[Chris] I did something horrible to you.
I feel like I don't deserve...
But that's like your M.O., babe.
-Yeah. -Like...
you need that, like...
-That... -...flogging.
-Yeah. -You know?
Like, you need to be punished.
-My-- Yeah. -Look at me.
I'm scared because I love you so much.
And I love you so much.
I didn't think that you should be with me
because I think you're f*cking amazing,
and I'm just some schmuck with mommy issues
and a trust fund that ran out.
Shh!
Stop talking.
♪ funky pop music playing ♪
[indistinct chatter]
-[Sienna] No, this is yours... -[Chris] Yeah.
-Wait, what? -Yeah.
That was, like, a popular thing.
Oh, my gosh, that is just so good.
[Orna] There are moments between them in session
where she kind of turns to him
and she starts talking to him about how amazing he is.
I-I feel like she's just, like,
grabbing Chris and hypnotizing him
into believing into a future,
into the goodness of the world.
What is she getting?
Yeah, I don't have a sense of her emotional center.
-Mm-hmm. -[Jade] She's suffering,
but we're not seeing her suffering.
Where is-- Where is her fault line that she would not be able
to be the super woman but rather fall apart?
Yeah, she-- There's a lot more to find out about her.
[Chris] I put the girls to bed,
and we were like, "I'm going to get dressed,
and we're going to have a lovely--"
-Dressed in sexy time. -Sexy time.
-Mommy and Daddy time. -Mommy and Daddy time.
And, uh, I was stoked.
And she's like, "Don't fall asleep."
And I was like, "I'm not gonna fall asleep.
I'm excited. Let's do this."
I was tired, but I was like, "Okay, don't fall asleep.
Don't fall asleep."
And then, next thing I know,
Sienna's like, "What are you doing?"
And I was like, "I'm so sorry, like, I'm excited.
Let's do this." And she's like, "It's done."
Like, I-- The moment is gone and I'm upset.
And I know why she was upset, and justifiably so.
It felt so much like evidence
that I'm not as important to him...
by sheer fact that...
he couldn't even stay awake to f*ck me.
And for these "cuddles,"
he would move heaven and earth.
Can I just ask, do you--
What do you-- What's your feeling
when you hear this about this comparison?
Like, she knows that she's in New York,
and I'm alone with the girls, and I'm cleaning,
and I'm taking care of them, and I'm working and...
[Orna] And all reasons to be tired.
-I legitimately am very tired. -[Orna] Yeah.
Regardless of that,
I knew how critical and important
me not falling asleep this one time was.
So why the f*ck could I not stay awake?
Okay, but forget about whether it's a bad thing to do.
Let's just try to understand it.
-Mmm. -You're saying the expectation
-feels big. -Yes. But good.
-I was-- wanted to f*ck. Sorry. -[Orna] Yeah.
-But it's also Sienna's... -[sighs] My God.
...expectations are really important.
Meaning you're very powerful.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
'Cause the way I framed it, I'm like,
-"This is a big f*cking deal." -But is it a big deal to you?
-[Chris] Yeah. -When someone is so powerful
in that moment, that's no longer...
[Sienna] Mm.
...the question.
-[Chris] Oh. -What's the question?
[Orna] Can I supply what this powerful woman...
-Mmm... Huh? -...wants from me?
sh*t, I can supply it.
-I'm-- You know what? -[laughs] Sorry.
-Go somewhere else with that. -[laughing]
Go somewhere else with all that.
[Chris] Sorry, it was just, like, hanging there.
-But I think that-- -It's true.
And I think that extends to everything.
You are, like, for me...
-big, huge. -Yeah.
But on the heels of what we've been talking about,
even just in terms of your mom...
-[Chris] Yeah. -...it's dangerous
to be in the hands of someone powerful.
-Yeah. -Whoa.
And also, like, I can't see you upset.
Like, it really affects me.
I think I live my life mostly to avoid that feeling.
Since we're doing some psychological excavation,
do you want to say more, Sienna, about your own history?
Um, I grew up in a wealthy
predominantly white area in California.
My mom was a single mom.
We had no money.
[laughs] We lived in government housing.
We ate government cheese.
I'm a biracial kid.
-I was-- -[Orna] You're biracial?
Mm-hmm. I'm African-American and Danish.
-But who's who? -[Sienna] My mom is Danish.
And I was bullied really, really badly.
What was going on?
I had, like...
Mm... [laughs]
My mom would cut my hair super short,
like, really short because it was too much trouble
to brush it or comb it or detangle it.
So I had this little Afro.
I have low vision, so I had these superthick glasses.
I was particularly round 'cause I was overweight
and, um...
a target, I think, for a lot of kids.
-Mm-hmm. -Um...
[Sienna] I have very core memories
of ballet in particular.
This is so clear in my mind.
I wore a purple leotard and black tights
'cause that's all my mom could find,
and I looked like I looked,
and every other single little girl in there
was in the required pink on pink on pink on pink.
And all of them--
I don't know how this is even possible.
They all had blonde hair. [laughs]
And they were just these perfect little angelic Caucasian girls.
And I wanted so badly to fit in, and I didn't.
And the ballet teacher, in front of the whole class,
she called me out from my...
you know, my uniform not being what it should be,
and just feeling so shamed.
What-- How did the bullying happen and what--
Did anyone intervene or, like, what--
How did that get dealt with?
The girls in my class, they would call me names
like "Butterball Turkey" and, like,
"Coke bottle glasses,"
and they would invite me to sleepovers
just to make fun of me.
I remember the feeling
of being deeply unhappy.
And I asked my mom about it, actually, as an adult,
and she said that I would come home every day crying.
And she said, "I didn't know what to do,
and I wish I had done something, but I just didn't."
[scoffs]
-And... -What does that mean?
It was at a time in my life when I had done a lot of work
on releasing some of my expectations of my mother
and letting go of what I thought she should be
and just loving her for who she is
because I wanted a relationship with her.
Terrible, but I'm also thinking about how many,
um, needs and expectations you suppressed.
Mm.
Yeah.
I think what it felt like was,
if I could get through my childhood,
nothing can put me back in that place
because I get to choose who I am
and how I show up in the world.
And so...
I chose joy.
And so ever since then,
I can remember...
intentionally...
speaking into existence,
"You deserve pleasure, you deserve happiness."
And I never considered the ramifications
of pushing something down for so long.
♪ pensive music playing ♪
[Orna]We all have a certain kind of fantasy
of the perfect mother.
There's some sort of shared cultural idea
of some kind of maternal presence
that knows her child like no one else
and can just give and give and give and give no matter what.
We're all living with that kind of fantasy
and the great disappointment
that that mother never shows up.
I think part of psychological growth
is to recognize that the people that raised you
are subjects with their own histories,
their own issues,
and not this kind of
object of your fantasy.
[Shay] I've always been so busy
taking care of everything for everyone.
No wonder that's how my relationship pans out.
I do that in my day-to-day life for my career,
for my family, everything.
And sometimes I mention that to you, like,
"Hey, just let me do some of it too," you know?
But, like, I still understand that, like,
because of how you grew up,
because of everything that you had to do to make sure
that your life was the way you wanted it to be,
that you had to take the reins all the time.
I-I-I'd like to know more
about your background and what you're bringing to this
in terms of your own history.
Yeah. I grew up very poor. Um...
-[Orna] You mentioned. -My dad was a truck driver.
My mom was a beautician.
My parents were both alcoholics growing up.
I grew up in Pennsylvania, born and raised in the country.
I was homeless for part of that, I...
[Orna] Why?
My parents were not okay with me being g*y.
I came out as a g*y man at first when I, uh...
How old?
-[Shay] Fourteen. -Mm-hmm.
[Shay] My mom threw a fit.
Um, I lived on friends' couches for a little bit and--
She threw a fit and threw you out of the house?
She literally called her a f*gg*t.
[laughs] She told me I was a f*gg*t
and she wished I got A*DS and died.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
Sorry.
I don't think I've ever really talked like...
I always talk about it with such ease.
It's a weird, uh...
like...
It's weird to go through a history line
and then pull up deep trauma.
You know what I mean? Like to...
What happened after you came out?
[Shay] I floated a bit.
I used to do drag for a living.
I had a drag family for many years.
But did you-- did you ever go back?
Sporadically.
My friend Sarah growing up-- -[Clinton] The transient.
I would spend weeks at her house,
and then come back home for, like, a meal.
-And how would they-- -[Shay] Never good.
It always was terrible.
And it wasn't until I met a trans woman back then--
I was, like, at the time in an underage night,
and, like, I met this trans woman for the first time.
I had no idea who she-- What she was, who she was.
I never even knew the word trans.
Three, four years later when I got into college,
I was wearing partially women's clothing
and partially men's clothing,
and then my senior year came around.
I started dressing full-time.
And I started going home full-time in women's clothing.
And I was just like, I'm not...
I'm not taking it off anymore.
Doing drag and taking off the drag
felt like an abandonment of my own...
-[Orna] Yeah. -...character and personality.
Everyone was against me transitioning.
My father wanted nothing to do with me
when I decided to transition.
My mother was like, "I don't understand. You're g*y.
If you're g*y, okay, you're g*y,
but, like, why do you have to become a woman?"
My mom's, like, the dom of the house.
She is very much, like, you are going to respect her.
Her word is final.
And what-- As a youngster,
what was your relationship with her?
Oh,God. Terrible, actually.
-My mother-- -Did you...
submit to her? -In the beginning?
Oh, for sure.
Most of my-- Most of my life,
I never fought my mother over anything.
-Yeah. -If you fought my mother
over something, there was ultimate punishment.
I remember one day I was coloring in the living room
and I didn't want to go up and take a bath,
and so I told my mother "no" for the first time ever.
"No, I don't want to."
She literally brought me up to my room,
she took everything out of my room.
Everything.
Every piece of furniture.
She dragged it out.
She locked me in the room
for hours upon end. -Wow.
And she would just leave me there.
I wasn't allowed to use the bathroom.
I could cry, wail, whatever it was.
She couldn't care less.
It was very neglectful.
Well, tyrannical and cold.
Yeah, that's a great word. Yeah, she's very much a tyrant.
[Clinton] I ain't gonna hold you.
I get where she's coming from with, like, the moms--
Her moms being that way.
We have a very similar track with our parents.
Our mothers, specifically.
The way they abused, manipulated, everything.
I got my diagnosis hidden from me.
I don't know about you,
but that's pretty damn manipulative.
And Shay would tell me she's afraid
of becoming like her mother.
[Shay] Who-- But who wouldn't?
But it's like hey, you kind of encroaching,
like, acting the same way your mom told you...
-[Orna] In what way? -...in our relationship.
Like, sometimes she says, "If you would just listen to me,
nothing would go wrong," and things like that.
I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on.
Like, that's what your moms would've done to you."
Hell, that's what my moms do to me.
No, and I disagree with you.
When I say that to you,
it's not out of a way of control.
We're having a discussion about it.
Oh no, I know where it
coming from. -We're-- we're...
Just hear me for a sec.
We're talking about it.
-There was no talk... -[Orna] Mm-hmm.
...in my house.
You didn't discuss.
You did.
There was no, like, back and forth.
And I understand that. That's what I'm saying.
That's why I never said it was exactly.
-I would say it's encroaching. -But I'm nowhere near that.
♪ percussive reggae beat ♪
♪ Come on, come on, baby ♪
♪ Come on back home to me ♪
♪ Come on, come on, baby ♪
♪ Come on back home to me ♪
♪ Why won't you just forgive me? ♪
♪ You can't love another man ♪
♪ Love you, baby ♪
♪ I won't go home with you ♪
Whoo.
[Drea]I know you love me.
-I do love you. -I also know I'm crazy.
-We don't use that word. -I know.
-I'm special. -[both laugh]
[Drea] We were just laughing, like, when we left here.
We left in an interesting state.
-You were not well. Yeah. -Right.
-[Drea] Yeah. -And?
Well, we-- I just--
I went away to a Caribbean festival
over the weekend, so I missed her.
She missed me.
So right now, we're in a-- And I came back last night.
So right now we're in an "Aw, we miss...
each other" type of phase. -We miss each other so much, so.
But even before that, I feel like...
I don't know.
-Well, after our last session... -Mm-hmm.
...we were pretty emotional. -Mmm.
We went to dinner, and then we went home
and we had a very, um,
enjoyable evening together.
-Yeah. -The two of you?
[both] Yes.
-Interesting. -[both] Yes.
I mean, great, but tell me.
Um...
I mean, make the links for me
between how you left the session and the enjoyable evening.
I think that both of us felt bad emotionally,
and we both knew that we could make each other feel better.
-Keep going. -[Nessa laughs]
I mean... oh, God.
This is gonna hurt my teeth to even say it.
I have noticed
that when she gets to go and do stuff she wants to do
and do it by herself, that...
she will return
and sometimes be in better spirits
and be a little more affectionate and whatever.
And how are your teeth?
[both laugh]
Like, you know--
You know it-- I don't want to say,
"Oh, I hate admitting that she's right."
But I even had fun myself
doing things myself, like going shopping,
hanging out with my friends.
Like, I did things, and normally I would not.
Can you describe the different mindset?
Your different mindset?
I don't know, like, the independence
kind of just felt good.
Is this, like,
something you've done in the past at all? Ever?
I don't think so.
Like, when I'm by myself, if Nessa goes away,
I usually just stay in the house and...
-[Orna] But stay in the house-- -I don't go to work sometimes.
I won't take my daughter-- I would not take her to day care
just to not have to get up and drive or anything.
But the staying inside is a particular mindset.
What-- What is it?
I kind of need Nessa to get these things done.
[Orna] So, dependency.
Probably.
Why?
I'm saying in my head because she's taking care of me.
Taking care of all those things is taking care of me.
Who else in your family,
of any of the people that you're close to,
was like that?
No one.
Well, what? You keep cutting your eye at me.
I'm looking at you as you speak.
-What family member do you... -Do you think she's trying
to say, "I'm letting you, I want you to take care of me
because I've never felt taken care of by my mother
because I felt unseen in my childhood,"
and all those things?
-[Orna] Is that true? -I guess.
-Tell me. -[Drea] I don't know how deep
I want to get into talking about my mother.
I-- I love my mother.
I wish she loved me as her child,
and I don't know if she does.
Ouch.
She kind of just discarded some of us.
Not all of her children.
Some of them she still talks to and sees their children.
My daughter's four.
My mom has seen my daughter
maybe six times in her life in four years.
My mom lives minutes from me.
I've gone almost a year with us not speaking.
Ten, eleven months.
She just will not call and will not answer.
I also cannot tell you a time
that my mother had told me that she loved me.
And I can't think of a time that she gave me a hug.
[Orna] Ouch.
[Drea] Contrarily,
my mom was still ironing my clothes
when I was in high school
for school every day. -Yeah.
I didn't learn to wash my own clothes
until I moved into my own apartment.
-Yeah. Because my mom, like,
was that kind of
stereotypical Italian mother. -So indulging.
She cleaned our rooms, still, even as teenagers.
But not-- Just not the emotional part.
Like, none of the emotional part.
Uh, Nessa, any thoughts on this?
I think some of why Drea didn't do anything for herself
is because she has a fear of not being able to.
What I would hear often is,
"Well, I don't know if I could do it."
Or, "What if this happens?"
A lot of catastrophic thinking,
like, something bad is going to happen.
I didn't get my driver's license
because my mom didn't get her--
She got her driver's license but has never driven a car.
All she ever talked about was getting in a car accident,
crashing the car, hitting a person.
It put in my mind that if I'm driving...
like, I'm gonna get in a car accident.
Something horrible is gonna happen to me driving.
And I literally did not get my driver's license
until I was like , years old.
[Nessa] I want to acknowledge, though,
Drea talking and being open is such...
progress? Transformation?
And I just-- You know, I'm just acknowledging, in this moment,
the growth because wow,
I can't believe you're even being open.
And that's attractive to me.
-[Orna] Wonderful. -Yeah.
[Orna] Good.
♪ ambient piano music playing ♪
Marj!
[Marjorie] I wanna hear you do it.
-I can't do it. -Come on. Pretend you're a star.
♪ ambient music continues ♪
Oh.
-Here we are. -[door closes]
Back again.
[sighs]
There's your book, Deviant Behavior.
[groans]
[Marjorie] He said to Ryan, seven-year-old Ryan,
"Your grandmother, you gotta call her Lois.
She's not a grandma, you have to call her by her name."
-And I was furious. -I did.
He's seven. -We left.
Why are you putting that on him?
I said, "Come on, Ryan."
Him and I went fishing, and we had a nice talk.
I tried to explain to him,
"Grandma refuses to come pick you up,
but she's picking your cousins up."
He was upset about it.
He said, "Why would grandma do that?"
And I said, "I asked myself the same question."
[Marjorie] Why does he need to know that?
He didn't need to know that.
I'm not gonna play that game.
His relationship with her...
When they see each other... -Are you noticing that you two
are talking at the same time? ...they love each other.
Yes.
You're not gonna play which game?
A pretend game.
To pretend that grandma loves you and cares about you
when she doesn't.
That is discriminatory
between the siblings? -[Jason] Discriminatory. Major.
Like, she pulled up to our house the other day to pick up Bailey.
Ryan was so excited to see her, right?
He runs outside, "Grandma, let me have a hug!"
She wouldn't even unbuckle her seat belt.
What?
He's laying overtop of her in the car.
-[Orna] Mm-hmm. -And hugging her.
She wouldn't even unbuckle her seat belt.
-[Orna] Mm-hmm. -And I watch this.
Okay, well let's talk about that.
But let me actually start with you
'cause it's your mom, Marjorie.
How do you feel about this discriminatory behavior?
I feel that she does love him.
We went to the park, not to--
I have a picture of him and my mom holding hands,
and I was behind them and took a picture
'cause it was just such a beautiful moment.
He doesn't see those moments. He never sees my mom, really.
He's, like, completely-- And I feel like the reason
she's behaving the way she is
is because she doesn't like Jason.
Indirectly, it's affecting my son,
which is so f*cked up, I agree.
Yes, she goes through the motions and does what's right,
and she holds his hand, and does that.
But in her heart, it's not there.
-It's just not there. -You don't know that.
You don't know what's in her heart.
You can't say that. -It's a fake. It's bullshit.
She wouldn't care if she'd never seen him again.
You could pretend all you want,
but this is the behavior that is shown to me from her.
But I think what's happening is these feelings,
it's kind of leaking out of you in acting out.
I just-- I feel really bad for Ryan.
I feel really bad.
I feel like she's not being genuine with him,
and he's so innocent and naive that he thinks she is.
-And it's not fair to him. -[Orna] Yeah.
And if it was up to me, I'd stop it, you know?
But-But-But you know, I--
You feel like you can't protect him from these bad feelings.
Yeah, I can't protect him from somebody fake.
You know, somebody who's acting fake.
I can't save him.
-[Orna] Mm-hmm. -I can't save him.
Say something about...
the idea that someone is being fake
and not offering any kind of genuine care.
Who was that person for you?
Well, like, my dad--
You could say my dad because
he was pretty much absent.
And I kind of felt an outsider-ish...
-Mm-hmm. -in that situation, you know?
Can you say more in detail?
He started like a whole new family, you know?
Like, he left my mother,
married another woman.
-Yeah. -Was cheating on my mother
with this other woman, -Right.
but then married the other woman,
and they had a child.
So they were a unit without us.
-[Orna] Right. -Without us.
When I went there, I didn't feel like
that was my second home.
I felt like a guest there.
Yeah, so you were discriminated against?
-[Jason] Oh, yeah. Major, major. -In a major way.
-Major. Yeah, major. -Yeah.
That's part of the reason why this is so loud.
-[Orna] Yeah. -The situation is so loud to me.
-[Orna] Yeah. -You know what I mean?
-Yes, 'cause it reminds you... -And it's probably 'cause I--
Yes. -...of all of that.
-Yeah, and I only-- -And you couldn't
talk to your dad either?
No, none of that stuff.
-You couldn't confront him? -[Jason] No, no.
I didn't say anything like that.
So I think with this-- our current situation,
he's looking for any little thing
to make it an issue, like--
He sees it different-- -You can make all the excuses
you want over your mom... -I'm not. I'm just saying--
I think you're looking for sh*t. -I can tell you she's ice-cold.
I'm not trying to project my... -But we can assume...
-...past onto her either. -Well, I think you are.
Yeah, I'm not trying to, though, but...
Right, but I mean,
she's offering you some good bait.
[Jason] Yeah. Oh, yeah.
[Orna] But you're definitely taking some part
of unresolved stuff from your past
and laying it onto this woman. -Yeah.
In a way, you're, like, speaking to her,
but you're also speaking to your father.
So you think I'm fabricating some of this stuff?
-[Orna] No. No. -So the--
The way that I feel is real and what I'm seeing is real.
[Orna] It's real, but as you said,
it's very loud for you.
-[Jason] It's extremely loud. -So, it's loud.
It's amplified by your own history.
[Jason] By me, yeah.
The way you're imagining
that things are not okay
are what happened to you.
That's not what's happening to your son.
Yeah.
♪ mellow pop music playing ♪
[Orna]You're kind of inducing him into feelings
that are not his, that are yours.
It's a very interesting
human phenomenon.
When an issue is unresolved in a person's past,
they will always be looking for some way
to repeat the issue and resolve it.
Whether it's trying to master something
that they couldn't master before,
or they're trying to right something that went wrong.
It takes, like, deep work to move out of that pattern.
♪ mellow pop music continues ♪
♪ mellow pop music continues ♪
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