Turning towards our house on the hillside. My brothers are awake testing the weather i imagine my mother at the stove. With the steel toed boots. On the highway below the school bus rolled past without stopping. Im only seven but i understand that it is this fact more than any other that makes my family different. We dont go to school. It doesnt know about us. Four of my parents dont had birth certificates. We have no medical records because we were born at home. We never seen a dr. Or nurse. I will be issued a delayed certificate of birth. I do not exist. I did exist id grown up preparing for the dates. For the men to drift. I spent my summers rotated supplies when the world of men failed my family would continue on unaffected. That was quite an opening. Can you tell me a little bit. Take me to a day in the life. For the 10yearold version of yourself. It was really beautiful. It wasnt a big mountain. And it formed into a really perfect for every spring when they begin to melt it would be the image of the womans body. He have the story that they would look for the sign. And look for her coming. It was the junkyard. And they played in it. It was very exotic. There was a lot of beauty in my childhood. There was not completely normal. And now im older and i could see. There were elements that were probably unusual. Anything to do with the government. And what that meant that i was never allowed to go to school or to the dr. And i didnt have a birth certificate until i was nine years old. It was a interplay between this. Running around kind of free in this environment it seems very foreign to me as a city kid. Ive heard you talk about this. There is the other side. Very much two sides. The mountain was beautiful. Everything that had one side to it and another side to it. So they could turn in there. We also got her in it quite a bit. They made the decision to tweet treat it at home. In a situation like that even Something Like the herbalism. I attribute it to the father more than the mother. It seems to me. I think it was mostly coming from him. It was a spiritual document. He have the theory in Public Education. Some kinds of meeting. I think the reason for opposing these things is because he believes there is a lot of fear there. It depends on which institution its talking about. At the medical establishment. A lot of the things that people take would damage your body. And that would damage you spiritually as well. With Public Education he was worried that it was brainwashed. Kind of depends on that. I think everybody is complicated. The fear of you being brainwashed. In the illuminati coming in. Part of it is the fear of someone coming in and changing the path that he has set for his children. I think he was worried that we might go to a dr. And that we might in some ways comfort miser health. The path was narrow. In order to be a good person and all those things. I think thats a fear that you could get easily sucked into the world this idea of the world and the world being worldly. A lot of people have that idea. I think its a strong idea in a lot of religions. And for my dad that included doctors. This is not a mormon perspective. Almost all mormons they support education. And most of them want to send their kids to school. It was not representative of mormonism at all. He wanted to make that point i think. I think people will latch onto any story they can to confirm their own preconceptions about something. I think that my dad have some irregular ideas. I think the way his mind worked i felt like maybe he have some kind of mental irregularity and in my mind the religious extremism was a vehicle for that. I want people to take the story and say all religious people or mormons are like this. Its really easy for people that are different than you. That is not particular at all. They are taking from the culture thats going on in the news. There is an example of that that you called your first memory that is not a memory that is of that ruby ridge massacre. Especially around the time. Our family was not so different. We didnt go to school and all of that. That when that happened to them. There was a. Of time when it was not able to be there. I was about five and it happened. We were preparing and we got these bags if we need to run and hide in the mountains. From a few years later. I still have it and i documented it at all. Here for the emergency food and water purifiers and mosquito nets. All the things that you would need and i have them in this bag. Maybe it was a blimp but it left in my mind as is very frightening thing made me feel like the government could come at any moment and he never told us the end of the story. Can you tell a little bit about that story. They lived in idaho i believe it have to do with a conflict over a rifle. He missed a court date. They began to do some surveillance and somehow there was a conflict where a dog was shot and then an agent was shot. It ended up being that randy weaver was shot. That was a horrendous story. And that was the version that i was told. That my dad told us. Look what could happen. Look what could happen to us. He didnt really come to the end of the story. When i was 17 i was at university and then i heard the end of the story i heard how there had been this Massive Public outcry and there had been congressional inquiries in every major newspaper and became a different story. How frightening the government was and it was a secret think that that only we knew about. I then realized it was a terrible thing that happened but there were checks on that. It wasnt something that was kept a secret. There was Massive Public outcry. Has a 5yearold especially in the situation you are in. You very much identified with that family. The idea that you werent alone in that knowledge that it wouldve been comforting to you have you known about it that young. If i have an understanding of how the institutions had responded it wasnt like the government that was this holy evil force i think that might be with the congressional report on it. That is a very different idea of government. That there is a free press that people find out about things. I did not just learn the end of the story and what are the checks and balances on the system. It changes the way in the story the story felt quite a bit. Its really interesting to me. I want to go back to this. Either three phases of the education. Can you talk a little bit about the education that you learned with your family is not a traditional education. Tell me some of the values of things that you learned that most people probably had it i think my mother did a pretty decent job of homeschooling. There was not a lot of homeschool going on. I never read an essay from my mother. I never took an exam. There was never anything like a lecture or anything like that. In terms of formal education. There is one thing i really valued just the way that they raised us. They have have this philosophy and they would say it to us all the time. You can teacher self anything better than someone else can teach it to you. It is a principle i really agree with. When i talk about education in this country is become something that is very passive and individual component to it and not just a social component. I think people need to feed feel actively engaged. A lot of people have really taken to heart this idea. To learn something you have to a degree in a whole institution in place. I will buy a book and i will earn it. My parents took it too far. I once raised my hand in a class and ask what the holocaust was. I have never heard of it before. I wouldnt say this is the ideal education but i do think they have something there about people feeling ownership over what they learned because if you think of education i think a lot of people it was about making a person. People need to be more involved in our own education. I did not know how to write narrative. When i decided to write this book. I have really committed. I did not know how to write. I sat down. The thing was the biggest difference was the podcast. It was a curriculum that worked for me. So i could pursue it. I did have to pursue a time. I think everybody is different. I think thats why that curriculum you make for yourself is always going to be better. When i started writing it i have never read a short story i never heard a short story. I found it so helpful. I wrote a lot of Toni Morrison because shes a genius. And then david means. I think you take the ones that speak to you and there is some amazing writers. They are nothing like i write. And they dont give me ideas of how to write. I think that is the beauty of having control over how you learn. What were you reading then. I read a lot of religious books. I read the bible and im read a lot of 19th century speeches the founding mormon prophets. That was a language i had felt at home and pretty quickly. When you went to school for the first time you wrote in this archaic style. That is what i had been reading. A lot of my professors were very bewildered. It took a while to kind of get that voice out. The writing voice is often so different than the talking voice. He have a really work on unit speak in that way that is the part that you really had to do that. They feel a certain selfconsciousness about writing and sometimes when we feel selfconscious we feel more formal. People will use words like establishment instead of the building. Words that you would never use because i think they feel somewhat intellectual. How long did it take you to get that kind of exercise back. I wrote the whole book in about a year. The first four months everything i wrote was absolutely terrible. Are you being hard on yourself it was really bad. I took it to a writing group once. I dont really think of myself as a writer. I was trying to learn to write because i wanted to write this one book. It was not a part of my identity. This is really terrible i said yeah i know. Of course it is. And just tell me to make it better. The ego was not there. There was no reason i should know how to do this. Ive literally never written a story before. It was a really great place. It was interesting to me that you journal. Talk a little bit about those journals that you have. But i really get serious about it. And then i was very faithful about it. Two or three stacks. A lot of them were given to me by my grandmother and they tend to be a picture of jesus on them. Then they just become black. Im a journal or as well. For me it was about i dont think i really understand something until i write it down. Why were you doing it. I think i have a bit of loneliness there. I detect i do not have a lot of friends. I would occasionally see this one other girl. But all the kids in our time i never went to any of their houses i was never invited. I have my siblings but i think i want friends. I think i was writing this journal so i could tell someone all my stuff. Theres probably a processing element to it. Really latched onto it. They were really helpful. Do you still journal now. A big part of something i didnt recognize my own. The threat of physical pain. You are in a junkyard and there is a part where you have an accident in the junkyard. I dont know why but for whatever reason he didnt have that thing in his head that would tell him he did not always understand and i think he kind of thought that everything happens for the best and that we were to be protected he didnt really believe in Safety Equipment it was a very dangerous place. I dont think its because he didnt care about our safety i think he did care about it i just dont think he understood how dangerous it was. There was one example of that when i was 14. I was filling up of been of scrap metal the idea was it have to be picked up by a forklift. I have to be taken over and dumped into the semi trailers. He wanted someone to go into the big bend and settle the scrapped after he dumped it. If i wrote up in the been and then uphold level with the trailer. Youll be out of the way of the falling metal. I was terrified i was not in the habit of disobeying my dad. And as he was turning to rotate around a bit of scrap just came loose and just pierced through my leg. It pinned me in place. I could not move. I was trained shout down to him that i couldnt move. He could hear me then he starts raising a its like going to a meat grinder. Luckily when it started fall the thing came out of my leg. I was able to throw myself over the side. I was injured but i was okay. I just remember at the time feeling anger that he let it happen. But it dissipated really quickly. I just felt kind of ashamed. It seems like a simple thing and i didnt know why you hadnt been able to do it. What i was missing in that moment i knew that my dad would never hurt me on purpose i did not have the information that there might be something going on it and said where he could value my safety but not be able to keep me safe. There might be an explanation besides this is my fault. I think as children we experience events in this way and its so easy to internalize it and that internalize gilts. I have to be much older before i could look back on the event and not feel ashamed about it and i think there was a time when i was just really angry at my father. And then now where i met as i feel like i have all the pieces. He was not able. Sometimes minor. This is a pretty major one. Not really hold any anger. I think there is a risk as well. The really hard things that happen. I became a person the whole life was rage. And i think you need anger to get you these situations but then once her out in the space. Im not sure you do need it. I kind of wonder if you do just get rid of it. I would need every day. Now i dont feel like you need it particularly. Its important for me to reclaim the beautiful parts of my childhood there was wonderful things about them too. And dismiss the bad things. No one can take the good. I wont have the grasp on the reality that is. I dont want to get consumed with anger. I also dont want to expose myself to risks by not recognizing their limitations. It sounds extremely involved. Ive have a lot of therapy. I have done a lot of therapy. I think its really helpful. And never feels helpful. You set aside this time to think about how you feel and do you want to feel that way. Ive spent a lot of time and therapy about how angry i feel and how i dont want to feel that way. So what is the middle road. Did it bring a lot of these things back. I did not think it would be. The danger of the scrapyard. The things about my father. In the good things about my older brother. Those were the things i had loved about my childhood the most it was hard actually. The hard thing. That ended up being the hardest thing to write about. But it let me reclaim a bit of that in a strange way. I have reclaimed in this other way. Was there one part of the book that was hard to write that surprised you . There are couple moments about my dad that were hard to write about. The moments when my brother saved my life. I was on a horse that went completely berserk. I have never been written. I got my foot caught in the saddle. And it was bucking and running. It was really just a matter of time before i fell off and was dragged. And thats pretty much game over. My brother somehow on this completely unbroken horse managed to catch a hold of my horse and slow it down. This is the brother who was quite violent. Very controlling who would at other times twist my wrist behind my back and call me a horror. What took me a long time as i said before he is kind. He can be really wonderful. I still think that. I dont want to use those things to dismiss the fact that it can be even violent. It seems pretty open. I think thats the thing i kind of reconciled with. Its very violent and also psychologically violent as well. It was psychological torture with him as well. I think people fixate on that. I have this idea that i think all of these no matter what kind of abuse it is its an assault on the mind. If you are going to abuse someone i think you have to invade their reality in order to distort it. It means you have to normalize it. And justify it. The other thing you have to do is that they deserve it. The second thing i think is pretty easy to convince themselves up. The first thing is hard. And my brother it was pretty good at it. One example of that when i was 17 i brought that young man home after things giving dinner i think my brother he felt some need to demonstrate his control over me. And so before the mill had even started he grabbed me by my hair and he shoved my have in the toilet and later when it was all over he told me it have just been a game next time we were having fun i should be able to tell him if i was having fun. I completely took that perspective 100 i actually tried to convince Charlie Everett he knew what he have seen i think you know that reality had no bearing on me. He could see how much under my brothers power i was. He tried to reason with me for a while and then didnt. I had been a university for a while. Going to university really help me learn how to hold onto my own ideas and give me the ability to say i disagree a few months later it happened again and my brother attacked me in a parking lot. He came into my room and he said im really sorry we were just having a good time i id i died i would hurt you. I wrote that i didnt know which version to believe but i wrote down my version. That i had been terrified that i had been in pain i wrote that in that moment if id been able i wouldve torn him apart. I have these two versions in my mind and i didnt in that moment necessarily say mine is writing his is wrong i did not know if he had experienced it as a game. I did not immediately see my reality to someone else is. I think it was the first time that my brother attempted to dominate me and at end of that process there were still two distinct mines present. Its almost like a testament like you are putting this down as your experience and there were times before that you include in your book where you are still engaging in what you call reality. You say things like he was so much nicer to me before the accident. The best friend before. And now hes mean. He was violent and abusive before the accident and its almost as if you are playing the game with yourself. High head provisos in my mind. He felt when he was working for my father. He was really serious head injury. He nearly died. I have revised when the accident took place we expected he might be violent after that accident. But i have somehow in my mind said it happened when i was really young. It was actually when i was writing a book that i got my own journal. How is this possible . It turned out that happened when i was much older. When i was 17. And that was i suddenly thought that does not explain any of it then. It had been going on for so much longer than that. That was hard. Even that night that things happened with charlie i have emails that i wrote to him that night saint he would never hurt me not after the head injury. I have a broken toe and my wrist was in the spring. I think its hard to underestimate how powerful that reality distortion is. Its not just the person who is experiencing it anybody that is living in proximity to these relationships is subject to the reality that goes on to justify it. You can actually say enabling that. I do want to talk about memory. In the kind of questions you kind of flirt within the text about memory and putting this book together it seems like it involved interviewing with a lot of people. And trying to ferret out the truth what really happened. What are your thoughts on that and the reality of your own memory now. I think its a difficult thing. You dont want to overly rely on your memory. You dont want to be reliant on people coming in. My family culture have a culture of justifying and rationalizing there was a lot of that term gas lighting. Almost as they were happening. And i think we were all so affected by it. So deeply affected by it that it could come really difficult to sort out. My brothers were really wonderful and helpful. Its nice inlaws are wonderful things. They come from the outside and they see things through different eyes. They are a lot less vulnerable than some of those distortions that happen. I think memory is complicated. Maybe they are right maybe they are wrong. I think it is so interesting. You touch on this as well. You talk about your father and his Mental Health. However there are things that you experience firsthand that would lead one to believe there was wasnt instability there. There is a moment when you are in a psych 101 class and you hear about bipolar disorder. And it turns the light on in your mind. My whole idea of Mental Illness as i thought you just head to be a raving lunatic. What that class did was a gave me another category in a way to think about the Mental Health and the brain. The gap between the fact that it is my father that loves me and yet we can be so terribly hurt by the things that he did. Some irrational decisions that he made. I knew he was not malicious so having that other the other category helped me. It helped me understand that sometimes people do the best they can and that does not mean everything is okay. Does it provide some kind of comfort that you think at least when you are a child you are assuming some of that shame that you are focusing on yourself. You are the one who is wrong not your father. It was out side labeler. Helped so much. It helped me to head empathy for my dad but also for myself. A very hard thing to head empathy for yourself. I think its a really important step of daily. Those kind of things that you been carrying around. This might be a cheesy question but i have to ask it. Is there something that you would say in particular with yourself. I kind of think i dont think there is anything anyone couldve said to me that wouldve made any difference in one of the things charles said to me that night when i was telling him it wasnt that night it was a little bit later we ended up breaking up because i was too dysfunctional to be in a relationship and one of the things he said to me he basically said this is out of my league. Way over my head. I cant change this free you. I think thats true. I dont think theres anything that i could say or anybody else could say that would move the needle at all. I think it was something i have to come to terms with. I know a lot of years that i was searching every story for permission to make the decision to cut my father out of my life. I eventually kind of realized no one is gonna give you that permission. Yet to give it to your cell. The one thing that did change your path was her brother tyler. And several times but the first time is when he entered into music and he showed that college was a possibility. In your idea of the future. What was your idea of the future prior to tyler going off to college. I always thought i would get married when i was 17 or 18 and put a house on the farm. Had kids. I very much thought my life would go like that. Until i was 16 and my older brother tyler who have educated himself and got himself to university have came home and said i think you should try to do this. Some of the most incredible parts of the book or are when you go to byu the first time. On your own for the first time. And kind of existing as an adult when you have never set foot into a class four dash my classroom before. And what that must have been like. How did you act. Can you kind of describe Something Like that. I deftly acted. I did not feel like i belonged to my family but i also didnt belong there either. I never spent any time with Public School kids. I have never been friends with mainstream kids. They lived in this way that i thought was they drank coke where the women would occasionally wear a tank top and i was appalled by that. I didnt enter into a fellowship with people. Housemates have it set me down and say most people wash their hands after they go to the bathroom. My dad had always taught us get after him for this. He said i dont teach my kids to wash their hands. I teach them not to piss on their hands. I did not fit in and i felt very outside. Even once i started to fit in a little bit better i made a few friends when i was doing okay in school it was hard but i was making it. I was even more confused i would go back to idaho and i would have all my mainstream friends all of these things were becoming more normal. I would watch the way my family lived. When my dad he gets really injured in my third year. He is standing next to the car trying to take a fuel tank off and rather than taking it off any other way. He does it with a cutting torch. He hasnt drained. In the car explodes. He was burned horribly his whole upper half of the bodys d 73rd 73rddegree burns. In my family made the decision to treat it at home. I remember they used the salve that my mother have. They have no morphine. And he almost died. There was a moment where i thought he have died. I kind of closed my eyes and started praying and tried to say goodbye. He didnt die. And even though he didnt die there is months of this. And the whole time i was at war with myself. I did not know whether i thought they were right and this is what god wanted them to do or whether they were insane they were torturing him for no reason. That is a huge step when you experience that. Do you remember in school. You talk about learning about the holocaust and not knowing about the holocaust and how everyone was shocked about that. Where there are other examples that you remember things looking back that you did not know then. All of those stories where were someone is talking about queen. I would say 90 of what people said to me casually about anything with pop culture all right. Almost like an alien life form. Smile and nod. I did a lot of smiling and nodding. School though i have never heard of the Civil Rights Movement i have heard of slavery but i definitely learned it from a very different perspective i think. And reading accounts of slavery and Frederick Douglass was really eyeopening for me. It was really the Civil Rights Movement. But that have happened and it was so recent. My mother have been a child when this was happening. And it wasnt so far in the past. That time could be measured. It could be measured in the wrinkles on my mothers skin. It wasnt geological time. It was really recent. And that didnt did really blow my mind. Did you have an experience there it sounds like a little bit what youre describing a professor chooses you. In his person he chooses has a lot of professional and here at them. I think this person has learned a lot. I really think she will catch up and we will give her a chance. Have you talked to him about that and what he saw in you. We did not do the interview for the book. I have sent him what i had written. I did not ask. In the beginning you describe a little bit of imposter syndrome. There seems to be a turning point. At some point you say you belong. I think i probably still feel like i didnt belong at that moment. I was really interested in the ideas that i was learning. I was really interested and it was hard not to be excited. When i came back to cambridge. And then i applied and i got in. I extensively belong here. My first week i went to lecture. It really blew my mind because the whole point there is the idea that yes there had external obstacles. If youre tied up you can do things. But positive liberty says that there is obstacles that people have to them doing things that are internal. If youre tied up you may not be able to go outside. If you believe someone outside is going to shoot you and there isnt someone like that it doesnt matter whether they are there or not. You still can go outside. What might be the most important thing in determining how much freedom you have. That never occurred to me. They start with that lyric. None but ourselves can free our minds. I became really obsessed with that. I read about the cancer that he head on his toe and how these doctors have told him that he needed to amputate the toe. What happened was that he died. And when i was reading that i have stopped believing i have told myself i have. I left the hospital looking like that. All in one day. It took me quite a long time. It was a moment where i kind of realized i have pronounce that. I have not found the courage to live in this new one. There is a moment where you do find that courage. After you and sean. I confronted my parents. She told me that i should confront my parents. We need to deal with it. And my father decided i was lined he said i was trying to destroy the family. My mother said maybe i was crazy but my memories can be trusted. And that was hard. After that they called my brother. And told them everything i said. It was a. Of a lot of threats he called me and said that he cut me out of his life. And my parents supported the decision. That christmas they said youre not allowed to come home because it will make your brother uncomfortable. I was most upset by your mother in that situation. There was an opportunity there when you approached your mother about these things. She have seen the things. We did chat actually online. And we have this chat where we shed where we set this has been happening and we will help you. We will get him into therapy and its can be okay. She apologized to me she said she was sorry that she have it been able to keep that. She followed suit. This all culminates with the blessing that your father offers you when youre at harvard. And you decline that blessing. We dont have a lot of time. Can you talk to me a little bit about that. That is where you your education came full circle in a way. My brother cut me out of his life and my parents supported it. Then i was doing a fellowship at harvard and my father came to visit me which was surprising because my dad hates traveling he have only been there an hour. They have only been there a few days before i realized that have come to ask me to come back into the family. They had been telling people and they believed that i was possessed and thats why i have said these things. They were going to offer me this blessing. Trade out their memories of her mind. When they were happy family. When i kind of thought i could make that. I was arguing with myself. There was maybe some dignity and denying my own memories in my own perceptions and that i was maybe justified somehow. I really thought it was a deal i can make. The night before they left. My dad offered me this blessing and i couldnt. I cannot do it. I think there was a couple of things i realized in that moment the first thing i realized was the daughter of my father have come to reclaim i had gained hold different perspectives. That mind i had had no tolerance for violence. No matter how i at aered my appearance i was still her. But best i was two people a fractured mind. She was inside emerged whenever i crossed threshold of my fathers house. That night i called on her she left me and stayed in a mirror. Decisions i made after that moment were not ones she would they were the choice of a changed person a gnaw self you could call this self many things transformation, falsity, betrayal. I call it an education. Thank you so much tara. My pleasure. Thank you for writing this exceptional book. Thank you. If you would like to view other afterwards programs online go tour website booktv. Org and type afterwords and