Afraid to Look: The Moth Radio Hour

This episode originally aired on October 19, 2021. In this hour, stories of nerves, anxiety, fear! And the courage and support that allow us to overcome. A phone call, a taxi ride, and a stranger's generosity of spirit. This episode is hosted by Catherine Burns. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by The Moth and Jay Allison of Atlantic Public Media. Storytellers: Amanda Stern reaches a breaking point with her anxiety. Tim Manley's repressed feelings start to manifest themselves physically. Nervous bride-to-be Anoush Froundjian introduces her fiancé to her Armenian traditions. Cheryl Murfin forgets something important in the parking lot of the grocery story. Devan Sandiford finds the courage to talk to his mother about the family's past. Podcast # 735 If you've been moved by a story this year, please text 'GIVE25' to 78679 to make a donation to The Moth today.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  This is the Moth Radio Hour, and I'm Catherine Burns.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  I'm usually a problem solver, someone who isn't afraid to jump in and talk something through until I figure it out. But occasionally, I find myself overcome by a vague angst that permeates everything, and I'm afraid to look at things too closely, out of fear of what I'll uncover. Moth storyteller and beloved meditation instructor Sharon Salzberg says that fear and worry make it impossible to see our situations clearly. Without clarity, answers are hard to come by. If we want to fix things, we have to deal with our fears, because they keep us from seeing the solutions. So this week, we're going to hear from storytellers who are afraid to look, but somehow manage to muster the courage to peek through their fingers and try to find their way through.

• 1:03Speaker 00

  First, we're going to hear from the writer Amanda Stern. Amanda's story was recorded live at St. Anne's Church in Brooklyn Heights. This was during the pandemic, so we had a very tiny audience, made up mostly of our masked and socially-distanced staff and crew. I just want to mention that in this story, there is some discussion of thoughts of suicide. Here's Amanda Stern, live at the Moth.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Since I was a child, I've been held captive by this nameless, invisible dread. The feeling was so all-encompassing, it made routine things like coming and going feel like I was putting my life in danger. It convinced me that if I wasn't watching her, my mom would die or disappear. I felt responsible for her safety, and this made leaving her every single morning to go to school feel unbearable, and leaving her to go to my dad's every other weekend feel like I was walking towards my own kidnapping. The only way that I could alleviate my apprehension,

• 2:15Speaker 01

  calm myself down, and find relief was just to avoid the hard thing and stay at home with my mom, where I knew I would be safe.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Nobody knew what was wrong with me. They called it homesickness, this feeling of mine, but I knew that couldn't be right because I felt it even when I was home. All I knew was that I felt defective and broken, and I secretly worried that I was crazy.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  I didn't anticipate that the dread would grow as I grew and that I would bring it with me from childhood into adulthood. But that's exactly what happened. The year is 1995. I'm 25 years old. I live in a small apartment with a shower in the kitchen. "Alenas Morissette" is my generation's current soundtrack. I haven't left the apartment in three weeks. I don't have a job, so that's not a problem. I don't leave the house to see friends or go to bars or do anything a 25-year-old should do. When I get hungry, I order in,

• 3:35Speaker 01

  but I don't get hungry because I'm thinking of killing myself.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  You see, now I'm an adult, but instead of my mother being the central thing around which my dread has organized itself, it's my apartment. My apartment has become my mother. Only now, just the thought of leaving sends me to the bathroom to throw up. I worry that any small movement will set me off, so I stay as still as I possibly can.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  But then I worry that I'm running out of air, so I race to the window and I open it. But as soon as I stick my head out, I can feel the dread in the wind rushing towards my face, trying to murder me. And I slam the window down and I race back to the bathroom to throw up.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  But this doesn't stop me from worrying that I'm running out of air, so every now and then I check.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  I open the apartment door, I take a couple of steps out, but nope, nope, nope, I can feel that black cloth of dread wanting to drop over my head and pull me to a grave and bury me alive in cement. And I race back to my apartment and I always end up throwing up in the bathroom. I can't even have friends over because I'm so afraid they'll breathe all the available air and I'll die from socializing. I want a big life. I want to perform and be on stage. I want to write books and do readings from them. I want to host dinner parties and actually attend them.

• 5:22Speaker 01

  But how can I do any of this when I can't even be around people? The only way out, the only thing I can figure to do is just to end my life. It just makes the most logical sense. But before I do that, I need to know the name of the thing that wants me to kill myself. And I know the person who knows that is my mother. I know that my mother has been keeping a secret from me. I know that she believes and knows that I'm crazy, but she somehow managed to keep it from me, to tell all my friends and boyfriends and teachers.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  And she managed to tell everybody in my life that I would ever meet, to keep this fact from me, to humor me. But I need to know. I need to know the name of this thing that wants me dead. So I call my mom. I tell her that I'm not doing well. And I tell her that I need to know what's wrong with me. I need to know its name. And she says she doesn't know. And no one knows. And I tell her it's okay. I'm prepared, I'm ready. I'm actually calling you for this information. I need it, I'm ready, give it to me. Tell me I'm crazy. But she won't do it. She denies it.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  She tells me that if I were crazy, she'd tell me. Totally don't believe that, but she says it. Anyway, she um, she doesn't like the way that I sound, so she tells me to, she tells me she's gonna call a cab and I should take it and come over to her house, which is five blocks away. Now, the only thing that could actually get me out of my apartment would be the promise of being close to my mom. We're not even, you know, we don't even really get along that well at this point, but the umbilical cord between us has, has never been cut. So, being near her, I feel,

• 7:34Speaker 01

  will just be the thing to get me out of my house. So, I race down the hall and down the stairs and into this cab. And the second that I shut the door, I look at the lock on the cab and I put my fingers in a V and I put them on either side of the lock, because um, I wanna be ready for when the cab driver depresses the lock, because he's gonna kidnap and murder me. But I'll be fast and I can flick the lock back up and race out of the cab. Now, even in my suicidal despair, I can see how absurd this is, because here I am wanting to kill myself, but I'm afraid this guy's gonna do it for me. Like, wouldn't I want him to kill me?

• 8:17Speaker 01

  But the truth is, I don't wanna die. I just don't wanna feel like this anymore.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  If only I could feel differently. If only I could not be filled with dread all the time. If only I could feel relief.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  And in that moment, my body somehow calls up the feeling that I want and I can feel it across my chest and it is so delicious. It's so perfectly perfect. It gives me a third option.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Because the truth is, it's not the absence of feeling that I want.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  It's the presence of relief that I long for. And I know that the only way to feel this feeling, to fill my body with it, is to conquer my fear. And the only way to conquer my fear is to face it. And I understand, in the back of that cab, that the thing that is hardest for everyone in the world to do, which is to face your fear, actually feels easier and less exhausting to me than continuing to live my life the way that I've been living it. And so that's it. That's what I decide. I am going to live my life facing my fears

• 9:44Speaker 01

  because I cannot continue to live my life beholden to all my terror.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  We pull up in front of my childhood home, and I remove my fingers from the lock, and I race inside, the promise of being close to my mom. The next morning, my mom sends me to her therapist. And I find myself sitting in front of him, and he asks me for all my symptoms, and I tell him.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  He asks me how many weeks I've been feeling this way, and I say, "I don't do that kind of math. I've been feeling this way a thousand weeks, I don't know, since I was a baby." And he's shocked that I've gone this long without being diagnosed or treated. And he tells me that the name of my condition is a panic disorder. Only, my panic disorder grew up, got married, and had babies. And now, my body is home to five or six different anxiety disorders and clinical depression.

• 10:49Speaker 01

  He puts me on medication, I start seeing a therapist, and I slowly get better and better and better.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  My 25-year-old self was right. Facing my fears is easier than avoiding them. Avoiding them gave my fears power, but facing them gives me power. Now, I can get into a cab and not be afraid he's going to kidnap me. I can write books and do readings from them. I can have dinner parties and actually attend them. I can be afraid and do it anyway, because I know that facing my fears won't kill me, but running from them almost did. Thank you.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  Amanda Stern is the author of the novel The Long Haul, the memoir Little Panic, and 11 books for kids written under pseudonyms. Amanda is working on her next book and can be found on Facebook's Bulletin, where she has a newsletter called How to Live. Coming up, a man's repressed feelings cause physical problems in his body, an anxious bride introduces her fiance to her Armenian traditions, and a stressed-out new mom struggles to cope.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  That's when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 12:32Speaker 02

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Catherine Burns. In this hour, we're hearing about times we put our heads in the sand and try to hide from life, even though that doesn't work. Now, we're going to hear from three people we met in our Story Slam competitions, starting in New York City, where WNYC is a media partner of The Moth. Here's Tim Manley.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  It was a spring night in 2008, and I'm lying underneath the covers next to my best friend Ben. This had become kind of normal for the past few months that we slept next to each other with this, like, one-foot space between us. We were pioneers of a new masculinity, comfortable expressing our platonic care for each other, no concern for homophobic social norms. And I was totally in love with him.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Not like a friend love, but like a love, like, when I, like, felt alone, I thought about Ben and it made everything okay. And I decided that tonight was the night I was gonna tell him. And he's lying next to me, but he's facing the other way, so all I can see is the streetlight on the curve of his shoulder. And I start to say something, but the words stop in my throat. And so I reach out my hand, but no matter how much I will it, I can't move my hand closer to him. And I can feel the words inside of me. They're like physical objects that are like all piled up and like pressing against me, but I can't say them and my body is immobile. In the morning, go to bed, wake up,

• 14:28Speaker 03

  Ben makes us some granola and yogurt, and I sit at the kitchen table silently. And underneath the table, I'm massaging my own hands, because when I woke up, I had these weird tender nodules, like, on my palm and in between my fingers. These like red bumps that hurt when I press them, but I kept pressing them. And when I went home, I had to lie down on my bed because my legs hurt so bad. When I lie down, I looked at them, my legs were all swollen and they had these red splotches on them. And on my thighs were those, like, bumps again. My roommate came in and she said that the bumps were my emotions trapped inside of me.

• 15:13Speaker 03

  And if I could just learn how to say the things that were stuck inside of me, my body would show that. My rheumatologist felt otherwise.

• 15:22Speaker 03

  She, uh, she like, you know, felt around a lot of my arms. She cut out a big chunk of my leg and, uh, she, not a big, a little chunk, a little piece of my leg, I should clarify. And it wasn't that crazy. And she explained, uh, that the, the, you know, that the skin tells you a lot about what's going on beneath it, that it's sort of like the communicator between the inside of your body and the outside world. Uh, she also told me that I had this rare thing called cutaneous polyarteritis nodosa.

• 15:54Speaker 03

  Right? Totally. Seen the BuzzFeed article about it. It's a, it's an inflammation of the blood vessels, uh, but only in the skin. And she said that I'm actually, I was actually very lucky that it was only in the skin because if it moved to my internal organs, which sometimes it did, it was often fatal. And I, I asked her, how often does that happen? And she replied very casually, "Oh, there's not enough research."

• 16:25Speaker 03

  I'm like, "All right, well..." And she gave me, she gave me a prescription for a medication that's usually used to treat gout in the elderly.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  On my way home, I, I passed by the drugstore and for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to go in and get it filled. Instead, I went home and I worked for a long time on an email to Ben, which of course, I couldn't send when I was done. All the words seemed cliche, all the sentences started with, "I feel like..." That's a lot. Uh, and I, I needed instead sort of like a more, a more, like an email wasn't right. So what I did, then I opened up the drawer next to my bed and I took out a black pen and I wrote on my hand, "Ben." And the ink shimmered for like a heartbeat and then it dried. Uh, and, and I continued to write a message to him.

• 17:18Speaker 03

  I wrote, "Uh, Ben, when I feel stuck or when I feel frozen by my fears and by my doubts, I think of your face and you're telling me yes." I took a photo of it with the camera on my laptop, but I couldn't email him the picture because it felt like it'd be too vulnerable. And it wasn't just Ben that I had these things inside of me that I needed to say to them. You know, there was also like my brothers and my sisters and my mother and my father and my stepmother. There were so many people in my life who I had so many things to say to. And so I decided that I would write a message to someone in my life every night on my hand. And I took a photo of it every night and I started a blog called, "I Need You To Know How Much I Love You."

• 18:03Speaker 03

  I didn't tell anyone about it. And every night I'd write on my hand, I'd post the photo, and in the morning I'd wake up with like phrases like tattooed on my face backwards. And they'd become righted in the bathroom mirror. Like, "I don't know, but..." Or "I wish I could." Or "You are so..." And I was taking those things that were trapped inside of me and I was communicating them to the outside. And as I started to do this, um, I did it for like a... Well, as I did it for months, the stuff on my arms and my legs totally cleared up. I was also like exercising more and eating better and drinking more water

• 18:44Speaker 03

  and I started wearing these like knee-high anti-embolism compression stockings that grandmas wear. But it was definitely all about letting the feelings out. And so, once my body looked good, I knew I could call Ben. And I called him from the window of my bedroom and I told him, "Ben, I have this idea about me and you. It comes to me the way that ideas for drawings come to me. Me and you swapping t-shirts, me and you holding hands, me and you like brothers." And he said to me, "Tim, I think you know..." And I did know and it felt so good. And he said, "I think you know that I'm only attracted to women." And that's how I was so sad in a way because I knew I just lost the thing that made me feel less alone.

• 19:27Speaker 03

  But also, my body felt so good because I'd learned how to take this stuff that was inside of me and I put it outside of me. And in the process, I'd transformed who I was on the outside and the inside. And then that night, I wrote on my hand, "Ben, thank you for helping me become the person I wished I could be." Thank you.

• 19:57Speaker 00

  That was Tim Manley. He's the creator of the Emmy-nominated web series, "The Feels," a show about a bi guy with way too many emotions. You can watch it on YouTube. His friend Ben is an artist living in Los Angeles, and I'm happy to report that Tim and Ben are still best friends. Tim says he's very happy to be an instructor in the Moth's education program. Tim, we're so grateful to have you. Now, we're going to hear a story from a New York City grand slam, again, for our media partner is WNYC. I think many brides will agree that planning a big wedding is an anxiety-ridden affair,

• 20:38Speaker 00

  especially when you add intense cultural differences and expectations into the mix. Speaking to that is Anush Pranjan, live at the Moth.

• 20:50Speaker 04

  It's one thing to tell someone that you're Armenian. It's a completely different thing to explain to them just how Armenian you are, because there are levels. First level Armenian is, "Hey, I'm Armenian. My last name ends with an -ian." Yay! Second level is, "Hey, I'm Armenian. Are you going to the church picnic? I'm going to the church picnic. Okay, great, we'll see you at the church picnic." Third level is, "Sierdet guy dade, mit gerd by dade, ask him parabans, la-la-la-la-la." So, and it's important to know where you are in all of that, whether you're by yourself or whether you're around other Armenians, or whether you've been proposed to by the man of your dreams who is not Armenian.

• 21:33Speaker 04

  How do you explain this to someone from Baton Rouge, Louisiana? And let me just say, Justin knew I was Armenian from the start. He knew from the beginning that I went to an Armenian day school, that I spoke a different language, and that I'd sometimes go to social events where people would spontaneously grab pinkies and whip handkerchiefs in the air. But there's more.

• 21:56Speaker 04

  If you walked into Holy Martyrs Armenian Day School, which is a school that my grandmother founded, and pulled little Anusha French on the side and said, "One day, you're gonna marry a normal man, with a normal last name, and like a real American last name, like the kind that starts with an M and a C, and who knows how to do normal things, like play pool and play poker, and who understands American football." She would have said, "Chentes inches", which means, "What, are you crazy?" Because I still knew, even at a young age, that there is a big world out there, full of people with names like Lindsay, and who, and who, and who, and then full of people who, who, who didn't care that Cher was Armenian.

• 22:42Speaker 04

  And I knew that I had to keep this all a secret, you know, in order to be safe, you know? So, but as the wedding got closer and closer, I had to start coming to terms with a couple of things and admitting some things to myself, like, "I don't think I can get married in a converted barn."

• 23:02Speaker 04

  "I, I, I, I need to get married at Holy Martyrs in Bayside, New York, with a priest with a beard and a nose, who's gonna put gold crowns on our heads and where the best man will hold a cross over us and where we'll exit the church to the sound of celebratory Armenian hymns with the accompaniment of cymbals, which is offered as an option, in addition, and after which our family will dance in circles for hours and hours and hours." And when I, and I, when I told, asked Justin, his reaction was, "Sure, yeah. Just let me know where I gotta be, because, because he's kind and decent." But he also didn't know what he was getting himself into. I mean, this is, this is the Armenian church we're talking about here. It's old fashioned, it's sexist, it's, and it's Christian,

• 23:47Speaker 04

  but like the old kind of Christian, like the kind that's dark and smoky and all the men have beards like Frank Zappa. And when they, and when they hold that little cross out to you, you're gonna have to kiss that thing, and... And Justin says, "What, uh, am I gonna have to get baptized for this?" And I said, "No, no, oh god, he's scared already." I said, "No, no, um, um, no, because you've probably been baptized before, right?" And he said, "I don't think so." And, and he says, because his family, religion wasn't a part of his childhood. I mean, the first big tradition that his family celebrates is the one that he created, which is the annual pool tournament. So, so, uh, he pulls out his phone and says, "I know, I'll text my mom."

• 24:31Speaker 04

  So he texts his mom and says, "Hey, Mom, quick question, was I ever baptized?" And she responds, "No, you're a heathen." So, so we get on the train to meet with Father Mel Chassian at Holy Martyrs, whose first reaction to Justin is, "You're not Armenian?" Oh my god, oh, because Justin looks really Armenian. I mean, he's got the eyebrows and the face and more handkerchiefs than God. And, and, but the questions get more and more intense, like, like, "Do you believe in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? And do you know that the Armenians were the first people to accept Christianity?" Then weeping out names like Saint Gregory the Illuminator and Vartan Mamigonya. And I'm going, "Slow down, too fast, too fast." And, and we're, and we eventually plan for an April 14th baptism,

• 25:14Speaker 04

  in addition to several one-on-one sessions that Justin will meet with the priest for to prepare for the event. And on the ride home, it's quiet. And I'm, uh, and I feel this shame and embarrassment. But what I'm afraid of, what I'm really afraid of, no, what I, what I need is for him to not find this whole thing ridiculous. Because this Armenian thing, it's pretty goofy. But it's mine. And it's really important that I not be laughed at right now. And out of nowhere, he says, "You know what, I like talking to the Father." And he goes, "Look, I just want to marry you. If I have to renounce Satan for that, fine."

• 26:01Speaker 04

  "I'll, I'll walk over hot coals. I don't give a fuck." Which is all I, or any Armenian bride, could ever hope for. Thank you.

• 26:17Speaker 00

  That was Anush Prunjan. She draws cartoons for Anush Talks to Stuff, her webcomic about a girl who talks to inanimate objects. Anush and Justin currently live in a house in Connecticut, next door to her parents. To see a picture of Justin's baptism, and of the two of them wearing their glittering wedding crowns at the big event, go to themoth.org. We're going to turn now to our Los Angeles Story Slams, where we partner with KCRW. Here's Cheryl Murfin, live at The Moth.

• 26:54Speaker 05

  I work with new parents, brand spanking new parents, who are very tired. And are there any new parents out here, or parents in general, who've gone through this? You know what I mean. When you have a new baby, it's a form of insanity. You're up all night, you're tired, your boobs leak, if you're the mom. And so, one of the benefits of my job, or one of the things that happens with my job, is I'll often get calls or texts from new parents. Usually, it's a new mom. And she'll tell me some catastrophic thing that has happened. "Oh my god, I forgot to change the baby's diaper in the middle of the night, and she

• 27:37Speaker 05

  probably has diaper rash." Or, "Oh my god, the baby fell off the bed." Or, my most recent one I got yesterday was, "The baby is looking at me skeptically." And so, every time this happens, I get to reassure the new parents, "You know, you are the best mom this baby ever had." Which is true, and that makes them feel better. And then...

• 30:29Speaker 05

  And so she walked over to me and she, she picked up the baby carrier and she walked over to me, the police officer, and she put the baby carrier in my hand and she said, "I'm going to walk you to your car," and she walked me to my car. She made sure that the car seat was adjusted right in the car. And then she said, "I'm going to follow you home." And I said, "Okay." So she followed me home and I'm hysterical. I drove very slowly, very slowly, all the way home. We got home. She came into the house and made sure that it was my home and there was a place for the baby. And walked down to the, you know, to the door and I was terrified she was going to call CPS. And then I was terrified about what I was going to say to my husband. And

• 31:12Speaker 05

  she, she took my hand and she, I think she was, she must have, she must have been maybe 60. She looked like she was close to retirement. She took my hand at the door and she said, "I want you to know, I'm not going to call CPS and I'm not going to call your husband." And I broke down in tears and I said, "Oh, thank you so much. Is there anything I can do? Can I call your, your commanding officer and just say thank you?" She said, "No, I don't think that's a good idea." I said, "But there's something that you can do. You know, someday you're going to run into, you're going to meet another parent or another young mom who's having a really hard day. And you're going to be able to tell that person they're really doing okay,

• 31:53Speaker 05

  that you know what, that worse things could happen. Because you're going to be able to tell them that you have won the worst mother in the world award." And so I get to share that story with every new parent that texts me about her baby rolling off onto the bed or all these things. And then I get to follow up and tell them that babies are resilient and new parents are resilient and, and that they're going to be just fine. So, thank you.

• 32:27Speaker 00

  Cheryl Murfin lives in Seattle, Washington, where she writes and edits for Seattle's Child Magazine. She told us, "Despite the incident, I went on to start Nesting Instinct's perinatal services, providing birth and postpartum doula support, childbirth and new family education, and other services to clueless people like I once was." Cheryl tells us that both her kids live to grow into happy, healthy adults. In fact, the baby in the story was in attendance the night she told this story. Coming up, a young man finds the courage to ask about a painful time in his family history. That's when The Moth Radio Hour continues.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

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• 34:18Speaker 00

  This is The Moth Radio Hour. I'm Catherine Burns. In this hour, we've been hearing stories about things we're afraid to face. There's been a lot of discussion in recent years about how trauma is something that can be passed down from one generation to the next through our physical bodies. Our last storyteller has told many slam-winning stories at The Moth, and this was his main stage debut. The show took place outdoors at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. This was in September of 2020, so except for a handful of staff, the vast majority of the audience were watching from home. You also may hear the occasional plane fly by. Here's Devon Sandoford, live at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn.

• 34:59Speaker 07

  It was in the craziness of events in June that I made the decision. I'm sitting in my apartment in Brooklyn, New York. There's a global pandemic. I'm at home, I just finished a late night of work after helping my five and eight-year-old sons with their remote learning. And now is when I've made the decision to do the hardest thing that I've ever done in my life: call my mom. See, it's kind of weird being a 35-year-old who's afraid to call his mom, but I'm the youngest of three in my family, and I kind of just took on the role of the peacemaker in my family. So whenever my brother and sister would start arguing, I would try and find ways to joke and make everybody back to being peaceful and happy. And anytime my brother wasn't being a good listener, I made sure to always listen to

• 35:43Speaker 07

  my parents and pick up things around the house, because I just wanted to bring everybody peace and happiness. But I'm afraid to talk to my mom on this particular night in my apartment, because I know the conversation I have to have with her is not going to bring any peace. It's only going to bring pain. Because I have to talk to her about her brother that died when I was little. I don't really know this story, because no one's ever told me, but I've pieced together little pieces, and what I know is that when I was six years old, my mom's brother was shot and killed on the front lawn of my grandparents' home by the police.

• 36:22Speaker 07

  And I can't really blame my mom for never telling me this story because I know it's really painful. And I have a lot of painful memories and painful moments from my life that I've never shared with her. So I can't really blame her and there's especially this one painful moment that I have that I never really shared with her and it happened when I was 21 years old. When I was 21 years old, I transferred to a new university in Southern California where I'm from. And the university was out along the coast in Long Beach. And I had this roommate situation set up, but my roommate kinda just fell through. And even though I was working 35 hours a week, I didn't have a way to pay for my own place out in Long Beach. So I had to drive all the way from my parents' place, which is an hour and a half away.

• 37:06Speaker 07

  If there's no traffic and in Southern California, there is always traffic. So I had to wake up from my parents' house and get out of the house by like 4:30 or 5 o'clock. If I left my parents' house even one minute after 5 o'clock, I'd be sitting in like three hours of traffic. And this was like my daily commute. I would drive to work. I would sleep in my car for a little bit. I'd work for a few hours and then I'd go to school where I was double majoring in biomedical and electrical engineering. And then after my late night engineering classes would end, I would usually stop by the gas station, grab myself an energy drink and these Nutter Butter Bars, which were just delicious. And that's the only way I could get home. I would just be way too tired.

• 37:46Speaker 07

  And I was doing this for a long time and I decided to tell my parents that I was staying with a friend, but I started sleeping in my car next to my work. And just in this random parking lot, it wasn't so bad though. I could, you know, park there in a little secluded area. And the only things I would have to worry about really are the bugs getting in and biting me. I'd have to worry about rolling up the windows so that people wouldn't know that I'm there and rolling down the windows so it wouldn't get all fogged up. And that's kinda what I did. And my parents didn't know that I was doing this, but they knew that it was starting to get taxing to drive, so they decided that they wanted to get me a hotel. And the first night I stayed at the hotel, it was just wonderful.

• 38:28Speaker 07

  I had this big room to myself and a bed to myself. And I could watch ESPN until I fell asleep and ESPN would just watch me. It was just great. But my parents raised me and my siblings to be responsible and independent. And I didn't like to just use my parents' money, so sometimes I preferred to just sleep in my car still and not tell them. And I would do that, especially on nights when I knew that I would have a long day at school, I would do it. But every once in a while, I would treat myself to the hotel. And on one night after my late night engineering classes, I left the school at around ten, ten thirty, and I pulled into the hotel parking lot. And to my surprise, I saw a parking spot right by

• 39:08Speaker 07

  the door of the hotel entrance, and I passed it. And I wanted to back up and get into this spot, and I see a car coming from the back, and I slowly back into the parking spot, and I grab my backpack, and I step out of the car. And as I step out, I see the car rolls up, and it's actually a police car. And the police officer flips on the lights and steps out and asks me for my license and registration. And I'm like, that's a little weird, like he came from the other direction. I know this can't be traffic-related. And there's been several times where I've been stopped by the cops before for nothing, so I know exactly what he's doing. When he tells me to sit on the curb, I know it's a routine racial profiling stop. He's gonna take my information, he's gonna check it against his database, he's gonna come back when he finds out that I have nothing on it, and

• 39:51Speaker 07

  he's gonna give me my stuff and let me go. And as I'm sitting on the curb there, waiting, I hear these tires rolling into the parking lot, and I think to myself, oh my gosh, how embarrassing, like, another guest is gonna come in, and they're gonna see me here, and they're gonna think I'm a criminal, like. And I look over my shoulder, and I see it, it's not another guest, it's another cop. And this cop car pulls up, and it shines its lights directly on me, and two officers step out and stand behind the door. And now I'm like, a little worried, like, what's going on? I've never even had a speeding ticket before, I've never had any traffic tickets. I come from a really religious family, so I actually have never had alcohol, even though I'm twenty-one years old. So I'm like,

• 40:35Speaker 07

  I don't know what's going on. Before I can process this, I see the lights of another car coming in, and it's another police car, and it pulls up behind me, and it's shining its lights on me, and another officer gets out. And finally, the first officer comes back, and he's asking me all these questions. He wants to know, where am I coming from, and what am I doing here? And then he asks me if he can search my car. And I pause for a second, because I know my rights, and I know I can tell him no, but as a black person, I also know that that could make me look more suspicious, that I'm hiding something. I'm not hiding anything, so I tell him, sure, you can search my car. And he begins to search my car, and he looks all the way through with his flashlight. And when he finishes, he asks me if he can search my trunk. And... I think to myself, "No, like, don't search my trunk. Like, I haven't done anything."

• 41:21Speaker 07

  And as I'm thinking this, I see another police car pull up, and now there's four police cars and six officers all surrounding me as I'm sitting on the curb, and I feel like the scum of the earth. And I tell him he can search the trunk, and he searches through the trunk.

• 41:37Speaker 07

  And he eventually goes back to his police car, and I'm just sitting there, and I'm so frustrated because I had been doing everything I was supposed to be doing in my life. I was double majoring in biomedical and electrical engineering. I was working thirty-five hours a week to put myself through school.

• 41:56Speaker 07

  And I was even thinking about my parents' money and easing their minds to not have to do these long drives. And still, I'm sitting here on the curb, surrounded by cops, like I'm a criminal.

• 42:09Speaker 07

  And finally, the officer comes back, and he hands me my license and registration, and he says, "You're good to go." I just, uh, somebody called about a suspicious person, and when I saw you park your car, I thought you might be trying to get away from me. Which makes perfect sense, because usually when people are trying to get away, they take their time to back their cars into a parking spot and step out slowly and wait for you. That's how you get away. And I know it's a complete lie. And what strikes me in that moment is, it doesn't matter if it's a lie or not, that this police officer is in a position of power, and he can say anything he wants, and I can only just sit there and take it.

• 42:50Speaker 07

  And I'm so ashamed that I just sit there, and I don't fight back, and I don't resist, but I also don't want to to end up dead. And as I'm sitting there, I think about my uncle, and I visualize what I've always thought about, even not knowing the story, that his face is face down on the ground, dead somewhere. And I just say, "Whatever. I gotta get back into the hotel and just let go of this." And as I'm walking away, he looks, the police officer, looks at me and says, "You know, you have that nutter butter in there. It looked like you had a really great dinner."

• 43:26Speaker 07

  And this really throws me off because he laughs to himself and I'm like, this was a joke to him and this is not a joke to me. And I walk inside the hotel and all the people who know me from the days before, they're like, "Oh my goodness, I can't believe that happened to you. Like, are you okay? Like, can we report this? Like, what should we do?" And I tell them, "No, I don't want to report it. I just want to get to my room and I want to get in my bed and hide and pretend like this never happened." And so that's what I do. For my whole life, I pretend like this didn't happen and I don't tell anyone. I tell my parents, just small details. But every time another black man comes into the news with a death, I picture myself on that curb and I picture my uncle and I know that I have a lot of pain. And so I want to call my mom and find out what has happened to my uncle. So I finally get the phone in my apartment and I call her.

• 44:13Speaker 07

  And as I get ahold of her, we talk and I tell her about all these dehumanizing moments in my life. And I open up to her and I tell her all the pain that I have and I ask her, finally ask her to tell me about her brother and what happened.

• 44:27Speaker 07

  And she tells me about his life, them growing up, and she tells me about the dress that she was wearing. She was wearing this red dress on the day and my uncle was kind of going a little crazy. And the cops had gotten called and they had calmed him down, but when he walked outside, the cops were out there with their guns drawn all around him. And my dad was there saying, "Don't shoot, don't shoot, don't shoot." And they shot him anyway. And said that he had a weapon on him, but when they searched, they didn't find one.

• 44:57Speaker 07

  And as my mom tells me this story, she's getting a little emotional. But it's not until she gets to the part where she's talking about my grandma and how my grandma used to always just retell this story anytime a visitor would come over to the house. And every time my grandma told the story, my mom had to relive the moment all over again. And for the first time in my life, I'm seeing tears fill into my mom's eyes. And I can just feel her pain and I feel so bad that I've brought her this pain. And I thought I was supposed to be the peacemaker, but all I have done here is bring her this pain, but I know that I had to do this.

• 45:38Speaker 07

  Because I know there's so much pain inside of me and I haven't been able to give my heart to the people that I love and to bring peace to anyone from the pieces of my broken heart.

• 45:51Speaker 07

  And as my mom continues to tell me more things, we talked for three hours. I realized that what I'm really looking for was a connection to my mom and to break the silence that I've been holding on to and to break the generational trauma that my family has gone through before it passes on to my sons. And now all I can do is hope for healing as I continue to share my story and to share about the things, the pains from my life. And I think that begins as I speak my uncle's name for the first time. My uncle's name was Roland Edwards, but I called him Uncle Ron. Thank you.

• 46:38Speaker 00

  That was Devon Sandoford. Devon is a writer, storyteller, and workshop facilitator who lives in Brooklyn. His stories have been featured in The Washington Post, Speak Up Storytelling, and many other places. Devon is also the founder of Unreeling Storytelling, a Brooklyn-based community providing a platform for the repressed perspectives of people of color, women, and anyone who has felt pushed to the margins. After Devon talked to his mom, he realized that the day he had randomly decided to call her was the anniversary of his uncle's death. Devon is working on his memoir, which he says is about how he lost his humanity and

• 47:20Speaker 00

  his voice until he learned to dance with the skeletons in his closet.

• 47:31Speaker 00

  He and I recently sat down to talk about why he finally felt compelled to tell this story and what's happened since.

• 47:36Speaker 07

  In terms of starting to share these stories that aren't just hard for me, but I see them as ways in which I could cause pain to my family. I don't want them to have to relive these moments. Uh, it's very difficult for me to have done that, but also to know that I have a reason behind doing it. And I realized that how much I had been like hurting my sons. I either can hurt my parents and my family, or I will hurt my sons. And I had to make the choice and obviously being a parent, it was like, there's no way I'm going to purposely hurt my sons. I can't pass them, I can't pass this on to my sons.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  That night, um, something happened at the end of your story and you mentioned saying your uncle's name. And so do you want to talk about what happened up there?

• 48:24Speaker 07

  Yeah, I got to the place where I had planned to say my uncle's name. And I began to say his name and said the wrong name. Instead of saying Ronald, I said Roland. And then I like heard myself saying it. And so it was done. I didn't feel like I could say like, oh, sorry.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  Right.

• 48:45Speaker 07

  I messed it up. Like I was just like devastated. That for me, a part of telling the story was like giving my chance, my uncle a chance to like reclaim a bit of his humanity. And after talking to my wife and my best friend, it was like very clear that I hadn't just slipped. But that the reason that I had forgotten his name is because it wasn't some, he wasn't somebody we talked about. And I didn't say his name and.

• 49:16Speaker 00

  Do you want to say his full name so everyone on the radio can hear it?

• 49:19Speaker 07

  Yeah, my uncle's name is Ronald Edwards. We called him Uncle Ron. Uh, a lot of people called him Ronnie.

• 49:30Speaker 00

  That was Devon Sandoford. To see photos and videos of Devon and his uncle Ronald Edwards, go to themoth.org.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  That's it for this episode of the Moth Radio Hour. We hope you'll join us next time.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  This episode of The Moth Radio Hour was produced by me, Jay Allison, and Catherine Burns, who also hosted and directed the stories in the show. Co-producer, Vicky Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch, additional Grand Slam coaching by Jennifer Hickson. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin, Janice McBowles, Kate Tellis, Jennifer Birmingham, Marina Kluch, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowsky, Sarah Jane Johnson, and Aldi Kaza. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Stellwagen Symphonette, Chad Lawson, Michael Hedges, Richard Hegopy, and Budot Sessions

• 50:39Speaker 02

  and the Westerlies. You'll find links to all the music we use at our website. We receive funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including executive producer Leah Reese Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.