Speaker 1: Dear Alana has released weekly and brought to you absolutely free.
Speaker 1: But if you want to binge the whole season right now,
Speaker 1: subscribe to tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus dot com or on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. You also get exclusive bonus episodes throughout the season.
Speaker 1: For more information, check out the show notes. Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 2: The following episode contains references to suicide. If you or
Speaker 2: someone you know is in need of help, please contact
Speaker 2: the Suicide in Crisis Lifeline by dialing nine to eight eight.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: Delier Guy.
Speaker 2: Douausie.
Speaker 4: He lolla. I get there to the emergency hero there's
Speaker 4: a couple of nuns and then there's father Peter on
Speaker 4: his knees praying over Elana. She's crying and I'm just stunned.
Speaker 4: I'm like, what the hell is going on here? And
Speaker 4: I said I need to be alone with my daughter
Speaker 4: and someone asked her, is that okay, Alana? And I'm
Speaker 4: like what? And then she said yes, and they left.
Speaker 5: Lomas look at Alma Sa.
Speaker 4: And I was like, Alana, what is going on? You know?
Speaker 4: Is this true? They're saying you're suicidal? Like what? I
Speaker 4: don't I don't I was in shock and she just said, yes, Mom,
Speaker 4: it's true, and I just I lost it. I was like,
Speaker 4: I was so shocked.
Speaker 1: From Tenderfoot TV. I'm Simon and fun and this is
Speaker 1: Dear Alana, Part six defiled.
Speaker 4: They were there every day, the nuns all day pretty much,
Speaker 4: and we couldn't. We only had an hour to visit,
Speaker 4: you know, five of us. And I asked the hospital
Speaker 4: and they said they're clergy, they can do that. I
Speaker 4: just remember the first day she had visiting hours. I
Speaker 4: went there and she was crying so much.
Speaker 1: Alana wasn't talking, and Joyce does not know what to do.
Speaker 1: Her daughter was suicidal, the daughter that she thought was
Speaker 1: out of all her kids, doing the best. Sure, Alana
Speaker 1: had some teenage growing pains the sexuality question, but she
Speaker 1: had so many good friends from Frisbee and a supportive family. Dazed,
Speaker 1: Joyce rushes home and goes through Alana's bedrooms.
Speaker 4: I got anything out of her room that was sharp,
Speaker 4: and she had all these tools from architecture.
Speaker 1: As she's safety proofing the room, Joyce stumbles across a
Speaker 1: stack of notebooks Alana's journals. Not one to snoop normally,
Speaker 1: Joyce feels she has to make an exception to begin
Speaker 1: to find answers.
Speaker 4: I read all the journals that I found, and I,
Speaker 4: like Sophia, would come home every day and I'd be
Speaker 4: hysterically crying, and she said, Mom, this isn't helping. And
Speaker 4: because I never I just was in shocked too. I
Speaker 4: didn't know any of this.
Speaker 1: It was surprise after surprise. She reads about Father Dave
Speaker 1: and Father Peter, their ongoing spiritual advice, about Alana's intense
Speaker 1: love for God, and for the first time she comes
Speaker 1: across entries like this one, which Joyce has bookmarked. She
Speaker 1: shows it to me as I sit in her kitchen.
Speaker 4: December eighth, Thursday. How I feel, what I hear? How
Speaker 4: I see? I am a failure, moral failure, obsessed, addicted, selfish, starving, impure, disordered,
Speaker 4: messed up, repeating, lustful thoughts, lonely, incomplete, empty, wasteful, useless, sensitive, prideful,
Speaker 4: self seeking, praise seeking, desperate for love and affection, Unable
Speaker 4: to receive true love, closed off to truth, no one
Speaker 4: to talk to, no one to understand, can't make eye
Speaker 4: contact with Mom or anyone. Just want it to end
Speaker 4: to be fixed. I don't know the way out it
Speaker 4: is too much to bear, can't stay pure for one hour?
Speaker 4: Too much shame? Just watch TV or music, drown out,
Speaker 4: Feel too much, don't know how I feel, think too much,
Speaker 4: don't know what I'm thinking? Time to reach out? Where
Speaker 4: do I reach?
Speaker 1: A picture of deep shame was emerging from Milana's journals,
Speaker 1: but there were earlier clues that had escaped anyone's radar,
Speaker 1: including an incident almost a year earlier.
Speaker 6: I remember a year prior, at the dinner table at Christmas.
Speaker 1: This is her younger sister, Sophia. Again.
Speaker 6: I had noticed these markings on her arm and I
Speaker 6: was like, Alana, what's that? At the whole dinner too,
Speaker 6: and she was like, Sophia.
Speaker 1: Stop, Like Alana tries to hide the cuts below her
Speaker 1: left shoulder from her sister.
Speaker 6: I thought she had branded herself, like something stupid she
Speaker 6: had done with her friends or something, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1: That at all, and they quickly excused themselves from the table.
Speaker 3: She brought me.
Speaker 6: Upstairs and Salana, what is that? And I was like,
Speaker 6: did you brand yourself? Did you do this to yourself?
Speaker 6: I was like, what did you do? She was like,
Speaker 6: you can't tell anyone, But we still wasn't something we
Speaker 6: ever talked about. I can't you to see that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Joyce is showing me a page in one of
Speaker 1: Alana's journals. It's unlike any of the others. It's an
Speaker 1: ink drying with sharp barbs and wild scribbles surrounding seven
Speaker 1: giant letters D E F, I, L ED defiled. This
Speaker 1: is what Alana had cut into her arm.
Speaker 5: There's a lot to say, Jesus, I don't know where
Speaker 5: to begin. I'm hurting so much. I'm stressed because of school,
Speaker 5: and I don't know who I can trust and who
Speaker 5: I can be vulnerable with. I just drink poison looking
Speaker 5: up how to have sex with women. Jesus, Jesus, I
Speaker 5: took a blade and carved the word defiled into my arm.
Speaker 1: Alana was tormented by where her same sex attractions were
Speaker 1: leading her.
Speaker 5: I don't remember everything that happened when I cut myself.
Speaker 5: I know it was late at night. I was in
Speaker 5: my room, the lamp was on. I felt hopeless, every
Speaker 5: exhale dragging me down. I needed a release, something to
Speaker 5: take this draining feeling away. I don't know how I
Speaker 5: thought of that word defiled. I felt like my body
Speaker 5: was stained, covered in filth, that's what the voices told me.
Speaker 5: That I had sinned, that I was irrepairable, I had
Speaker 5: profaned the temple, I had taken God's gift and squandered it.
Speaker 5: I wanted to punish myself. I wanted to make it real.
Speaker 4: It's just like, it's like it's so wrong, it's so
Speaker 4: insane and unfair. It be like she was so good
Speaker 4: and then you get this from what Like It's like,
Speaker 4: what kind of God do they teach about? I don't know, Simon.
Speaker 4: I want to, like, I really want to go there
Speaker 4: and confront them because I feel like I didn't know
Speaker 4: all this time this was going on, like this young life,
Speaker 4: this is what half of it was. It kills me.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I like, this is where I go. I have to
Speaker 4: do something and.
Speaker 1: Ool I can hear Joyce's agitation. She wants to do something,
Speaker 1: confront the people who planted these seeds of shame in
Speaker 1: her daughter. But religion is complicated. We often find both
Speaker 1: shame and comfort from the same ancient faith, as Alana
Speaker 1: clearly did. After a week in the hospital, Alana returns home.
Speaker 1: She withdraws from the fall semester at CU and her
Speaker 1: mother seeks out additional help my.
Speaker 6: Mom my full mama bear mode and was taken care of.
Speaker 1: The situation after many nights. Researching online, Joyce discovers an
Speaker 1: inpatient treatment facility specializing in depression and anxiety recovery. It's
Speaker 1: in Tennessee, and Alana agrees to go. The admission notes,
Speaker 1: which we were only able to obtain after her death,
Speaker 1: are telling. I begin to read through the report. Name
Speaker 1: client prefers to be called Alana Chen Chief complaint.
Speaker 5: Sexual addiction, depression, suicidal.
Speaker 1: Thoughts, spiritual and religious background.
Speaker 5: Please describe When I was thirteen, I experienced a mystical thing.
Speaker 5: I was in confession about the sexual addiction and it
Speaker 5: was taken away from me for like years.
Speaker 1: What is the client's sexual orientation homosexual? Does the client
Speaker 1: have any concerns about her sexuality?
Speaker 5: I'm really Catholic, so my beliefs I'm always in conflict.
Speaker 1: Has the client experienced other events that were abusive or traumatic?
Speaker 5: I think my parents fighting all the time was pretty traumatic.
Speaker 5: We lived in constant fear they were going to get
Speaker 5: a divorce.
Speaker 1: How does the client perceive these experiences have affected her?
Speaker 5: I always wanted to be the peacemaker because I didn't
Speaker 5: want them to get divorced. I felt like it was
Speaker 5: my responsibility for everything to be okay. Like if I
Speaker 5: was there, then I felt like the fighting would stop.
Speaker 1: What is the client's motivation level for recovery?
Speaker 5: Three out of ten?
Speaker 1: What is motivating the client for treatment?
Speaker 5: If if I don't get better, I will kill myself.
Speaker 1: Alana is admitted for recurrent and severe depression and self harm.
Speaker 1: She spends the next three months at the treatment facility,
Speaker 1: where she gets a range of targeted, evidence based therapies,
Speaker 1: including dialectical behavioral therapy to reduce her suicidality, group therapy,
Speaker 1: and adventure therapy. At the nearby state park. She goes
Speaker 1: to classes on nutrition and mindfulness, and even spends time
Speaker 1: with horses. One weekend, the treatment facility invites Alana's family
Speaker 1: to come in for a visit. Alana seems to be
Speaker 1: making progress and her family is excited to see her. Carissa,
Speaker 1: her older sister, remembers the significance of this time because
Speaker 1: that's when Alana came out to her.
Speaker 8: I guess I was hopeful that, like as she was
Speaker 8: telling me and her family that she was feeling open
Speaker 8: and starting, that she could start to live into who
Speaker 8: she really was. To me, it's like, oh, you're gay.
Speaker 9: Be gay.
Speaker 8: Drop all the church stuff, like forget about it. Leave
Speaker 8: that world. Like they don't love you or see you
Speaker 8: for who you are, then who cares?
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Joyce still feels in the dark. Alana's mainly confiding
Speaker 1: in her friends back home, particularly her church community, and
Speaker 1: Joyce reaches out to the Saint Tom's crowd to ask
Speaker 1: them to give Alana some space, But from Alana's treatment notes,
Speaker 1: this actually has the opposite effect.
Speaker 5: I'm considering placing some serious limitations on my mother. Every
Speaker 5: time I tell her anything, she blames and tries to
Speaker 5: change my belief system. Every suggestion she makes to me,
Speaker 5: she's trying to change my belief system. My belief system
Speaker 5: is one of the most core parts of my identity,
Speaker 5: and I can't surround myself with people that don't accept
Speaker 5: me without trying to change me.
Speaker 1: As I read her journal entries from this time and treatment,
Speaker 1: I'm struck by the irony of the situation. Alana's frustrated
Speaker 1: with her mother. She feels like she's the one who
Speaker 1: doesn't understand or accept her, not the church community that
Speaker 1: she's gone to such great lengths to try to change herself.
Speaker 1: For from Joyce's perspective, the contact with Father Dave and
Speaker 1: the sisters needs to stop. Something's not right about the
Speaker 1: level of influence they're having over her. But for Alana,
Speaker 1: it's her church that seems to provide a locus of
Speaker 1: stability for her while she's in treatment.
Speaker 5: I think the prozac is keeping me alive. The only
Speaker 5: thing I care about right now are these nuns that
Speaker 5: I'm friends with. They love me, they don't get scared
Speaker 5: of my emotions and problems. They make me laugh, they
Speaker 5: don't judge me.
Speaker 1: It's one am, and just as I'm about to fall asleep,
Speaker 1: my heart starts racing and I'm jolted up. This has
Speaker 1: never happened to me. I feel oddly afraid, but of why.
Speaker 1: I'm safe in my bed. My dog is lying next
Speaker 1: to me and there's no noise that startled me. It
Speaker 1: happens like this for the next few hours until I
Speaker 1: manage to doze off, exhausted. I've never had a panic
Speaker 1: attack before in my life. After months spent researching conversion therapy,
Speaker 1: re listening to talks, reading Alana's journals, I've been feeling
Speaker 1: a lot of emotions coming back. I thought I'd moved
Speaker 1: on from this time in my life, like I'm reading
Speaker 1: a story about my past, but a part of me
Speaker 1: still feels attached to these ideas, and I feel jumpy
Speaker 1: and anxious all the time, like there's still something unresolved.
Speaker 1: As difficult as this is for me, I know it's
Speaker 1: just a small dose of what Alana must have been
Speaker 1: going through her hospital records, texts, and emails give us
Speaker 1: insight into how she felt during this time in treatment.
Speaker 1: Joyce remembers how Alana kept a tight lid on what
Speaker 1: she was telling her family. From her texts, I can
Speaker 1: see that Alana gives Father Dave the play by play
Speaker 1: of her hospital admissions. He checks in with her frequently,
Speaker 1: calling the treatment center to figure out how he can
Speaker 1: visit her. From her emails, it looks like after Alana
Speaker 1: was hospitalized, her spiritual mentors were sending her resources. There's
Speaker 1: a barrage of blog emails from Father Dave, like when
Speaker 1: he sends her just two weeks after her suicide, scare
Speaker 1: about embracing the Cross and choosing Christ over the gay lifestyle.
Speaker 1: There's a note from a nine the week before, encouraging
Speaker 1: Alana to attend a woman's retreat run by Courage, the
Speaker 1: Catholic support group for those struggling with SSA. As I
Speaker 1: scroll back chronologically, I come across an email written by
Speaker 1: Alana herself, dated just a few months before her hospitalization.
Speaker 5: Hi. There, my pastor, father, Peter Mussett, has continued to
Speaker 5: recommend that I attend the Living Waters Leadership training week
Speaker 5: this summer. I am a college student at the University
Speaker 5: of Colorado, I'm a Catholic, and I struggle with SSA.
Speaker 1: I recognize the group Living Waters immediately. This is bringing
Speaker 1: back so many memories.
Speaker 10: We have people in our churches who look in the
Speaker 10: mirror and don't know their own gender, who seriously believe
Speaker 10: that they're best friend or their sexual completion.
Speaker 1: Living Waters was founded in the eighties by a man
Speaker 1: who struggled with SSA and later married a woman and
Speaker 1: had children. I remember his success story being such a
Speaker 1: source of hope for me when I was a teenager
Speaker 1: secretly researching conversion therapies online. I can't believe Alana is
Speaker 1: being steered here over a decade later. This is their
Speaker 1: promotional video from twenty sixteen.
Speaker 10: We provide a one week training where your wounded healers
Speaker 10: come to provide these kinds of in depth healing opportunities.
Speaker 10: Come and substantiate the claim.
Speaker 9: That your church makes that Jesus really is the way,
Speaker 9: the truth, and the life for all persons to be
Speaker 9: set by all manner of sexual and gender problems.
Speaker 10: Come to the Living Waters Training.
Speaker 1: I got my hands on their training workbook. Itsites conversion
Speaker 1: therapy theorists like Elizabeth Moberly and Joe of Nicolosi. It
Speaker 1: also features fourteen case studies of people claiming to be
Speaker 1: healed from homosexuality. I spoke with several people who attended
Speaker 1: or were leaders for this program who estimated that half
Speaker 1: of the participants in their groups were homosexuals looking to
Speaker 1: become straight. So even though it's not publicly advertised, people
Speaker 1: who want to attend this program, like Alana and me
Speaker 1: when I was a teenager, know exactly what they're signing
Speaker 1: up for. A day after Alana emails the Living Waters
Speaker 1: Training program, she gets a reply. It says, we are
Speaker 1: excited about the prospect of having you with us. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we do not offer scholarships for our programs. We encourage
Speaker 1: all of the participants to raise support. It's unclear if
Speaker 1: Alana ever finds the money to go. Remember this is
Speaker 1: just a few months before her suicide's scare, but she's
Speaker 1: clearly doing her research and trying her best to access
Speaker 1: these resources. After she returns home from her treatment center
Speaker 1: and to see Alana begs her mother to take her
Speaker 1: to a local therapist, a new one on the Advice
Speaker 1: of the Nuns. At this point, Joyce is on high alert.
Speaker 1: She's read a lot of Alana's journals and is extra
Speaker 1: cautious about anyone counseling her daughter about her sexuality. Something
Speaker 1: on this therapist's website, however, sounds suspicious to her. She
Speaker 1: can't put her finger on it and didn't know the
Speaker 1: terminology of conversion therapy at the time, but it raises
Speaker 1: an alarm.
Speaker 4: There was like one sentence in her description on the website,
Speaker 4: and I was like, no, way like And Alana was like, Mommy,
Speaker 4: that's not only reason why I want to go, and
Speaker 4: she does way more than that, and I was like,
Speaker 4: I don't care what she does. And I remember leaving
Speaker 4: a message on the Sisters of Life's machine like call me.
Speaker 4: I was angry.
Speaker 1: I'm on this therapist's website and it looks pretty generic.
Speaker 1: It says she's a licensed professional counselor in private practice
Speaker 1: since ninety three and young professor at Denver Seminary specializes
Speaker 1: in faith based individuals client centered. She seems pretty standard
Speaker 1: and innocuous. And then I have the idea to go
Speaker 1: to the internet archive to look up the snapshot of
Speaker 1: the therapist's website from October twenty sixteen, when Alana booked
Speaker 1: her appointment. This lets me see the archived version of
Speaker 1: the website from that time. Oh wow, it looks totally different.
Speaker 1: It says her specialty is female same sex attraction and
Speaker 1: emotional dependencies. The site is classic repairative Therapy. We honor
Speaker 1: all people's right to self determination, including their authentic desire
Speaker 1: to diminish or alter their experience of same sex attractions.
Speaker 1: We will support men and women with same sex attraction
Speaker 1: who want to explore opposite sex intimacy. Oh, she's got
Speaker 1: a book. She's promoting her book that's got endorsements from
Speaker 1: Joseph Nicolosi and the founder of Living Waters. I look
Speaker 1: up the therapist's name and it turns out she was
Speaker 1: on the board of NARTH, the Conversion Therapy Network. There
Speaker 1: was a time when this kind of therapy was practiced
Speaker 1: quite openly, but over the last twenty years, due to
Speaker 1: the questionable scientific validity of conversion therapy, it's been largely debunked.
Speaker 1: The largest X gay ministry, Exodus International, shut down in
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen because its leadership admitted to lying about its
Speaker 1: claims and recognize the harm they were causing. Many ministries
Speaker 1: and therapists have since gone underground. Some even now make
Speaker 1: an effort to deny they ever practice conversion therapy at all,
Speaker 1: but from these Internet archives, I can plainly see that
Speaker 1: that's not factually true. So Alana's getting these resources from
Speaker 1: her spiritual mentors who are encouraging her to seek more
Speaker 1: help to treat her sexuality. She's already been in therapy
Speaker 1: at Saint tom for the past two years with Kate,
Speaker 1: but after the suicide scare and the three month treatment
Speaker 1: facility in Tennessee, Joyce wants to be extra cautious. She
Speaker 1: doesn't know exactly what Alana learned in her formal therapy
Speaker 1: and informal spiritual direction, but she knows that her daughter
Speaker 1: is not out of the woods, so she frantically looks
Speaker 1: for more help.
Speaker 4: And then that's when I started to get her. I
Speaker 4: remember scrambling how A might Where am I going to
Speaker 4: have her go?
Speaker 1: Joyce finds her another live in treatment facility, this time
Speaker 1: in Arizona, where she hopes Alana can get specialized counseling
Speaker 1: for spiritual trauma, among other things. It's another three month
Speaker 1: program and the family is maxing out their finances to
Speaker 1: give her the best care they can afford. They pack
Speaker 1: her bags and get her settled in in Scottsdale. It's
Speaker 1: here that Alana meets someone who will challenge everything she believes.
Speaker 1: While at her treatment program in Arizona, Alana meets a
Speaker 1: girl named Jessica through one of her roommates. They hit
Speaker 1: it off and soon start texting regularly. They hang out
Speaker 1: as a group with the other girls in the treatment program,
Speaker 1: go to the pool, have meals together, and within a
Speaker 1: few weeks, Alana starts developing feelings for her.
Speaker 5: No one is like Jessica. She is so beautiful and unique.
Speaker 5: I don't know anyone like her.
Speaker 1: Things escalate and they start spending more time together.
Speaker 5: I think I'm falling in love with Jessica. I'm thinking
Speaker 5: about her all the time. I want to know her.
Speaker 5: When she has wrinkles, and gray hair. I want to
Speaker 5: give her my heart. I know that will be hard
Speaker 5: and it will take time, but that's what I want
Speaker 5: to do. I miss Jessica. There's this pretty song by
Speaker 5: Regina Specter called Jessica. It's beautiful the way she sings
Speaker 5: her name. She saw the world so differently yet so
Speaker 5: the same. I really think I was am in love
Speaker 5: with her. I've just always been afraid. I sent her
Speaker 5: that song.
Speaker 1: Her journals are filled with pages of melancholy one day
Speaker 1: and exuberance the next. This is her first real relationship.
Speaker 5: Jessica. I think about you every day. I know you
Speaker 5: don't always believe it. You said you love reading my thoughts,
Speaker 5: so here they are. I'll give you my thoughts. I
Speaker 5: think about our emails. It's ridiculous that that's the way
Speaker 5: we have to correspond. I think about how romantic that is,
Speaker 5: how romantic an email can be. I think, Jessica, you
Speaker 5: take me back to sixth grade, to the first time
Speaker 5: I ever told someone that I liked them. It was
Speaker 5: over email. Jessica, you take me back to the first
Speaker 5: I ever knew of love.
Speaker 7: There she is. This was in Arizona and.
Speaker 1: With Carissa, Alana's older sister and we're looking through a
Speaker 1: family photo album.
Speaker 7: I think this is one where Alana's girlfriend was with
Speaker 7: us because she lived in the area. But like she
Speaker 7: we invited her to dinner, and I think we knew
Speaker 7: that she was Alana's girlfriend, but my aunts and uncles
Speaker 7: like she hadn't come out to them yet. Yeah, we
Speaker 7: just like didn't make it a thing. And Alanna and
Speaker 7: Jessica kissed in the car, like thinking no one saw them,
Speaker 7: and then our like five year old cousin Brandon was like,
Speaker 7: I saw them kiss and my uncle's like, Na, you
Speaker 7: did it, Like, don't say that, And then like kind
Speaker 7: of became a thing, but not really.
Speaker 1: Did you did? You had to meet Jessau right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: what did you think about her?
Speaker 7: She's hilarious, probably like the funniest, one of the funniest
Speaker 7: people I ever met. But I only in my her
Speaker 7: a few times, and I know they had like a
Speaker 7: somewhat tumultuous relationship.
Speaker 1: Their relationship had its fair share of ups and downs.
Speaker 1: Alana would initiate multiple breakups over the next few months,
Speaker 1: often driven by her own uncertainty over dating women. I
Speaker 1: wasn't able to get a hold of Jessica to hear
Speaker 1: her perspective, but people described her as Alana's opposite, extroverted, short,
Speaker 1: not into hiking. Still, Alana was smitten, Jessica has mentioned
Speaker 1: over two hundred times in her journals. I think back
Speaker 1: to myself at Alana's age. I never thought a relationship
Speaker 1: was possible for me. The idea of me being with
Speaker 1: a woman seemed so distant, and from everything I learned,
Speaker 1: a gay relationship would have been destined to fail. If
Speaker 1: homosexuality was caused by psychological instability, then putting two gay
Speaker 1: people together was a recipe for disaster, according to the theory.
Speaker 1: I didn't consider whether this narrative was set up to
Speaker 1: scare me from ever trying, and I wonder if Alana
Speaker 1: had the same doubts.
Speaker 5: Dear Jessica, I love you so much. I think I've
Speaker 5: fallen in love with you, but I feel crazy. I
Speaker 5: am crazy. You know I'm crazy. I'm so sorry I'm
Speaker 5: doing this again. It's not because I don't love you.
Speaker 5: I want to spend the rest of my life with you,
Speaker 5: but I need to heal first. I don't want to
Speaker 5: keep hurting you because I know someday you won't be
Speaker 5: able to handle it. Anymore. You are so strong. You've
Speaker 5: been waiting for me this whole time, but I've been distracted.
Speaker 5: I need to make some serious changes in my life.
Speaker 5: I know I caused so much drama in our.
Speaker 1: Relationship, and yet, in spite of the theories, Alana has
Speaker 1: hoped that she and Jessica.
Speaker 5: Can be together someday. I want to wake up with
Speaker 5: you every morning. I want to have breakfast burritos and moke.
Speaker 5: Was that Lola's with you. I want to go camping
Speaker 5: with you. I want to go on date nights and
Speaker 5: I want to go to the beach with you. I
Speaker 5: want you. I want to do everything with you. I
Speaker 5: need you, I love you. I'm so in love with you,
Speaker 5: and I don't tell you that enough. I'm going to
Speaker 5: get better for you, Jessica. We are going to be okay.
Speaker 1: Once Alana starts to date Jessica, the tone of her
Speaker 1: journals starts to change. It's as if she's processing her
Speaker 1: past in a way she's never done before.
Speaker 5: At first, I said it was no big deal, a
Speaker 5: small thing that God could handle, just a few crossed
Speaker 5: wires in the brain that I could get through it.
Speaker 5: They said it was a disordered desire that it could
Speaker 5: never be fulfilling or lead to true happiness. They said
Speaker 5: it wasn't my identity. It wasn't as big of a
Speaker 5: thing as I was making it out to be. Then
Speaker 5: they said it was a sin against nature, sure that
Speaker 5: it offended God. They said it was a very big cross,
Speaker 5: a very hard thing to get through. They said the
Speaker 5: devil was working hard to destroy me. I feel like
Speaker 5: I've been fooled all this time. I'm so angry, I'm hurt.
Speaker 5: I still feel broken.
Speaker 1: Alana's describing something that I've never been able to articulate
Speaker 1: for myself, this constant tension between mortal existential peril on
Speaker 1: the one hand, and on the other hand, the message
Speaker 1: of no big deal, this isn't a significant part of
Speaker 1: your identity anyways, Like you simultaneously should and shouldn't feel
Speaker 1: absolutely terrified about your attractions.
Speaker 5: At some point in college, Alana decided she needed to
Speaker 5: start being honest with God. She couldn't hide her pain
Speaker 5: from him or herself any longer.
Speaker 1: In this entry, Alana writes in the third person, like
Speaker 1: she's telling a story about herself in hindsight.
Speaker 5: Before she was able to distract herself keep herself busy
Speaker 5: but she couldn't do it anymore. Her prayers were filled
Speaker 5: with moaning and sobbing and thrashing. Alana lived in darkness.
Speaker 5: She begged God to take her same sex attraction away,
Speaker 5: but deep down, she didn't want that. She wanted to
Speaker 5: be accepted just as she was. She wanted God to
Speaker 5: say that it was okay. The pain never went away,
Speaker 5: It only grew bigger. She couldn't sleep, she couldn't enjoy
Speaker 5: things the way she used to. She felt completely isolated
Speaker 5: from her family, her church, her friends, and frisbee team.
Speaker 5: She never felt good enough. She had to do whatever
Speaker 5: she could to be good and to please God to
Speaker 5: make it to heaven. She was so afraid of disappointing God.
Speaker 4: This is our neighborhood, by and.
Speaker 1: With Carissa, and she's driving me outside of Boulder to
Speaker 1: visit their childhood home, the one where her dad still
Speaker 1: lives after the divorce. This is the house that Alana
Speaker 1: grew up in. The neighborhood is quaint and suburban, with
Speaker 1: neat lawns lined with four bedroom houses.
Speaker 7: We were the cul de sac kids on roller blades
Speaker 7: another little thing I made everyone do. Yeah, this is
Speaker 7: our cul de sac over here. And then we would
Speaker 7: also like ride our bike up super fast and like
Speaker 7: come down here and definitely had a few falls.
Speaker 1: Their houses at the end of the street overlooking a
Speaker 1: giant field.
Speaker 7: Alana like loved this open space too. We get like
Speaker 7: some really pretty sunsets. So yeah, Boulder Bowder mountains.
Speaker 4: And this is our house with all the cars because.
Speaker 7: My dad is a car guy, I know.
Speaker 1: Crisa shows me around the house. It's carpeted and has
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, mail and boxes and framed photoclauges
Speaker 1: her mom made for each of the kids high school graduations,
Speaker 1: dog toys. The fridge is covered in family photos. She's
Speaker 1: wearing a rainbow sure that says I love me. How
Speaker 1: old do you think she's in there?
Speaker 4: Perfect?
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 11: Eight?
Speaker 8: Is that too young?
Speaker 7: I'm really bad at knowing age.
Speaker 1: As we head upstairs to Alana's bedroom, I'm feeling emotional
Speaker 1: right now, like I'm about to see the place where
Speaker 1: she wrote her journals, the journals I've been reading all
Speaker 1: this time.
Speaker 8: And then this is a.
Speaker 7: Most I stayed exactly this.
Speaker 1: It's a medium sized room with a twin bed by
Speaker 1: the window and a small bookshelf. The book Walden by
Speaker 1: Henry David Thureaux. Sits on top of her cover so
Speaker 1: you can.
Speaker 7: See she like had all of her things that she loved,
Speaker 7: which so is music.
Speaker 1: A keyboard is next to her bed, and along the
Speaker 1: wall are two racks of clothes.
Speaker 7: There's a lot of like sewing stuff in here. And
Speaker 7: then this is like her clothing of like thrifted clothes
Speaker 7: she wanted to take and like repurpose or like reput
Speaker 7: together to make.
Speaker 6: More fashion forward.
Speaker 7: And then just artwork everywhere.
Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, wow, I take it all in. Her clothing
Speaker 1: rack has a mix of flower and leopard print dresses,
Speaker 1: check her jackets and colorful flannel, a far cry from
Speaker 1: the plain, non wardrobe she wore as a teenager. It's
Speaker 1: another side of Alana that I'm beginning to see. And
Speaker 1: the colors on her canvases of portraits and still lives
Speaker 1: are luscious, deep purples, cherries, and pinks. Alana was definitely
Speaker 1: an artist. I glanced at her bookshelf and one book
Speaker 1: is turned outward Total surrender by mother Teresa, another reminder
Speaker 1: of just how much her faith meant to her. The
Speaker 1: objects in Alana's room reflect a vibrant life, which makes
Speaker 1: me wonder how it all could have ended so abruptly,
Speaker 1: especially as she was finally getting dedicated care and back
Speaker 1: with Joy, Alana's best friend from kindergarten. We're sitting on
Speaker 1: a bench at a lookout point at Davidson Mesa, the
Speaker 1: trail she and Alana would often hike together. How are
Speaker 1: you doing?
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, it's really nice to talk about her. Yeah,
Speaker 11: it's hard, but it's good. Thank you. I have a letter.
Speaker 12: That she wrote me in treatment, so she said, it
Speaker 12: does feel like such a gift that she wrote so much.
Speaker 12: So thank you for the pictures and letters. Please thank
Speaker 12: your mom for me too. I think my mom wrote
Speaker 12: I miss everyone so much. It feels like I've been
Speaker 12: gone forever. I'm doing really well here. All my sisters
Speaker 12: in the house are so cool. We're like a family.
Speaker 12: I have so much to tell you. I feel like
Speaker 12: I can finally be myself without fear. When my parents
Speaker 12: brought me here, they were scared shitless. They didn't know
Speaker 12: what was going on or why it had to be
Speaker 12: this way. They came again to visit this past weekend.
Speaker 12: My dad said he was so relieved because he knew
Speaker 12: somehow I had experienced a real transformation. I'm happy, and
Speaker 12: I haven't felt that way in a very long time. Still,
Speaker 12: I wake up every morning feeling inadequate. I've had a
Speaker 12: recurring dream for the past six weeks that I have
Speaker 12: a bajillion impossible task to do. Then I take a break,
Speaker 12: but I'm still trying to do the tasks, and everyone
Speaker 12: is mad and confused because I'm not supposed to be
Speaker 12: on break. Then I go back and the tasks are
Speaker 12: even more impossible. I mean, it sounds pretty accurate for
Speaker 12: the stage I'm in in my life, but I don't
Speaker 12: know why I keep having the same dream. When I
Speaker 12: think of home, I realize I have very few people left.
Speaker 12: I know that's partially my fault. I'm so grateful to
Speaker 12: have you and that you never give up on me.
Speaker 12: I'm finally learning not to give up on myself.
Speaker 11: I miss you so much. You have always been my
Speaker 11: best friend, even though I've been distant.
Speaker 7: How are you?
Speaker 11: How is Sam? I can't believe you're already graduated. I
Speaker 11: love you, sincerely, Alana. Then she says, ps, we have
Speaker 11: two dogs at our house, Dixie and Bo. They're so cute.
Speaker 11: I wish I could send a picture.
Speaker 1: As Alana finishes up her treatment in Arizona. She's anxious
Speaker 1: about what she'll find back home. The past six months
Speaker 1: have been hard and heavy, but also intoxicating. She's in love.
Speaker 5: I was taught that I couldn't trust my feelings, that
Speaker 5: they would lead me down a dark road, lead me
Speaker 5: to sin, lead me to hell. When I met Jessica,
Speaker 5: I still believed that I couldn't listen to myself or
Speaker 5: my true feelings. Love was driven out by fear. I
Speaker 5: was so afraid that if I stayed with her, a
Speaker 5: relationship would explode. I had valid concerns, but she's the
Speaker 5: love of my life. The truth is, I love Jessica.
Speaker 5: I can accept her shortcomings. I can accept her emotions,
Speaker 5: and I know that she can accept mine.
Speaker 1: Alana's discovering an acceptance through Jessica, an acceptance that's been
Speaker 1: so elusive and stained with fear and mistrust of herself.
Speaker 1: I think about all the times I've second guessed myself,
Speaker 1: my own thoughts and feelings. How impossibly raise her, thin
Speaker 1: and unknown the path ahead was for me, how damned
Speaker 1: I felt no matter what I did, how much I
Speaker 1: needed a miracle.
Speaker 3: I will follow you, follow you wherever you.
Speaker 1: Might go next time. On Dear Alana, she.
Speaker 13: Was like in this struggle of wanting to share her
Speaker 13: story because she knew it would be helpful to others.
Speaker 13: She was scared of what people at the church would
Speaker 13: say if they read the story.
Speaker 1: How Alana finds the courage to speak out.
Speaker 3: I will follow you ever since you touched my head?
Speaker 3: Thank You.
Speaker 1: Dear Alana was created, hosted, and written by me Simon
Speaker 1: Kentfang and is a production of Tenderfoot TV in association
Speaker 1: with a Slept Audio and the Center for Independent Documentary.
Speaker 1: It was produced by Lori Puliski, who also composed the music.
Speaker 1: Executive producers are myself, Donald Albright, and Payne Lindsay. Our
Speaker 1: supervising producer is Tracy leeds Kaplan. Additional music by Makeup
Speaker 1: and Vanity, Set sales and distribution by iHeartMedia. Our voice
Speaker 1: actor is Alana Rabor and our credit song I Will
Speaker 1: Follow You is Bye to Loose. Show notes and resources
Speaker 1: can be found on our website Diarlana dot com. If
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode, please take time to follow the show,
Speaker 1: rate and review.
Speaker 3: Various sud Hanson Sohikoe, keep Me Away Away from the.
Speaker 1: Long Dear Alana is an eight part series released weekly.
Speaker 1: If you can't wait until next week, subscribe to tenderfoot
Speaker 1: Plus so you can binge the entire series right now.
Speaker 1: Add free head to Apple Podcasts or tendorfootplus dot com
Speaker 1: to subscribe now.