Uncompromising

Please do not be less goofy when you host the show Kevin, it’s one of my favorite parts!! It’s one of the things about you that I connect with.

Welcome home Beth.

Thanks for sharing Marcy. As a father to a two year old girl whom is literally my world, that hit me. I don’t know how the audience reacted, but that was a very physical feeling that came over me a few times in that story. I don’t know what to say but i think i would be only necessary to say: Happy Birthday!

Hey Kevin!

Just wanted to say that I really appreciated the intro, discussing blackface, you gave to Lady Bunny’s story! I’d never want your show to be a place where people feel censored or unable to tell their stories honestly, and I know that’s not what RISK is about anyways. But this kind of intro provides the historical/cultural context, accountability, and discussion that stories with delicate subject matter truly deserve!

Always a huge fan.

Marcy, I am glad that your daughter has turned out fine. But you speak about it as though it makes her “better” than those with continuous mental illness. Just because it was an ovarian cyst that was causing her to act differently does not make her better than anyone with depression. Also, the way you talked about the other girls she was around at the mental ward was quite disappointing. I work at a mental health facility and sometimes it is the safest place for a large variety of people. But someone with depression is not “better” than someone with another form of mental illness. And try not to talk down on psychiatrists and therapists. They are doing the best they can with what information they know. Putting her on medication could have been the best solution for what she was going through, it is probably a lot less likely that she would have a cyst. Thanks, just try to be more open minded about mental illness.

I agree with comment #7. I can hear how much Marcy cares about Beth, which is great, and I’m really glad she shared this story, and that it ends happily. But there were elements that really concerned me. There’s not only an implication that Beth is better than those “seriously mentally ill girls ages 5 to 18” who might kill their families when they get out of the hospital, but there’s an implication through the entire story, in how Beth’s parents grill her and interrogate her over and over, that Beth’s stated reason for being depressed (being bullied at school, being an outcast at church, etc) couldn’t possibly be the TRUTH — wasn’t the right truth, wasn’t her whole story, wasn’t the real reason, wasn’t adequate enough for her parents to believe as the source of her depression, mood changes and cutting. I just kept thinking, why don’t you people trust your daughter? If you love her so much and think she’s such a great kid, why isn’t the pain that she’s telling you about VALID ENOUGH in your eyes to warrant a suicide attempt? Why are you downgrading her AUTHENTIC EMOTIONS because they’re not attached to life experiences that YOU think are suicide-worthy?! (Side note: bullying and social rejection are HUGE sources of grief, anguish, self-loathing and self-harm amongst teens AND people of all ages, and are absolutely linked to suicide attempts. Maybe this turned out to not be at the root of Beth’s situation, but that doesn’t make this any less serious of a social issue.) Marcy’s actions would feel degrading and dehumanizing to me, if I were Beth…and in fact, that devaluing of my pain and isolation by my own parents would CONTRIBUTE to my depression. Anyway, I’m glad everything worked out okay, and I’m glad Beth’s family cared about her…I would really encourage everyone, though, to truly listen when someone you care about tells you why they’re hurting. Listen and believe that person’s experience; trust it; validate it; work from THEIR needs, not yours. Anything else is often not very helpful at all. Thanks.

To Been There, I am so sorry that you have indeed Been There. I can see your point of view, and maybe you can see that you might be projecting your own experience into this one.. You should know that I only had 15 minutes to tell a story that covers a very emotional year of time. From the hospital forward, bullying was the only answer that we had to go on. The strange behavior, however continued even when she was not in school or around any negative influences. We did validate those feelings at the time. I did ask her that first day because I was in denial and wanted to make sure that she wasn’t molested, or that we were not missing any other cues. We never grilled her over and over. It did not fit as an excuse *For Beth* , because prior to this other people’s opinions had little impact on Beth. She had never let not getting cast in a show get her down, for instance. She did not leave a suicide note or any of the other things depressed teens did. It did not add up, but that didn’t stop us from treating her as if it did. She had a wonderful therapist who she saw weekly that was just as confused as we were. We followed all of her therapists advice.

As to disparaging the mental hospital – This is Risk. Right or Wrong those were my true feelins at the time. It was horrifying for this admittedly over protective mom to leave her former Disney Princess baby who had never even kissed a boy in group therapy sessions with drug users and girls dealing with sexual issues. I know that mental illness is real and my heart goes out to those that suffer from it, but at that time and place, I could only care about what it might do to my daughter. I am sure that the psychiatrist was overworked and had too many cases, but I did not choose him or that situation.

I had Beth’s full permission and support in telling this story. She listened and approved of the recordings I made during the workshopping on it. This was true to her memory. We both want this story out there so that people know about these cysts. I think they are more common than people believe. Beth’s had probably been growing since birth. If they had looked for it in the hospital, the road to recovery would have been much easier.

Marcy made it sounded like her daughter was no longer alive? Did i hear that wrong, hoping she is alive and well.

Mary’s story continues an unfortunate trend I’ve noticed of late…just the outright, senseless contempt shown for men in so many stories. In this case, a woman out of nowhere leaps with her full weight on an unsuspecting man, *breaking his fucking ankle*, and then shames HIM, telling him to “harden up”, as the crowd laughs and claps as she mocks his cries of agony.

can you imagine just for one second how different this crowd’s reaction would have been if the gender’s were flipped in this story?

as for Marcy– uptight judgemental finger-pointing christian poster-mom of the year– I’ll give y’all one guess how that story would have turned out had they NOT tripped over a magical macguffin that cured their daughter overnight (unlike the other 99.9999% sufferers of depression and suicidal ideation)– there would actually BE no story, not about “power of love and prayer”, and sticking by your family no matter what, not about anything– instead she would still be the family dirty secret, warehoused with those other icky crazy girls at the nutfarm where she can’t embarrass them at Church.