Julian Dorey Podcast - #342 - Netflix Doc Target BREAKS SILENCE on Childhood Trauma & Autism | Sarma Melngailis

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

SPONSORS: 1) MIZZEN & MAIN: Right now, Mizzen & Main is offering our listeners 20% off your first purchase at https://mizzenandmain.com, promo code JULIAN20 PATREON https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey (***TIMESTAMPS in description below) ~ Sarma Melngailis is an American chef, cookbook author, businesswoman and ex-convict. She was the owner and co-founder of the formerly highly-regarded Pure Food and Wine restaurant in New York City. FOLLOW JULIAN DOREY INSTAGRAM (Podcast): https://www.instagram.com/juliandoreypodcast/ INSTAGRAM (Personal): https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey/ X: https://twitter.com/julianddorey SARMA's LINKS - Substack: https://substack.com/@sarmamelngailis?r=16p9u&utm_medium=ios - IG: https://www.instagram.com/sarmamelngailis/ - X: https://x.com/sarma - WEBSITE: https://www.sarmaraw.com/writing/2022/4/5/bad-vegan-is-not-a-documentary JULIAN YT CHANNELS - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP ****TIMESTAMPS**** 00:00 - Intro 01:22 - Netflix ignoring Psychological Abuse, Nexivm, Stolen Youth, Parents' Divorce 10:50 - Sarma's Autism Diagnosis, Aspergers, Sensory Disorder, Telepathy Tapes 21:53 - Thought Reading, Autism as Superpower, LSD at 13, Blue Hair Girl 32:01 - Unsupervised Childhood, Young Girls Spectrum, Older Friends, Skaters 42:36 - Book Cut Story, Virginity taken at 14, Childhood Trauma, Psychopaths, Rescue Animals 53:06 - Manipulation, Memory Holes, Vulnerability, Kids, Love & Attachment, Sick Attachment 01:02:46 - Pure Love, Younger Guys, Jealousy, Defining Love 01:13:29 - Jealousy, Cona Atists Reformed?, Sociopaths, Victim Blaming, Awareness 01:23:50 - Hyper Awareness, Second Opinions, Judging People 01:34:26 - Love Reading, Penn, Wharton, Wall St, Culinary School, Frat House 01:45:00 - Wall St, Culinary School, Brief Marriage, Wife Role 01:56:01 - Settling vs Love, Divorce, Chaos, Fighting, Extremes 02:07:27 - Conflict Avoidance, Anxiety, Friendships, Love Languages, Fear Asking Help 02:20:33 - Burden, Affirmations, Culinary School, Food, Veganism, First Scheme CREDITS: - Host, Editor & Producer: Julian Dorey - COO, Producer & Editor: Alessi Allaman - https://www.youtube.com/@UCyLKzv5fKxGmVQg3cMJJzyQ - In-Studio Producer: Joey Deef - https://www.instagram.com/joeydeef/ Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 342 - Sarma Melngailis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This isn't like a novel or a story about a fictional, sociopathic, diabolical character. This is a real person who's still out there. When I was in the relationship with Matthew, that was my first time with a person who doesn't exhibit empathy. This Mr. Fox guy. This guy is one of them. He had a whole restaurant. I was hired to be the recipe tester and help write the book. And I had like about a quarter million dollars.

About a year and a half into the relationship I was in debt by the same amount. My experience on so many levels was identical to being an occult. It's just that it was one-on-one. And there are certain type of people out there that will study you, figure out what would be your personal biggest nightmare. And now I'm going to make it come true. And I remember thinking, okay, this is really fucked up. It got weirder and reared in sort of as if he had these special powers. And the more confused I got, the easier it became for him to mess with my head.

And so. Hey, guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five-star review. They're both a huge, huge help. Thank you. You get any tattoos and Rikers? I do not, but you can imagine how intimidated people were by the duck. The duck is definitely, like, we better stay away from her. That's right.

That's like it, I feel like that could be like, it could pass for a certain gang affiliation and just make up a gang name and buy it. Yeah. No, after I was there for a while, this thing happened. happened where this woman approached me and wanted to know what I'd done because she was she noticed that she said everybody leaves you alone you must have done something really badass and so I was in a dorm of there are up to 50 women in the dorm at the same time so I was never in a cell and she said there's a lot to observe and she just thought that I must have done something really horrendous that everybody kind of left me alone I didn't you know nobody was given me a hard time

And I just thought that was kind of hilarious because, yeah, no, clearly I hadn't murdered a bunch of people or whatnot. I just had a very, I think I had a very kind of zen way about being there that after a while, nobody gave me a hard time. Yeah, it's strange. Like, I can't relate because I haven't been in prison. But you do notice how like when you look at COVID, one day everyone was going about their lives and the next day, everyone said stay inside and everyone did and so people adapt it so fast and i got to think it's probably a pretty similar thing like you realize oh shit all right i got to go in here i got x amount of time to do here we go and then that just becomes your reality i had exactly that thought when i was there

that just how adaptable we are you know all of a sudden your life is completely different and so you know you just adjust to the new normal of where you are yeah now we got connected through sarah edmondson who's going to be coming on my podcast she was going to come on or earlier this summer and then we had a scheduling conflict. So I'm excited to do that one. But obviously she could relate to some of the things you went through as well because of her own story. So we'll save that for Sarah's podcast.

But there was a documentary on Netflix. I guess this was a few years ago now. It came out. Yeah. It came out, um, uh, 2020. Okay. It was called bad vegan and it covers this whole story. And we'll go through it today.

But there's a lot going on here because there's like a crime at the end that ends up being prosecuted in court. You get caught up in that and do some prison time. But it was your husband. And I almost want to call him like technical husband because it's a strange. Thank you. I appreciate that because every time people referred to him as my husband, then, even then, even during that time when somebody would refer to him as my husband or he would refer to me as his wife, I always sort of cringed. And then sometimes now somebody will refer to him as my ex-husband. And it's like it doesn't, it's like I cringe.

It's like, ooh, that's, yeah, so I appreciate that. Technically, he was my husband, but there was nothing normal about that. You are definitely psychologically fascinating to me because there's a lot going on from your entire life and like how it got here. That's why I was curious to do this because, you know, I like, looking at stories that are like 12-dimensional. Yeah, I appreciate that because I find the psychological side of it really fascinating. And that was something that was completely left out of bad vegan as any exploration of that. And the reason why Sarah Edminson and I relate is she, you know, she's known for having gone

through the nexium cult situation and being one of the whistleblowers on that. And the experience that she and other people that Mark Vecente is somebody that also went through that. And I relate to them and they relate to me because my experience on so many levels was identical to being in a cult. It's just that it was one-on-one versus being in a group. But so many things about that guy, Keith Rennary, who was sentenced to, I think, 125 years. The nexium cult leader. Yeah, he's locked away. um so many things about him and other people you know other cult leaders and i don't know if you're

familiar with the story of the sarah lawrence students and this guy named larry ray i don't think so there's a there's a there's a docu series on hulu called um um shit i'm forgetting it with the name of it we can look it up sarah lawrence hulu docu series yeah it's like about to pop out of my brain um but anyway the guy and the guy and that he he does what he does to a small group of students and his psychology i think is very similar to the guy in my story stolen youth yeah perfect and um uh so it's just it's a very very very similar dynamic um as what happened with me it's just with me there was one of me or i guess this guy does it kind of one person at a time yes versus a group of people yeah there were aspects of him that uh matt cox

in his old days pre-reform days was coming to mine and then i would say referring to your ex-husband but i would also say there was there was an even an added element there just with like how he would i mean we'll get into it but how he would tie in like promises that could never be kept that you know like he was a god and yeah it got really weird and um over time it got weirder and weird in sort of a, you know, as if he had these special powers and the more confused I got, you know, the easier it became for him to mess with my head. Yeah. All right.

So we'll go through it. I want to start at the beginning. I kind of want to go through some of your childhood and really do it the chronological way. But I will say, I listened to the whole documentary and you and I were talking right before. I understand why there's some things that you felt weren't covered and we can get into that and how you felt that was going to be covered or not covered. But I can understand how there were some things that you wish were in there or were stayed a different way.

And I also know you're at the middle of the story. So it's extremely personal to you. It involves reputation and stuff like that. So I can imagine how much like on pins and needles I would be as well. What I will say is that I don't think it made you look as bad as you seem to think. I actually felt like, you know, if I were an outsider looking at this, I'm like, if I were grading it, they probably got 80% of the stuff in there that was really important that like, the average person, if they're thinking about it, could be like,

oh, something's wrong here. Like, this is off. And that was probably the most important takeaway. But let's start with your childhood and everything. Where did you grow up? Outside of Boston, the suburb, Newton, Massachusetts. Siblings, mom and dad together. Older sister, parents divorced when I was 10, I think.

It's a tough age. yeah it's one of those things where I always would forget like I wouldn't remember how old I was but it wasn't it wasn't messy they weren't I don't have any memories of them fighting or whatnot it's just one of those things where you know they got divorced for whatever reason and my father always lived nearby so I was able to my sister and I saw him periodically and then both my parents remarried pretty quickly so my mom remarried much older guy who had six kids already. They were all older. So that was a bit chaotic. That definitely I think had an impact in that, you know, I was the youngest of everybody and there was a lot of

changes and their mother had a stroke and then it took six months and she passed away while, you know, he and my, he and my mother were together. And so they sort of partially moved into my house and there was all this chaos and um so there you know and then just going later on in my junior high in high school years there wasn't a lot of supervision and a lot of older siblings so i you know i had a pretty independent high school yeah that's that's different i haven't heard one like that in a while so how much how much older are we talking the other six kids like 10 years um the the youngest one was a year and a half older than me okay Okay. And then the rest of them were all older. So when I first met them, some of them were already in college, graduated from college.

Got it. I mean, that's a huge, that's a huge change for sure. Prior to your parents divorcing, were you close with both of them or were you closer with one of them than the other? Um, I think probably the same. Okay. Yeah. And what was your dad's background? What did he do? my dad was at MIT as a I always say my dad as a physicist but he worked in electrical engineering and physics and was at MIT the whole time growing up dumb guy huh yeah yeah were you ever into what your dad's line of work like fascinated by that stuff like the science side no I mean I did I did very well in school but for some reason like physics was not my thing I liked math, but I didn't, that wasn't really my thing either. But it's funny, I only just learned my dad, you know, he's 86 now,

and sometimes he just kind of spills out some stuff where I'm like, wait, what? And he said something about how, you know, he was an immigrant. He was born in Latvia and then they fled and he was in a refugee camp for a while in Germany and then they moved to the United States. And there was so much pressure on him and his brother to do well in school and gets scholarships and like full rides and scholarships and get their PhDs and whatnot. And I think he felt so much intense pressure to do well academically that he didn't want to put that pressure on my sister and I. And so he didn't. But I think just didn't. When he said

that, I had, I thought, you know, I'm all this time, I interpreted that a bit as a sort of indifference. you know like I'm getting straight A's why is nobody impressed why is nobody care and I interpret it as a bit of indifference and it's only now I just turned 53 yesterday like now I realized that that all that time he was actually wanting to shield me from the pressure that he had felt oh that's interesting so you're taking it in some ways that could feel back then like it's almost like am I being neglected like this is what I'm supposed to do yeah But in reality, he was trying to do the opposite. And it just, it's like the wires got crossed. Yeah. Or I just never, I didn't know that. Yeah. But either way, I, in some ways, I did appreciate that there wasn't a bunch of pressure on me to do well because I think that made it.

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She's four years older than me. Okay. So, yeah, I think my sister, I don't know, what, I mean, one of the things I learned on the other side of this whole situation and bad vegan coming out and is that. After bad beating came out, there's like a fire hose in my face of comments and people coming at me with stuff. And in the middle of all the comments, some of it really sympathetic and kind, some of it attacking me and calling me a criminal and saying, but there was a trickle of people in there saying, have you ever been diagnosed for autism or asperger as I think you're on the spectrum? And I got so much of that coming at me that I thought, that's interesting. Why are all these people saying that? and they were saying that.

These are people who had themselves been diagnosed, so they weren't saying it in a negative way. And I thought that was interesting. And I eventually was able to go for a very thorough evaluation, like the kind where you're there all day and you're like doing stuff with shapes and all kinds of tests. And then they come back a few weeks later

with this very extensive report and gave me a diagnosis of autism one, which I feel like there's a lot of people out there that would give. get a diagnosis of being somewhere on that spectrum, but it reframed everything about my childhood and my whole past experiences where a lot of things now make a lot more sense in that framework. I'm glad you said it because it was the first thing I thought.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. I mean, it's funny because people seem, and when people would reach out to me, so often they were worried that they were offending me by asking me the question or pointing it out. and I wasn't offended at all because the one sort of really nice, healthy relationship I had after all of this happened was with a guy who I got to know in the context of his work and he was such an oddball and I tend to like oddballs and really, really, really smart. And that's like my type, you know, super smart oddballs.

But his behavior was sort of weird and maddening, but there was a lot about us. There was a lot about us that was compatible. And he seemed like one of those people that needs a lot of alone time and kind of doesn't fit in. And I felt my whole life like I don't really fit in anywhere like something's weird about me. And I don't really understand. And then one day he said something to me like, I think, you know, oh, I think we had been talking about Elon Musk and he said something about Asperger's.

And he said, yeah, I think I might have like, I might be like, oh, a notch on that. Got struck by the tism. wait a minute and i went home and did all this research about men with asperger's and which now they call it autism one for some i guess the asperger's dude was like a nazi so let's change the name but but um i did all this research on men with autism uh with aspergers which i'm just keep calling it aspergers and it made so many things make sense and and i and i really appreciate all of these those qualities but it had never it made so many things made sense it made a lot of things about him make sense that I couldn't really understand like why is he why is he giving me mixed

signals and um uh or like why does he talk about you know his special interest or like why does he talk about this thing for hours like anyway um but I found myself extremely compatible with him and I really appreciate it but what's funny is it not once did it ever occur to me that I might also have that. Like, it never occurred to me until bad Began came out and all these people are coming at me. And there were people that made, you know, there's people that made videos,

like these TikTok thing reels and videos on YouTube, analyzing me and making the argument as to why they think I'm on the spectrum and I'm watching it like, this is interesting. So anyway, I finally did go for the official diagnosis and got that as well as she also diagnosed me with some kind of a sensory processing disorder. Sensory process. And like a depression, which is kind of, you know, whatever, lots of us have that. But sensory processing disorder, which it's funny, I haven't really looked into it that much,

but I think some of it comes along with, there's something called being a highly sensitive person, like HSP, and you can look online and there's quizzes, are you a highly sensitive person? And then, you know, however many questions there are, I think if I go through and answer those questions, I'm like a hell yes on pretty much all of them are most of them. And so, you know, there's certain things that I'm highly sensitive to, like sounds, certain, like if there was a clicking, well, there wouldn't be in here because of the sound, but if there was a ticking clock, like if I go somewhere and there's a ticking clock that I can hear it, I have to, I'm like, can I take that off the wall?

Like, I can't, I can't. Like, it's going to drive me nuts. It's going to make me angry. And so I'm a bit sensitive to sounds and very sensitive to smell. So in my apartment, like when somebody walked by in the hallway wearing too much perfume or cologne, all of a sudden, like, I didn't open the door. I didn't go near the door. I'll be sitting in my apartment, whatever.

And I, and it's like, it's as if it's under my nose, the cologne and the perfume. Yeah, sorry about the water main break in Hoboken today because, That's not helping the smells around here in the hallways or anywhere. Yeah, but the smells that seem to irritate me are like artificial smells, you know, like harsh cleaning products and things like that. Gotcha. I won't get the Fabriz then. No, that's, that's interesting that, you know, you didn't test that until even like after the

documentary came out when this is not something you looked at when you were a kid or when you were a young adult or anything and then some things start to make sense because also with autism it is such a wide spectrum yeah you know and we and we actually we did a podcast with the father of one girl who's who's nonverbal autistic and they thought that that her whole life that that meant that you know she wasn't all there and everything and it turned out to be the total opposite more than there yeah did you did you listen to the telepathy tapes that's who it was it was a father oh i that that show was absolutely fascinating and i have had an experience with somebody who read my thoughts to such a degree that it blew me away.

What happened there? And it was the younger sister of my boyfriend that the one that they refer to in Bad Vegan, who was the much younger guy. They, I tend to have had all of my best relationships with much younger guys. And we had a really, again, like beautiful, lovely, good soul, good person, old soul. and we would go to visit with his family in Colorado and his younger sister, I'll just say, is different. But in a way that she, I noticed very quickly

that she seemed very intuitive and seemed to know what I was feeling and she really liked me a lot and I really liked her and we sort of had this connection. And she would very often know what I was feeling or she would sit down and say something to me and it's like she knew, exactly what I was feeling, and I just thought, well, that's very intuitive. But there was a time where she said something so very specific. And we had been in this barn, and my boyfriend and this

band were playing music. And she got up to go into the house. It's kind of a ways away. And I was like, as soon as she got up and left, I thought, I wish I'd asked her to get my sweatshirt. It's like in the room behind the thing on the show, on the hook, whatever. And for some reason, I was really thinking hard about it because I was just annoyed. I was like, oh, like, I don't want to get up and go all the way into the house myself, but I'm kind of cold, and I wish I'd asked her to go get my sweatshirt, and it's in the room, and it's just there, and she came back and was like, here you go. And it just, I just thought, whoa. And it just something that always, it made an impression on me. And I also thought of her as being, you know, people in society,

look at people who are a certain way as if they have a disability or a dysfunction or that there's something wrong with them or they're somehow deficient, whereas I feel like it tends to be the opposite. They're actually much more elevated in all these ways. It's just not recognized. And so I felt like she somehow had this elevated sense that she was able to understand what I was thinking all the time. And I just wondered about that.

I just thought that was fascinating. And it wasn't until the top of the tapes came out that I, um, I mean, when it came out, I think I was very open to what that series talks about and shows, whereas a lot of people, if I bring it up to people, just because of the name, they discount it. Oh, that's bullshit. Yeah. It's, I mean, it sounds crazy when you hear it. But then when you listen to it and then you see like the videos of how they did some of these tests and like who was involved. and then what these kids could do it's like all right maybe one of them

you could find a way and like thinking a little bit when you do this like a whole bunch of times across like around the world with different with all different kids and they have this and they were all nonverbal on the same area-ish of the spectrum

that's where it suddenly becomes like listen I don't know if it's pure telepathy or something like that I'm certainly not the guy to judge that but there's a there there there's something and then the other thing about how you know there's a there there is the fact that um then it was a while ago that i listened to it but you know how they talk about how certain academics or anybody that was looking into it or wanted to look into it more that would get shot down or fired or discredited whenever that happens is like oh wait why are there people who specifically do not want this explored yeah it's like we

accept the science that there's such thing as savants meaning some kid can just walk up to a piano and never fucking seen the thing in his life and play Beethoven right but like that's just accepted right because that's a part of scientific doctrine so I'm all for disproving things like if this turned out to not be real right great but like put it through the same process don't be like this is below us to talk and that's yeah the fact that it's it seems like there are people that want it to just go away, seems a little. It's definitely, it's definitely suspect. And I think there's also, you know, the, the, the, just the in general, autism topic

and everything is so talked about now because of a lot of other things going on in society that I think people are also figuring out in addition to, all right, why are we getting so much of this? there's also like the why also is so much of this undiagnosed by the way for a lot of people's lives like what is a better system here what does it mean we still don't understand the full at all the full elements of the spectrum or like what that's even tied to it it's a very for lack of a better word it's a very deep rabbit hole and i think now is like the reason the telepathy tapes really comes through is because people are at least now asking questions no matter how not some of them seem to be seem to be. It's like, maybe it's not. You know, like, and, and, and you should, you should do that. So that, that was cool to see that come out. And it's interesting that you had at least some sort of micro experience that was like, hmm, that's kind of similar, you know? Yeah. Yeah. No, I found that. I found that really fascinating. Um, yeah. You felt like, and you had said this in the documentary,

like there, there was so much about you that made sense. And this also helps it all make sense to, by the way but you know when you were a teenager which now just putting together your timeline that's also in this period after like your parents divorce and they both remarry and you got a whole bunch of new siblings around the house also as someone with autism you didn't know it at the time that's also like probably extra strange having all kinds of new relationships all around you yeah and it was overwhelming yes yeah okay so you have all that going on and you kind of went through you know a phase a lot of us can relate to like that awkward

loner phase or whatever is it safe to say that was kind of like your high school years yeah I mean it seems weird that I tried to figure out why you know I ended up coloring my hair I mean now it's much more common but back then

like everybody in my town I was known as a girl with blue hair because I shaved my head and colored it blue and green and uh she joined she joined Antifa too And when I was writing my memoir, I was trying to think of like, why did I, it seemed so weird, because I didn't, I wasn't an extroverted person. I didn't, I wasn't trying to bring attention to myself, but there was nothing I could do that would bring more attention to myself than coloring my hair bright, blue, and green when I was young. So why did I do that? And I think that I felt, I think that in some way, not consciously, I felt so out of place that.

Doing that to my outsides made, made more sense because then it made my outsides match my insides, if that makes any sense. That totally makes sense. Yeah. Did you feel like some of those like personal identity, you know, coming of age struggles, you couldn't talk with people about that, but your parents or people close to you was the kind of thing you had to keep to yourself? Yeah, I didn't really talk to people a whole lot. I mean, I had a best friend, but I didn't, yeah, I didn't talk to my parents about stuff. They didn't really know what was going on with, you know, I mean, I was doing all kinds of, I did LSD when I was very young. I was 13, I think.

13. I know. It seems weird. All right. How do you get LSD at 13? Normal at the time, I hung out with all these older people. And then I was totally unsupervised. So I would go to like Harvard Square and hung out with all the skaters.

and I was strangely responsible about it because I did continue to get straight A's and I wasn't like skipping school all the time maybe once in a while if I had classes I could blow off but if I on the flip side you know if I wasn't feeling well but I had a calculus test I would go to school so getting good grades was really important to me but at the same time I did all this rather reckless stuff I just I just got most of it out of my system

when I was younger. So when I went to college, I was pretty tame comparatively. Right. You're like, I've seen it all. Yeah. I'm like, I've been there, done that. I don't need to, I need to like get drunk and throw up everywhere. Yeah. Did you feel like, I mean, I've talked to, I've had friends before who were also like, I don't know, to use your word, like kind of like unsupervised when they were very young and got into stuff. Which was much more common. I mean, I, I, you know, I think I've got a few years on you guys and it was much more common then that you know LSD at 13 was more common well no but the the idea that you know parents just kind of you know sure go off and do whatever and hopefully you come back but did that the reason I bring up like other people is because I know

some of my friends I'm thinking of who had you know something similar maybe not LSD at 13 but also were like kind of unsupervised and did whatever they ended up kind of resenting their parents for that because they they felt like that was like their parents neglecting to parent them obviously they're not thinking that at the time right when they get a little older like what the fuck did you ever think that as well or yeah I think there was um of course my brain I'm like thinking like is my mom gonna listen to this probably not um Yeah, I think there was some element of this sort of confused feeling when I was younger being aware of the fact that, of course, when you're that age and when you're 15 and 16, it's like, great. My parents are gone every weekend and, like, they're not here.

And they go to, you know, my mom and my father once. I remember they went to Europe for two weeks and I was basically home alone. And when I was in high school, I think I was 15 or 16. Okay. And, you know, that's great. When you're that age, it's like, of course, that's great. but there was some part of me that also was aware of feeling like, really? Like, really?

Did you throw a banger while they were away? I did. Oh, you did. Okay. I did. Of course I did. And I was pretty responsible about it. But I did.

And I think I had five nights in a row of parties at my house. Five nights in a row. Yeah. Did they ever find out about those? No, not that one. But although, see, the thing is, I think there were a close. clues and they would ignore it because I think they didn't want to know. And one of the clues, this is the weirdest thing.

I can't believe I'm telling the story, is one of the toilets was clogged. And this guy who was like our handyman came to fix it and pulled out of the toilet. I don't understand how this happened. But a potato that had somebody had carved my name into it. I don't understand. Wait, you could still see the carving on it? Somebody had carved. Yeah, it was like the weirdest.

thing like what that was in the toilet and I I think the handyman guy was like yeah I don't even want to know I don't even want to know what happened here last week you know and then I think like I think that like the cap of a tequila bottle or something was under a couch that my mom might have found and was like what's this and I'm like I don't know never seen in my life and so yeah so I think sometimes there were clues and and they may have just been like Whatever. But I remember two ones. My mom once buying a keg.

God, I'm like saying all this stuff. Mom buying a keg. How old was, how old were you? That, that, right? I mean, yeah, there are some parents where, I mean, also I grew up part of this Latvian community where, where occasionally sometimes there were events and things that I would go to when I was young with my dad and my family. And we, and I would drink beer and I was 12 and that was normal. And so, I was just, things were very loose back then.

Yeah. But I know what you mean. It's like at the same time that I was, you know, I appreciated having all this freedom. Part of me was a little bit like, really? Aware that I certainly could get into, get myself into some trouble. And I think in retrospect, I was, I got very lucky that nothing tragic ever happened to me when I was, you know, in Harvard Square, one in the morning on LSD, you know, in some, you know, could have gotten myself in some pretty compromising situations. And I came out of it relatively okay.

Glad you did. But, yeah, I mean, that's, that's like a lot to see to see at a young age. And then, you know, like we were saying, you're kind of going, you're also going through that phase, too, like the angsty, I don't know, teenager years. Yeah, something like that. What was dating like in high school or boys? Was that a thing? Yeah.

And it's something that I really want to write a second book. because there were so many things I didn't have room to write about in my first book and I really wanted to write about and I think especially because I think that from the research that I've done that especially girls

who would get this diagnosis of being on the spectrum it's almost inevitable that you're going to get taken advantage of because you just, there's something about not being able to read people's intentions

that you can kind of more easily walk into situations and I think that I certainly never learned boundaries so there were just a lot of things that happened that I would go along with and what kinds of things because this is your young you're in high school so what kinds of things would these be i mean i think i would like end up hooking up with guys when i didn't necessarily want to because i don't know or i would feel like i'm supposed to or stuff like that Like, there was nobody, I ended up always wishing that I had an older brother who would sort of look out for me and scrutinize my dates and be like, where, where is this guy taking you?

And I just sort of felt like nobody was really looking after me in that way. So your dad wasn't paying attention to the guys you were dating. No, I mean, I think because also I wasn't living with my dad. I only went there once or twice a week for dinner or Sunday brunch or something. And so he wasn't around all that much. But I think they just, there was a lot, I think there's a lot of assuming that I was fine and not really asking. But I remember when I was 15, my boyfriend for a while was, he was 23. You were dating a 23-year-old age 15.

All this stuff just seemed normal. Yeah, he was a graduate student at Harvard. you were dating a graduate student at Harvard when you were a freshman in high school uh i was 15 so i might have been a sophomore either way i mean that's i know it seems weird now especially when i'm that's that's that's the class a felony in 50 states and porto rico right he but he was um it's funny because i'm still like we're like instagram friends um he were um we we ended up when we ended up breaking up it was like we just decided we were better off friends oh god but um okay all right it's clocking to me it's clocking me so all right so you're not you're not having trouble

getting guys you're just getting different guys than other people get at this time and you're getting so at age 15 you are dating someone who's an adult who even looking back on it I don't even know if possibly could i i mean i wasn't used so i can't put myself there but there could be things that like he's instilling in you about what a relationship dynamic is supposed to be like that is not what it's like at all that then becomes your norm because that's what you know yeah i i mean i think overall i just there was a there was a real i just never i never learned i never learned boundaries. But again, as I say, I got lucky in these various situations because, you know, that guy was like a nice dude. He wasn't, I know, it sounds weird. But, and then also when we ended up

sort of breaking up, we just, like, I think he knew, he certainly, I mean, I remember one time we were going to meet his parents and he was basically was like, oh, you got to tell them you're like a student at Harvard. I was like, I can't do that. I can't lie and say I'm like a student at Harvard um this should have been in the bad vegan documentary i am i am going to say that they had a real miss on this one i think because all my my siblings were older and i was friends with all of my sisters friends that the fact that i was hanging around with him so much oh they knew about it didn't seem weird to my parents yeah your parents knew you were dating a 23 year i don't really know what they knew but i know he came to my 16th birthday dinner

at my dad's house. Oh, my God. I know. How'd you introduce him? This is my friend in the senior class. Don't ask which senior. I don't know. They were, you know, I had another friend who I'm still actually good friends with now,

who was a lot older, and we were good friends, which was weird, a dude, who actually he's the one who took this photograph on the back of my book, and we're still friends. It was like a weird friendship. I don't know. I just, I, all of my, I was just a. around a lot of older people because my sister was older and um besides actually just the proximity of who you're hanging around which certainly that plays a huge role you're 100% right about that what drew you to that guy like was this your first boyfriend by the way uh no no

no my first veteran at 15 huh yeah oh yeah um no my first boyfriend was a guy a boy named jason penny um who was a really cute skateboarding shout out jason yeah i've got a i've got a thing for Still, like to this day, if I hear a skateboard on the street, I'm like, ooh, cute boy. So, yeah, he was a skateboarder, and he was my first boyfriend. How old were you? I don't remember. Probably 13, 13. Okay.

Was this like a real, you know, like I had a girlfriend when I was nine, but, you know, it wasn't real. You know what I mean? Was this real or was it, you know, just like, oh, this is my friend? No, I mean, I think my very young self was, if you could be in love at that age. You know, I really, I was really, I liked him a lot. But, yeah. And then after that, I did, I mean, I didn't talk about, I don't think I talked about this. I think I wrote this whole story in my original dream.

but I cut it out because of space, but I did, I did, I lost my virginity not in like a very wholesome way. It was, I didn't realize it was going to happen and I was 14 and it was a guy who was much older. How much older? I think he was 21 and, yeah, and I wasn't expecting it to happen and then it did and, yeah. And I did the whole, like, spent a long time in the shower when I got home. But. Wait, and if I ask questions that you don't want to go into, you can totally stop. There's just a lot of psychological things here that I think are important.

Do you mind telling that story, like how that occurred? I think by that time I was used to, you know, being with. guys in a certain way and when you're young i mean i don't know you remember the whole like first base second base third base so i'm pretty sure i got all those bases in one shot for the first time it was like you know there was a long build up to that but yeah yeah so i think i'd been exposed to various bases and just wasn't really prepared for that last one coming through and and maybe that's part of just getting myself into that situation. Maybe that's related to why people who have that diagnosis, females tend to end up in these situations where it's like I'm just not reading

the situation, right? And, um, uh, and I did, I'm, you know, I did tell him to stop and then he did, but it was like, yeah, I wasn't expecting that. So. But you told him the start, so he was, he had already begun, but he didn't. Yeah. I mean, this was such a long time ago. But weird part of the story is, this is an older guy. He'd been in the Marines and he was like a skinhead guy. Still follows, follows me on Instagram and I still know who he is and where he is.

But he had this teddy bear on his bed, which was just weird. He's this dude in the Marines. Skin-headed with a teddy bear. Skinhead. He had this teddy bear, and I really liked it. And so the next day, he left it at my house for me. And then I had that teddy bear for like, I still would have it if I hadn't lost all my belongings in this whole situation. But for some reason, I have that teddy bear for a really long time. That's not the 21-year-old.

who you lost your virginity to it that's a different guy or same guy no no he's the one who gave me the teddy bear oh that's the same guy yeah so i was a marine yeah and i wasn't like i wasn't mad that's the thing i just i just you know i i wouldn't angry at him um but yeah so that's my story you hear her heard it here first but you told so yeah it seems like you're just like a lot of that's bottled up you told him to stop and then he did stop yeah so you don't do you like a lot of these situations i think we end up accepting all the responsibility because i hadn't objected early enough or i hadn't objected you know it's not like today when there's so much conversation now around consent and about talking about stuff ahead of time and

that just wasn't a thing back then so yeah but you're not like 90 years old i mean right you know this isn't that long ago right and like either way whether or not whether or not the the semantics of like it happened and you were like oh i don't want this and then he stopped it's not even relevant because he's 21 and you were 14 that's right no i'm very aware that nowadays it would be very very different for i would love to check it back in the early early 90s, late 80s, make sure that was a law, but I'm pretty sure that was even a law back then in most states. I mean, you weren't in Alabama, but, sorry, Alabama. But, you know, it's like that there's a lot of things that can happen in someone's life where it doesn't

feel like something at the time. And then that bottles up and manifests in a lot of other ways. And so you, at these years you're talking about, which are all basically 13, 14, 15, 15, 16, you're doing LSD, you're having boyfriends who aren't boyfriends. They're legally pedophiles. And that's what's normal to you. They obviously, your brain is not fully developed yet at all. Theirs is at least mostly developed and legally developed. They're holding some sort of power over you. There's some sort of whatever that. It's like whatever that is there as well. And this is when you're, going through puberty and accepting how things are around you and so you start to formulate how the world works and to you this is perfectly normal and even now hearing you talk about it you don't talk

like you know it's not normal but you're not talking about it in a way like holy shit you're more like yeah this happened it's fucked up and you know but i got past it and it's like that that's not that's so far beyond the bounds, I don't even know how to put myself in those kinds of shoes. I'm also a guy, too. So I'm already operating at a loss here trying to figure out the other dynamic from the other side of the gender divide here. But you know what I mean? Like that's a big, those are some big steps that you were forced to take early that no one should have to take. Yeah, I think that's why I wanted to write a lot about, I wanted to write a lot more about this stuff in a some sort of a subsequent book because I think what happens is I didn't I didn't grow up I didn't have a lot of

boundaries and then when you carry that forward it ends up being carried forward as a lot of shame and feeling bad about yourself a lot of the time and and so later on it just it made it probably a lot easier for people to get to me and get what they want from me and also like there's there's these little symbols as well that make a ton of sense like you mentioned the teddy bear for a second i thought that was i thought you were going to another guy for a minute there but now it makes way more sense that it was the same exact guy you were talking about so i didn't think the 21 year old would possibly be the marine but apparently he was but like you that's like a child like thing yeah and you see like you see

innocence and a teddy bear and you're holding on to that if i showed you a picture of what my bed looks like at home like whenever if somebody comes in to fix something in my apartment right now i always think oh god they probably think there's like a five-year-old lives here because i've got these two giant rabbits a huge octopus like you know i've got all these stuffed animals and and um and yeah and i just um i'm 53 but i did see somewhere some interesting study that correlated um adults who sleep with stuffed animals with something positive and now i can't remember what it was but i was like i felt validated no i i i don't i don't think i don't think you should feel in any way strange about that at all i think i think it has to do with like the way that you

i don't know the way that you persevered the way that you compartmentalize things and i think that was part of it like there was some innocence in that and it also makes a lot of sense, too, that you were, like, so close with your dog during all these years when this stuff ended up happening as well. And, like, that was, like, the love of your life and everything because you probably, I don't know, I'm getting really beyond my pay grade of, like, psychology here. But I might imagine there's some sort of connection between, you know, the safe stuff teddy bear and then the dog that's actually alive and can feel things and stuff, which is nice.

There's some sort of safety valve that you invented for you. yourself there. Yeah. And I think, you know, this guy you came into my life later, which I call in my book, I call him Mr. Fox just because it's easier because he changed the name. Even though he was younger in years than me, he treated me very much like a child. And I'm sure there was something there too that's like above both our pay grades here. But that's, I think that's, I think that's some related to how he got into my head. And another thing is that having been exposed now to so many people, women and some men who've been on the other side of kind of a horrendous upending your whole life, mind-fucking psychological manipulation, because it happens to men too,

but I think more often women, what's so common is having rescue dogs and even like, like rescue pits, but rescue dogs. And there's just a super strong correlation there. So I think there's something about specifically being drawn to animals and shelters and rescue animals and wanting to save them with something where like you kind of want to be saved yourself. Exactly. Yeah.

That makes so much sense. So then it makes you that much more vulnerable when somebody can. can sniff that out, which is what these people do. They're incredibly good at sniffing that out. And then they come in and they're like, I'm going to save you. Yeah. I was thinking about this shortly before you came here today because like some of the conversations about really looking into how things went wrong involved like, I mean,

it's uncomfortable. Some of the subject matter. And obviously we've gotten into that. But that is exactly what I was thinking was some. And we'll get to it with all the context. but you know there were videos and recordings that you would do when things were going really south with anthony your husband that we talked about here where that's exactly how he would talk to you would talk to you like you were a little girl and you would talk back to him like you were a little girl too

yeah i didn't see any of those i didn't know those existed i didn't know he was recording me um until after my entire criminal case was over which kind of is another thing that blows my mind that the prosecutors saw all of those and, you know, still prosecuted me primarily. And there were more of those videos and they were, they were sort of worse in total. But they did show little clips of some of them in Bad Vegan because I had recovered them after the criminal case. But it is, and I think he was making those recordings. It's weird because this happens a lot where Keith Rainier did this with Nexium. It's like they end up being the people that, gather and hold on to the evidence that ultimately works against them and it seems weird like why did he make these videos of me so distraught and like completely miserable and fucked up and seemed like clear evidence that he is manipulating me and um but i think that he was doing that to somehow gather evidence that i was like unstable or i'd lost my mind or something but yeah in those videos he is talking to me like i'm a child

Yeah. And it felt like, well, actually, I don't, do you think that when all your formative relationships, not just your literal physical relationships with guys, but also like your friendships and who you're around, when all your formative relationships are around older people, man, women, indifferent. And these are the years you're coming of age, and that's what you get used to do you think that you in a weird way became drawn to the idea that you like between the fact that you were hanging around them and your parents were kind of like not paying attention and stuff you did you did you did you seek out people who would tell you what to do like tell you what to do in your life be like you need to do this go do it that's interesting um I don't think

And, no, I don't think so. But what's also interesting, I was thinking about this. Because I haven't, I mean, the stuff we're talking about, I haven't really thought about it in the context of how it relates to what happened. But in more recent years, I've found myself drawn to always younger guys. And I think in part because I never wanted, I never wanted kids. So I was never one of those women that like really, you know, was looking for the husband to have kids by a certain date and TikTok, TikTok, tick talk. I wasn't that person. I didn't want kids.

How young did you know you didn't want kids? I just, I think for a while I thought, like, maybe it's going to hit me that I'm going to want kids because I would see everybody else, other people wanting kids, and especially the older I got into my 30s. But I'm like, yeah, no, it's just never, I never wanted kids, which, again, I think is another, is another thing that can be correlated with having this personality type that I have because I think there's something about it that would be way too overwhelming in a way. That's why. Do you ever, do you feel like in your life, there's two layers of this.

Let's start with the base layer. Do you ever feel like people have loved you in your life for real, like actually loved you? And how would you define love? I would say yes. And I don't know that I'm able to define love. That's a very difficult thing. I mean, it depends, you know, I do, I do think, I do feel that my parents loved me. I never felt like they didn't love me.

It's easier now as an adult to, to accept certain things and have compassion. And as an adult, you know, imagine like if I had had kids. I do feel like they you know they loved me so there's there's that sort of love and I've had some very healthy relationships where I feel like there was love there but yeah I mean I think love is one of those things that I don't I don't know how anybody defines it and maybe it's different for everybody and it's different in various different contexts I think I agree with you. I think it is more of a personal thing.

The way I've always looked at it like two ways, right? So there's two layers to it. And you tell me if this fits anything or if not. But at the base layer, there's something that I just call a love, which is this strange thing that happens where if I could relate it to like, you know, a woman or something like that rather than, you know, with your mom or dad. it's like when you don't really know someone enough yet but you just kind of have that moment where you can't explain it but you know 100% you would jump in front of a bus for that girl no questions asked and be how do it with a smile on your face and leave this earth but then there's a second layer and this is the more special layer which is in love which is when to me you have

that same exact feeling but you've at least even if you're it's just like a long day spent talking with someone when the clock doesn't even matter where you really understand who someone is as a person and you feel some sort of soulful connection with them like it's almost like things are lined up for the two you to be in this spot in this on this little rock in the middle of the universe at the same time for this exact reason right and that that's the visual i would put on it i agree with you that it's probably different for everyone in some aspects. And it's also not, it's something that's very hard to put into words. But my first question was, did you ever feel love? I don't know if my explanation there can

help. Do you think you were ever in love in any of your relationships? Yeah, definitely. And I think that, I think also that in trying to define it, I think it's, I think that love and attachment can sometimes get conflated. Oh, yeah. Right? Where people can feel attached to somebody and then you think it's love or it feels like love or you don't know what to call it, so you call it love. And then there's, and then there's a more, a more pure kind of love where what you feel for somebody has nothing to do with, it's like independent of how they interact with you. It's just for them and you want the best for them whether or not they're with you or not so it's it's not about an attachment or what they do for you or how they make you feel about yourself it's just a deep love you have for that person

and so i think um certainly what i stepped into later and one of the things that was always hard for me to figure out on the other side of this whole anthony mr fox situation was i was like people would say oh well you were in love with him so and it's like no no i was never in love with him but what was that and it really it was like a sort of a sickening attachment yes and the person who explained it the best where i finally went oh now it makes sense is mark vassente who was also in the nexium cult and knows sarah edinson very well and he explained how um you know what these people do is they, they understand deeply what your deepest hopes and dreams are. And they sort of project that and mirror back to you and then set things up in a way where, like, they're the route through which you can attain that.

Yes. And so you become attached to that. And that's that strong feeling that, you know, when he would say, you love me. like okay I love you know it can maybe feel like it's love but it's not it's just it's like an attachment yeah I I think you explain that really well it's fears and dreams they play on your fears and they sell you the dreams that sound really good and you have to live under the threat of those fears in order to attain those dreams which usually if you're dealing with someone who's strictly a sociopathic abuser, those dreams are never real or they'll never be real. Right,

exactly. Yeah. And contrast that with, you know, I've been in other relationships where I felt there was more of a purity there. And why? Even the one that I was referring to where I met him in the context of his work. And as we got to know each other, I knew that he had always wanted to move to Alaska. And that was kind of a life goal of his. And so you would think that getting into a relationship, I would want to prevent him from going to Alaska, right? But I didn't. I wanted him to go to Alaska because that's what he wants, you know. And so when you love somebody in that way where you want them to realize their highest potential, even if it means that you're going to be left behind, right?

So I was encouraging of him to go to Alaska. And also, you know, I was going to move back to New York. And, you know, it's kind of clear we have very different lives. But, yeah, it's like you want the best for that person. It's not about how that person makes me feel or what I'm going to get out of it. so that yeah that might have been something pretty real there because that's that's right in line like where you're even when you know that what they really want means that you can't be a part of them but you still want that more for them there's a real sacrifice there i don't think that

i'm not really sure how you can fake that yeah and and you get actual you know you feel actual i don't know what it is like a joy that he did accomplish what he wanted to do and that he did move to Alaska and that he does get to go, you know, like, and we're still, you know, we're still in touch. And I, so I get the photos of him. You seem to keep in touch with a lot of people. That's, I do, except for the, you know, except for the psychos and sociopaths. Yeah, maybe.

I don't keep in touch with them. Maybe we can cut the petos, too. We'll work on that. But, um, yeah, no. Um, yeah, but I mean, I, I, I, unless people were psychos or sociopaths, I tend to have a good positive relationship with people from my past. Yeah. And the other thing is like, so a lot of people listening right now are fortunate enough

that they probably haven't had to deal with a situation. And I'm sure there are some people who have, but they haven't had to deal with a situation where they're literally with a sociopath or having their whole life taken over and stuff like that. But everyone out there listening males, females, like we've all had relationships, we're all in relationships and stuff. And I think a lot of people can relate to the idea, you keep talking about this attachment thing. Yeah. A lot of people, I've seen this, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say hundreds of times before across like friends and acquaintances when I watch this.

But a lot of people mistake falling in love with falling in love with the idea of somebody. Yeah, and then they project what they want and they don't see the negative things that happens all the time. Exactly. And they also don't think about the social implications, they worry about it's a fear of loss thing right like oh well if I weren't with this person how would that look to everyone else and what am I losing and what I get something that good again or whatever and they're thinking about it more on like what what is this person look like when you walk past the windows of the store and it says you know 99 99 on it versus what does this person look like behind closed doors with me actually spending time with them and how I really

feel about them and it's always a very tough thing to watch doesn't matter whether it's a male going after a female or a female going after a male. I've seen it in every direction. And I think that on a much lower level than what you've dealt with, that's a similar psychology as well, where you kind have to, as best you can, try to step out and say, all right, am I telling myself I feel these ways or do I feel these ways? And that, you know, I can't speak for everyone's gut. I can only speak for my own because that's the only one I've ever felt. But like, you've got, it tends to be very honest in those situations. It's just a lot of us don't go to it. Yeah. We don't step out and go to it. Yeah. Even with, this guy who moved to Alaska, in the beginning, I remember early on thinking, okay, am I so

drawn to him because, I mean, I've become now one of those people that's hyper aware and analyzing everything and have done so much inner work and noticed the obvious things. I just noticed that it was a little bit obvious in a lot of ways how this guy had a lot of things in common with my dad in certain ways, like his vibe and certain things about his personality. And so in my head, I'm thinking, is this, am I so drawn to this guy? Do I have, like, such a massive crush on him because he reminds me of my dad. And so it's some sort of psychological thing going on where I want to, like, get him to love me. but like once I get him to love me, if I finally get him, then I'm going to be like,

eh, I'm not interested anymore. So I really looked at that hard and thought about that because I didn't want to do that to somebody. And I understood clearly like, okay, that's not what I'm doing here. So it's not, I didn't, it's not like he's going to, if I finally, because I, how do I say there's a lot of weird, like, and this is very common for a lot of females. You're not used to having to go after a guy. Very often they're like coming to you.

But this guy was... When you look like you. But this guy was a bit of an oddball and kind of quirky and weird. And I would see him a lot because he worked in the building where I lived. And so I was very aware of like, am I more interested in him because he seems very aloof towards me? And is that making me more interested in him? Or is it really just that I admire? and respect and love, you know, and growing to be falling in love with who he is.

So I was very deliberate about, yes, it is who he is, which I think the fact that we're still, you know, that we're still in touch and, you know, and then we did stay together for quite a while until he moved. How long ago was this, by the way? It was when Bad Began came out, so he was with me when I watched it for the first time. um so yeah it was sort of those years the 20 20 COVID it was around yeah 21 22 somewhere yeah and was this another one of the younger guys kind of deal uh yes he is 14 years younger than me so he's 39 yeah you had said this a while ago but I want to come back to this just because

it's it's interesting pattern so you would have this thing as well where then you would go for younger guys almost like in a mental way maybe to like offset some of these other dynamics but then you would want them to treat you I don't remember how you said it so I want to put words in your mouth but you're like you would you would want them to treat you like a little girl um no I well I certainly not consciously but there was something about the time in my life and what was going on when that guy I, Mr. Fox, came into my life, and he had such a dominant, like a dominating personality that normally I would have been very turned off by, and that wasn't my history, guys like that

who are... Dominating personalities, that wasn't your history? No. I don't know if I believe you on that. I mean, the... I believe that you think that, but, you know, 23 and 15, 21 and 14. Yeah, but they didn't have, like, that sort of... You know, like, somebody walks into a room and they have like a very dominating personality.

Like boisterous. Yes, yes. I understand what you mean. So they're not necessarily, you're not saying that you were drawn to people who were outward alpha, hello, I'm here about it. But they might have that more under the surface and especially when you get behind closed doors. It might turn into that. Yeah, maybe. Okay.

But my best relationships were, you know, were these sort of younger guys who were not like that at all. And I certainly was never drawn towards the type of guy that would get really jealous and angry. Like, no, no. What turned you off about them? Weirdly enough, it's like the controlling aspect of it. Like, you know, I don't, if somebody would try to control me or tell me what to do, I'm going to be like, no, fuck you. And so, um, a lot of my healthier relationships, you know, they were very, you know, that guy, Tobin that I had been in a relationship with right before this guy, it was such a lovely, we lived together for four years. there was no drama, you know, there's no fighting, there was no drama.

I was running the restaurant and very often I would stay there late or, you know, I'd have these meetings with like male potential investors and he never got banned out of shape and jealous and he was in a band and sometimes went out with his friends and there were probably young girls there that were younger than me and I didn't get bent out of shape and jealous and we were both very like healthy. Yeah, it was very, very healthy. And I think because there was so much kind of, kind of. mutual respect in that way like I wasn't going to cheat on him or be with another guy like I

there was just a lot of mutual respect and so I think I've had um I mean I'd never I'd never been drawn to the type of a guy that would be angry and jealous and I think what can happen is maybe what I what I was somehow drawn to with this guy the Mr. Fox guy is that that is the element of his personality that was like that that felt protective, you know? And so sometimes guys will act like they're being very protective, but they're being jealous. That's right. That's right. And so it's a fine line between being genuinely protective and, like, possessive.

You guys are pretty good at picking up that by you guys. I mean, women are pretty good at picking up on that, though. Because, like, jealousy and anger and shit like that is massive insecurity. Whereas protectiveness is, when used correctly, is in control of the situation, security in yourself and a security and your ability to solve whatever problems in front of you. Yeah, or just somebody being genuinely worried about your safety, your physical safety. Exactly. There's a huge, huge difference there.

And, like, that's the thing about constantly. men and stuff that they can be really really good at putting that on because they're so into themselves that a lot of like the jealousy and stuff like that they even got time for that so the rest of it feels like it's just pure protection i mean we were talking off camera about my friend matt cox it was you know he's reformed but you know was it was a total con man and a lot of the patterns that i saw with your ex were very very similar to patterns he would have. He didn't go as far as your ex did, to be fair.

Right, because I think, like, I'm fascinated by him by your friend because the idea of somebody like that being reformed is so out there. Like, there's a lot of these people are this way to such a degree that there's no reforming them ever, like none. And this guy is one of them. I mean, if somebody who is a full-blown sociopath or a malignant narcissist,

there's no reforming them so here's what i here's what i say about matt because righteously so some people every time i say that are like are you who watch matt and like enjoy them are like are you fucking crazy like matt'll defraud you in five seconds matt has forced himself to be so hyper self-aware of what he is not who he is what he is that like there is no one who is more like he has ripped off the band-aid and gone so hard the other way that he has like a self-loathing of himself i would describe it as that sometimes when i'm talking with matt i have to say hey you don't have to say that like that to yourself or whatever but then i understand i'm like he's just trying to protect himself against himself so i agree with you i'm not sure

you can ever fully de download that i'm very glad i can't you know relate to that i understand what that would feel like. It's fascinating. I find that fascinating. It's very fascinating. There's a book that I learned the most from, and I end up bringing it up on like almost every podcast I do because I found it so fascinating and useful called Confessions of a sociopath, written by a woman. Okay. But I think reading a book like that has so much more impact than a lot of the academic and psychologist written books about sociopathy.

Because there's one thing when somebody's describing something in a clinical way, but when you're, reading a firsthand account of it and it's the person's words it really hits it hits and um like mark vasente is coming out with a film about um called the narcissists play narcissists playbook uh i think is what it'll be called but i was able to see a preview and that's that's like a film version that i'm i can't wait for it to come out because i think that i think that part of the way that these people are able to get into people's lives and do so much destruction is that there's a lot of us walking around where we cannot even fathom

that there are human beings that are capable of such diabolical behavior that we don't see it coming or we'll believe all the other stories because it couldn't possibly be true that somebody couldn't possibly be that diabolically cruel. I mean the first the opening paragraph in my book

is something about sort of outlining that there are a certain type of people out there that will study you, figure out like what's your personal worst nightmare like what would be your personal biggest nightmare and now i'm going to make it come true yep and that's what they do and then like when they're done with you and you're totally fucked over and possibly facing criminal charges they're like onto the next person and that's what they do they feel nothing and they never will and so i think it's really hard for people to comprehend and that's

part of why so much you know like classic victim blaming exists because people kind of don't want to accept that that's possible and that that could happen to them. So it's easier for them to be like, well, what did you do? Or how did you make that happen? Or how was it your fault? Because it's easier to make it my fault. But yeah, I think it's, it's, so, you know, books like Confessions of a Sociopath, it really, it hits home more that people like this really exist. And it's part of what I hope people will get out of my book, too, is that this isn't, you know, this isn't like a novel or a story about a fictional sociopathic dark diabolical character it's like this is a real person you're still out there that book you just mentioned confessions as sociopath that sounds

i i definitely want to read that that's that's fast it's really good i mean it's really well written it's really chilling um i uh i just i recommend it all the time so what's her takeaway at the end like oh i'm still a sociopath so don't ever talk to me come I mean, I've read it twice and so long ago now that I don't really, it's just that you come away with it and it really sinks in like on a visceral level that these people exist. And she's, you know, she writes it in a very self-reflective exploratory way and kind of asks and answers a lot of questions and explores a lot of things like, you know, if there was a way for us in society to know who is a sociopath, what would we do? and how would we handle it because they're don't again there's no reforming them it's not like you're going to get them to suddenly have empathy but like you said it's also we believe what we want to believe and when we haven't encountered certain things we assume that can't possibly be the case

which is what i found with a lot of your story too and and like i'm sure everyone out there listening in some context understands exactly what we're talking about there where it's just like you kind of, and you hope it's not life altering, but you kind of have to be kicked in the ass once with the, hey, this person was not at all what they said they were to know what that is. I hear it all the time and it feels unfortunately very true that unless you've been through something like this,

it's almost impossible to understand. And that's why, you know, probably even in the YouTube, in the comments to this, people will be like, ah, she's making herself the victim. I'm like, just, oh, people say that all the time. Listen, people are going to cut you. Because they don't, they just can't fathom, they can't fathom how this happens. But if you've been manipulated or duped in some way or, or been through a relationship with a somebody, either an extreme malignant narcissist or even like narcissists, light, then you get it and you understand that this can happen.

Yeah, what's even more interesting to me than like, you. like a book like that woman wrote where it's literally called that and you know that when you're reading it. What's more interesting to me is when I'll read a book written by someone and it's clear that they're a sociopath and they don't realize that they just wrote it in all their own words because to them they're so crazy that they think it sounds right. And I'm not going to name names, but I've encountered that a couple times and it's so fascinating. I'm curious. I'm like, You read this back and you thought that this makes you sound like the good guy. Yeah.

Like it's just so textbook. It's very interesting what people will reveal about themselves. And even sometimes I haven't really, I can't think of examples where on that level I've experienced that with someone in here. I mean, I see everyone's good and flaws in here. We're all people. But not on, never on that level where it was. was revealed and the person like didn't realize it but i've listened to other podcasts before a long form podcasts where i'm like this person would listen to this back and think that this sounds normal

and they just told me everything i need to know about them and then i go look at the comments sections and i see i ain't the only one that that had that takeaway you know what i mean like people can pick up on it when you see it for long enough but it's a whole different thing to be on the outside of the aquarium looking in versus being one of the fish swimming in there. Oh, yeah. It's a lot harder to see it and spot it when you're in the middle of it. And it now, I mean, I see it all the time now and other people too, but just from having been through it.

Do you ever worry, I mean, I wouldn't blame me actually for having this bias on it, but do you ever worry that now you're someone who immediately looks for all the wrong in people assuming it could go that route just because of what you've been through versus like, you know, what I mean? Like maybe overjudging people sometimes? No, no. I think I have to constantly remind myself to keep looking for red flags because just my nature is such that, I mean, this happened to me multiple times. They, I think originally they had more about my prior relationship with this guy, Matthew and Bad Began, they cut it out. But I put a few chapters in my book. I mean, I was in a relationship with a guy. Was that the chef? Yeah. Yeah. And, and

he certainly is an extreme version of that type of personality. I'm very cautious about what I say about people because he's kind of a litigious little fuck, so I don't want to call him certain things. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. And I even, I told us, yeah, I was a bit more bold and like earlier versions of my draft,

and then I just took stuff out and I was like, you know, I'm just going to put the stories of what happened in there, and people can make their own judgments about his psychology and personality. Good call. But because I've stepped into that and then it happened again in like a much more extreme way. And then even since then I stepped into shit after that where it's like, holy shit, how does this keep happening to me? And then I noticed in all of my conversations and exposure to other people's stories and other people who've been through this, it's very common for it to happen again and again. So now I'm hyper aware that, you know, I am wired in a way and my nature is such that I will tend to give

somebody the benefit of the doubt, you know, I will rationalize their shitty behavior or I will have a tendency to rationalize their shitty behavior. So I have to remind myself, well, the same way your friend Matt has to remind himself to sort of be a certain way and maybe overcompensate, I have to keep reminding myself to go, wait a minute, is this behavior acceptable? Is this, you know, and stop and really evaluate stuff and be like, and I've done it recently with potential business partners and stuff where I'm like, yeah, this guy's an asshole and like I'm not going to rationalize behavior and this is not somebody that I want to be in a partnership with and work with. So I'm going to walk away.

Whereas, and being very aware that my, an earlier version of myself probably would have been like, oh, well, they're just having a bad day or, you know, like I'd find some way to rationalize it and then maybe get stuck in some kind of a, and then later on there would be some, I would have gotten myself embroiled in some kind of a challenging business relationship that I then I have to get out of yeah for sure also like when in any time you're like connecting with people it helps to kind of have that second look from the outside like like we're in here right so you know deep we were talking with default camera but while you and I are doing this for hours on end for the most part he gets to be here and produce and kind of take everything in and he's also really good with people a lessee who sat there

before him. Same thing. So like in my job, when I relate to people on such a level, regardless of who it is, what the topic is or whatever, has always been really helpful afterwards to go to those two guys and be like, ah, what were you seeing there? You know, because I can pick up on so many little things that maybe they can't because I'm in the conversation, but it works the other way around too where there's little things that they can pick up on that I can't. Yes. I have And I'm hyper aware that going forward, it's good for me to have other people in my life that would be able to give me that second opinion. One of my best friends is this guy, Jesse, who's like, you know, he's on the other end of the spectrum, meaning he will say this about himself. He's like, I walk into a room.

I walk into every situation. And I think, how is this person trying to fuck me over? You know, so he's got. I thought we're talking about another spectrum, but I see they're here and nor there. So he's somebody that, and even in some of my business situations, he would say to me, like, these people are assholes. They're trying to fuck you over. I'm like, no, no, no. So it's good for me to have people around who could meet people that I might get into business with.

And lately, the idea of being in a relationship is so off the table for me that I don't even think about it. When's the last time you were in a relationship? How long ago? The guy who moved to Alaska. So how long ago did you break up? couple of years um he moved uh november um and i want to know he moved in the summer of i think that i think it was the summer after bad vegan came out so 23 yeah or 22 23 so it's been a couple years at least yeah and i've seen him a couple times um when he's he's flown

through i've seen him twice so that's basically the only like it's the only action i've gotten an in a number of years um and so we're like officially broken up but we still talk and neither of us has seen anybody else so we're like eh but anyway but i have so my point is that right now i don't need i don't need like a screener for relationships because i'm just not like i'm not date i'm not interested in dating i'm not dating i'm not looking for a relationship i'm not i don't have time for it i don't want any i got kind of off the table for a while while that was that was something i was going to ask like just in general because i don't you know it's all vague which years or which and whatever but you got into unhealthy relationships at such a

young age and then as a young adult you were dating the chef what was the litigious allegedly guy was his name matthew matthew so you're dating matthew it seems like you were almost never single for a lot of years there including the years with anthony where you're married to him like you were always with someone i guess until recently am i right about that or were there no there were gaps i mean after after i was with that guy matthew there was some time and then i eventually met this this guy tobin the much younger guy um and then uh i was married to after when i was doing the whole wall street thing and then i moved back to new york and um i married a guy for a little while, but then, and then I, after that, I was with Matthew.

So there were, and then after I broke up with Tobin, I was single for about six months before I met this Mr. Fox guy. Right. But I hadn't had any, there weren't ever any, like, long stretches of being, being single, even though it's strange, because I'm one of those people that I, I never felt like I needed to be in a relationship. I mean, I'm certainly not like that now. And I've always had a little bit of a challenge with relationships.

because I am one of those people that wants a lot of alone time, you know, even when I was married the first time, or even when I was with Tobin, who I was completely in love with, if he was going on a trip or going away for a while, I would feel a little bit. I mean, a lot of people like this where you're like, ooh, I get to be alone for a while. There's a balance. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But for now, I'm like, I'm just, for whatever reason, I just can't even imagine getting into a release. I think because so much of my life right now is up in the air and I have no idea what I'm going to do and I'm sort of focused on, you know, what I'm going to do next business-wise and wanting to find the right relationships in that context, that a personal relationship would be like a weird distraction.

All right. I could go into that for a while. I'm sure it'll come up at some point, but I want to go back a little bit here as well so we can, get through your stories so people going to understand what went down here but one thing you keep referring to we were talking off camera before and then it's come up throughout this conversation is that you know you're you're an avid reader and it seems like that's something you've been all your life would would you say like even like that was that was a way you entertained yourself growing up spent a long time uh i did but i if i could go back in time i would be i would i would have my younger self read a lot more versus what I did to kind of numb out a bit is, I mean, I MTV became a thing when I was, like, I forget what year MTV came out, but I was like,

right when my parents got remarried and whatever, and I watched a lot of TV when I was younger. So I would come home from high school when I was junior high in high school. I didn't do any sports or any activities because to me, I think, now I realize I think, that school and being around so many people and being in that context was so overwhelming in a way that I just needed to go home and like zone out. Yeah. And I would probably be a much, I'd probably be an even better writer and have a better vocabulary if I had immersed myself in books the way a lot of young people do. I did read a fair amount probably certainly more than a lot of kids read nowadays, but I also came home

from school and like zoned out and watched general hospital and then you know Oprah and filled on hey Oprah was the goat she was awesome yeah yeah and then and then we would sit there and like watch MTV and back when that was a thing in music videos and uh you know cable TV was new back then so HBO and all these all these channels that you could watch movies and that was all new right then so there was a lot of content to watch on TV and um and I did a lot of that, but I, I've always really liked reading a lot. And it's funny, the place, the thing that really got me back into realizing how much I love to read is when I was at Rikers, because I had so much time and then people sent me a lot of books. And so I, I read a lot of books while I was

there. So that is more, I'm wrong about that. That's more of a newer phenomenon. It's something you've really been sinking your teeth into. Yeah, if I could go back, I would have, I mean, I did read, I remember reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when I was 13. um it's a good it's a good book yeah it's a hell of a read at 13 though yeah yeah and um so i did read like i did it at nine and when i was in college you know again i didn't do a lot of like extracurricular stuff and they're always really fascinating and i didn't go to like i never went to a football game in college when i was in college and the dorm would clear out Like to Penn, do they even have a football team there?

Like, come on. See, I don't care. I'm sorry, Penn people. I don't care at all because I didn't ever go to a football game. For me, when I was in a dorm freshman year and then the idea of, like, everybody clearing out of the dorm and going to a football game and me being able to be alone in the dorm was loved the days where there were football games. You never thought you had the tism. Never occurred to me. Nobody ever talked about it.

Like, I remember loving football game days because everybody, I just would have the whole dorm to myself. And it was amazing. It was amazing. So, yeah, but I, I guess having that time at Rikers, I did remember how much I really like to read books. And I like actual books, too. I mean, I have probably over 600 books on my apartment. And I'm like, I like, I like the paper version. and I underline throughout the books

and I like to hold on to them and I feel like there's something comforting about you know I like my favorite thing about my space and my apartment and my living room and I like having books all around and something feels comforting about it it's like other people's stories

yeah yeah something other perspectives to have way to kind of escape out of the moment too I like it a lot too so yeah I don't know 600 out there but I like my Kindle, so, you know, we roll in there. But you, you know, as I just mentioned, you end up at Penn. Like, you're an extremely intelligent individual and knowing, like, what was happening

during your teenage years and everything, the idea that despite everything going on and your whole social life and that, like, you were still in a position where you're obviously getting damn near straight A's and clearly doing well in school. and doing that self-motivated, because as you said, your parents didn't really seem to care one way or the other. You end up at Penn, that's kind of amazing, you know, like to get there despite all that. I'm sure you didn't feel that way at the time, but like I can imagine the compartmentalization of all the things you went through that clearly are felonies that happened to you, by the way. You know, to still be in that position kind of on your own two feet and get there is an incredible, incredible accomplishments. So did when you went to college, did you know what you wanted to study

or have any, I'd have a dream of what you wanted to do in the real world? No, I didn't. And I got there in sort of the regular like College of Arts and Sciences and sort of process of elimination I started focusing on economics and then realized maybe I should do like maybe I should go into law. Maybe I should do the pre-law track. And the Wharton School is also part of the University of Pennsylvania. And I realized, oh, I think I want to go to the Wharton School too. But if I had, you applied to that to get in. And I had applied to the College of Arts Sciences. So I had to then sort of get admitted into the Wharton School. And I did a dual degree. So I got a degree of the College of Arts Sciences. And then I got a degree at the

Wharton School. And so that's why, because I made that decision after my sophomore year, I ended up spending one summer just to take a couple of extra classes because I had to take a lot of extra credits. And that's when I did I lived in a fraternity house that summer. You lived in a fraternity house. I did. Like most of them were gone. Right. Right.

But they were all my friends. I tended to have a lot of guy friends. Yeah. It does. I don't even know. I think you've named like one female friend the whole time. I just. No, no.

I don't think that's. No. That's not where I was going. I like related. I did more. I got along well with guys. And I think, okay, I think because there's something a little bit more complicated about female relationships that I didn't know how to navigate. Like what? Guys are much more straightforward. That guys are less, tend to, there are a lot of dudes that

can be passive aggressive and whatnot. But I think that guy friendships and relationship with the guy tends to be much more straightforward. What you see is what you get. You know, if I had I had a guy roommate. My friend Marcus was my roommate after a sophomore year. And, you know, we would like, you know, I'd be like, Marcus, fuck off. You didn't clean up this or whatever. But when I had female roommates, it was, it was like they would just like slam the dishes a little harder and stuff saying, you know, and I couldn't stand that.

I cannot, I cannot stand passive aggressive shit. I can't stand. I'd so much rather people are just straightforward. And so I just found it easier to be friends. with guys. And so when I was staying that summer, I was friends with all these guys in the PICA fraternity. And they, because it's the summer, most of them are going back. And so there were going to be all these empty rooms in their house or a lot of empty rooms in their house. So I just stayed there for the summer. What were your relationships like in college?

I actually didn't have a boyfriend in college. So I never had a, when I went to college, I had this boyfriend, Leo, who of course I'm still friends with. How old was he? Leo was four years older than me. Oh, right. You're doing a little better. So 1822, that's legal, right? Yeah.

He was given the sign of approval. I was 16 when he was my boyfriend at first. Jesus Christ, I'm trying to help. But, and so we were, he was officially my boyfriend when I went to Penn, but then we ended up breaking up. But I never had like a, I don't think the entire time I had. I was at Penn. I don't think there was anybody there that I ever called my boyfriend. I dated guys and I hooked up with guys probably more than I should have or wanted to.

But I didn't, I never had like a boyfriend. And I'm thinking all of a sudden I'm like, did I? And now that person's going to be offended that I forgot about. It's going through my mind right now. But I didn't have, I wasn't like in a relationship. And also, you know, I took a lot of people go to college and they just like party and And classes are kind of an afterthought. But for me, it was important to me to do well on my classes.

And that was kind of my focus. Yeah, obviously you had had that importance before you even got there. So that makes sense that that would follow over. And also, like, you're going to Wharton. It's the best business school, maybe in the world, you know. It's pretty good. Yeah, I don't. And then so from there, it was like when I was at Wharton, everybody, everybody's

kind of, what is everybody else shooting for? they're all aiming to work at one of the investment, you know, to go into investment banking, if not investment banking, consulting, if not consulting, accounting. This is what, late 90s? I graduated in 94. Okay. So, yeah, anywhere in the 90s, that makes sense. So, you know, I just submitted my resume, did the whole thing, ended up working at Bear Stearns out of college.

Now, so you're on the investment banking side, were you doing like underwriting for M&As? What was, what job did you come into? Yeah, I ended up. doing a lot of M&A deals, I ended up, you get hired as a group of analysts, and so you're working on whatever deals they give you. And I ended up in the, over time, ended up working on deals in the technology group. And I was a hard worker. And so very often I ended up getting staffed on some of the more difficult deals because I think

they could see that I had a lot of stamina and so I'm like the person that's not going to break at three o'clock in the morning or pulling all-nighters working on these models and getting this shit done so yeah I imagine you're constantly doing like in that job it's 16-hour days all the time right oh yeah my first week was 111 hours and I twice I did two I mean all-nighters was normal but twice I did dual all-nighters so twice I did more than 50 hours in a row like without sleeping wow yeah could not do that now i mean it's but when you're young when you're that when you're young and um i was able to you know it take me harder to figure out like equations and excel and building the models or whatever but i could power through

are you getting any chemical or powdery help with that or no it's funny i never did cocaine ever of all the weird shit that i did i never did cocaine i drank when i was a bear i drank uh i I mean, right now, I drank way too much diet Coke. That was my, that's what kept me awake. Yeah, that's, uh, 50 hours. I don't know if diet Coke's doing it. Nobody was doing Adderall and, uh, Vy Vance. None of that stuff was around them.

Yeah, it wasn't around them. They were just on the white stuff at that point. Yeah, which I never did cocaine. Nobody ever offered it to me. I never saw it. I mean, I'm sure lots of people were doing that stuff, but I believe you. I do. Um, I think sometimes that's actually, because like, the other thing is when people say

Wall Street, it can mean 40 million different things. Yeah. People were always asking me that. I'm like, first of all, I wasn't on that side of the business. That was where it was more prevalent. Secondly, I got there away after, like, the good times were around or whatever. It was, like, just such a fucking ass-backwards bank at that point. But thirdly, even on, like, the IB side and stuff like that, like, we joke about it.

And certainly that stuff exists. But I, when I would meet some of those guys and be around them, sometimes I'd be like, oh, yeah, that guy's pumping at all every two seconds. But a lot of times, like, you know, it wouldn't be that way. And it would be, it would just be some dudes just working in spreadsheets and gets a shit done. And, you know, I guess the, I don't know how many of those guys I met who really loved their job. But they worked on serious deals and they got compensated very, very well. Yeah. That's what I started to notice is that, first of all, I noticed that people there all looked way older than they are.

Like the people that were more senior. because time and time again, I would find out how old somebody was and I would be like, Phil is, you know, 35? Oh my God, I thought he was 50. I said that to his face. Over and over again.

No, I mean, I wasn't that kind of tism where I'd blurt out this, where I'd blurt out. I mean, occasionally I would, I've definitely put my foot in my mouth a bunch of times, but I'm not, I'm not that. women are apparently much better at the whole sort of like social behavior and masking so i wasn't blurting that stuff out to their face but i was noticing and i just was noticing that everybody looked miserable yeah and i wasn't really you know i'm like i don't get the whole like having a house

in the hamptons and wearing expensive clothes and i'm like i don't really what am i doing here um so and then i went from Bear Stearns to Bain Capital, for which I moved to Boston because they didn't have New York offices at the time. And I didn't want to leave New York, but Bain Capital was like, you know, it's such a big deal. It's like if you get a job offer there, you go. So, and Mitt Romney was there at the time. I was like, who's saying no to Mitt Romney? Right. Warm milk after work. Like, let's go. He was a genuinely really, really nice, nice dude and treated people really well and was a kind person. I will say that. I didn't vote for him, but he was a kind person. person. And people were definitely much happier there, but also, yeah, I didn't, I didn't, like, get off on the thrill of the deal. And I, I just didn't feel, like, passion.

Right. And when I, but I really wanted to move back to New York, and I missed New York a lot. I felt like New York was home. When you moved back? Uh, well, uh, well, I didn't know there was going to be math. No, um, I was in, I mean, I was in my 20, so I was 20, when I moved back to New York, I think I was 26, I bought an apartment. And then when I left Bain Capital, moved back to New York, bought an apartment on Avenue A, which back then was like, sketchy neighborhood. And, um, uh, and then I, I ended up working at a high yield fund. But when I was moving back, one of the guys at Bain, who I, we'd work on a couple deals together.

And he was like, why are you going to go work at a, because I said I'm going to work at a hedge funder. I moved back to New York and then I got a job. But I knew with my resume, I would be able to get a job at, like, a hedge fund or something. I wasn't worried about that. So when he said, what are you going to do? And I said, oh, I'll work for hedge fund. And he was like, why? And he had noticed that I always talked about food and restaurants.

And so, you know, like if we were going to travel on a deal or I was always talking about where we're going to eat or some new restaurants in the area or what I was going to cook that weekend or something. So he said, how come you don't go work in the food business in some capacity? And it was this weird moment where I knew he was right. But I had this thought of like, because he said, you don't seem to really love this. work. And I was like, wait, do you? Like, does anybody? Um, so, but I had bought that apartment on Avenue A and I had to pay for it and all that. And so I did go work at a high yield fund for a while. And then eventually I left and went to culinary school. At what point did you have that quick marriage you were talking about? Uh, I was 27 when I got married. So you met him in New York?

Yes. He worked for, um, high bridge capital of a big hedge fund. And I, you know, I had interviewed there and then went to work somewhere else. And when I took a different job somewhere else, he, like a gentleman, waited until I took another job and then asked me out on a date. And then... He didn't want the lawsuit while you were still there. I respect that. That's a good move.

Yeah. It's funny now. The stuff that, like, the stuff that wouldn't be remotely acceptable nowadays, so much inappropriate shit happened back in the day. Oh, shit. like so much. Yeah. And I mean, a lot of it was fine.

Like when I worked at being capital, I worked with mostly dudes and we would joke around and say inappropriate shit. And it was all funny and hilarious, but you couldn't get away with that stuff now. Oh, yeah. And that was also, that particular part was notoriously such a male business, for sure. Which was fine for me because, again, I was just used to having a lot of guy friends. So, you know, it's not like you're going to offend me. easily at all before you got married like after college while you're working sometimes

hundred hour weeks and stuff like that are you getting into any relationships or is there no time for that there was really no time for that i mean i got myself into some interesting situations but define interesting situations there's no time for relationships can we define and there's always a curveball with you so what do you mean interesting situations um so so I had a couple funny situations with, you know, people in the context of work. I mean, there was some really inappropriate, like, dudes that would, you know, married dudes that are hitting on you. And you're like, what? But I didn't have any relationships, but I had a very brief thing with, it's funny because you're getting all these stories out of me that I want to put in, like, a subsequent book.

I will read that book. with a, um, with a, uh, this senior managing director that if I told people that I worked with around that time that I like hooked up with that dude, they would be like, what? Him? Like he, there was something about him that everybody was, see now you can like, I'll tell you the story and then you can psychoanalyze me. Um, he, everybody was afraid of him. And he was this quirky, weird dude that looked like, he looked like he was very small, like, physically small, and had like a big nose, like, not an attractive dude by any normal standards.

But there was something I found attractive about him because he was kind of like, he was kind of really scary or people were afraid of him. and I never worked on any deals with him but his office was down the hall from where I was and I just noticed that people were afraid of him there's something about me where it's like if something seems like a bit of a dare makes me interested and intrigued and so he had this pinstripe suit he wore sometimes it made him look like a total gangster

and so I complimented him on it one day in the hallway and he was kind of like why is this young analyst speaking to me you know and then sometimes working late I would pop my head into his office ask if you wanted food like I'm ordering food you want some you know um but it became almost this funny challenge and then eventually he asked me out to dinner and and I had a little thing with him which just weird and funny but um so I had the occasional like random situation but there was definitely no time for relationships right I didn't meet some guy once who like wanted to get in a relationship I'm like dude I don't know I don't have time yeah there was no

time for relationships. So you come back to New York at 26, 27, you get the apartment on Avenue A. You're working at the high yield fund. You end up meeting the guy who interviewed at one of these places, but then you worked at the other place. Yeah. Right, right. And how long were you guys dating before you married them? Um, I think we got engaged. We were together for a year and a half got married or married for a year and a half and then and then split up why did you had you like because you said earlier you never wanted to have kids or anything a lot of times like that's a part of why people got it's not the entire reason people get married but that's a part of reason people get married what like did you want did you see yourself getting married did you want to get married

no i was really surprised and people that knew me were surprised because i didn't i i just wasn't the type that people didn't look at me and think I was going to get married and settle down. So I guess I still had a bit of a whatever it was about me that people were surprised that I settled down. So, but I seem to like do things that would surprise people. So even getting married at that young, now getting married at 27 is kind of young. Yeah. but that it was surprising to people and you know a really good dude and certainly especially on paper like went to brown he had gone to wharton graduate school um he was i think he was six years older than me um and you know had gone to like dalton high school in new york captain of the baseball basketball and football team and like really

Is his name Winthrop? No. Okay. No. But really good guy and I would have been like set for life because, you know, he was farther ahead of me was just at that point where you were starting to make a lot of money. But, yeah, getting married was not the right thing for me. And I, the whole sort of role of being, you know, being a wife.

And, you know, I had like a, what seemed like a very big diamond ring that always felt awkward to me. And I didn't really want that. And so anyway, we divorced. And what, did you, I mean, we kind of talked about this a little earlier in generalities, but like in the buildup to before, I guess it gets weird when you get married and you didn't want to play that role. Like, was it more? hey I'm at that point in life where I'm meeting someone he's got a good thing going I got a good thing going I'm coming of age like this is when you get married or was it more like or settle down I should say or was it more like hey I actually really like this guy like there's something that that not just the idea of him but you were actually drawn to him no I think I was definitely in love with him and certainly thought I'm going to marry this guy and you know yay no more dating and we're going to be together and this is great And then, you know, there's probably a reason why people should be together longer before they make that decision. Because then at some point you realize, wait a minute, this wasn't quite right.

And, you know, and he also wasn't quite forthright with me. And when we, when we divorced, he said, I just remember being like, what? He said, by the way, I can't wait to have kids. I just said I didn't want to have kids because you said you don't want to have kids. I'm like, that's kind of a pretty. fundamental like you should be thanking me for wanting to not be in this marriage because now you can go forth in life and have kids so you would before you guys got married even before i was very open about the fact that i didn't want to have kids and he was like oh yeah i mean either and i'm like all right

um so i mean that right there tells you yeah that it wasn't right huge difference like you don't tell you don't lie yeah so did it just like when you got did you have a big wedding when you did it Um, my hundred and forty people. All right. So yeah, regular, regular wedding, families all involved, everything. Did it just like, I mean, I've talked to people before where it's like this, it can go either way. It's either great or not great, right? But you get married, you got the ring on your finger.

You were talking about the literal physical look of it, but ignoring that, like, it just changes. Like the whole dynamic changes to where you're like, oh, this is like legal now. And it puts this thing on it. Was that a part of it? Because, you know, you were only married a year and a half, and it sounds like you were the one who said, I can't do this anymore. Did it just, like, overnight kind of suddenly be like,

nah, this is different now, I don't want this. No, it wasn't overnight. It took a while for issues to develop. And it didn't really have anything to do with, I think, the fact that we had taken the step to get married, other than it creates this weird extra layer of, you feel almost guilty or bad. getting divorced so quickly because you're like all those people that like flew out for my wedding

and gave us wedding presents and they were all there and witnessed it and now it's like uh never mind it just feels weird like there's all this added pressure of how it looks when you get divorced after a large wedding um so that yeah but but i don't think it was the fact that we got married that made the dynamics of it necessarily changed. But it did certainly I mean, I feel like, especially because I was somebody that didn't want to have kids, it's like, why I wouldn't feel the need to ever marry somebody again.

Right. Or I can see why a lot of long-term relationships, you know, like there's some Hollywood relationships where they never got married or like Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn. Like a lot of the ones that have lasted throughout the years or like Sting and Trudy Stiler. I think they eventually got married but like not way later. It's sort of like why. What's what's the point?

Yeah, I think with them there's also the dynamic of being, you know, the proverbial animals in the zoo where everyone's just poking on the cage all the time and you can't get privacy and especially when you're both like actors or something, one's flying to this part of the world for six months to film, the other ones, you know what I mean? Yeah. There's a whole other dynamic there. But when you did make the decision to be like, okay, this isn't working, I'm leaving, were you, were you sad? Was there like a, or were you just very resolute about it? Um, I mean, I was sad and it was heartbreaking in a way because it's not like I didn't care for him suddenly. And it's not like he'd behaved like a monster or anything like that. So I was very sad and it was painful. Um,

And it was very difficult knowing that I was causing him a lot of pain too. That was really hard. It sounds like this guy, your first husband, breaks a lot of the patterns as some of the other people you were with though. It sounds like he wasn't this like controlling guy or anything like that. Like you speak of him like he was a pretty good guy and it just didn't work for you. Do you ever wonder if that's like part of it? if like you're drawn to the tragedy a little bit or drawn to the chaos, I should say?

I don't think I'm drawn to the chaos. I think that, I mean, one thing I noticed that I became very aware of is that it seemed like I would go from good, decent human being because then after that, I ended up with Matthew. So it's like, and then after Matthew, it was Tobin, who was like the really, really good, like, pure, good soul, good person. and then, like, sociopath.

So I had this sort of, like, on and off. Hot cold. Thing where, um, uh, and so probably having been with, you know, super good dude who's now in Alaska, maybe that's part of why I'm like, no, because I don't want to repeat that pattern of like ending up with the psycho again. I don't know. Or I'm just like, I just don't want to be in a relationship there.

I don't know. I think sometimes these things get up. oversimplified a little too much personally sometimes there are pat like both males and females have some just like almost evolutionary slight weaknesses and how they go into relationships right we have we have different ones with women you'll find it to i mean to make it really a and b like they'll go for the bad boy but not the nice guy right like i even in my life when i think about it when i I'm very like, hey, you got to come get me with women, easy, they're there. When I'm not, couldn't get a pardon with a fistful of women and a woman's person.

I mean, it's like, it's crazy. You know what I mean? So there is a dynamic there. But then when you add on top of that, that like you also have all these underlying like experiences that shaped a warped view of how you look at a man, the whole like hot, hot, cold pattern relationship to relationship makes a ton of sense because it's like you almost it's hard for you to even understand what you want because you're not sure what normal what normal is i don't know if you ever thought of it that way but i that's how it's coming across to me yeah or and now it just

occurred to me it's sort of like the way our elections sometimes work where it's like we string we we swing from like one extreme all the way to the other and then everybody's like oh my god we can't have this now let's vote now let's go all the way left now let's go all the way right that's right um so i don't i mean certainly i'm not doing any of this consciously but yes uh i think i certainly have because of everything that i've been through and even after just that one relationship that became so chaotic and destabilizing and messed up with matthew i think after that i craved no drama like no drama whatsoever and so with that guy tobin he was very very easygoing, like from Colorado had that very, very laid back vibe and, you know, and it felt

very safe and comforting and no drama. So I don't think that I've ever necessarily been drawn to that. I mean, I don't even like it. Like the whole fighting thing, I don't understand fighting and relationships where people fight all the time. Like I get up, now I get upset when I just hear somebody fighting and are even just bickering. like really upsets me had you did you get in in your earliest relationships the ones in high school did you get into fights with your boyfriends um when i was married we got into fights sometimes because and which was like exasperating to me because and he would get a bit jealous and i was like what did i do wrong i don't understand i didn't do anything wrong jealous of what jealous of like because i had a lot

of guy friends and i was still in touch with some people and you know would sometimes like hang out with other like a guy friend like i wasn't doing anything wrong in my head i'm like i'm not i'm not doing anything wrong why is he so freaked out and then i would get mad and then he would get mad and then we get the whole fight about it and that's part of what it was like yeah this isn't going to work for me um did like did you have these are kind of exact questions but i'm just trying to get like a picture are you the type that when that actually does go down like you are yelling and you raise your voice or you kind of shut down and they're raising their voice Um, I think in the past I would, uh, if I got frustrated enough, I would raise my voice, but, um, but I certainly wasn't quick to. It's like you'd have to push me pretty far and then I'll raise my voice. But it's not like I'm, I do that by default at all. And you know, I mean, we, we talked about this earlier with your earliest relationships, but you never like had. And you never, I mean, we, we talked about this earlier with your earliest relationships, but you never like had. And you never, like, had.

people you felt like you could go talk to about this stuff like you kind of kept at least it seems like i don't know if it was still this way when you were an adult but like when it came to your relationships you kind of kept that thing compartmentalized with yourself was that still the case at this point or you know are you going to your mom talking about like how do you be married or things oh no i never like relationship advice i never went to my parents um what about your sister uh not really my sister either. I don't know who I wanted to. I probably didn't seek out advice enough, which, you know, led to me maybe not making the greatest decision sometimes. And I think in terms of being somebody that is easy is a good target for what ended up happy to me in some

of these relationships, part of what made me a good target is the fact that I am a bit of a loner in a lot of ways and introverted. And I don't have, you know, sort of like the lifelong BFF girlfriend who's all up in my business and knows everything and or like a bunch of girlfriends that I hang out with all the time who are going to be scrutinizing the next guy that I'm dating and because I don't have that and I'm not talking to somebody all the time about everything it makes it that much easier for those people to do what they do so here's the thing that gets demonized a lot now about like these girl groups and the gossiping and how they'll shut down things before they can start and it creates a mess

for some guys and I get that and like I've encountered that guys out there have encountered that it's very annoying but I do think the alternative of like not having strong women friends around yeah a woman can be way worse on the downside and I think you're a really good example of that because you only ever really had guy friends who can't talk to you on that level can't relate to you from that side of the relationships certainly don't realize like formatively what happened to you to get to these points in your life and how you look at relationships. So it would have helped you a lot to your point if you did have some sort of strong female presence around you to, you know, at least try to swat things out from the outside or

see some things where they could be going wrong. And you still don't have that today. Is that fair to say? You don't really have like hardcore female friendships to this day? I have female friendships, but what's interesting is that they're more recent. So it's just the people that I'm still friends with that I knew from a really long time ago are mostly guy friends. But I don't have, the female friends I have now are sort of more recent female friends.

so yeah and I get I think because a lot of I think I get I think I feel wary that I'm going to disappoint people because I'm just not that I'm not that female that's going to get excited to go to somebody's like baby shower or wedding shower or like girls night out or like I'm just not that person I don't want to do any of those things and so I don't want to you know i don't i don't want to disappoint somebody in the context of a friendship so i get very like worried that i'm going to disappoint somebody and so it's hard for me to get close to people in a friendship context because it's like to me it's like a relationship you know it's like i don't want to get into a relationship with a guy because exactly i'm you know i have a lot of stuff to

figure out my life i i don't like i don't want to give all of that of myself to you and it's a similar thing with basically friendships where it's like, oh, but now it's like, now I'm obligated to spend time with you to a certain degree or whatever. It's just, it's a little bit of the same dynamic where I don't want to disappoint somebody and I don't want to feel like I'm in a relationship. No, I totally, that makes a ton of sense because it's not gender specific as the point. But the one big difference between the two genders is that. that there is an element of potential romantic relationships when you're talking about males versus with females,

there's not that. But if you're treating it the same way, where it's like you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself, as you're just describing it, to have to live up to whatever you think that standard is. And you're afraid of disappointing people. That goes back to the beginning of your formative psychology to where it's like you were kind of,

you were constantly, put in a lower position from your earliest relationships and stuff and you felt like you had to play up to people and it probably, I'm guessing, affected your self-worth and that has manifested in how you make friendships. Yeah. Yeah. No, I've definitely had issues with self-worth that then translated into me getting into a lot of situations that if I had had higher sense of self and been able to protect myself better, I would have. But I had like pretty crappy self-esteem. and yeah probably still do but um and and yeah as far as non-romantic relationships you know i'm that friend where like if you need something from me or if you're having a problem or or want to talk to me

and you need help or a solution or you want like i'm really good in a crisis or if you need something or if you need help with something like i'll be there but but like i really don't want to just kind of I'm not that good at like the casual hanging out yeah because especially right now in my life because it's like well I got like shit I got to get done I'm time to hang out but if you need something I'm there right um have you been like open about these I guess like anxieties you have with some of the women that you're making friends with now more recently like where you kind of tell them these things and get the reassurance from them that like that's okay uh to some extent yeah and actually the the the tism diagnosis actually helps a lot for that because it's like look this is who

i am i'm sorry there's a name for it exactly like there's a name for it and i'm able to um you know some of the people that i'm friends with i suspect if they went through the whole process the same thing as I did, they would probably also get a diagnosis, which then makes it a lot easier. Oh, okay. So you find some of your own kind too. Yeah, but it helps a lot. And I mean, and that's probably why the situation with the guy in Alaska worked so well is because he also, you know, didn't want to hang out all the time when we were officially in a relationship. It was like we would see each other a couple of times a week and that's fine. Yeah. You know, and we didn't need to like hang out all the time. And I wasn't asking him to, you know,

come to some family events or dragging him to all these places that I knew he probably wouldn't want to go and we were just very similar in that way so um it does help to have other friends who are similar in this way when you're not doing things alone for fun and you actually are with other people regardless of who it is what types of things do you like to do for fun like all right you're not someone who's like in the baby showers or like going on to girls night on tuesday or whatever but like you know do you like go to a nice restaurant or or something like that with other people. What kinds of things are you into?

Yeah, I mean, I love restaurants, whether I'm, I mean, I don't go to them by myself. I only go if somebody else is taking me just because that's how things are right now. Good. Good. But if I had the money to do, I would probably go to nice restaurants a lot more often just because to me, that's like, like, one thing I can't stand doing is Broadway shows or theater or stuff like that. I just don't, I don't, I don't, I'm not into that. I don't like Broadway shows, stuff like. But you don't strike me as that type.

No. But I love restaurants, and to me, restaurants, like a whole experience, like theater. And I like going to a restaurant that I haven't been to before and, you know, and I'll notice all the details. And it's really fun to go if there's somebody else who's also interested in that stuff because then you can talk about it. So I love really nice restaurants. And, yeah, I mean, I'm kind of like, I'm just easy. I like having really interesting conversations with interesting people. and time more like one-on-one time

and having more in-depth conversations versus going to a party and like having a whole bunch of small talk type shit like that's exhausting. What are your main love languages? Are you aware of that? Oh, acts of service. Like if you come fix something for me,

so the guy who moved to Alaska was um uh worked in maintenance so he fixed things but i admire that very much remember the plumber that took out the uh potato from the toilet right sounds like you were into that no if you could see that guy oh my god no no but i do um like i i definitely i definitely find it attractive when people are good at i mean i'm very good at fixing things myself like i've i can fix things in house like install shelves and things and whatnot but i really like people who can um like build and and fix things and yeah i the opposite of my love language is gifts like i i get really annoyed when somebody gives me something impractical um because i'm like well i don't want that i could just sell

that and get i don't want give me the receipt can i have the receipt like i actually have at this moment I have these earrings and a necklace that this dude gave me a few years ago, and I'm like, it's time, it's time to finally sell them. Like, I want to sell them. But if you give me something practical, I will appreciate that, like something useful. Yeah. And, yeah. And especially if somebody notices something very useful that I might need. I appreciate that.

So I like practical things. Yeah. No, it makes sense. Acts of service. That means a lot to me, especially if it's something that is noticed. Because I'm really bad at asking for help or asking for anything, super bad at that. Which, again, another thing that probably helped get me into some not good situations because, yeah, I'm, like, afraid to go ask for help.

So if somebody comes and they're like, I'll do this for you, I'll sort of fall for that. Was that something your whole life, like even as a little girl, you just, for whatever reason, didn't want to do that? Like, what do you think that comes from, not wanting to ask? for help as if there's some shame in being a burden and uh actually this i just remember even in the moment i remember thinking about how unusual it was and sort of sad that when i was in that when i stayed in that fraternity house that summer and i was moving into this friend of mine's room and i'd gotten an ac and i not surprisingly couldn't lift the giant ac myself

into the window because it's kind of not an easy thing to do it's a big heavy I'm pretty strong I'm stronger than I look but I couldn't lift the AC into the window myself and I had to go to another floor and ask some of those dudes they're like hey can you help me move this AC into the window and for some reason I didn't want to ask for help so badly that I remember I started to cry in my room and I remember thinking okay this is really fucked up that I'm this upset about not wanting to go ask for help because I somehow just feel like they're going to be like you know and that's mortifying to me you'll disappoint them i don't want to be a burden yeah yeah wow so it's it's really hard to ask for help it makes sense because i'm i was i always try to

with people because you can learn a lot about everyone regardless of who it is like try to figure out what makes them tick and like the love languages are such a brilliant like invention like how that really does clock to us i'm like right there's no way that she's gifts there's no way that she's gifts there's no way she's quality time we know that and probably not physical touch so the only things we're looking at here are service and affirmation i would say i would guess that there's probably because usually people have at least two dominant ones there's one that's the most dominant so access service makes a hundred percent sense but i i would guess also the fact that it righteously so kind of bothered you that you know you would do the right things and your parents wouldn't give you credit on that and

obviously you found out later it wasn't for the wrong reasons yeah you know there's probably some sense of wanting to be told like you're doing a good job on some things or you know not being told like hey especially given like how some of your story was put out there you don't like being told you did a bad job on something like if you didn't so maybe maybe that one would make sense too yeah I have a female friend who is always constantly telling me she's proud of me and I'm like you know it helps it helps a lot and yeah it helps a lot I mean even even I get affirmation from strangers and DM somebody in my DMs had finished reading my book and wrote some really nice feedback to me and was like you know I just I hope you know it wasn't your fault And I'm like, and then she, but she repeated it a bunch of times. And I, of course, read it and then burst into tears like Matt Damon and Goodwill hunting. It's like being told it's not your fault.

Yeah. It, even from somebody I don't know through my DMs meant so much to me to hear that. I think we hit a bingo there for sure. What, what point, where did you actually make the move and leave investment banking to go to culinary school? you, was that when you were leaving that marriage or were you still in that marriage? No, it was before. It was before. So I went from Bear Stearns.

So I did my two years at Bear Stearns. Then I went to Bain Capital. I was there for about a year and a half, I think almost a year and a half. I moved back to New York, bought that apartment on Avenue A, got a job at a high-yield fund. And that's when I realized, like, this work is not for me. because there's something about the adrenaline and the pressure of working on these deals and being so consumed and the, like, you don't have time to think about it. You know, there's a bit of something that you're getting from the urgency of those, that type of a work where, you know, you're pulling all-nighters and you're like just always getting shit done that you're not stopping to think about, hey, do I really like this? There's no time to stop and think about that stuff.

but at the high yield fund it was a much looser schedule and then that market sort of came apart around that time and there wasn't a lot of there weren't a lot of deals to look at and I remember this guy was like all right you know here's a bunch of research reports on like oil and gas industry you'll you can be there oil and gas industry expert and I'm like no it's like I what am I doing here like I don't and I and I just felt like I didn't have a lot in common with people. in that world. And so and I was engaged and going to get married. And then that's when we had these conversations where he was like, well, you know, why would you

well then don't. I mean, I was miserable in that job. Not because anybody, they were all very nice people, but it just was like, I don't like this at all. Yeah. And especially because that market had dried up. So there wasn't any urgency. There wasn't a lot of stuff to get done.

And I'm like, what am I doing here? So that's when I made decision to go to culinary school. So you had always had something with food. Like you were saying, the guy at Bain was even telling you, like, oh, you seem to be so in these restaurants and stuff. Yeah, my mom was a chef. And so when I was young, I grew up watching Julia Child. And there was no food network, but I watched a lot of cooking shows.

And another clue was that when I, even throughout college, I got subscriptions to food and wine and gourmet magazine, and I loved those magazines, like, got excited when they arrived, and that's what I'm reading and excited about, whereas, you know, some of the people in my classes have their, like, Wall Street Journal subscriptions, and they're all into business and finance news, and I'm like, I didn't care about that. So that was a clue also. It's also, and by the way, it's like something culinary arts is a creative kind of thing. You were coming from. from like a purely, you know, analytical, and you were good at it, that's perfectly possible. But, you know, like if your brain is more wired this way towards the creative side, even if you're really good at something analytically,

it's not gonna do it for you. I've seen that story so many. I mean, I'm certainly a part of that story too. Like, I didn't like banking. I was like, I like writing and talk with people, you know. But also, not for nothing, cooking for people and serving food is like the ultimate act of service as well.

So it's kind of like in line. yeah as well so obviously sounds like your husband was supportive of that which that that part's pretty cool yeah and then you go after that but were you always this was the other part like when did you become vegan and when was when was that a thing for you did that develop later or was that something you had practiced for years at this point no it was much later i it had never occurred to me that I would be vegan. It, like, never occurred to me. And when I was in a relationship with that guy, Matthew,

and so he had a whole restaurant background and restaurant company. I met him because I started working on, he was doing a second cookbook. So I was hired to basically be the recipe tester and help write the book. And then I started getting involved in his restaurant business. And then we ended up in a relationship. And then a lot of stuff happened that I cover in my book. But he was my first situation where when I got into that relationship, I'd had a decent amount of money for somebody my age because I'd had,

when I worked at Bain Capital, we co-invested in deals. And so those would then turn around even years later. and then I had bought and sold that apartment on Avenue A. When I left that marriage, I didn't want alimony or any kind of a big settlement. I just, I could have, he made a lot of more money than I did. He was older. I could have gotten money out of that. When I got divorced from him, I could have gotten more money out of it or some kind of

an alimony or something, but I didn't want that. I just sort of wanted what I came in with. But anyway, when I was in the relationship with Matthew, I had like about a quarter of million dollars in assets and money and accounts on my own from my work and and from a lot of these deals turning around in a big way and about a year and a half into the relationship I was in debt by the same amount from putting money into his businesses which of course all went down the tubes so yeah he was my first I like to say sociopath rodeo but you know allegedly I don't want to make any judgments about him. But he was, that was my first time having something like

that happened with a person who doesn't exhibit empathy. All right. Real quick, I got to a quick break, just go to the bathroom. Yeah, me too. All right, cool. So perfect timing. Joe, what are we like two hours and 20-some minutes in? All right. So we'll come back and now we're going to go through kind of the whole story and what happened here in the business you bill. And then you know marrying anthony and everything that happened there it's a it's a wild story and i want to get your perspective on that so this might be a second podcast just based on the time we've been going for people out there if not you'll keep listening right now if so you'll see that second episode sometime soon so we'll be right back thank you guys for watching the episode if you haven't already

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