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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 eight eight.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 3: Flames brought down the spire and much of the roof
Speaker 3: at Notre Dame Cathedral yesterday.
Speaker 4: Notre Dame took two hundred years to build. It's one
Speaker 4: of the greatest treasures of medieval architecture. Tonight it lies
Speaker 4: in ruins.
Speaker 5: I'm proud to say I'm not your daughter. What kind
Speaker 5: of father leads his children to the slaughter? Notre Dame's
Speaker 5: flames are getting hotter. We're exercising these monsters, driving out
Speaker 5: the impostors, resisting the conquerors. My mother is the one
Speaker 5: who raised me back to life. My mother's raising hell
Speaker 5: and demanding you pay the price you put your love
Speaker 5: and candy wrappers just to entice them. You dump your
Speaker 5: burden on their backs and scourge them and crucify them,
Speaker 5: or putting an end to all the children being sacrificed
Speaker 5: to him. Notre Dame's flames are getting hotter. Notre Dame's
Speaker 5: flames are getting hotter.
Speaker 1: From Tenderfoot TV, I'm Simon kent Foung and this is
Speaker 1: Dear Alana, Part seven. Notre Dame is burning. Alana is
Speaker 1: happy to be home, even if it means moving back
Speaker 1: in with her parents. Her brother Sammy is about to
Speaker 1: get married, and because the wedding's in Spain, the family
Speaker 1: makes a trip of it, stopping in Paris beforehand. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at the photos from that trip. Alana is gorgeous
Speaker 1: in a white dress and her hair done up. But
Speaker 1: I noticed something else in the wedding photos. On Alana's
Speaker 1: left arm, just below the shoulder are large, blocky uppercase
Speaker 1: letters that spelled the word daughter. It almost looks like
Speaker 1: something drawn in black marker. Joyce tells me that this
Speaker 1: was actually a tattoo that Alana got right before the wedding.
Speaker 6: Because at first I was like, well.
Speaker 7: That's interesting, Like it was so just block letters and
Speaker 7: it seemed kind of not pretty and why would you
Speaker 7: do that?
Speaker 6: You know, why did you pick that?
Speaker 7: And she told me she said it was for you
Speaker 7: and I'm a daughter of God. But then later she
Speaker 7: you know, she admitted to cut the word defiled and
Speaker 7: she was covering it up.
Speaker 6: Oh wow, yeah.
Speaker 8: I feel bad.
Speaker 7: I remember before the wedding up took her to a
Speaker 7: makeup store and I'm like, I don't my grandma might
Speaker 7: freak out for China. I was like, forget it because nothing,
Speaker 7: but she, you know that she could show it.
Speaker 9: Wow, I didn't.
Speaker 1: Back at home, Alana tries to reconnect with her church friends,
Speaker 1: but something shifted. News has spread about her relationship with Jessica.
Speaker 5: Sister Concepta was like my mother. She was so kind
Speaker 5: and loving. I called her every week in treatment. She
Speaker 5: always made me laugh. When Jessica became my girlfriend, I
Speaker 5: felt like things changed, like maybe she felt like all
Speaker 5: her efforts were wasted, but I didn't want to leave her.
Speaker 5: She was my mother. It soon became clear that she
Speaker 5: was going to try to lead me in one direction,
Speaker 5: but I needed to go a different way. I told
Speaker 5: her we shouldn't meet anymore. But I was the one
Speaker 5: that felt abandoned. I still wanted her in my life.
Speaker 5: I still wanted to talk to her and visit her.
Speaker 5: I didn't want her to be my spiritual director. I
Speaker 5: just wanted her to be my friend. Why couldn't she
Speaker 5: just be my friend?
Speaker 1: And in another entry, addressed to one of her priests.
Speaker 5: Dear father, I was really angry at you because in
Speaker 5: my darkest hour, you wouldn't.
Speaker 10: Speak to me.
Speaker 5: I called you, wrote to you, left you messages. I
Speaker 5: never got an answer. Where did you go? You said
Speaker 5: I was your daughter.
Speaker 1: It's not just her spiritual mentors who she feels have
Speaker 1: abandoned her. Even her friends seem like they're keeping their distance.
Speaker 5: Micah, do you care about me? Then? Why is it
Speaker 5: me that always texts you? It was nearly a year
Speaker 5: after I was less in Colorado that we finally met up.
Speaker 5: Didn't you care wonder how I was? Don't you realize
Speaker 5: how different life is for me? Now? Don't you want
Speaker 5: to know? Don't you want to know who I really am?
Speaker 5: We were best friends, We were soulmates. You were my
Speaker 5: protector on our adventures. You used to love me.
Speaker 11: What happened?
Speaker 1: It's as if they don't know how to handle all
Speaker 1: the changes in her life, her mental health, struggles, her sexuality,
Speaker 1: this other side of her that they've never seen before.
Speaker 5: My closest friends from Saint Tom's haven't contacted me. I
Speaker 5: feel rejected from my old life, barred for my community.
Speaker 5: I can't stay with the sisters, So how can I
Speaker 5: get my community back?
Speaker 10: Should I even try to get.
Speaker 6: My community back?
Speaker 5: I feel so alone. Why hasn't Father Peter written to me?
Speaker 5: Do they think I'm on vacation. It's not okay to
Speaker 5: leave your friend behind.
Speaker 1: It's not okay, and life at home is also different.
Speaker 5: This new relationship with my family scares me. I've known
Speaker 5: them my whole life, but now they finally know me.
Speaker 5: It scares me. It's so old and so new.
Speaker 1: All the things that used to be so familiar feel
Speaker 1: foreign and off. Alana even stops going to church. Whenever
Speaker 1: she enters a Catholic church, she can't help but cry.
Speaker 5: When I went to treatment, Rachel, father Peter, Father Dave,
Speaker 5: and the sisters were the only ones that I trusted.
Speaker 5: They were the only ones that stayed by my side.
Speaker 5: But as I became more true to myself, I guess
Speaker 5: they didn't see the need to mentor me. I feel
Speaker 5: misled and abandoned, like they all made it but I lost.
Speaker 5: It hurts so much when they left me, I had
Speaker 5: to pull over the car to throw up as I
Speaker 5: drove away. I feel so ashamed, like I hate myself.
Speaker 5: I feel so stupid and weak and like a slut.
Speaker 5: I want to hurt myself.
Speaker 9: I haven't felt this way.
Speaker 5: In so long, and it's terrifying. The one place I
Speaker 5: felt safest was slowly allowing my illness to grow stronger
Speaker 5: to the point of eventual death.
Speaker 6: That scares the shit out of me.
Speaker 1: She's grappling with how she got here and who's responsible?
Speaker 5: Why did it take me so long to do something
Speaker 5: about it? Where was God all this time? I want
Speaker 5: to blame someone, but who's to blame me them anyone?
Speaker 5: How do I get past this? Anything to do with
Speaker 5: Jesus or the Catholic Church reminds me. I don't ever
Speaker 5: want to be in the same headspace I used to
Speaker 5: be in. I want to blame everyone, but no one
Speaker 5: forced this on me.
Speaker 9: It was always my choice.
Speaker 12: Well, you can remind your son, because every time something
Speaker 12: scary comes up you decide to run. You're all going
Speaker 12: to be running for the rest of your loves.
Speaker 1: I'm back in San Francisco and it's summer movie season
Speaker 1: at Dolores Park. This evening they're playing Sister Act too.
Speaker 1: Everyone's got their picnic, blanket and snacks lined up for
Speaker 1: the sing along. I'm here with my friend Andrew. Andrew's
Speaker 1: an er doctor at SF General. I feel like a zombie,
Speaker 1: and I've been telling him about how hard it's been
Speaker 1: in Colorado with sleeping in the panic attacks that have persisted.
Speaker 13: Basically, what I was saying is like what you're describing
Speaker 13: as like symptoms of PTSD. You're describing nightmares, difficulty sleeping.
Speaker 1: He rhymes off the list of symptoms.
Speaker 13: Unwanted upsetting, memories, flashbacks, emotional distress after exposure to dramatic reminders.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's onto something, but I'm still skeptical.
Speaker 13: That reminds you.
Speaker 14: You were saying that my body in mind perceive it
Speaker 14: as trauma. Like I guess I never identified with that,
Speaker 14: Like I wasn't assaulted, I wasn't attacked or anything.
Speaker 13: You know, you weren't in war, you know you didn't
Speaker 13: have anything like that. But regardless, your body perceives many
Speaker 13: things as trauma or threats. And I think a lot
Speaker 13: of gay people went through some prolonged episodes of trauma
Speaker 13: growing up. I think it's probably bringing back a lot
Speaker 13: of stuff.
Speaker 1: Andrew's also gay, and he's been through his own journey
Speaker 1: of reconciling his Catholicism with his sexuality. This is someone
Speaker 1: who studied the entire Bible multiple times, and even with
Speaker 1: that knowledge, he comes back to his own conscience.
Speaker 13: That's what guides me, I think the most is you know,
Speaker 13: I read scripture, I meditate and pray, but ultimately I
Speaker 13: think that what guides me most and a lot of
Speaker 13: this stuff is my conscience. I think that's probably the
Speaker 13: way God talks to you and guides you a lot
Speaker 13: of the time.
Speaker 14: I think, I think you're right. I think That's what
Speaker 14: I'm struggling with is like, is.
Speaker 13: He rationalize what your conscience is saying versus what the
Speaker 13: church and other people are saying.
Speaker 14: I think I'm still sorting out what my conscience is saying,
Speaker 14: you know, because I think my conscience has been formed
Speaker 14: so much by the logic that these people are operating from,
Speaker 14: so I empathize with where they're coming from. But I
Speaker 14: also know that I was not doing well in that space.
Speaker 14: And I am not doing well now as I am
Speaker 14: going through all this again.
Speaker 13: Like I think that's also telling.
Speaker 1: He gives me a list of things that I might
Speaker 1: do to take better care of myself. I did not
Speaker 1: expect this intervention.
Speaker 13: Moral of the story is, you need to be kinder
Speaker 13: to yourself. You would give other people the same advice.
Speaker 13: I think tech has conditioned you to be terrible to yourself.
Speaker 13: Am I wrong?
Speaker 14: Does tech do that?
Speaker 13: Yeah? Tech people work as their life. You're terrible to yourselves?
Speaker 13: Am I wrong?
Speaker 15: No?
Speaker 13: Most happy people don't do that. Don't work their selves
Speaker 13: to death, no matter how much they enjoy their work.
Speaker 1: He's right. I did burn out of my tech job.
Speaker 1: But I still have trouble with the idea that I've
Speaker 1: been traumatized or been a victim of anything Like Alana.
Speaker 1: I feel responsible for my choices and beliefs. But is
Speaker 1: my body trying to tell me something? Maybe it knows
Speaker 1: more than what I give it credit for.
Speaker 5: I am a gay woman. I don't struggle with same
Speaker 5: sex attraction. It comes quite easily. I don't struggle, It's
Speaker 5: what my body feels naturally. For years I thought differently.
Speaker 5: I was told that homosexuality was across. Yes, the very
Speaker 5: thing that Christ's scourged body hung from, an outcome of
Speaker 5: the fall, a mental disorder to which I must never succumb,
Speaker 5: Not even the worst of all, the very thing I
Speaker 5: call love. They said it was no more than a
Speaker 5: narcissistic projection of my maternal wounds. Mom My mom, that
Speaker 5: woman that never gave up on me, would sit with
Speaker 5: me on the toilet to soothe my anxiety. Turn the
Speaker 5: hot water on, let the steam call my lungs, so
Speaker 5: that I could breathe and be safe in the evening
Speaker 5: light in my mother's arms.
Speaker 1: Alana's coming into an acceptance of her sexuality, and she's
Speaker 1: not apologetic about it. She challenges the conversion therapy narratives
Speaker 1: that pitted her against her mother, defending her, recognizing the
Speaker 1: love that was always there, and defying the psychological and
Speaker 1: theological ideas she'd been taught. Sophia, her sister, notices how
Speaker 1: much Alana has changed. First in her appearance.
Speaker 10: She started having more fun clothes, she started to get
Speaker 10: a lot more creative painted her room. She'd go back
Speaker 10: to wearing like glitter all the time.
Speaker 1: Alana even goes to Pride for the first time and
Speaker 1: she's bringing Jessica around more.
Speaker 10: She had a girlfriend that she would was openly able
Speaker 10: to bring around us, and I loved her. She's super funny.
Speaker 10: N Lana would like hold her hand while she was
Speaker 10: around her, kiss her. It wasn't like she was hiding
Speaker 10: this anymore.
Speaker 1: But what was most significant for Sophia was that she
Speaker 1: felt like she and Alana were bonding again and we.
Speaker 10: Started to become close again, which was awesome. We're on
Speaker 10: a backpacking trip together. It was the best because it
Speaker 10: was just me and Alana.
Speaker 1: As I scroll through Alana's texts from this period, a
Speaker 1: few months after she's moved back home from treatment, I
Speaker 1: find a conversation she has with father Dave, dated September
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, just as she's about to redo her senior
Speaker 1: year at CU. It starts off casual. He asks her,
Speaker 1: are you praying your Rosary smiley face emoji?
Speaker 15: No?
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 5: He asks, It's boring, it seems unnatural, and it is
Speaker 5: a foundational prayer of the Church, And I don't trust
Speaker 5: the church.
Speaker 1: Why don't you trust? And remember, you're not going to
Speaker 1: be judged on other people's holiness or theological accuracy, but
Speaker 1: on your lifestyle.
Speaker 5: He replies, Why do you say that like?
Speaker 6: What brought that up?
Speaker 1: He writes, because I'm afraid for you that you have
Speaker 1: never spoken against the church like that. And I am
Speaker 1: not saying that this is you, but I have met hundreds,
Speaker 1: literally hundreds of people who when they turn against the church,
Speaker 1: it's because their own lifestyles have changed. Again, I am
Speaker 1: not saying it is you, but I am afraid for
Speaker 1: anybody who speaks like that, especially someone who once loved
Speaker 1: the church so much. It's extremely, extremely dangerous ground usually
Speaker 1: for one salvation. Be extremely careful where you're going.
Speaker 5: A. Lona responds, I don't speak against the church because
Speaker 5: I have pride. I speak against the Church because I
Speaker 5: have real and deep pain. I don't trust the church
Speaker 5: because the fruit of mine my labor was shame, fear, pain,
Speaker 5: mental instability, and my life was put at risk. I
Speaker 5: changed my lifestyle so that I wouldn't be crushed under
Speaker 5: the weight of depression and anxiety. I am so much
Speaker 5: healthier now. But when I hear you say things like this,
Speaker 5: or talk to the sisters or try to go to
Speaker 5: mass I revert back to where I was a year ago.
Speaker 5: I'm distancing myself from the church right now, because I
Speaker 5: don't feel safe or loved or accepted.
Speaker 1: He continues, Okay, you'd have to explain in person what
Speaker 1: you actually mean by changed lifestyle, because I don't want
Speaker 1: to go down that road on text messages. He closes
Speaker 1: with this, regardless, I'm here for you, and you can
Speaker 1: call me any time about anything, even trivial matters, because
Speaker 1: I will always keep my promise. I will love you
Speaker 1: one hundred percent through thick and thin heart emoji.
Speaker 5: I just can't talk about this stuff anymore.
Speaker 10: It hurts too much.
Speaker 1: This is the last time Alana texts with Father Dave.
Speaker 1: I'm struck by the gravity of this moment. Alana standing
Speaker 1: up to her mentor for the first time, the man
Speaker 1: who kept all her secrets. But more than that, she's
Speaker 1: speaking her truth, calmly, clearly, sharing her real life experiences,
Speaker 1: the fruit of her labor, as she puts it, in
Speaker 1: the face of all those familiar, veiled warnings of hell
Speaker 1: by the person who, for most of her adolescence wielded
Speaker 1: such tremendous spiritual authority over her, she elucidly details how
Speaker 1: his words and actions have actually affected her and tells
Speaker 1: him that she just can't talk about this anymore. I'm
Speaker 1: astonished by her courage. Alana continues to process all of
Speaker 1: this in her journals.
Speaker 5: They called it unconditional, but it wasn't. It was impossible
Speaker 5: for them to accept me as I am. Why is
Speaker 5: it so important for them to accept that part of me?
Speaker 5: Because it's a part of me, part of my identity,
Speaker 5: It's an important part of my life.
Speaker 1: Who I love?
Speaker 5: Why is that so bad? Don't say you love me?
Speaker 5: It's confusing. I know what real love is now. If
Speaker 5: you loved me, then why don't you care anymore? I
Speaker 5: never said anything to a fault. I wanted to let
Speaker 5: you be you, but you never let me be me.
Speaker 5: You don't want to see me, you don't want to
Speaker 5: know me. I have so much to say to you, guys.
Speaker 5: You don't realize how you all contributed to my immense
Speaker 5: suffering in the name of love. I worry if you
Speaker 5: ever meet someone like me, you will try to love
Speaker 5: them in the same way you will hurt them. You
Speaker 5: hurt me, You made me feel so ashamed, you made
Speaker 5: me hate myself. I continue to hate myself. I struggled
Speaker 5: so hard. I wanted it to be easier. I tried,
Speaker 5: but I couldn't shake it. I don't understand how you
Speaker 5: could see me struggle and not intervene or question the process.
Speaker 5: I was playing a dangerous game. I was messing with
Speaker 5: the person God made me to be. This is who
Speaker 5: I am. I'm not over identifying with it. This is
Speaker 5: a huge part of me.
Speaker 1: Alana is putting things into words I haven't yet been
Speaker 1: able to. What can be so confusing in the church
Speaker 1: is that it repeatedly says it loves us, but your
Speaker 1: SSA that part we don't love. So stop over identifying
Speaker 1: with it. It's just a temptation anyways. But what if
Speaker 1: Alana's right? What if my sexuality isn't a small part
Speaker 1: of me, but a huge part of me. What if
Speaker 1: it's not just about sex but about companionship, bonding love.
Speaker 1: What if it's as much me as my face, my voice,
Speaker 1: my mind, my heart? And then at what point does
Speaker 1: the harm of messing with me start to matter? As
Speaker 1: Elana says, messing with the person God made her to be.
Speaker 1: Even though Alana sounds like she's standing up to her
Speaker 1: spiritual community for hurting her privately, she's traumatized and still
Speaker 1: hates herself. She blames the church for standing idly by
Speaker 1: while her mental health had been deteriorating.
Speaker 5: I lost everything. I lost my humor, I lost my joy,
Speaker 5: I lost my passion. I lost the ones that I loved.
Speaker 5: I lost my ability to love anyone or myself. How
Speaker 5: can you cling to a religion that is so cruel?
Speaker 5: This burden I had to carry? You dare not lift
Speaker 5: a finger. You killed me. You absolutely killed me.
Speaker 1: In the summer of twenty nineteen, Colorado's ban on conversion
Speaker 1: therapy for minors goes into effect in the US. These
Speaker 1: bans exist in many states. However, they don't apply to
Speaker 1: religious settings, which is where the vast majority of young
Speaker 1: people receive conversion therapy. The Denver Post is looking for
Speaker 1: people to speak to for an article. Chrisa tells me
Speaker 1: about how much of a struggle this was for Alana.
Speaker 16: I knew Alana was really nervous going into the story.
Speaker 16: It wasn't something she wanted to do right away. She
Speaker 16: was like in this struggle of wanting to share her
Speaker 16: story because she knew it would be helpful to others.
Speaker 16: She was scared of what people at the church would
Speaker 16: say if they read the story.
Speaker 1: Alana's hesitant right in her journal that she doesn't want
Speaker 1: anyone to get hurt, doesn't want anybody's life to be ruined.
Speaker 1: But she eventually agrees to be interviewed.
Speaker 16: And then when she had the interview, my mom text
Speaker 16: me and was like, hey, if you have time, like,
Speaker 16: can you call your sister. She's having a really hard
Speaker 16: time after the interview because she just had to relive everything.
Speaker 16: And so I went over to the house and she
Speaker 16: was in her bed, just like crying and like not
Speaker 16: talking at all.
Speaker 1: The article in the Denver Post profiles Alana alongside two
Speaker 1: other conversion therapy survivors. It describes her struggle with reconciling
Speaker 1: her sexual identity with her dream of becoming a nun.
Speaker 1: Here's how Alana is quoted.
Speaker 5: I felt a lot of shame and anxiety. I couldn't sleep,
Speaker 5: I couldn't stop thinking about it, you know, like was
Speaker 5: I going to hell? But I was still extremely faithful
Speaker 5: and I felt like the church and the counseling was
Speaker 5: the thing that was saving me. But like the worse
Speaker 5: I got, the more I clung to it.
Speaker 1: Because there are no licensing regulations around religious counseling. Colorado's
Speaker 1: ban wouldn't have protected Ilana, the article.
Speaker 5: Continues, But in reality, I think the church's counsel is
Speaker 5: what led me to be hospitalized. I was feeling so
Speaker 5: much shame that I was comforted by the thought of
Speaker 5: hurting myself. By now I've basically completely lost my faith.
Speaker 5: I don't really know what I believe about God. I
Speaker 5: think if there is a God, he doesn't need me
Speaker 5: talking to him anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm looking through Alana's cracked iPhone. I'm aware of how
Speaker 1: sensitive this is. Our phones tell us so much about
Speaker 1: who we are. I scroll through her Spotify playlists from
Speaker 1: the last few years. She loved Kesha and the Avitt
Speaker 1: Brothers and Andrea Gibson's Spoken Word. I can see the
Speaker 1: places she searched for on Google Maps, and her group
Speaker 1: me messages with her Frisbee team. When I tap into
Speaker 1: her voice memos app, I hesitate. Could this be where
Speaker 1: Alana left notes to herself? Maybe audio versions of her
Speaker 1: journal thoughts. What I find instead are nearly two dozen
Speaker 1: files of original songs.
Speaker 10: Ah Greatest Streaker, Turning to Fall Asleep, Faking and.
Speaker 6: De for Ans. Really my heartscape to be swearing and
Speaker 6: the world to me.
Speaker 1: Honestly damn, Alanna scot She's working through song after song
Speaker 1: of original compositions.
Speaker 6: The music take it to a high play.
Speaker 1: For a little while about love, God, regret, Tay.
Speaker 6: There's away from me.
Speaker 5: Oh, say.
Speaker 15: This away from.
Speaker 9: Me because we regret.
Speaker 8: It is whoison a sign it is killing me.
Speaker 6: Say true.
Speaker 1: A little over a year after dropping out of CU,
Speaker 1: a lot of transfers to Prescott College in Arizona to
Speaker 1: be closer to Jessica, But by the time Alanna arrives,
Speaker 1: they've broken up again, something she processes prolifically in her
Speaker 1: journals and songs. Still, she's determined to look ahead. I
Speaker 1: know this because of the next voice memo I find
Speaker 1: on her phone. It's a memo titled Reading roughly thirty minutes,
Speaker 1: one of the longest and only recordings I can find
Speaker 1: of her speaking voice. In it, Alana sounds like she's
Speaker 1: getting an astrology, reading.
Speaker 8: When's your birthday?
Speaker 6: October fourteenth?
Speaker 8: Oh see, you want everything perfect? What do you mean, Well,
Speaker 8: you're a libra.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I want the perfect solution.
Speaker 8: I want the perfect good. You know you're perfectionist and
Speaker 8: you're an idealist.
Speaker 15: Well that's what I's kind of like ruined my relationship
Speaker 15: with my girlfriend. I just wanted the perfect match.
Speaker 1: She asks Alana. What caused the breakup with Jessica.
Speaker 6: I just think I'm kind of like too damaged right
Speaker 6: now to be in a relationship.
Speaker 8: Okay, So where do you feel you're damaged?
Speaker 15: Your First of all, well, I'm gay, yeah, so and
Speaker 15: I but when I was like a teenager, I became
Speaker 15: very involved in the Catholic church.
Speaker 8: Okay, so you think you think because you're gay that
Speaker 8: you're damaged? Is that where that started?
Speaker 15: Because I like I held it in for so long
Speaker 15: and I let like priests and nuns like try and
Speaker 15: teach me like how it was supposed to live. I
Speaker 15: just lived a very like a life of like repression
Speaker 15: and self hatred and self doubt.
Speaker 8: What else makes you feel emotionally?
Speaker 15: That was?
Speaker 6: That's like the main thing.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think like my like growing up like wasn't super easy.
Speaker 6: My parents fought a lot.
Speaker 15: And like always on the brink of divorce. So but
Speaker 15: I don't feel as much pain around that anymore.
Speaker 8: I know, But it's in there, Yeah, it's in there.
Speaker 1: It strikes me that Alana still seems to be seeking
Speaker 1: some sort of spiritual guidance in her life, perhaps to
Speaker 1: fill the vacuum left by the church, like swapping out
Speaker 1: one framework for another. They look at the cards on
Speaker 1: the table.
Speaker 3: Ace means new beginning, new challenge, new charge. You're charged
Speaker 3: up about what you want to do, are you okay?
Speaker 8: So you'll make the.
Speaker 3: Decision and listen to the fire that's inside of you
Speaker 3: that wants to burn a little bit, don't burn yourself.
Speaker 6: And I'm also moving out, and I don't know where
Speaker 6: I'm going.
Speaker 8: You don't know. I'm just kind of going, okay.
Speaker 15: Part of me just like wants to travel around a
Speaker 15: little bit, like around the United States a little bit.
Speaker 8: Yeah, okay, do you have the finances to be able
Speaker 8: to do that? I have a little bit of money,
Speaker 8: a little okay.
Speaker 6: I'm not opposed to like staying in homeless shelters or.
Speaker 8: Like, do you don't need to stay in a homeless show? No, No,
Speaker 8: you don't need to do that.
Speaker 15: I feel like right now, like I have enough connections
Speaker 15: with people that like I wouldn't need to So pack
Speaker 15: your pegs, yeah, get moving.
Speaker 14: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Alana packs her bags and begins a new semester at
Speaker 1: Prescott College, where she's just been accepted to a master's
Speaker 1: program in counseling, but things change abruptly. Moving on from
Speaker 1: her past won't be that easy. She comes home early
Speaker 1: from RA training, telling her friends, I just don't think
Speaker 1: school is where I need to be right now. She
Speaker 1: asks the other ras to water the plants she was
Speaker 1: caring for and assures them I feel a lot better
Speaker 1: now that I'm home. But based on her journals, we
Speaker 1: know that that isn't true. Alana self medicating heavily, smoking
Speaker 1: weed to cope.
Speaker 5: I've been getting so high every day I can merely
Speaker 5: think straight. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 6: I feel empty.
Speaker 5: I don't want to do anything. I don't want to
Speaker 5: take my meds anymore.
Speaker 1: She writes about how she uses it whenever she's alone,
Speaker 1: so much so that she doesn't want to take her
Speaker 1: antidepression medication. On the inside, Alana's not doing well. She
Speaker 1: journals about crying every day and wishing she was dead
Speaker 1: to stop the pain, even drafting out several suicide notes,
Speaker 1: and then days later seemingly feeling optimistic about her future.
Speaker 1: On the outside, none of this is obvious to those
Speaker 1: around her. Alana seems cheerful and even plans her own
Speaker 1: birthday for the first time, inviting all of her closest friends.
Speaker 1: Joy remembers this period as we flip through the last
Speaker 1: few pages of their scrap book.
Speaker 6: Then she gave it back to me for my wedding.
Speaker 1: Remember this is the album that she and Alana would
Speaker 1: swap during special occasions.
Speaker 17: And then I actually gave it back to her one
Speaker 17: more time for her birthday in twenty nineteen. It was
Speaker 17: in her possession, and then Joyce gave.
Speaker 15: It to me.
Speaker 1: Do you feel comfortable reading that last entry from me?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 17: So it says you're twenty fourth they eve. I told
Speaker 17: someone today that I was busy tonight because I'm celebrating
Speaker 17: the birthday of my best friend since kindergarten. Then I
Speaker 17: reread this journal and am in awe of your thoughtfulness
Speaker 17: and love. You are not the girl I met in
Speaker 17: line for class at Fireside. You have shaped so much
Speaker 17: of who I have become. I consider it a real
Speaker 17: honor to continually beginning to know you in new stages
Speaker 17: and seasons of life. Each version of you is a
Speaker 17: gift to me. May year twenty four bring you love, light, healing, hope,
Speaker 17: and many more unexpected gifts. It has already brought you
Speaker 17: back to Colorado, which is a gift to me. Love
Speaker 17: joy ps. I almost didn't write this because I didn't
Speaker 17: want to give up this book. I love it so much,
Speaker 17: but it is not mine, it is ours.
Speaker 1: When I first met Alana's mom, Joyce, she'd reflect on
Speaker 1: how happy Alana looks in her birthday photos, with her
Speaker 1: head tilted, Alana smiling as she holds up her birthday
Speaker 1: gifts two packs of Darn Tough hiking socks. The party
Speaker 1: Alana threw for herself was small and intimate. She even
Speaker 1: invited a new girl she'd been seeing. The next evening,
Speaker 1: Alana goes to a Lizzo concert, and at Thanksgiving, her
Speaker 1: friends from Prescott come and visit her to urge her
Speaker 1: to come back to school. On Saturday, December seventh, twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: two months after her birthday, Alana leaves home at around
Speaker 1: three pm, telling her mom that she's going hiking and Boulder.
Speaker 1: She ends up missing her appointment with a friend that evening.
Speaker 1: Since Alana had a reputation for disappearing into nature by herself,
Speaker 1: this wasn't totally out of character. But when Alana doesn't
Speaker 1: return home that night, her family begins to worry, they
Speaker 1: hold off calling the police, contacting all of Alana's friends first,
Speaker 1: even reaching out to Jessica in Arizona. No one's seen
Speaker 1: or heard from Milana. As concern grows, her family decides
Speaker 1: to call the police and report her missing. By the
Speaker 1: next day, the local news picks up the.
Speaker 6: Story, breaking from overnight.
Speaker 15: Family members of Alana Chin say they haven't heard from
Speaker 15: her since Saturday.
Speaker 3: Brian.
Speaker 18: Alana Chen's family members say she loved nature and she
Speaker 18: was actually on her way here to Chautauqua Park to
Speaker 18: go hiking on Saturday afternoon, but since then, her family
Speaker 18: says they haven't heard from her. Lewisville Police says she
Speaker 18: was last seen wearing a black down jacket, jeans, and
Speaker 18: timberlin hiking boots.
Speaker 10: It hadn't been that long, so I was like, okay,
Speaker 10: there's still chances of calling her, texting her. I still
Speaker 10: have the text on my phone, something along the lines
Speaker 10: like I can't wait for us to do like go
Speaker 10: climbing and hiking together, so please like come a home.
Speaker 1: Friends and family spend to the weekend scanning the area
Speaker 1: looking for Alana's black Toyota Camry. Nitacides to search for
Speaker 1: Alana at a reservoir in the mountains where Alana liked
Speaker 1: to camp.
Speaker 19: I'm leaving from Denver. This is like six pm on
Speaker 19: I think Sunday, December ninth. It's starting to get dark.
Speaker 19: It's starting to sprinkle some snowflakes. Get to the first
Speaker 19: parking lint, Gross Reservoir and start driving around and don't
Speaker 19: see a car. Go to the next lot, it's a
Speaker 19: little bit smaller.
Speaker 6: Don't see a car.
Speaker 18: According to Louisville Police, who have been keeping in contact
Speaker 18: with family members, this is very unusual behavior. And on
Speaker 18: top of her not corresponding with her family, her cell
Speaker 18: phone has been turned off as well.
Speaker 19: Get to the third lot again, don't see a car. Okay,
Speaker 19: I'm relieved. I don't see you know, Alana's car here.
Speaker 19: It's a good sign that she might not be here.
Speaker 19: So we ended up, you know, after three lots, turning
Speaker 19: around Gross reser ours really massive.
Speaker 1: As Sunday passes with still no sight of Alana, everyone
Speaker 1: begins to fear for the worst. It's snowing, with nighttime
Speaker 1: temperatures in the teens. Anyone exposed to the elements would
Speaker 1: likely not survive the next day. According to the Boulder
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Office. The Denver Water Board reports a suspicious vehicle,
Speaker 1: a black Camray, parked by the Gross Reservoir, nearly an
Speaker 1: hour away from Alana's home. Nead happened to miss this
Speaker 1: particular parking lot when she had been looking the day before.
Speaker 1: The patrolling witness recalls spotting the same vehicle parked in
Speaker 1: the lot as early as Saturday afternoon, but didn't register
Speaker 1: it as unusual at the time. He remembers seeing the
Speaker 1: black Camri, but with a single female wearing a winter
Speaker 1: wool cap sitting in it alone with a quote confused
Speaker 1: look on her face. There were one or two other
Speaker 1: cars parked in that lot on Saturday, so he didn't
Speaker 1: think much of it. As officers approached the car on Monday,
Speaker 1: they find it covered in a light dust of snow.
Speaker 1: No one's in the car, but they uncover several items,
Speaker 1: a purse, marijuana vaping supplies, a checkbook with a check
Speaker 1: written for therapy on the memo line, an Arizona ID card,
Speaker 1: and a note to family and friends. At around one
Speaker 1: twenty pm on Monday, December tenth, two days after Alana
Speaker 1: was reported missing, police find the body of a young
Speaker 1: woman near the reservoir. It's later confirmed to be a Lana.
Speaker 1: She was just twenty four years old. Her cause of death,
Speaker 1: as determined by the coroner, is suicide. What was it
Speaker 1: like for you In the days, weeks and months after
Speaker 1: I'm with Joy, her kindergarten best friend.
Speaker 17: It became really scary for me. You know.
Speaker 15: I was like.
Speaker 17: I started to kind of, you know, first job out
Speaker 17: of college in the middle health field and was working
Speaker 17: with highly suicidal patients, and that was just I shouldn't
Speaker 17: have done that, you know. I was kind of I
Speaker 17: didn't know what to do, so I just kind of
Speaker 17: kept moving forward. I, you know, just this is this
Speaker 17: is a this is a thing that happened. I had
Speaker 17: thoughts of suicide myself for a while. The pandemic hit
Speaker 17: a few months after, so then isolating and carrying that
Speaker 17: stress while grieving was really intense. I was just in
Speaker 17: so much pain, like every day and trying to do
Speaker 17: all these things to fix it. Was reading all the
Speaker 17: books and my own therapy, and there's just no answer
Speaker 17: for grief. It's just, you know, it just is. You know,
Speaker 17: her funeral, I don't know if you've heard much about it.
Speaker 17: It was massive. It was like overflowing the chapel, which
Speaker 17: on the one hand is like beautiful and then on
Speaker 17: the other hand just makes me so angry.
Speaker 1: Hundreds attended, including Micah, who was the only one from
Speaker 1: Saint Thom's invited. Her Frisbee team made two framed collages
Speaker 1: of Alana photos.
Speaker 17: She had all these people who loved her, and the
Speaker 17: church isolated her and told her things that weren't true
Speaker 17: so that it couldn't get in.
Speaker 1: As complicated as it was for Alana, it's undeniable how
Speaker 1: deeply she was hurt by the church, And yet it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to hear others talk about the church.
Speaker 1: Church so pointedly.
Speaker 17: Alana shared this very vulnerable part of herself with an
Speaker 17: adult in power at a really vulnerable age, and then
Speaker 17: they controlled the message from there. So even as she
Speaker 17: developed and became an adult, she couldn't reconcile that a
Speaker 17: loving God probably hated her. I think she couldn't get
Speaker 17: rid of that belief that she felt like God hated her,
Speaker 17: or that God needed her to change for her to
Speaker 17: be loved. And I think that the split that that
Speaker 17: caused in her was extremely painful. It isolated her in relationships.
Speaker 17: It cut her off from all kinds of things that
Speaker 17: she needed, and you know, suicide is an answer to
Speaker 17: an unanswerable problem. I have a lot of anger at
Speaker 17: the church. You know, church was a huge part of
Speaker 17: my life. I haven't been in like two years. Like
Speaker 17: I just cannot I can't stomach like the lack of
Speaker 17: accountability that this happened, that this happens to tons of people,
Speaker 17: and that it just does not seem to matter.
Speaker 9: I believe that this did not have to happen.
Speaker 17: That's so much of my anger. You know, this didn't
Speaker 17: have to happen, but there were a lot of things
Speaker 17: in place that allowed it to happen. And it's really
Speaker 17: scary to realize that we all loved her and made
Speaker 17: mistakes and did our best, and that this shame and
Speaker 17: self hatred was too big.
Speaker 8: To me.
Speaker 17: It's like that internal tension is what happened. The substance use,
Speaker 17: the relationships, the isolation, those were all symptoms. But the
Speaker 17: golden thread through it all was her relationship with herself
Speaker 17: and God, which was controlled by people who were abusing her.
Speaker 17: That's the best sense I can make of it. I
Speaker 17: don't think that's a perfect answer. That's the best I
Speaker 17: can make of it.
Speaker 1: In twenty twelve, after a decade spent trying to change
Speaker 1: my sexuality through conversion therapy, spiritual counsel, and healing prayer,
Speaker 1: I relocated from New York to the Bay Area for
Speaker 1: a new job. Still closeted, I'd scrutinize every attraction and desire,
Speaker 1: applying everything I learned in there Be, surrendering it all
Speaker 1: to God in hopes that I was just one breakthrough
Speaker 1: away from healing my father wounds, becoming straight, and unblocking
Speaker 1: my vocation to the priesthood. One night, after work, I
Speaker 1: came home to my empty apartment. It was quiet except
Speaker 1: for the sound of the family next door making dinner
Speaker 1: for their screeching toddler. I looked around my one bedroom
Speaker 1: with the new Ikea furniture and still on open boxes,
Speaker 1: and I was suddenly failed with a deep sadness. God,
Speaker 1: you promised healing, and I trusted you. But why aren't
Speaker 1: you healing me? Are you ignoring me? Do you hate me?
Speaker 11: Is this a test?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how long I can go on like this.
Speaker 1: It was in that moment that I felt something inside
Speaker 1: me well up. It was the conviction that I did
Speaker 1: not want to be on my deathbed fifty years from
Speaker 1: now and wonder what if? What if this part of
Speaker 1: me that I've been trying to destroy in the name
Speaker 1: of healing, what if it was trying to show me something.
Speaker 1: It was a scandalous thought, one that I quickly tucked away.
Speaker 1: But in that moment I knew, at the very least
Speaker 1: that something had to change. This quest to change my
Speaker 1: sexual orientation had to end, or I would.
Speaker 11: I will follow you, follow you where if I you
Speaker 11: might go next time.
Speaker 1: On Dear Alana, there was a point when you were thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe this is not going to work.
Speaker 6: But you never told me that you thought that, right?
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 8: I didn't want to destroy your whole.
Speaker 11: I will follow you ever since you touched my head.
Speaker 1: Dear Alana was created, hosted, and written by me Simon
Speaker 1: kent Fong and is a production of Tenderfoot TV in
Speaker 1: association with a Slopped Audio in 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 by to Loose. Show notes and resources
Speaker 1: can be found on our website Dearlana dot com. If
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this episode, please take time to follow the show,
Speaker 1: rate and review.
Speaker 11: Ud monson sohio. Keep Me Away, Away from Long.
Speaker 1: Dear Alana is an eight part series released weekly. If
Speaker 1: you can't wait until next week, subscribe to tenderfoot Plus
Speaker 1: so you can binge the entire series right now. Add
Speaker 1: free head to Apple Podcasts or tendorfootplus dot com to
Speaker 1: subscribe now.