing fictional novels, no like romance or smut or anything like that. But even if they did so, what I mean? You know, write what floats your boat.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly, just like this. You do it on something that you get a kick out of. You're going to write a book if it's not going to be, if it's not a nonfiction, or a lot of people write autobiographies and you're writing fiction. Well, write it on a topic that you enjoy, because you're more than likely going to get through it. Then Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always counsel read-alterns. A couple things I say so one is I always say write what scares you, because I work with a lot of I did see that somewhere and I was going to ask you about that.
Speaker 2:Okay, go ahead. I don't know where that came from. To be honest. It just sort of developed. We were talking before we started. My first two books were humor books and then, you know, I was married for over 20 years. I have two children. They're now 25 and 18. And it was part of me looking at the fun part and silly parts of parenting and just the sheer exhaustion of it. Then I stopped because I felt like I was going in a different direction and I was writing more about being a survivor and we can get into that.
Speaker 2:And also yeah, and also the marketing. So I have two hats. Basically, One is being an advocate for other survivors, writing those books to let people know they're not alone, and also to share my story. Those are the broken books, and then the business books to help people who maybe can't afford to hire me but need to learn how to create their author platform.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So I want to get into those humorous books. Now you've said, I think twice now you was married. So so you're, you're not married any longer. No, we had, we had two children, and then it just sort of started falling apart. And so you happens, so it does. Yeah, unfortunately, so I moved up to norcal.
Speaker 2:I'm much closer to my family because this is mostly where I grew up, from the age of 10 on and um, the kids are here with me. I have a partner and we've been together gosh nine or ten years and we met on Twitter of all places. I always say Twitter is like it's not a dating site. But I ended up connecting with this guy and now we're together.
Speaker 1:And we have been for a long time. Mike PILAPILASI, it's funny you say that before we get into your humorous books. You know I'm on my second marriage now. I was married for 25 years and you know when you get married, you never well, I would say, most people never expect that. You know they're not getting married to get divorced. No, you're in it for the right reasons. You're always expecting to remain together sitting in rocking chairs on your front porch at 85 years old, but it didn't happen, unfortunately, however and we're getting to social media now I met my wife, catherine on Bumble and yeah, yeah, so, and we've been together. We've been together for six years. We just celebrated our five-year anniversary this past Thursday, on the 27th.
Speaker 2:So congratulations, that's, wonderful.
Speaker 1:Thank you, but but you know, and that was why I mean I wanted to get into these humorous books here, because they're about relationships, you know, and the first one you wrote was the man Code Exposed right.
Speaker 2:Actually it was the other one. It was A Walk in the Snark.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, okay, okay, you wrote A Walk in the snark. Oh, okay, okay, okay, you wrote a walk in the snark first, okay, and that, so I, since you, you brought it up, I want to get into that one. So it it says you know the description on that and, by the way, I think I mentioned it, but if I didn't, I'll mention it again, just so I can tell my audience I ordered the book, okay, and um, um, it's, it's, it's about relationships, marriage, chick speak, sex and coffee. Yep, right, okay, well, I want to know I know what, I know what four of those five are. I want to know what chick speak is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Chick speak is like. I'm sure you've heard of girl math. Have you heard of that?
Speaker 1:I don't, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's kind of that's when you have, when you have kids who are on TikTok. So, girl, math became a thing. So it's, it's kind of the same thing. Is Chickspeak Like if a woman says, I'm fine, you know she's not. So it's, it's a little bit of that kind of like, yeah, trying in a joking, lighthearted manner.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, kind of trying to understand what a woman is actually saying when she's saying what it is that she says.
Speaker 2:That was a lot of alliteration right there. Well it's kind of funny that you're a man trying to talk about how a woman talks. That just made me laugh.
Speaker 1:But go for it. It's one of the mysteries of life. Maybe if you cut me open, you'll see all the syrupy sugar and the chick come out. I don't know. So tell me a little bit about that one. Where do you go with that? I think that's going to lead me into the the. What do you call it? The man code? Oh, the man code.
Speaker 2:Oh, the man code Okay.
Speaker 1:So, I.
Speaker 2:I started this was back in probably 2008, 2009. And I started writing, taking my blog posts, which were very popular. Mostly, most those two books started out as blogs and blogging was huge at that time, right, we didn't really understand how newsletters really worked or anything. So my blog started growing and people loved the kind of silliness that I would talk about, like how my ex it just was impossible for him to put a toilet paper roll on the toilet paper holder right, that is just something that has existed since toilets. A toilet paper roll on the toilet paper holder right, like that is just something that has existed since toilets and toilet paper began right, it's been an argument. So I just thought I'll make it funny, right. So that's where those two books kind of started. But what was interesting, what got me writing the first place, was and I talk about this in the first broken book- Time out.
Speaker 1:All right, toilet tissue, waterfall or under. So does it go over or under? Over oh, okay, all right.
Speaker 2:But I was raised with a mother who does under and it drives me crazy.
Speaker 1:No, it's got to be. I call it waterfall. It's got to be waterfall. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Yes, absolutely. But what's interesting?
Speaker 2:what was interesting was that book. I started writing that book and then an old ex came into my life, uh, on Facebook it wasn't uh. We didn't meet in real life at the time.
Speaker 1:That's where all the exes come in.
Speaker 2:They all come in on Facebook you know they do, and it just it struck me so weird because, you know, we'd been very much in love in our early twenties and then it just he drank a lot and it just didn't work out. He cheated on me and I was like, okay, we're done, and so for him to get back in touch, I was like, wow, this is weird. And of course I shared it with my husband at the time and he's like you know, I know you have unfinished business, and if you'd like to chit chat with him, I don't have any problem with it. So we spoke on the phone a few times and we would Facebook back and forth and it really started me thinking about my growth as a woman, as a mother. I wasn't a mother when I dated him, but I was so young, right, and then I found later that he had died by suicide. And I found that out on Facebook, yeah, cause he had been messaging me and said you know I'll be on later if you're around, and I had small children.
Speaker 2:I was very busy, you know, so I wasn't really making Facebook a priority, and so it wasn't till a day or two later that I went. I hadn't heard from him, so I went to his wall is what we used to call them. Now it's an account. But I went to his wall and it said you know, rest in peace. And I was like what the heck?
Speaker 2:It was so shocking to me, even though we hadn't seen each other. We had just literally spoke the day before and now he's gone and I was friends with his sister for a very long time and she came to visit me with her husband and talked about how she witnessed it, how the whole thing happened. I won't go into details, but what it did is. It opened up something in me that made me feel like there is a lot of unfinished business here. There's a lot of me trying to understand who. I was at that point with him and I've taken notes, journals, diaries, like my whole life. So I went back into all of those to understand a little bit more. I think, as part of my grieving process for someone, that even though I didn't have him in my life anymore, he was a true love of mine, and that's we're allowed to grieve. That you know.
Speaker 1:And a part of your life too. It doesn't matter if it was two months, six months part of your life too. It doesn't matter if it was two months, six months, two years, whatever it was, it was still a time in your life and you shared intimate moments with that person. So still yeah, it's still very important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for me, I've been writing since I was about 10 years old, always loved writing, wanted to be a writer. But you know my parents are. They were born in 1937 and 1940. So you know, pre-world War II you got a good job. You stayed with that job your whole life. You got the benefits and the fact that I have my own business just terrifies my parents own business just terrifies my parents.
Speaker 2:But that's really where I ended up then going. These are very serious topics and I feel compelled to write about them and I wasn't sure how to go about it, and so at that point then I just that stopped me for a long time. What am I writing? Am I writing memoir, essay, poetry? And I said you know what I'm writing, all of that. So I'm going to put all of that in my books and that's sort of it's listed under memoir, but there's definitely poetry in it as well. And these were the broken books. I wrote the first broken book uh, broken pieces, um in 2010, no 2012, and then yeah, and then the. The next one came out about three or four years later, and then the next one, which I released in 2021, I think, was broken which is the most recent one, right?
Speaker 1:if we need to, we can go back to the man code.
Speaker 1:Oh sure, no, no no, no, if we need to, we can go back to that. Okay, you brought it up. No, really, so well, okay, Let me show you something here, rachel. See this. Okay, these are my notes, all right, and and and it, I have them on the backside too. Okay, so a peek behind the curtain. So I take notes and and I jot down topics and things that I want to talk about and questions, specific questions that I want to ask, things of that nature, and then, of course, I allow the conversation to bring so much more up. Yeah, because I just think it makes it certainly more organic as well, and so I didn't want to get into broken pieces yet. It wasn't.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm so sorry, no, no no.
Speaker 1:It's okay, it's okay. It's okay. No one's watching anyway. No, no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, no one's watching anyway. No, I'm enjoying this. I really really am. And just to catch everyone up and you can see it on the screen, rachel Thompson is my guest. She's an author and, if you look at the scroll across the bottom of the screen, she's also a classic rock enthusiast. Yes, she is across the bottom of the screen. She's also a classic rock enthusiast. Yes, she is. But we're talking about her books, her marketing books. Let's just get into it. Okay, let's get into it. You have a series of books. It's the Broken series. It's three books. Yeah, he said what. The first one came out in 2010. Yeah, the next one was, uh, 2014 I think you said yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And then in oh uh 21, you released the third one and that's that's this one here. People, it's broken, people sitting right here on the table. Rachel was very kind to send it to me. Of course I requested it, but she was very kind to send it to me. Of course I requested it, but she was kind enough to send it to me. It was great, and I'm very transparent with everyone, rachel. What was funny is Rachel and I had spoken on the phone a couple of times and I said, oh, by the way, and I get one of your books because I want to have it and I want to be able to show the audience as well. Sure, no problem, send me your address. So I send her my address, and I think it was the next day I get a text message screenshot of Amazon. So she goes and orders it from Amazon and sends it here to them. Okay, I could have done that one too.
Speaker 2:Well, it's's a sale, so I figured why not man?
Speaker 1:no, but I just wanted you to grab one from your stash there in your library I know.
Speaker 2:I know I have to order more. That's why I had to order it from amazon.
Speaker 1:It's okay, that's all right, that's great, okay, so so the broken series um, it's your self-help, your self-help books. Do do they all like kind of go together as part one, part two, part three? Are they all covering the same subject matter or is it, you know, part one a little different from part two, which is different from part three in what it is that we are trying to come out of as hurt people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. Well, just a little bit of background. I won't go into great detail, but just so people understand where I'm coming from. I was 10 years old and my family moved from Southern California to Northern California and there was a next door neighbor family who had a pool and if you know anything about Northern California summers they're pretty freaking hot so and they had a daughter my age. So I got to know her and we'd go over to her house and her dad started acting inappropriately. But I was not even 11 years old, so I didn't really understand what was going on. I have sisters. Never my dad's a very private person, so I had never, you know, even had discussions about anything in relations to sex I was 11.
Speaker 2:So then, you know, things happened, and it was over the course of about a year. I was terrified to tell anybody because he had threatened I had a new baby sister she was a year old and that her room faced their house, and so I was terrified, I couldn't sleep. So eventually, after all of that happened, I was questioned by some sheriffs. I ended up telling them what happened and I had to testify in two trials.
Speaker 2:One was a civil trial because they didn't feel they had enough physical evidence to go with a criminal trial, so they did a civil trial. Because they didn't feel they had enough physical evidence to go with a criminal trial, so they did a civil trial and also a military trial because he was in the Navy. So he court-martialed, lost his pension and he served 18 months in a county jail. And then he came back and I ended up having to continue to live there until I moved out, going to junior, high and high school with his kids. So there was just there was a lot of hyper vigilance on my part and trying to be the perfect person, so no one could look at me and go, oh yeah, for sure she's. She was abused.
Speaker 1:So were you still, was his daughter, were you still the two of you still friends? This?
Speaker 2:no, that, all that all had to stop. Yeah, because you, I was the bad person. Of course you were, yeah of course you were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean of course, without. Look, I don't, we don't need to get into specifics. You know, without getting into specifics, how, how was he acting inappropriately and did you recognize it right away? Yeah, it's a good question because most 11 year old kids, even today, would have absolutely no idea what was going on, but I knew it was.
Speaker 2:I knew his. His attention to me was inappropriate. He would make an effort to try and get me, or the other girls that he was also abusing, alone. We'd go on scooter rides. The whole neighborhood was a big construction zone, so you know there was. You can only ride to the end of the street and then you had to go up into some woods and so that's where he would take us, and and none of the nobody talked to each other about it. I was terrified to say anything, so, but I knew just the way that he was with me was was not how adult men in my life have acted, so I knew it was inappropriate. It was also terrifying because there were threats that went with that and he had a gun and you know things like that. So it was, it was a lot.
Speaker 1:It was a lot yeah, especially for a 10 year old, um, and I guess it goes for most everything in life. If it doesn't feel right, it's not, it probably isn't right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so you weren't the one to initially report your abuser.
Speaker 2:No, the way it sort of happened. Again not going into great detail there, was some physical evidence on some of the younger girls into great detail. There was some physical evidence on some of the younger girls and the parents were able to, yeah, have um, have them seen by doctors and all that kind of stuff. So they were able to take some physical evidence with me. No, but I was the only one who could really verbalize. These girls were four years old. But even I didn't have they were four years old.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, I know the frustrating thing was this was the third time that the military had moved him. What? Yeah, the first two times they just sent him somewhere else so that there would be, let him become, let him let him be someone else's problem.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, oh wow, okay so yeah, so obviously going through it was difficult and very confusing again. But the after I didn't really start to understand until I had my own children in my thirties and I yeah, I completely freaked out Like how on earth am I going to keep my daughter, who now is 25? How am I going to keep her safe? I was a disaster. That was when I finally sought psychological counseling, because when I grew up in the 1970s, I was born in 64. So this happened 74, 75. People didn't go to therapy unless you were like some weird hippie. It wasn't a yeah, people didn't talk about their problems especially if you were a man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you didn't talk about your stuff. You couldn't open yourself up like that. About anything, it didn't matter, and oh gosh.
Speaker 2:It's really, you know. Here's a kind of a startling statistic for you. One in three girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18. So just think about that when you go into a room. Right, this is how a survivor's brain works, because we know that this stuff happens and we don't talk about it. But here's the scary part 90 of the time it's someone they know. It's not stranger. I, I, yes, I have heard that. I have heard that.
Speaker 1:I have heard that. I have heard that. I have heard that, yes, okay, it's okay, it's this is. Let me ask this first so you said that it didn't really affect you. You know, until you were I mean, you were already, you were, you were, you were becoming a mother. I should say you were in your 30s. I think you said right, in your early 30s.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you just somehow block it out all those years? And then it just kind of like I'm having a child, I've had a child, whatever it is, and now it hit you again. I've got to do something to prepare myself and protect my child as well. Was it that kind of thought process? Maybe?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say that it was that conscious for me. I had a lot of fears and I felt just miserable. Pregnancies were hard for me at four months. With both of them I was put on bedrest because I started having Braxton Hicks, so being pregnant was just really difficult. Anyway, I'm just, I wasn't a very good pregnant person.
Speaker 2:It was just really hard for me, but I don't feel like it hit me until after I had my daughter and I was supposed to go back to work. I worked for a big pharma company and I had, you know, I had like three months off, with all the vacation and everything, but the thought of leaving her, with a sitter who came to my home and my ex at the time worked out of the house. So it was kind of an ideal situation. This lady was wonderful, she loved my daughter. I mean I couldn't have asked for a better situation, but it didn't.
Speaker 2:It was how it affected me psychologically and subconsciously, because as a survivor, you get, I mean, a lot of people do block it out. Okay, I did not. I had flashbacks and nightmares and you know I had to just push things out of my mind and so I could just focus on the task at hand. And that's kind of how I am as a person anyway, like I get stuff done. You know, that doesn't mean it wasn't there. Eventually it's going to come out in some way Go ahead.
Speaker 1:You know I'm like my palms are sweating right now. I'm going to share something with you, rachel. I'm 58 years old and I don't know. You're the first person that I've sold this to. You're the first person that I've sold this to ever, ever. But I was also a victim of sexual abuse. Oh my God, I can't believe. I just said that. I just can't believe. I said it. I really can't, I'm so sorry, it's okay, I appreciate it. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:It's hard, it's so hard and I didn't know.
Speaker 1:I didn't know I was going to go there. I didn't know I was going to come to this place. I didn't Trust me. The thought crossed my mind because of your story.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and it was a situation that happened over the course of I don't know two or three years, maybe. I don't know two or three years, maybe and to what you just said about it being somebody that you already know, that's either a family member, a friend of the family, someone at least within close proximity to the family, or the victim.
Speaker 2:Yeah, coach teacher.
Speaker 1:It was a coach. He wasn't even my baseball. It was a baseball coach, but he wasn't even my baseball coach. He was actually my younger brother's baseball coach.
Speaker 2:And yeah, take a sip, these are difficult conversations to have, but I'm really grateful that you're talking about it, because one of the things I wanted to say was it's so hard for male survivors because you got to be a man, you know, you got to take care of things.
Speaker 1:Well, here's the thing, okay, and I, honestly I don't even know how to explain this, I don't know how to tell this, cause I'm just, I'm, I'm just, I'm, I'm. I'm actually feeling quite flustered right now. You're activated, the whole discussion, I think, and I I won't say that I blocked it out for all these years.
Speaker 1:It's always there, but it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's certainly been on the back burner. Okay, it's not something that I've. I know I wasn't the only one. I know I wasn't the only victim and I, I honestly I can't say if my brother was or not. We certainly never talked about it when your kids and and at this, at this age I was, and at this age I was I think this went on like from the time I was like 13 to 15. Okay, god, I can't even like I said, I can't even believe I'm saying this. I can't believe it. I really honestly, I cannot believe I'm saying this to you, to you, but the guilt that I would feel and I'm thinking, wait a minute, I'm not doing anything wrong here.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it went on for a couple of years and then it finally stopped, and I guess the reason why I never wanted to talk about it, even though I am completely, very secure in my masculinity and my heterosexuality, very secure in my masculinity and my heterosexuality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to expose something like that or to talk about something like that can make people were you gay, are you? You know this? That the other thing and put thoughts into someone else's mind and I didn't want to have to deal with that. But I remember I was a junior in high school and my high school had this big auditorium, awesome auditorium. The school was built in the 20s.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Very proud of Whittier High School. Okay, Because that's where Richard Nixon went to high school.
Speaker 2:Claim the fame.
Speaker 1:Exactly right. Richard and I went to the same junior high and the same high school, but I had this class. It was called stage craft and we were on the stage crew and we would put together the assemblies and all this kind of stuff. So that's what we were learning. We were learning our craft there as stagehands.
Speaker 1:And one of the guys in the class and I don't even know I never replied to any of it, never got in on the conversation but I heard him telling someone else oh, so-and-so got busted and so-and-so is going to be going to jail or prison or whatever. It was Something along those lines, and I was like in my mind, I was like celebrating, and I was like, yes, it's about time. So if, if that person who said that and I said I don't remember who he was talking to, but if he said that he was certainly aware of the situation, whether he was a victim himself or he knew someone or heard from someone, so it's, it was, it certainly had gotten around and, um, I mean, so this was probably four or five years after my abusive situation started.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know, I still can't believe I'm actually. I just can't believe. Thanks, rachel.
Speaker 2:I seem to have that effect on people. People tell me their stories out of the blue. I like and I'm I get. When I wrote my broken book, it was like I gave myself permission. There's a great quote that I read and it's from Laurie Moore, and it said write something you'd never show your mother or father. And most people say I could never do that. And so that's how I wrote my books. Because when I wrote the books I was in my 40s and I was ready to talk about it, but I had never spoken publicly. So this is what I want to share with you. There's a wonderful group that I follow. Rainn, of course, is very important R-A-I-N-N, and it stands for Rape Abuse Incest National Network, and it tells you how to interact with people who are abused, if you're abused, how to be supportive, etc. And then Child Care USA is another one that I follow and I have a slide from them and it says that the average age childhood sexual abuse survivor will disclose what happened is 51.
Speaker 1:You got to be kidding me.
Speaker 2:No, so look at this like you were 13 and now we're talking about it at age 58. A lot of men, I think, also I mean, I'm really grateful that you trusted me to have this opportunity and people are going to be watching this and it's it can feel very, um, vulnerable, but I think you're doing a service to a lot of men who haven't been able to talk about it or deal with it in any way, and you deserve that help. Well, we all do.
Speaker 1:And thank you. And you know what, though? What also when, when, when we're done here too, I want you to. You can text me or email me the links to the two organizations, because I'm going to put those in the description.
Speaker 1:Ok, I want to make sure that those links are there for anybody who who happens to watch this episode, and really the only way that any of my family or friends is going to know what happened is if they watch or listen to this. Other than that, it's not like I'm going to walk out of the studio and just start shouting it from the top?
Speaker 2:No, but I think it's important that you were able to even broach the subject when you spent your whole life not doing that.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, rachel, through my teen years I certainly felt very ashamed and very guilty of it. Okay, and not that it matters so much, but well, yeah anyway, but I did. I felt very guilty, I felt very ashamed, so I never wanted to talk about it.
Speaker 2:Super common. It is shame, it is. It shouldn't be shameful, but it is because it's so invasive.
Speaker 1:It is shame, it is, it shouldn't be shameful, but it is because it's so invasive. But I, I mean it hasn't. It hasn't um, how do I say? I don't live it every day. I said I don't think about it, it hasn't harmed me in any way. Um, I, I, I didn't travel down a dark road or anything like that. I feel as though me as a human being, as a man I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing things and I think that particular situation, I just put it in this compartment and it just stayed a drawer, whatever you want to call, whatever metaphor you want to use, and I just kept it there and that's where it's been all these years, never thinking about it, never talking about it. Just that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And um, but was that really the right thing to do? Was that how I should have handled it? I don't know.
Speaker 2:There's no right or wrong. To be honest, I've talked to both my parents now and as I was writing the books and my mom had a tendency to minimize it, to say, oh well, what happened to Rachel wasn't as bad as what happened to the other little girls, and she would tell her friends that and I know that I didn't know that that was minimizing or dismissing what I. That was her way of rationalizing probably the immense guilt that she felt, because she was a stay-at-home mom right.
Speaker 2:And then when I talked to my dad. My dad is one of the most gentle, kindest people that you'll ever meet, and he is the product of an alcoholic father and an emotionally unavailable mother. So he decided at a young age, right, that he was going to love his children and he hoped that he had daughters so that he could raise them with love. He had three daughters I'm the middle child, and then my older sister had a daughter and then my, then I had a daughter and then my younger sister. So there's lots of girls in the family and papa's just the most wonderful dude in the world, right. So when I said to him, how did you feel when all this happened? And he, he said I wanted to kill him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can imagine that's a normal response right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but my dad is the most mild-mannered Clark Kent you're ever going to meet and to hear him say that.
Speaker 1:Oh, you can't see.
Speaker 2:Hold on, hold on Until he turns into this right here, oh Superman, yeah, exactly yeah, christopher Reeve, it has to be Christopher.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, all right, I hear you, I completely hear you. I'm right there with you. All right, go ahead. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:No, no, it's fine and I, you know, and my mom has even apologized and said sweetie, we just we didn't know how to talk about it. So we really just didn't. And I was already kind of a quiet child. I spent I even have a piece I think it's in Broken People. Pat Benatar saved me, and maybe this is a good transition into music, because I was, I played the piano. So I would play the piano like for all hours and then my mom would say, shut up, go in your room, I can't listen anymore. So I'd go in and I'd blast Pat Benatar and I feel like if I had not had music, music saved my life.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I think I was an athlete growing up.
Speaker 2:I was too.
Speaker 1:At 58, I'm still an athlete. Okay, I challenge anybody out there, that's right. But athletics for me, music, yes, they're great escapes. And again it goes to compartmentalizing things. It's like, okay, I'm at the ball field now, I'm practicing, I got a game, whatever it might be, I'm not thinking about this stuff over here, I'm professional here, I'm completely focused on this right here. And then when you're listening to music and in our time we had to put on the album or cassette tape or whatever it was- Eight track man. I had some of those.
Speaker 2:I'm older than you.
Speaker 1:Well, it wasn't because I didn't want them, it's because I didn't like them, because I didn't like the way you'd be hearing one song and it would fade in the middle of the song and then it'd go to the next track and then it would fade back up and play the rest of the song. I just that boggled my mind.
Speaker 1:So, no, just give me a cassette or give me my album, but you get, you immerse yourself in it, you get lost in it and it takes away everything that is going on in your life, especially when it's bad. It's just like a girlfriend or boyfriend breaks up with you and what's the first thing you do? You go put on the sappiest songs ever.
Speaker 1:So you can cry need ice cream, make yourself more miserable, and every single song that comes on is written for you yes, yes and um, but um, yeah, there's some great escape in. I think that's why it's so important for kids to be involved in extracurricular activities, not sitting on your couch or in your bedroom playing your video games hour upon hour upon hour. And come on, we are the same age, we are the same generation. We had all those same experiences. However, we would get home from school yeah, I know, I have homework you throw your book, bag or whatever on the couch or the kitchen table and, man, you're gone. You're gone until it's dinner time, and then you eat dinner and then you do your homework, maybe after you talk on the phone to a couple of friends or a boyfriend or girlfriend, and then you're still. Then you go do your homework and then you go to bed and start that cycle all over again. But it's getting involved in other things.
Speaker 2:And that.
Speaker 1:I think just having those things is so healthy, other than just being reclusive and staying to yourself and thinking that. And everything's so interactive now with video games, thinking that these people you're engaging with are your family or friends. Yeah, to me I don't know. I can't wrap my head around that one.
Speaker 2:I have two gamers in my house. My guy is a gamer and my son has played Destiny for probably 10 or 12 years, but they do. Obviously there's more to their lives than that. But it doesn't surprise me to go back to what you were saying, that you compartmentalized it, because that's what we did. We didn't talk about it. Mental health anything having to do with mental health was to this day still has quite a stigma attached, and I've gotten a lot of ridiculous comments, especially from men online. I'm very active on social media as an author and as a an advocate as well. I do some work with what's called a PTSD stakeholder. So many survivors end up with PTSD and they don't know why, and I'll give you an example. I started getting migraines as a teenager. They got so much worse as I got older. I then became a farmer rep and called on cardiologists and internists and neurologists.
Speaker 2:I mean I sold blood pressure meds, so it wasn't like I had anything really exciting.
Speaker 1:I cooked them for a while. I see there you go.
Speaker 2:But it was important to me that what happened to me had no effect on my life. So I I became I got super into gymnastics, I became a cheerleader in high school and then I felt like sometimes there's something I think subconscious in us to show well, I can get A's, I can be on the elite gymnastics team, I can win the top sales award, because there's nothing wrong with me. So I was constantly trying to prove that in a subconscious way. And my ex we talked about what happened but he didn't want to know details and he did not want me in any way to talk with our children about it. So it was really hard and at the point where I didn't get therapy until you know, I basically went into postpartum depression.
Speaker 2:That was when I really understood and got the diagnosis of having PTSD. You can't self-diagnose. There's a lot of questions that they ask you and things like that. But it made so much sense. Not a single neurologist ever asked me did you have a history of abuse as a child? Most survivors deal with some kind of chronic pain issue. It's not uncommon. Eating disorders, money issues, addictions it's all very, very common in survivors and it's a way that we have unfortunately learned to cope we seem like we're a lot alike um rachel, because you know, um, I, I can't say for sure.
Speaker 1:Let me see, I remember I was in the eighth grade when I got my first migraine headache and I was in, I was in, uh, I was at school and I was in a class and we were reading and all of a sudden, I couldn't see the words on the page. I was like I people would would ask well, how do you know? How do you know? And I would say, well, how do you know? How do you know? And I would say, well, you get the flashes. And the best way to describe it is when we were kids and you go to the movie theater and you would walk out the exit, instead of the front way, you would go out the back exit of the theater and you walk into the bright sunlight and you can't see anything right out of the gate. It's like someone shining a flashlight in your face, excuse me. And. And then you have to wait for your eyes to focus again, or or, you know, adjust, and that's how I, that's how I would try to describe it, and that's how it was, and I it's it's just so funny, no-transcript know how to treat migraine headaches. So so I heard him describe it, and and then I remember also Kareem Abdul-Jabbar suffered from migraine headaches and I had heard him describe, so I was like this is what it is, and I used to get violently ill.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, it would get violently sick and then and then I would be okay, I'd still have a dull headache the next day, but I'd be fine. You know, certainly well enough to function. But yeah, I'm still a migraine headache sufferer to this day. Just had one last week.
Speaker 2:Same same I go, but I'll tell you what. Let me. Let me tell you this you go right ahead. Thank you, I do. I do go get botox for migraine, which is not your face right it's the size of your head, your neck and your shoulders every three months covered by insurance and the other thing.
Speaker 2:That's made a huge change, two things actually. It's interesting you said that because in the 90s they were still giving out pain meds that that does not, that treats the symptom, not the disease, right? So then the triptans came out, which is like imatrex was one, emerge, relpax, all of those. I tried everything, they they would help, but they wouldn't get rid of it 100%. And that's a good test for anybody who thinks do I have migraines or not If you take what's called a triptan and they're vasodilators or constrictors, I can't remember, I think when you have a migraine-.
Speaker 1:Ali, because caffeine is wonderful for migraines. Because it opens up the blood vessels on the brain.
Speaker 2:So then triptans do whatever the opposite is. I'm obviously not a medical person here, but if you take a triptan and it doesn't work, then you're having a different kind of migraine, so it's a really good test. The other thing I do is there's now a once a month shot called Emgality, and I do that once a month and it has been life-changing. And it's like $1,000 a shot but it's covered by insurance, thank God. So I pay 50 bucks for it, but that has been life-changing for me, that combination, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, the saving thing, for, you know, the thing that really was the game changer, I should say was was when Emetrex hit the market.
Speaker 2:And when it first.
Speaker 1:When it first hit, it was in. It was in a shot form.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And and you had to, you had to they would give you this contraption spring loaded thing. You drop the syringe in there, you load it up and you click it and I would hit myself on the thigh with it and it worked. But I hated it because, like when you get an iodine injection and you get warm all over and I would have that feeling from it. But at least I could rest up, take a, but at least I would you know, I could, you know, rest up, take a nap for an hour or so, and then I could, I was functional again.
Speaker 1:So, that that was very helpful. But but then when it came out in the pill form, so I would, yeah, so I would. And I have my cocktail, I take, I take, I take my, my Imatrex or Sumatriptan, whatever you want to call it, and I take that. And I take an ibuprofen 800 and I take two extra strength Excedrin, the migraine. Excedrin always has caffeine in it as well, so I take that and, man, that's that seems to do the trick.
Speaker 1:Now, I don't you know, this one I had last week was the first one I've had, probably in maybe three, four months. You know, it was always like I get one a month or every five or six weeks or so, and, um, and I was and I kept thinking, wow, I haven't had a migraine for a while, I'm going to talk myself into one, you know, yeah, so see, see, we got a lot in common here Rachel.
Speaker 2:Well, it's super common to have some, like I said, some kind of chronic pain. I mean, you can literally look up the effects of trauma, especially childhood trauma, of any kind it doesn't have to be sexual trauma and you can see there's changes at a molecular level and so it's really not uncommon for someone. As a way of our bodies learn and brains learn to cope. They may not be the best coping mechanisms, but that's what I'm kind of amazed. Sometimes I think about it. I have no, I have never had any addictions. I'm so grateful, but so many survivors are addictions and no shame at all, because I understand the desire to shut out those flashes.
Speaker 1:You know, and and and, trust me, people trust me. Just stick with us for a few more minutes, ok, because we're going to turn this around and get happy again. But you know, to what you said, and and okay, my dad was a World War II veteran, and he was also a raging and belligerent alcoholic belligerent alcoholic, so growing up it was very dramatic around the house six to seven days a week. The one thing that I have always taken away from my dad was that he did work for himself. He owned his own business. He was an auto mechanic by trade, and in the one area that I have a tremendous amount of respect for him is, though, he would come home from work six days a week, uh, fight with my mom and pass that on the living room floor or whatever it was. Every morning he would be up at four four 30, he'd shower, shave, make his coffee, and he'd be at the shop by 530, opening the doors at six every day except Sundays, and sometimes he did do it on Sundays. Sometimes he had someone else cover for him, but so I did. I did get that work ethic from him. I didn't get the addictive personality, but but also to, you know, my brothers and I.
Speaker 1:We actually we did an episode here on on the podcast. I had both both my brothers on and we talked about this. You know, I mean, do you? I mean I? I brought it up because I thought, well, do you think that, obviously, fighting in world war ii, I'm sure he saw a ton? I mean he fought on a destroyer in the pacific and I'm sure there was ptsd there and maybe the best way he knew how to get rid of it was in the bottom of a bottle? Um, there were. There were some other extenuating factors from his childhood too.
Speaker 1:However, I believe myself. I believe that addiction comes from decisions, and we have a decision in our lives to either take this path or this path. This is the good path, this is the bad one, and it's through a series of maybe bad decisions that leads to addiction. That's my personal feeling on it. I have no addictions. I've never done any drugs other than the pharmaceuticals. I don't. I've never done any drugs other than the pharmaceuticals. I've never done any illegal drugs, never. I'm not really much of a big drinker, because I saw what it did to my family. It tore apart and I never wanted to travel down that road. I've never smoked anything. So I think, because of what I saw, that it did to people. And then, like I said, I was an athlete from a very young age and I in my stupid little child mind said oh, I'm an athlete, I have to take care of my body. My body is my temple. If I want to achieve my goals, I have to take care of myself.
Speaker 1:So, those kind of things. So I don't know, I can't say I'm right in that thought process, but that's the way I feel about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a lot of it is environmental too. Like if you rate, you know if, if your dad encouraged you to drink or to smoke or to do any of that stuff, it might be different. Like I grew up with people who could smoke in their rooms, you know, like my kids would never smoke. They might, my daughter for sure, Cause she's she's, she's my goody. Two shoes right. My son probably, but yeah, I'm a square.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm a square I know, I know she's like I just want to be home in bed with my cat at like nine o'clock and just turning 25. But you know, I'm really grateful that I didn't have to deal with those things, because I grew up with, you know already difficult what, what didn't make sense to me and what I tried to do with my books. And the reason why I ended up doing kind of a combination of memoir and poetry and essays is because I didn't feel like there was one way to talk about the things that I didn't understand growing up.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, I wasn't raised around a family of drinkers or smokers or anything. I don't know if I might have been more inclined to do that as a way of coping, if it felt like more accepted in my house, but you know, it just wasn't. My parents weren't super strict, but they just, you know, my dad was the one who said if you want to drink or you want to smoke, let me know and we'll do it here at the house, where nothing's going to happen. Well, who wants to smoke a cigarette with your dad? You know. So it was like all right. Well, I mean, I won't do it, you know. But I think that it's not uncommon to have this strive for perfection.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So there's no cracks in the armor, and that's super common for survivors as well.
Speaker 1:Well, before we change gears, I do want to hold this up to everyone and I want to encourage you to check out rachel thompson's series of books, whether it's something that you're dealing with in life an abusive situation, um, doesn't necessarily have to be sexual abuse, but some sort of an abusive situation. She, she's got the broken series. This is book three uh, broken people. So check these out. Also, she's got her marketing series of books. Check those out too, if that's the way you want to go. Um, so let's change gears a little bit. All right, okay, because this started, um, because you had seen one of my episodes, the foreigner one and I was yeah, I was a huge fan when I first.
Speaker 2:I have to tell you this. Okay, so you remember mid 70s, right? People who are listening to this might not remember no, no black light was a super big deal absolutely so I was part of the drill team. We would dress in all black and have our white you know, our little white hands and do our little jazz hands and everything. And it was to double vision. Yeah, and if I never hear that song again, it's okay with me, right? But it was hard if you know how it starts.
Speaker 2:It's like it's right out of the gate right yeah, so there was no way for us to start the tape.
Speaker 2:And then there's no build-up right so, but we had to hit that anyway. That's what I remember about, you know, mid-70s. But it was important to me, you know, like being being on drill team wasn't enough. I wanted to be a cheerleader. I became a cheerleader, then I was on gymnastics. Well, I wanted to be on the varsity team. So I got on the varsity team. So I was just always going, going, going, going to try to prove that there was nothing wrong with me. But it wasn't conscious, I didn't know that's what I was doing.
Speaker 1:So you watched. You watched the foreigner extravaganza.
Speaker 2:Which was great. Yes, well, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I really did. I did. I love all the, the, the background information that you All the minutia. Yeah, like how they even got their name. I never knew that. That was fantastic to learn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it just you know, sometimes I'm a geek for music and I'm a geek for the music that I love and the music that I grew up listening to To my heart. I am a classic rock, hard rock lover, okay.
Speaker 1:However, I do love my country music, my classic country artists, and because we were in high school the same time, from well, you were a year before, but that same timeframe, 78 to 82 for you, 79 to 83 for me I was listening to so much top 40 radio then because it was so, it was just so great. You could you turn on your local top 40 station and I think in LA at the time we had, we had at least two or three top 40 stations and you would hear a rock song, then you would hear a pop song, then you would hear a country song and a disco song, and so it was just a combination of everything. And then, of course, into the early 80s 81, 82, 83, new wave starts coming in and just started to really grab a hold of all that stuff. And to this day I still I I make playlists, um, from from particular weeks in the 80s, like like uh, uh, maybe this week in 1982.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I make a playlist of that, that top 40, you know, yeah, so I just I just love that stuff and and music is so great because you hear a particular song and it just, man, it takes you right back to either the first time you heard it or to a moment that was the most significant for you and that song itself, yeah, so great. And and uh, so I'm just I don't know, like I said, I'm a geek. So these, these, these things, they, they hit me and they stick with me. You know the, you know the, the, the fact that, although you can read the liner notes and see that Thomas Dolby played the synthesizer and keyboard on on foreigner four, but the whole thing with how foreigner got their name yes, lou graham being the foreigner in the band, yeah, so I don't know. Just, you hear these things and man, that's it. It's like a steel trap up here.
Speaker 2:so yeah, I mean honestly, I was raised not listening to top 40 radio. That was just something we as teenagers did. Right, my parents of course listened to music when they were growing up. But if you think about it, my folks, like I said, they were born in 37 and 40. They got married in 59. Tvs were still relatively new, so to even have a TV was a big deal.
Speaker 2:And now, I think you know we could, I could talk to someone on my wrist like I was, you know, agent 99 or something like you know, the fact that we can actually do this is kind of crazy. But I definitely grew up listening to Journey, journey, foreigner, um queen, yes, yes, um, you know, not so much hard acdc was about as hard as I would probably listen to, but you know tom petty and not a lot of female rockers, right, pat benatar was pretty much. And then joan jett came out more in the 80s, right, the runaways first, but then became joe jett and the Blackhearts, and you know that's the kind of music that was always on at parties that we did dance routines to, like that Absolutely described my experience growing up. And then I do remember Madonna came out, which I'm still a fan. Devo, remember Devo.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:What was that song Voices Carry? I still listen to that song.
Speaker 1:That's Till Tuesday.
Speaker 2:Amy Mann and Till.
Speaker 1:Tuesday yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Amazing, that's a tremendous song it is. But the one thing that I think I miss more than anything is our liner notes. Liner notes were an artistic, they were an art form, right. So I remember going through tori. Amos, of course, came out and I'm still a huge fan of tori and she had the most bitchin liner notes and we don't, our kids don't even know what those are. It's so crazy to me, because liner notes were just like you'd get it and you'd look at every little, tiny little thing, just that's right, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Who wrote what? Who played what? Who played what? You know? All the special thank yous to everybody out there. Yes, something, oh they're thinking. Oh my gosh, they know that guy.
Speaker 1:You know, they know that so yeah, you know, that was just one of those things, and if we have anybody out there watching or listening that's under the age of like 35, rachel just said the word bitchin'. Okay, that goes back to the 70s and 80s, okay, so, just so you get it right, I knew what she was saying, so don't get lost on that, okay, because it's a bitchin' word.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was the beauty in it and that's what just kind of hooked me so much. And I still love my music in physical form. Yes, I will listen. I'll stream stuff merely for the convenience factor, because I can put my AirPods in and I can listen to it out in the backyard doing yard work or whatever, even when I'm at work. But I still love it in the physical form. I like to buy my CDs.
Speaker 1:I have some vinyl here on the bookshelf because I sold all of my vinyl back in 1983 after graduation, which I was yeah, I know what a dummy, oh my gosh and I had some great Beatles albums that were on the apple label. But I was, I'm a dumbbell, that's all. That's all I can say. You know, I did it for love, yeah, I did it for love, uh, but um, but yeah to have it in the physical form, because then you can open it up and you can, like I said, we would sit on our bedroom floor, lean up against the bed and and open that album If it had a gate folder, just look at the cover, read the lyrics If it came with it, read the liner notes and you just you put that needle on and you just go and you just get lost in it all. Ah, just the absolute best stuff ever. And so you know, yeah, and you mentioned journey and and my, my buddy spaz, him and I we've gone to quite a few concerts together.
Speaker 1:Um and you know we've known each other. I think I may have mentioned it on the show We've known each other since we were kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I do, I cherish my friendships. I still have a group of group of my guys that you know. We we've been together since we were like 10 years old and so I love that and journey. So you know, when I do something in regards to journey and I like to bring spaz in just to have a little back and forth and, you know, kind of go on our experiences a little bit like that. So that's what's always been fun about having him on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely it's so fun too, because that's the stuff like. I grew up with a dad who had these huge Bose speakers in the living room which we couldn't touch, and then a whole system right. So to this day he still has all the records that he collected. When he was a young kid he started listening to classical composers because that's what his mom would always have on, so he grew up with the classics and then I grew up playing classical piano for like 10 years.
Speaker 2:But then you know then it wasn't cool anymore to be playing, you know Rachmaninoff. So I wanted to play the Beatles. So I still remember Beatles songs all these years later. If I sit down at the piano they're still here, there and everywhere. Yesterday. I can play. I can play those without looking at music.
Speaker 1:Can you? Can you play? Let it be.
Speaker 2:I can't. That's a hard one. It's a hard one.
Speaker 1:That was, um, I and okay people, I'm not going to tell the story, but that was, that was.
Speaker 1:That was the song that hooked me on music that just I mean, it hit me right here and I was hooked yeah um, but, yeah, that's, that's why, so that one kind of holds a, that one kind of kind of holds a special place, but, um, yeah, something else. Um, last thing before we start to close up here. Okay, and and, rachel, I can't, I can't thank you enough, um, although I don't know whether to thank you or to, um, to chastise you for making me open up honestly, I think the more voices that are out there, especially for men who are abused, is so crucial, so so I compliment you for being honest about it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Thank you. I appreciate that. And the one thing I you know, the one thing I will always, I will always promise the audience here is I'll always be honest. So I'll always tell the truth, because I'm not going to move the camera. But this guy right here, Superman, never told a lie. He always told the truth and full transparency. So you know, that's the way it is. I just I'm not going to put up a facade, I'm not going to pretend to be somebody that I'm not. And Flip Wilson, what was his character's name? Geraldine, I think was her name.
Speaker 1:Well, she would say what you see is what you get. And that's what it is right here. What you see is what you get. So but uh, I'm glad I could talk, make 70s references with you, because you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:That's great, I do.
Speaker 1:All right. So before we close up, you still need to find me a copy of the man Code Exposed.
Speaker 2:I still want that. Okay, I'll find a copy.
Speaker 1:And you say something in that book too and I know I'm find a copy and you said you say something in that book too, and I'll uh, I know I'm dragging this on, but you say something in that book, um, that men oh no, it actually was the the walk in, um, uh, walk in the, in the snark that you say men, they want to fix the world, but they can't change toilet tissue, and we talked about that earlier. But not only do men want to fix the world, but we're mechanics, we are the fixers. And there was a quote in the book and I won't quote it because I'll screw it up trying to remember it. So I'll paraphrase but you said something that when a woman says she's fine, she's not fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now for guys. If you realize that, now, here, come, here comes the toolbox. And you, okay, well, what's wrong? What can I do? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And here's here's, here's a tip. Guys, all right, come in, come in, lean in. Here's a tip. Guys Listen, women don't want to be fixed, they just want you to hear what they have to say. That's all they want, and they don't want your opinion, unless they ask for it. Okay, fellas, all right, that's what? 25 years in a divorce and then meeting the greatest wife on the planet will do for you.
Speaker 1:OK, that's what it does, guys. All right, ok, carry on.
Speaker 2:Here's my tip. All right, I love you is fantastic, but I got. This is better.
Speaker 1:Explain that one please.
Speaker 2:The house is messy. I have a migraine. Instead of the guy my guy saying to me I love you babe, he'll say I got this. You got, I got there you go, there, you go.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, you heard that guys. All right, you got a little bit of advice from me, you got a little bit of advice from Rachel, you got a little bit of advice from Rachel. Take those two things put them together and tell you guys, your relationships, your marriages, they're golden then. Oh, rachel, thank you so much. This is, this has been yeah, this has been great it really has. It's been fun just talking to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you too, getting to know you and learning what you do and everything I do want to say. I have created playlists for writing trauma. That's the next book that I'm working on is a trauma-informed way to help people write their story, whether anyone ever sees it. That's the thing that holds most people back, especially if you are a trauma survivor, so you can still write it. Nobody ever has to see it, and that can be very therapeutic.
Speaker 1:Just going through the process of it, just getting it out.
Speaker 2:I think in a guided way, because a lot of times we can end up getting triggered or activated by writing difficult things. So I have tips and tricks to help people work through that.
Speaker 1:Well, as we know, I am nobody special, but I have for many years, and now I'm glad I didn't try anything early, because I have more experience behind me now. But for many years I've wanted to write my memoir, my autobiography, my autobiography. You know, like I said, not that there's going to be, not that there's a Ben Maynard fan club out there that's just like thirsting to know more about me, um. But just like this podcast, I want to tell my story.
Speaker 2:There's a. There's a wonderful uh, sorry to interrupt you. Um, there's a wonderful writer. Her name is Julia Cameron and she started a process called morning pages. Anyone can do this. The first thing you do when you get up in the morning is you write with a pen and a pad or a moleskin. I use those for 15 minutes, Just whatever comes to mind. It doesn't have to make sense. It's literally just getting you in the habit of putting pen to paper as opposed to typing, which is what we do all day, right, but I do.
Speaker 2:It's hard to put emotion into computer keys, so a lot of times it's the process of the pen to the brain, to the heart, to the hand, and that seems to be a very helpful way for people to process some things that maybe they've put in the back burner and haven't even addressed over time.
Speaker 1:I started writing it, I said we were going to wrap up, didn't I? Didn't I not say that?
Speaker 2:Are you talking to Superman?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was talking to him. He doesn't say much, he's not much for conversation, but I did. I started writing it about a year and a half ago and I got about three pages in, but I was writing, I was writing, it was pen to paper and to what you said. I think that's a better process because if you're on a computer or even a typewriter kids, you don't understand what a typewriter is.
Speaker 1:But if you type an error, you just delete it. Yeah, pen and paper. You can see where you either change your thought process, misspellings Okay, nope, that's you. You don't erase it, you scratch it out, you arrow down, move something around those kinds of things. So you can see where your mind shifts a little bit.
Speaker 2:I think the most, the most helpful thing to do for anybody, regardless of what you're writing, is, first off, decide what is your ultimate goal. Why do you want people to read this book? Do you want them to if they're also survivors? Do you want them to understand that you can still have a fulfilling, happy life? Yes, some bad stuff happens, but this is how you've worked through some things, and I also think it's really helpful to just write. Is cursing okay?
Speaker 1:I don't, but I never tell anybody else. They can't and there's no FCC regulations, so you say whatever you want.
Speaker 2:So people call it literally the shitty first draft. So your first draft should be almost unreadable. It may not even make any sense. It could be upside down on a napkin, right, it doesn't matter. Just don't stop, don't edit, just go okay, yeah that's the best, best way to write, yeah because, because otherwise we're too concerned.
Speaker 2:What is someone going to say? Oh my god, these people are going to know this. Well, nobody's going to see it till you decide to share it and you share it. I made a very specific commitment to myself to not go into explicit detail because I didn't want people to be triggered while they read it. But some people prefer to provide more detail, and that's up to them. So these are the kinds of things that I think a lot of authors are thinking about. It's not typically dinner table conversation. How do we bring this up in polite society? Well, it's more important than ever to be a voice, especially when you hear like there's this whole thing going on with the Olympics. There's this player from the Netherlands who raped a girl. She was 12 years old, he served one year of his four-year sentence and the government released him so he could go to the Olympics.
Speaker 1:So he could go represent his country. Oh nice.
Speaker 2:Because this poor guy you know it's going to, it's something like this shouldn't affect his life.
Speaker 1:Right, right, okay, but it, but it can affect his victim's life though, and you talked about it and I know we're, we're, we're we're going to close it up people, we are yeah, yeah, but, but this is great stuff. This is great stuff, rachel, but yeah, what about the victim? What does the victim think in this? And when the victim obviously hears the news, maybe watches the Olympics, sees this guy on television, I mean, how is that going to affect her? Because I'm sure, I mean, he's an athlete, I'm sure he's in his early 20s, something like that. So it's not like this happened 20 years ago or even 30 years ago. It happened probably within the last 10 years years. So those, those scars or those wounds are probably still fairly fresh. So, yeah, wow, I don't know, I don't. I don't want to end on that note. What can I say? I don't know. Go listen to four or four people. Okay, it's a great album.
Speaker 2:Honestly, head Games Urgent. Those are such great songs or anything. To this day I still listen the first three albums pat benatar put out. I am on my regular rotation I didn't like the later stuff, but I did like the earlier stuff, so gold yeah yeah, go listen to some some really good rock and just have a great weekend you'll get lost in it, all people, um.
Speaker 1:So I'm, I'm now I'm, I'm bringing everybody behind the curtain. Rachel, I'm going to close up, but I want you to hang with me after. After we um hit.
Speaker 1:Stop on this, okay sure so it is a wrap, folks. All right, we are done. We're wrapping it up right now, and, and with that I'm going to remind you that this program is available on multiple podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, amazon Music and Spotify, or just search the Ben Maynard program. Plenty of options to choose from. Pick your option. Go with it Again. If you're watching all of this right here, this here and this over here on YouTube, please subscribe to the channel, give me a thumbs up and leave a comment. All right, last but not least, follow me on Instagram. All one word Ben Maynard Program. We are done. Thank you so much for your time, folks. It was a long one, but it's well worth it. So thank you again. This is the Ben Maynard Program. Tell a friend.