Family Secrets A Virtuosic Patient
Jan 11, 2024
In this podcast, Alice reflects on her traumatic childhood and the search for her true self. The podcast explores her parents' complex relationship, false memories, self-diagnosis frustrations, and experiences in psychiatric ward and treatment center.
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Living Inside An Artwork
- Alice describes 134 Charles Street as a converted factory with a pool above her mother's bed and two floors of gardens that shaped family life.
- The building's industrial quirks and the nanny's constant presence created an uncanny domestic world that felt like a character itself.
Grandeur And Emotional Distance
- Alice paints her mother as a geological force whose grandiosity and remoteness reshaped their family landscape.
- That magnitude of talent coexisted with emotional distance that became central to Alice's sense of instability.
Learning Recovered Memories As A Child
- Alice recounts discovering her mother's 'recovered memories' of satanic ritual abuse after reading journals at age 11 and being told the story matter-of-factly.
- Those vivid painted scenes and repeated talk of abuse blurred boundaries and left Alice unsure where her mother's history ended and hers began.