Something Was Wrong - S24: WCN Presents: [John Callas] When the Rain Stops

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

*Content Warning: child abuse, physical, mental, and emotional abuse, bullying, harassment, suicidal ideation, suicide, and murder. *Free + Confidential Resources + Safety Tips: somethingwaswrong.com/resources John Callas is a writer, director, and producer with an extensive list of projects including his six novels, the television show Bobby's World, and much more. His career began in the mid-seventies, and offered John a creative outlet after a very tumultuous childhood. From losing his father at a young age to surviving highly abusive school environments, He joins us today to share all that came next for him after publicly disclosing his difficult childhood, and releasing a memoir that was fifty years-in-the-making. The Broken Cycle Media team is deeply appreciative of John's time, energy, and creativity in curating healing. John’s Filmography & Website johncallas.com John’s Amazon Author Page www.amazon.com/stores/John-Callas/author When The Rain Stops by John Callas amzn.to/3NsEhQj John’s IMDB m.imdb.com/name/nm0130327 John’s Amazon Author Page www.amazon.com/John-Callas/e/B004U7GSZA What Came Next podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-came-next/id1674051643 The S23 cover art is by the Amazing Sara Stewart Follow Something Was Wrong: Website: somethingwaswrong.com IG: instagram.com/somethingwaswrongpodcast TikTok: tiktok.com/@somethingwaswrongpodcast Follow Tiffany Reese: Website: tiffanyreese.me IG: instagram.com/lookieboo

If you're serious about growing this new year, what you put into your mind actually matters. And as someone who lives and breathes careers and self-development, even I get overwhelmed trying to do it all. Between work, life, and trying to better yourself, self-care can start to feel like just another thing on the to-do list. But investing in yourself doesn't have to be complicated. And with Audible, it isn't. It's time to take care of you. And who better to help than the top voices in well-being all in one place. With Audibles Well-Being Collection, you can level up your career, finances, relationships,

sleep, parenting, or mindset. Whether you want motivation, clarity, or practical advice, there is something there to support you every step of the way. I listen while I commute, clean, work, or just when I need a little bit of downtime. You'll hear from best-selling authors Brene Brown and Jay Shetty, Chef Jamie Oliver, finance expert Rachel Rogers and popular parenting guides like raising good humans kickstart your well-being journey with your first audio book

free when you sign up for a 30-day trial at outable.com membership is 1495 a month after 30 days. Cancel any time. There's more to imagine when you listen. Oh, hey, how's it going? Amazing. I just finished paying off all my debt with the help of the Credit Counseling Society.

Whoa, seriously? I could really use their help. It was easy. I called and spoke with it. the credit counselor right away. They asked me about my debt, salary, and regular expenses, gave me a few options, and help me along the way. You had a ton of debt. And you're saying credit counseling society helped with all of it? Yep. And now I can sleep better at night. When debt's got you, you've got us. Give credit counseling society a call today. Visit no more

debts.org. What came next is intended for mature audiences only. Episodes discuss topics that can be triggering, such as emotional, physical, and sexual violence, animal abuse, suicide, and murder. I am not a therapist, nor am I a doctor. If you're in need of support, please visit something was wrong.com forward slash resources for a list of non-profit organizations that can help. Opinions expressed by my guests on the show are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of myself or broken cycle media. Resources and source materials. are linked in the episode notes. Thank you so much for listening.

John Callis is a writer, director, and producer with an extensive list of projects, including his six novels, the television show Bobby's World, and much more. His career began in the mid-70s and offered John a creative outlet after a very tumultuous childhood. From losing his father at a young age

to surviving highly abusive school environments, he joins us today to share all that came next for him after publicly disclosing the institutional abuse he endured and releasing a memoir that was 50 years in the making. The Broken Cycle Media team is deeply appreciative of John's time, energy, and creativity in curating healing. Hi, I'm John Callas. My loved ones would describe me as a very loyal father, dedicated to his children, will do anything for his friends, is very open and honest, there's no hidden agenda, but there are some rules with them and boundaries that you don't cross. You don't ever disrespect my family or hurt them. You don't lie to me, and you don't cheat

or steal. Any of those will trigger me to saying, we're done. Overall, they would say that if John says something, you can bet that he will do what he says he will do. I'm a 40-year writer-director, producer, veteran in Hollywood that has eight award-winning productions, including an Emmy nomination. It's been a wonderful career that hasn't always been easy. Yes, there were a lot of fun times, but there were a lot of hard times, too. But as a filmmaker, I think that the joy for me has always been to tell stories and watch the audience respond. Through my characters, I get to say things that have some message in a sense. As a result of that, I wound up writing six novels as well. So I try to keep busy. Through my life, I've had to overcome traumas and depression to

become a whole person again. Once I understood that, I started looking back at my own life, I tried to unravel where everything began because if you're going to go in search of your own heart and healing, you've got another beginning. For me, it was literally 10 days after my third birthday. My dad died. I felt abandoned. I felt really lost.

My hero was gone. The person that I loved was gone. I started acting out. I became a real problem child. I was just completely distraught. I started having dreams of falling in a spiral and I couldn't get out of it. I'd wake up sweating. I didn't want to go back to sleep. And it was compounded every day by the fact that I lost my dad. My mother, unfortunately, was pregnant with a fourth kid and miscarried. So there she is with no visible means of support, no husband, three miles to feed, rent to pay,

and no job. So that was the start of my traumas. It went from there. up in a very rough neighborhood. It was Jersey City back in the early, early 50s. If you didn't have street sense, you were going to get squashed. It was a very impoverished neighborhood. We all got into fights together. We would sit up these cardboard boxes and throw mud pies at each other. Eventually, rocks would get thrown in. It got bloody at times. It had so much anger and so much fear of the unknown. So it was not a real great beginning. By the time I was 12, my mother had found a husband, basically. At that time, I had been getting into so much trouble with the police. I went to a party with a friend who I asked him to borrow his parents' car to take this girl home who was going to be

late and grounded forever. And when I drove back, the police were all over the place and the parents are there. And the kid was telling the police and his parents that I stole the car, which I didn't. So that wound me up in jail overnight until my parents got me. The courts had given my parents a decision, either they were going to send me to reform school or I would have to be shipped off to military school. My mother drove me from New Jersey to New York City, put me on a train by myself at 12 years old to go from New York City to Virginia to a military school. I get on the train. I'm scared to death. Now I'm feeling double abandonment. First, my father dies and abandoned me. Now my mother is abandon me. From my little boy's perspective, I looked at that as

complete the trail. She hated me. She didn't love me. She wanted to get rid of me to hang out with her new husband. The train started pulling out. She turned away and started walking away. And I just looked at her wishing she would just come and get me off the train and bring me home. It wasn't until I was an adult. We had a little chat, my mom and I, that I realized what was going on. I told her, why did you abandon me? How could you turn away from your son? And she said, John, honest to God, the reason I turned away is I was crying. I couldn't stand the fact that I was sending my little baby at 12 years old to a military school. Had I not turned away, I probably would have pulled you off the train. I don't think I've ever been so scared in my life. One cadet came over and said, hey, are you, John?

I said, yeah, why? What's it to you? And he said, you're a wise guy. I said, what the FD want? He goes, your mother gave me money to make sure you got on the train in D.C. so he didn't miss it. Just follow us and you'll be fine. I heard them talking. one kid said, what a jerk. And I looked up and I said, well, at least I'm not a p-a-k. He came over, he says, what did you just call me? I said, you heard me. He smacked me, so I punched him. And a brawl started out. The conductor had to break it up. And I'm sitting in the seat bleeding. He's sitting in the seat bleeding. The anger just kept swelling up. Then we arrived at the station in Virginia. We were assigned fans to get in. While I was

driving up there, some of my clothes fell out. And I was trying to put them back in my duffel bag. And the cadets in there thought it was funny, so they started pushing me around. And that just started building up my anger even more because I was just not used to this. Where I came from, if somebody pushed you, you pushed them back. I get into my room the first night. The student that I was bunking with, the bells go off and he shuts off the lights. I turn him back on. He goes, what are you doing?

We're going to get in trouble. Down the hall I heard, who's lights on? So I go out in the hallway, put my foot up against the wall. I turned my head over to him, and I said, I have the lights on. What's it to you? This guy comes walking down the hall. He's got stripes up and down his arm. He turns to me and goes, you will address me as Mr. or Sir. I said, okay, mister, what's the F-all this about the light? Bam, I went out. I woke up and he said, now, you call me my proper name, or are you going to get it again? I said, you mean like asshole? Bam, out again we went.

The third time, I woke up. I was surrounded by a bunch of captains and they stood me up. and the captain said, so I understand you got a mouth on your wise ass. I said, no, I just don't like people pushing me or telling me what to do. He goes, you're going to have to get used to that, pal, because you're in military school. I said, I don't think so, asshole. Bam, out the third time. So I woke up and I'm standing there. I said, next guy that takes the swings going down, they all started laughing.

So I talked to the captain, and he went out. They beat the shit out of me after that. They dragged me back to my room, my roommate who didn't really know me, got out of bed. He says, you're going to have to learn to keep your mouth shut. So the first night there, I got knocked out three times. That was the beginning of my military school experience. I think it's important to acknowledge, although I had the worst three years in my life at military school, there were cadets that were thrilled to be there.

Part of the kids were there because they wanted to have military careers, go to Annapolis, West Point and all that. Then there was the ruffians like myself who were there because of discipline problems and really didn't want to be there. A day in military school looked like I wake up at 6 a.m. to a bugler blonde. his brains out, announcing what kind of clothes we had to wear. And we would go outside, rain, sleet, snow, sun, no matter what it was, and stand in a row and salute the flag going up and then this cannon would go off. And then we would have to make a right turn and march up to the mess hall. Everybody was in very military lines and we went and got our food, sat down and waited for the commander to say, you can eat. Everything that I did during the day was controlled. I had no

freedom of mind, freedom of speech. None of that existed because I was under military guidelines and rules. I immediately got into trouble, got into fights. I had kids half my size, half my age telling me what to do. Punishments were doled out 100% by fellow students. The instructors were there to teach, and if you got out of hand, they likely give you a smack upside the head or something just to get you back in line. But the actual physical punishments were handed out by students. They disciplined me to the point where wire hangers, broken broomsticks over my back. I mean, they were out to hurt me. Their mode of operandum was to break me and make me a military man. If you accumulate any negative demerits, there's a list that they posted every week on the

bulletin board and you'd look and see if your name was on it. If our clothes weren't exactly perfectly lined up, that could be one to five demerits. I had set a school record the first three months for the most demerits. That would take away one hour of free time for each demerit. So on Saturday you had maybe six or seven hours that you got to go down to town and watch a movie, go to a soda shop. I was denied that because instead of seven hours of freedom, I had seven hours of marching or exercise or whatever they deemed they wanted to do, like run around a track for two hours.

There were days where I was on my back holding up my legs for four and five minutes at a time. And if you drop them, the clock would start all over. There were times where I tried to resist it and I got more demerits. It just kept piling up. It got to the point where I was starting to lose it. And then the headmaster had this little group that he always took camping. And I was invited to go along because he thought I could use some friends. Well, his idea of friends and my idea of friends are quite different.

I witnessed something that evening with he and another one of the younger cadets. I zip my bag up around my head and said, I've got to get out of here. I can't do this. That was kind of a second doubled whammy on my sexual assault of life and confusion. Because when I was very young, before I was sent away in a military school, I was raped basically by my sister's friend. Eventually, I got to go from the junior school, which is down the hill, to the senior school, which is up the hill, where all the big boys hang out. By this time, I had literally run away from school six times. I had called my mother on each of the six occasions that I ran away from school.

And she said, come on, you're exaggerating. They're not hitting you. On the sixth time, when I was in the headmaster's office, getting ready to be punished with a paddle over my bare butt, I looked at him and said, I don't get this. How can my mother allow you to do this? He sat me down and he pulled out a letter. And he said, why don't you read this? Basically, it was a consent letter that said, if you send your son to this school, that you must agree to us disciplining him in any way we feel fit in military standard.

Now, I don't believe military standard says you can beat the hell out of somebody for discipline reasons. I had to sit there reading this letter agreed to by my mother. I just lost any ounce of hope I ever had left. It was like somebody blew out the last flame. It was gone. I was just a shell of a person at that point. If you're serious about growing this new year, what you put into your mom, mind actually matters. And as someone who lives and breathes careers and self-development, even I get overwhelmed trying to do it all. Between work, life, and trying to better yourself, self-care can start to feel like just another thing on the to-do list. But investing in yourself

doesn't have to be complicated. And with Audible, it isn't. It's time to take care of you. And who better to help than the top voices in well-being all in one place. With Audible's Well-Being collection, you can level up your career, finances, relationships, sleep, parenting, or mindset. Whether you want motivation, clarity, or practical advice, there is something there to support you every step of the way. I listen while I commute, clean, work, or just when I need a little bit of downtime. You'll hear from best-selling authors Brene Brown and Jay Shetty, Chef Jamie Oliver, finance expert Rachel Rogers, and popular parenting guides like Raising Good Humans. kickstart your well-being journey with your first audio book free when you sign up for a 30-day trial at outable.com.

Membership is 1495 a month after 30 days. Cancel any time. There's more to imagine when you listen. One day in our platoon lineup for breakfast, this kid walks in and stands in the squad next to me and he has long hair. And everyone in the school is laughing at him. And I was curious. That night I knocked on his door and I started talking to him. he told me all about the peace movement and what was going on on the outside.

I had a game plan. He and I made an agreement that we would run away. He knew where we could go from Virginia to San Francisco and I thought, cool. So the next morning I get up, I opened my door, which had an open forum. If you can imagine a prison, but without the bars. And as I walk out, I look up

and he's swinging by his neck from the balcony. I heard enough to suggest that it may be. not have been suicide, but I cannot confirm. But I felt once again the abandonment issue came in. It just felt like every time I turned around, somebody in my life was either dying, abandoning me, or something that continued the trauma to be implanted deeper and deeper into the heart. What it also did for me is it gave me a fear of making a close friend. I was afraid to get close to anyone because I was afraid they were going to die or leave me. That took a long time in life to get over before I could actually have a friend come into my life again.

I was in military school for three years, and that was enough to drive anyone completely, utterly insane. Mid-60s, I went to my parents and said, here's the deal. If you even think of sending me back to that school, I'm going to jump off the train, you'll never see me again, and that'll be the end of us. So they decided to send me to a private school instead. The initial response was, oh, great, I'm at a military school. I don't have to wear this uniform anymore.

Well, I was told I would have to wear a tie and a blazer. I didn't care about that because it was civilian clothes. And on the weekends and after school, you can get in your dungarees. I thought, man, I'm going to have a great time here. First day in private school, I'm sitting in the little lounge that we all had before breakfast. And the six-foot-five guy walks up to me. He looks at me, says, hey, are you the kid from military school? I put my head down and my only thought was, oh, sweet Jesus, this isn't going to start again, is it? I looked up and I said, yeah, I went to military. school. He goes, well, did they teach you how to kill there? And I'm thinking, why would you ask a question so stupid like this? I said to him, I don't want any trouble. I'm past all of that. I don't want to even think about it. He goes, stand up. I want you to show me how you could kill me. I said, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm into peace. He wouldn't leave me alone for three years. I went to the headmaster all the time and asked him to please tell him to stop bugging me. He would spit on me. He would push me. He was trying to get me to fight with him. And I just wouldn't do it. 15 years old, I was in that private school, and I had had it. I wanted all the pain to stop.

I didn't want to go through this anymore. So I decided one night that this was the night it would end. And I walked down to the end of the dock in front of this giant lake that was partially frozen. I said, it stops now. And I jumped in. When I got underwater and the water rushed into my lungs, a thought hit me that I didn't want to die. It's got to be something better. And I jumped out, sat on the dock freezing for a long time, and then, went and got warmed up and everything. The next day, I guess it got around campus what I had done. And the soccer coach came to me and said, hey, why don't you try off a soccer? I said, coach, thanks, but I don't play sports. He goes, why? Didn't your dad and you go out and play baseball

and stuff? I just put my head down and he knew something was up. After a while, he got the whole story out of me. He said, would you allow me to help you play soccer? And said, why would you do that? I don't even know you. He says, because I think there's something there that you'll enjoy. And so I got on the soccer field. It turned out I was a really good to. defenseman because you had an opportunity to run around and get a lot of aggression out. So after that, the wrestling coach saw that and he came to me, he says, I'd like you to wrestle. I said, no. He says, I'm your chemistry teacher. Wouldn't you like an A? I said, that sounds like blackmail. He said it is. Okay, you got a sense of humor. I'll go. I became undefeated in wrestling

in the tri-state area. Sports gave me an outlet to express my anger, my competition, which actually was one of the minor little flames that lit. I started building without me even knowing about it, some confidence in myself. I was achieving something, which I didn't realize was part of recovery. Through all of this, my math teacher found out about my plight. And he pulled me in his office and he said, there are good thoughts and bad thoughts, and it's all like everyone's opinion, right? I said, yeah. He says, in math, you don't have opinions. You have only facts. And nobody can argue those facts. something in my brain just went click and I said, wow, I found something that I don't have to be afraid of. If I put the numbers in the right order, if I do the multiplications correctly, the answer is indisputable.

He gave me yet another spark that I didn't even realize was in there. All these mentors started coming into my life and I didn't even know what a mentor was or that I was even being affected by it. But looking back as an adult, I can start to piece together where those little sparks started triggering something to ignite the fuse for me to move forward with my life. When I got to college, I started as a chemistry major. Because of the fact that my father had died of cancer, I was determined to find a cure for it. But my teacher soon realized that I was in the wrong study area,

and he saw something creative in me. After a couple of semesters of chemistry, my chemistry teacher took me for a walk and said, I need to talk to you. You're straight-A student in chemistry. You do three-hour labs in 45 minutes. He goes, but you're not a chemist. You're an artist and you need to find yourself.

He says, you're out of my class. I'm going to tell the dean you need to find another class. I sat on the grass in the quiet, completely confused going, I really don't know what's going on with my life. And this friend of mine, Liz sits next to me and says, what's up? I told him, she started laughing. She goes, forget him, I need some help. Can you help me?

So she brings me over this room and I walk in and there are all these people on a stage. I'm handed a script. I said, what's this? and said, your part is this, you just read that. So I get up on stage and I'm starting to read. The director gives me a little direction. About an hour in, I said, hey, listen, I've got to go do my homework. It's getting late.

And he goes, you can't leave a rehearsal. I looked at Liz who had a big smile on her face. I said, you little stinker you. And then the whole cast came around me, said, congratulations on the part. You can be really good. And it just felt like I found something finally. I found a group of people that worked for a creative,

endeavor, which was really cool, which had never experienced. And by the second year, I wrote my first play, presented it to the parent-teacher weekend, which was very successful. After being at my first college, it was during the Kent State era, and Revolution was breaking out. On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard shot at a group of anti-war protesters on the Kent State University campus. They killed four and wounded nine unarmed students protesting the Vietnam War. It was the first time a student was killed in an anti-war gathering in United States history. Countrywide protests unfolded as a result, which forced the temporary closure of colleges and universities across the country. Everything was going crazy. All the schools closed down.

And so I went back to New Jersey and went to a guidance counselor in New York to find another school. He found one in Colorado and said they have a program that I think you'll really enjoy it. It's a program called the University Without Walls. That's a program where kids who know what they want to do in life have the guidance of the teachers, but they don't go to classes anymore. You structure your course curriculum with them. That kind of launched me into a really solid career towards theater. When I got to Colorado, a woman took me up to a little mountain town called Evergreen.

It's about a little over 8,000 feet tall. It was stunning. It had a beautiful lake and this little road that went for six miles. She took me in a cabin and there were a bunch of kids there, all long hair. My hair was starting to grow out by that time. They welcomed me as if I was their brother. I felt so at ease with them. She said, you know, you should try to find a cabin up here.

Believe or not, about two weeks later, one of the kids, kids in the group said, hey John, Mr. Hurley's renting a cabin. You want to look at it? I said, heck, yeah. So we drove up to the cabin. It was literally in this little cul-de-sac in amongst 100-foot ponderoses. The road ended right where my cabin was, and it turned into the national forest. So I was at the edge of civilization. I started living in the mountains. A few other people move in next door to me, and I met a man named Mark O'Brien. He had left Fordham University studying law because he finally said, I'm sick of society. I just want to go live in the mountains. I didn't know it at the time, but he was incredibly spiritually evolved.

One night, he got my whole story out of me. He started teaching me life on a chessboard. And he said, every move I make or you make is a counter move, and you have to look at what reason your opponent made that move. Then he started teaching me how to meditate. He and I talked spiritually for a long time, and finally one night he said, John, I have to ask you a question. You've always told me that you've always wanted to forgive

this person and forgive that person for all the trauma that you had dumped on you. Forget about forgiving them. He says, you can't forgive them until you do the most important step in your life. You have got to learn to forgive yourself. When I was first realizing I had some serious issues that I couldn't get my head on top of. I went to see a therapist. I was nervous because I'd never been to a therapist. And I told him a little bit of my background. He goes, here's what I want you to do. I want you to write two or three pages about your background, what happened to you, a little bit about your military school, just so I can get a better understanding. So I did it, handed it to him the next time. The third time I walked in, and he said, I've been a therapist a long time. I have no

idea how you got through this. There's just no way you could have done this on your own. I said, well, it seemed like it was on my own, but there were a lot of people that were there pushing me along the way. If you're serious about growing this new year, what you put into your mind actually matters. And as someone who lives and breathes careers and self-development, even I get overwhelmed trying to do it all. Between work, life, and trying to better yourself, self-care can start to feel like just another thing on the to-do list. But investing in yourself doesn't have to be complicated. And with Audible, it isn't. It's time to take care of you. And who better to help than the top voices in well-being all in one place. With Audible's Well-Being collection, you can level up your

career, finances, relationships, sleep, parenting, or mindset. Whether you want motivation, clarity, or practical advice, there is something there to support you every step of the way. I listen while I commute, clean, work, or just when I need a little bit of downtime. You'll hear from best-selling authors Brene Brown and Jay Shetty, Chef Jamie Oliver, finance expert Rachel Rogers, and popular parenting guides like Raising Good Humans. kickstart your well-being journey with your first audio book free when you sign up for a 30-day trial at outable.com. Membership is 1495 a month after 30 days. Cancel any time. There's more to imagine when you listen.

After the therapist had me write those few pages, I discovered another therapist that said, you should look at this book called The Artist's Way. And the idea of the book was to write three pages every day for 12 weeks. So I started doing that. One morning I didn't have anything to write and said, well, I'm looking out my window. It's starting to drizzle. I looked up and three pages had gone by. So instead of 12 weeks, it turned into 12 months.

I wrote volumes of pages. To this day, I have never read everything, but I soon realized it was the genesis of when the rain stops. I was pretty much trying to unravel emotions in my life. I started sharing a little bit with my wife and my therapist and my friend who's a brilliant, writer, I decided to put more of a timeline together. So I created a character, and forgive me, I don't remember the name of the character. I'll call him Ed for now. And I handed it to David and my wife. They both read it and they both came back with the same comment. They were yelling at me. You're making this story about Ed. Nobody's going to believe this stuff. This is all true,

right? And I said, every last word of it. Then it's got to be about you. Otherwise, people will not resonate that it's a personal story and they're not going to get the cathartic value for them. out of it unless you show them that you went through it and survived. That was incredibly difficult because I sat in my office reading it a bit and I was thinking, I'm scared to death to tell everyone this. What if people laugh at me? It really went through my head hard. And I said, okay, I got to calm down here. Yes, that's a possibility, but you haven't released it yet. So there's still time. Let's just take a deep breath. I was sitting trying to come up with a theme as a filmmaker, especially as a writer, screenwriter, you have to look at theme as a very important part of any

work. I kept thinking to myself, what's the theme in this book? Besides healing and recovery, I said, all right, well, it's about your heart. It hurts. It just feels like it's always raining. Everything's pouring into my heart. And I went, well, if it's raining emotions into your heart and trauma, what happens when it stops? As soon as I said that, I said, when the rain stops, that's the title of my book. that's when I went back and did a little rewriting, I found the theme to be able to make the title of the book. And then I had all sorts of design covers for it. I just made it a very simple, peaceful sunset.

Like, you've come to the completion and it's colorful and everything. And I took one look and I fell in love with it. That's how the Genesis and the name of the book came about. I wrote the whole story. I read it and I thought, you know, my mother comes off like a really bad person at the beginning and I don't want people to feel like hating her because she turned out to be the best thing that ever happened in my life. Then at 3 o'clock in the morning, I woke up and said, two voices.

I said, all right, I'll tell the story from my 3-year-old all the way to my X amount of year old. Each section, I'm going to put a little separate section in gray of the adult looking back and explaining that my perception of reality there wasn't what the truth was, especially about my mother. I mean, she made the hardest decision in her life. if it was a different time and there was therapy and we had the money to do that, maybe we could have skipped the military school and some of the abuse and abandonment,

but life unfolded the way it did. So that's when I wrote the two voices. I had reached out to a friend of mine on Facebook who does book reviews. And I said, would you mind looking this over and just give me your opinion? I don't want you to write a review in case you hate it or something. Two or three weeks later, I get an email from his wife. He said, we sat down and read your book over the week. allowed to each other. I want you to know he's done a lot of reviews on books and has been

touched deeply by many, but I've never seen him as touched by a book as yours to the point where he walked over to the phone and dialed his mother who he hadn't spoken to in 10 years, and now she's back in his life. And I thought, wow, I could not have had a better compliment on a book in my life. I agree. It was incredibly powerful. I loved knowing that you have cultivated did this relationship with your mom. And I love navigating those pieces of your life, knowing that too. Had you ever told her that you were writing a book? I did. She laughed and she said, John, you can't even write me a letter. How are you going to write a book? We both laughed about it. I said, Mom, this is my fifth book. She goes, yeah, okay. I read the other ones. I like them.

Keep writing. First book I ever wrote was called Secrets. It's a journey from Nazi Germany through time into present day and how some of the things that started in Nazi Germany still exist today. And then it turns into kind of a James Bond adventure. The more I thought about it after writing it, it was a need to have my father still alive and send him on a mission as a hero. So the character's name in the book, Gus, was my father's name. I honored him that way. I wrote a novel, no solicitors. I turned into a script that I wrote, directed, and produced a film starring Eric Roberts, who was an Academy Award nominee, that's still in release and to be in all sorts of other places worldwide. What role do you feel film and television play in the way society relates to victims at large?

And how do you wish projects, whether dramatized or scripted projects, portrayed victims differently? If you think about how we grew up, I remember watching on TV where the news would say, A woman got in a car accident and she was rushed to the hospital. And everyone went, oh my God. Now it's like there was a mass shooting today. Nine kids got killed and four teachers. Oh, that's a shame. What else is on TV?

People are getting really numb to this, which is not good. We can't do that. We have to stay focused on this. I think we have to start by understanding that unfortunately, Hollywood in film, TV, and video games has normalized violence. It's something that we really have to look at because it's influencing our kids. Today, with all these blockbusters that show the protagonist solving problems by using guns and violence is not setting good examples for us. We really need to find other ways to do that.

The argument that guns and violence sell better than anything else is nonsense because Titanic brought in $2.2 billion. We've got to start finding ways to educate the studios to re-educate the public. that'll help unnormalize gun violence and films and video games. I appreciate that perspective, and I think that's incredibly important to talk about. What do you wish everyone knew about healing after abuse or surviving abuse? It's such a blunt reality, but this cliche that's become ubiquitous of you are not alone, let me tell you, when I was depressed and somebody said that to me, first thought in my mind is you have no idea what you're talking about and you don't know who I am.

The industry of mental health right now, I think, is kind of slipping a little bit with that ubiquitous term. What they have to understand is that people that are depressed aren't all those people that are just sitting in a corner, cowering. They may be isolating themselves in what I've termed the comfort zone. Nobody's going to hurt their feelings. Nobody can trigger them. And they isolate themselves. But it's also the most dangerous place because it's the hardest place to come out of. I think there's no one shoe that fits all in terms of recovery, but a three-step process for your listeners to consider using.

It's called uncover, discover, and recover. And we've covered this in our conversation. You uncover the difficult situation you're currently facing. Once you identify what triggered you, you discover whether or not your perception of the truth was right, or is there an alternative. alternative perception of the truth. You recover by taking the necessary steps to move yourself forward. For me, the uncovered discovery cover gave me a tool to write down everything that I was upset about, who trigger me, what trigger me, how I let it trigger me. And then I would take one at a time and I would say, how much energy do I want to put towards that in my life? Growing up, I came

from a generation where kids were seen and not hurt. If you cried, your mother would say, wipe those tears away. I'll give you something to cry about. Big boys don't cry. Suck it up, move on. And it's really confusing for men. Men stop talking about their feelings and emotions, and we bury it. And it comes out in misdirected anger and frustration at something that has nothing to do with what the real feeling is. We have got to understand that having feelings is fine. It's part of life. You're entitled. to have those feelings. And you're also entitled to seek help.

You have to be willing to learn to communicate. You have to be willing to say, I'm okay. I just have this issue and I need to talk about it. If a therapist helps, do that. If writing helps, do that. If talking to your partner, do that. But come out and talk about your feelings. It's okay.

It's not a matter of bravery. It's really just a matter of being able to talk about it. After so many podcasts and talking about this, it has enriched my life and it has made me let go so much that I thought I was over, but I hadn't because after some of the podcasts, I literally had broken down crying, thinking, I didn't even remember that. It hurts so bad to go back there again. And it just flushes your system out. And the addendum to that because you put it out there, it doesn't mean it's gone forever. It may rear its ugly head a couple of more times. once in a while for the rest of your life.

It's okay. Don't deny the feeling. Sit with the feeling. Just don't overindulge yourself. Allow yourself to process it. If you have to cry, cry. If you have to punch a pillow, do that. If you have to go outside and scream,

whatever it takes, allow yourself to feel that. And that will help you on the long term know how to deal with it. I want to help direct people now to your platforms. I know you have johncallis.com, which is an extensive picture of your filmography and everything you've done. Where else can people find you or look your projects up? A couple of things you can do.

You can go to Amazon. Type in John Callis. It shows all the books. I'm also on Instagram, Twitter. Thank you so much for the information, the awareness. Sometimes just knowing at some point that there are other people that have experienced similar things can help us report, reach out. and even begin that recovery stage.

I deeply appreciate what you've contributed to the world. You're very welcome. It's my pleasure. I think it's important for people to come together and help each other. It's what the world should be about. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Next week on What Came Next. I had to take a breath, compose myself, and assess the situation.

As teachers, we are trained every year. active shooter trainings of how to protect our students from shooters. Our teacher hats went on immediately, which I think was a blessing for us because it helped distract us from the scariness of what was happening. We were there for hours until the FBI came and they escorted us through the airport tarmac. What Came Next is a Broken Cycle Media Production, co-produced by Amy B. Chessler and Tiffany. Reese. If you'd like to help support what came next, you can leave us a positive review, support our sponsors, or follow Broken Cycle Media on Instagram at Broken Cycle Media. Check out the episode

notes for sources, resources, and to follow our guests. Thank you again for listening.