Laura Cathcart Robbins, STASH: My Life In Hiding
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[1:03]Laura Cathcart Robbins is the author of Stash, My Life in Hiding.
[1:07]Laura is an author, freelance writer, speaker, and host of the popular podcast The Only
[1:12]One in the Room, which by the way, she was kind enough to invite me to be a guest on,
[1:16]which I did, and it was really fun.
[1:18]Her work has appeared in HuffPost, The Tempest, and More, She Lives in California.
[1:22]This book was so good.
[1:23]Welcome, Laura.
[1:24]Thank you so much for coming on Mom's.
[1:26]Don't have time to read books, to discuss Stash, My Life in Hiding.
[1:31]Yay.
[1:32]Thank you, Zippy.
[1:33]Thank you for having me.
[1:34]I'm so excited to be here.
[1:35]Oh my gosh.
[1:36]It's my pleasure to have you.
[1:37]Thank you, by the way, for having me on your wonderful podcast.
[1:40]The Only One in the Room podcast.
[1:42]My pleasure.
[1:43]It's great.
[1:44]I know you, listeners, can't see this right now, but Laura is wearing this very cold
[1:46]black sweater with embroidered Stash written on it with some very fun little, I didn't
[1:51]even know how to describe, embellishments, yeah, really awesome, best to swag where I've
[1:58]ever seen a book.
[1:59]So, Laura, I was starting to say, like, I peaked into this book, which I had read in an
[2:03]earlier draft, thinking I would remember everything, and I got so drawn in, I like read
[2:09]all through the night.
[2:10]It's so good.
[2:12]The final draft is so good.
[2:15]I just blew my mind.
[2:16]I could not put it down.
[2:18]The final scene, oh my god, I was like, like, oh, it was so good.
[2:25]It was so good.
[2:26]Thank you.
[2:27]Thank you.
[2:28]All listeners about the story now that I've read.
[2:31]Okay.
[2:32]So, it's Stash.
[2:34]My life in hiding is about a 10-month period in my life in 2008 when I filed for divorce.
[2:43]I was spiraling down into a pill addiction and I was also at the same time parent association
[2:51]president.
[2:52]I had just been asked to join the board of my kids' school.
[2:55]I was in a high-profile marriage.
[2:58]And so I had all these stakes where I felt like I needed to show up exactly the same
[3:04]way I had been showing up before the addiction took me down.
[3:08]And at the same time, I felt like I needed the pills in order to show up.
[3:12]So it wasn't an option to stop taking the pills and continue to show up for my life or
[3:18]my family.
[3:19]At that point, I had two young kids, boys who were two grown boys now.
[3:25]And so the journey is I filed for divorce, I spiraled down into addiction.
[3:31]I get to a rock bottom where I know that I have to get help.
[3:36]I go to treatment to get help, a place called the Meadows and Arizona.
[3:41]And the hour after I check in, I meet this guy who is, you know, optimistic, kind of
[3:50]of feckless, like very curious about me.
[3:53]I am not interested in a relationship at all.
[3:56]Obviously, I'm dealing with a lot.
[4:00]But he becomes like my rock in treatment.
[4:03]And we end up staying connected afterward.
[4:07]He lived in another state.
[4:08]I live in Los Angeles.
[4:09]But don't give it away.
[4:10]OK.
[4:11]Stop.
[4:12]All right.
[4:13]All right.
[4:14]All right.
[4:16]So basically, it's about that 10 month period in my life.
[4:19]I offer divorce.
[4:21]And I check into treatment for a drug and alcohol addiction.
[4:24]And I get sober.
[4:25]And how many days sober are you now?
[4:27]Oh, I'm, I don't know how many days.
[4:29]I've been sober since August 14, 2008.
[4:33]So 14 plus years.
[4:35]Yeah.
[4:36]We should do that.
[4:37]We should do like the days though.
[4:39]I have, I have an app.
[4:40]I'll, I'll look it up while we're talking.
[4:42]Okay.
[4:43]Exactly how many days I've been sober.
[4:45]It is 5,270 days.
[4:49]So that's amazing.
[4:51]That's such an accomplishment.
[4:53]Because I feel like I'm still with you as like the newbie.
[4:56]Right.
[4:57]When you hit 60 days.
[4:58]Yeah.
[4:59]Oh my gosh.
[5:00]I just, that's such an accomplishment to fast forward.
[5:03]Thank you.
[5:04]Thank you.
[5:05]There to hear.
[5:06]Oh my gosh.
[5:07]There's so much to discuss.
[5:08]Well, your love for your boys is so clear on every page.
[5:12]I don't know if they've read it yet or not.
[5:14]But every move you made, everything was just radiating love and respect for them.
[5:22]And I just like felt like it was one big hug to those, those boys.
[5:27]So I hope that they know and they feel it and that they've read it.
[5:30]If they've read it, I don't know.
[5:32]Are they going to read it?
[5:33]You know, my older one severely dyslexic does not read.
[5:37]Will wait for the audiobook to come out.
[5:40]So it's a possibility that I'll listen to it.
[5:43]It's certainly not his genre.
[5:45]Like,
[5:46]It's not anything he would ever read.
[5:48]Yeah.
[5:49]The younger one has started to read the galley.
[5:52]Wouldn't it be, wouldn't it be funny though if you're sent if you're like,
[5:54]Oh, my son's great.
[5:55]He mostly likes to read memoirs about like middle aged women.
[5:58]You'd be like, Oh, yeah.
[6:00]Okay.
[6:01]That would be really funny.
[6:03]It would.
[6:04]Yeah.
[6:05]My, my younger one is actually a screenwriter and he reads a lot.
[6:09]So this is something he sees it so far.
[6:12]He's just started it as being very cinematic.
[6:15]So he's.
[6:16]It isn't.
[6:17]Part of it.
[6:18]Yeah.
[6:19]Yeah.
[6:20]If the July 4th scene in particular was just so.
[6:23]I mean, all of it was so vivid.
[6:25]And so it was told in such scenes so visual.
[6:28]So.
[6:29]Oh my gosh.
[6:30]You said in the introduction to the book that, you know, your ex was, you know, thank you.
[6:35]And thank Tim for letting you tell the story.
[6:37]This is like a lot about memoirs by nature.
[6:41]Right.
[6:42]Of the genre are so revealing about your own life, but also those around you.
[6:46]And just tell me about how, how he's came to be okay with it or how you dealt
[6:51]with that situation and, and all of that.
[6:54]Well, you know, you, you and I actually had a conversation about this.
[6:59]You know, this is a story that I felt was, that was really important to tell for a variety of reasons, not just for addiction, but also for the divorce element.
[7:16]And, and the, the hanging onto my marriage element when, when it wasn't serving anyone anymore.
[7:23]How terrifying that was to let that go.
[7:26]Even with all of the, there were so many good elements to my marriage as well.
[7:31]There was still so much love there.
[7:33]It was really difficult to make the decision.
[7:36]And, and, and to not be a family anymore, you know, to not be.
[7:40]And we, we are still a family, but does not to not be the family that we were.
[7:44]And.
[7:45]So I felt like that was important to write about because.
[7:49]especially I was 43 at the time of, you know, when in the time period I'm writing about and so many of my friends, my peers were starting to look at their marriages the same way that I was they were starting to consult with divorce attorneys.
[8:05]They were looking at, you know, the, the two houses, the two Thanksgiving's the two birthdays.
[8:12]And I also wrote this book for them, you know, for anybody that's coming up on that precipice wondering what they should do.
[8:19]The way that my ex and I are now is we're really friendly.
[8:25]And we have, you know, I'm patting myself on the back because I think we did an amazing job co-parenting our boys.
[8:33]And we continue to do so.
[8:35]You know, it was just during COVID that I stopped going to his house for Thanksgiving with him and his wife.
[8:42]They just didn't do a big dinner because of COVID and which I completely understood and.
[8:48]And now they're they're they're moving out of the city where I live, but people come to me and want to know how how it's so good, like how, how was the marriage so admirable and how is your divorce also so admirable.
[9:02]And so writing about it was tricky because I had to reveal some things.
[9:09]You know, nothing.
[9:10]I don't think that anybody would look at it and go, oh, it's your fault. Oh, it's his fault.
[9:15]But intimate details about my life and about our life together.
[9:19]And he's a very private person.
[9:22]Believe it or not, I am too, which seems really like, you know, it doesn't make sense because I've written this very revealing vulnerable memoir.
[9:32]But I'm not someone who talks about my relationships in detail with my friends.
[9:37]I give them broad strokes, you know, there are just certain things I keep private and so I really respect his privacy.
[9:45]My idea was to make sure that he wasn't blindsided by anything that he didn't hear that I was thinking about writing this book from anyone else that he didn't hear that I'd procured an agent that he didn't hear that I'd sold it.
[10:00]the Simon and Schuster and, you know,
[10:02]all of that was to come from me.
[10:04]And I gotta tell you,
[10:06]he's just been so supportive along the way
[10:08]and some great conversations about my story
[10:14]and his understanding that it is my story to tell.
[10:17]You know, there were a few parameters
[10:19]that we both discussed before it went to first pass.
[10:23]And I think we were both really okay with where,
[10:27]what stories I wouldn't tell
[10:29]and what stories I would.
[10:31]I think that my story didn't suffer
[10:33]from the editing of those parts out.
[10:36]Actually, I didn't edit them out.
[10:38]I just didn't put them down on paper.
[10:40]Right.
[10:41]So, yeah, I think that was art journey with that.
[10:45]Yeah.
[10:46]I feel like you touched on your relationship
[10:50]with your stepfather
[10:51]and you gave it some time.
[10:54]But I feel like that could have been its own book
[10:56]if you had really gone there
[10:59]and told us about your childhood.
[11:01]I feel like it must have been an intentional choice.
[11:05]You made how much to tell about that
[11:07]as well when some other areas were so revealing.
[11:10]And you, as the reader already does, right,
[11:13]you help connect the dots perhaps I am this way
[11:16]because of this,
[11:16]but maybe you could shed a little more light on that
[11:20]sort of abusive relationship in your own childhood.
[11:24]You know, that was one of the hardest parts for me to write,
[11:27]which is probably why there's not as much of it.
[11:31]I really didn't want to write about him.
[11:33]And like you said, it was necessary
[11:36]because there is a dynamic in my life
[11:38]that was created between he and I
[11:40]that carries over into my teenage years in adult life
[11:43]and the reader needed to know where that dynamic began
[11:47]and how it started.
[11:48]So, I really took a long time, you know,
[11:52]at that time in my life when I got sober,
[11:56]he and I had not reconciled.
[11:58]And he had passed by the time I got sober,
[12:01]but we hadn't reconciled before then
[12:03]and I hadn't forgiven him.
[12:06]And just to be clear,
[12:07]the abuse was emotional, it wasn't physical,
[12:10]it wasn't sexual,
[12:11]but I don't want to diminish any of those,
[12:14]but for me, the impact of that was horrific.
[12:18]Like it was, it was very, it was impossible
[12:22]to be myself during my childhood
[12:25]when he was around.
[12:27]And I know that that I know how it impacted me,
[12:30]I know how it felt then,
[12:31]but I didn't realize how much it impacted me as an adult.
[12:34]So, my editor was very gentle,
[12:37]but asked me to go back and look at that before.
[12:41]And so I did.
[12:42]And yeah, it was, it's just hard to write about him.
[12:47]And I think I've forgiven him now,
[12:50]but I won't ever really know because he's not here.
[12:53]You know, I forgive people in my head all the time.
[12:56]And then I see them and I'm like,
[12:57]her, it all comes back up again.
[13:02]So I have to, I may not,
[13:04]I may not ever really know,
[13:05]but it doesn't weigh heavy on me now.
[13:08]It doesn't occupy space in my head
[13:11]the way that it used to him.
[13:13]So, hopefully it's done.
[13:15]And has it ever affected?
[13:18]Like have you ever really sat down
[13:19]and talked to your mom about it?
[13:21]I have, I have.
[13:23]And without telling too much of her story,
[13:27]she sees things that she could have done differently now.
[13:33]Things that she would have done differently now.
[13:36]But at the time she was unable to do those things.
[13:40]Yeah.
[13:41]Oh my gosh.
[13:43]This divorce lawyer you had just to go
[13:45]on a completely different direction, Nancy.
[13:47]I don't know, that's a real name or not.
[13:49]No.
[13:50]Okay. There is a lot in here about, you know,
[13:53]she's like a main character essentially in her,
[13:57]how she led you through your divorce.
[13:59]And like the lens that she so desperately wanted you
[14:02]to put on and see things through,
[14:06]which, you know, I'll leave the reader
[14:08]to find out what ends up happening.
[14:10]But when you look back on this whole relationship
[14:13]and with other people getting divorced
[14:15]and turning to lawyers, like what's your,
[14:18]what's your, you know, hindsight 2020 view of the situation?
[14:25]You know, just like, you know,
[14:27]ambient is a really good drug for most people
[14:30]and it's very effective.
[14:31]And that's what I was addicted to.
[14:33]I think she's an incredible lawyer,
[14:36]but she probably wasn't the right fit for me.
[14:39]And I was, I was too, like, I was too messed up
[14:44]to think about getting some.
[14:46]And it was, I was too foreign honestly to switch,
[14:50]or I could have switched,
[14:51]but I was too messed up.
[14:52]But, you know, her, her assessment of my situation
[14:58]was very clear.
[15:00]There is this, that there's this that's available.
[15:03]And here's the path so that we get as much of it as we can.
[15:07]Mm-hmm.
[15:08]And that was, that was really it.
[15:09]And my goal was very clear,
[15:12]which was, I need to stay in my kids' lives.
[15:15]And at times, our goals, her advances in mind were at odds.
[15:21]And it was, you know, it's something
[15:25]to have someone fighting for you.
[15:26]And she was the only one fighting for me at times.
[15:28]And I'm so grateful to her.
[15:30]But then there were times where I was fighting her.
[15:32]So that she fight for me the way that I wanted her to fight
[15:35]for me or fight for the things that were my priorities.
[15:39]And so I think, you know,
[15:43]knowing what I know now,
[15:46]I don't know that I would have survived going to court
[15:51]with my sobriety intact.
[15:53]I just, I really don't think I would have.
[15:56]And if we had gone further, I would have had to.
[15:59]So I think I made the right decisions
[16:02]while I was with her, but it was very difficult.
[16:04]And she was, she was, man, I call her a shark.
[16:09]Cause she, I mean, she is.
[16:11]She's still around.
[16:13]She was actually, I got a magazine delivered
[16:16]to my house.
[16:16]That's a local magazine here.
[16:18]And she was on the cover of it.
[16:20]Oh, no.
[16:21]Three weeks ago, I haven't seen her since then.
[16:24]Oh, my gosh.
[16:25]So funny.
[16:26]So she's probably still doing her thing.
[16:28]But that's, I think that she and I, you know,
[16:32]if my priorities have been different,
[16:34]we would have been more aligned
[16:35]and probably had a better experience.
[16:37]You touch in your introduction,
[16:39]but also all throughout the book
[16:41]about sort of this intersection between race and privilege
[16:46]and you and where you fit into this whole sphere
[16:50]and how tell me a little more about that.
[16:53]Well, you know, it's, the racing is really interesting
[16:56]because if, if you think about the,
[16:59]the role models we have for recovery, right?
[17:02]As women, I can't think of any black ones.
[17:06]Honestly, you know, there's Pernet Brown
[17:08]who was, you know, amazing and this model of recovery.
[17:12]There are, there's like Elizabeth Vargas
[17:15]who was the newscaster who got sober
[17:17]and then I can't think of any other ones right now,
[17:19]but none of them are black.
[17:21]If I were to think of war, they wouldn't be black.
[17:23]And then, you know, they're white men as well,
[17:25]like Rich Roll, the podcaster and Doc Shepherd
[17:28]who's also a podcaster and an actor
[17:30]and these, and then Matthew Perry, right?
[17:33]These are, these are our role models for recovery.
[17:36]So being in this situation where I was,
[17:40]where I was in this leadership position in my community,
[17:44]I was in like I said this high profile marriage
[17:47]and there was a certain status that I enjoyed very much.
[17:52]But it came, you know, at a cost,
[17:55]which was that I felt like I needed to maintain that status
[17:59]at all costs.
[18:00]And the cost for me as people read is very dear,
[18:03]but I wanted to maintain it at all costs.
[18:06]And I, there was an extra layer I thought for me
[18:10]for being one of the only black parents in the school
[18:14]for being, you know, one of the only black moms
[18:17]in my community.
[18:18]If I failed, if I was the one,
[18:22]then I would be the example for recovery
[18:25]and for what happens when black people try to get sober.
[18:29]It's like, oh, she didn't make it, you know,
[18:31]oh, so and so, or she's failed.
[18:33]I had this huge, probably still have it fear of failure.
[18:37]I don't think it's acute now,
[18:39]but at that time, I just like, I thought I would die
[18:44]if I was exposed if, you know,
[18:46]they're obviously imposter syndrome.
[18:48]But race for me was a huge part of it
[18:51]because I wanted to be the example of the black excellence.
[18:55]And I felt like I needed to be
[18:57]for all the other black moms to come
[19:00]for all the other black people in my community.
[19:02]I could not fail.
[19:03]Yeah.
[19:04]Well, and yet you have moments like that.
[19:06]And then all these scenes where you're like hiding out
[19:08]from your housekeeper and the girl.
[19:13]Is she still your housekeeper?
[19:15]No.
[19:16]I see, she, she was the worst.
[19:21]Oh, my goodness, really, I mean, you see in the book.
[19:24]I, she was just, she was on me.
[19:27]And, you know, she actually was probably great
[19:32]because she knew what was going on
[19:34]or she suspected.
[19:35]If anybody knew it was her because she has, you know,
[19:38]she's in everywhere.
[19:40]But yeah, she and I were, were at odds the whole time.
[19:44]So as soon as I could, I got rid of her.
[19:46]You said it was hard writing the part about your stepfather.
[19:51]How about the rest of it?
[19:52]Did it all just come out?
[19:53]Like, did you know you wanted to write this book
[19:55]and was it hard or easy?
[19:58]Never sat in front of a blank page.
[20:00]It was always pouring out of me that there are a couple of scenes with my kids that were I was crying through
[20:08]Diane Keaton and as good as it gets or things got to give
[20:12]Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know over her keyboards like that's doing and I definitely had to take breaks
[20:19]But it wasn't because I didn't know what to write next. It was because the emotional toll
[20:25]It was taking on me was was too great and I needed a break where I would watch the Mary Tyler more show or I love Lucy or something and just kind of erase
[20:36]that
[20:37]That that feeling in me and just distract myself from it. I guess and then go back to the keyboard. Yeah
[20:44]Oh my gosh
[20:45]Well, the result is so good and tell me about the cover
[20:49]I love the cover. So the cover is hot pink with a couple pills and a hand like kind of reaching in to grab one
[20:58]But cool font and I mean, I love it. It's so cool. Thank you. Thank you
[21:03]The the font is
[21:05]The same font that they use for black's bloitation films back in the 70s Foxy Brown and coffee and like those types of
[21:13]Was a deliberate choice so that there was some culture brought into it
[21:18]It's also the font for Valley of the Dolls, which looks a lot like this cover. I guess my cover looks a lot like that
[21:26]It is covered with pills, which I like the hand was an interesting touch. There was no hand at first
[21:32]But I really thought it was important that you could tell this was written by a woman of color
[21:37]And we didn't know how to do that with the cover because it was so fabulous
[21:40]You know with all the pills and the and so the hand reaching for a pill was the publisher's idea and
[21:48]It looks exactly like my hand
[21:50]And it's wearing a nice big rock
[21:54]Harry there's privilege there the hand tells a story in itself
[21:58]And I think the cover does as well. So do I got the French manicure going
[22:03]Yeah
[22:06]So for someone who hasn't read your story
[22:09]Like who do you desperately want to reach with your book?
[22:14]I want
[22:17]Really desperately anyone who is afraid to be themselves in whatever circumstance they're in
[22:23]And to see
[22:26]How painful my journey was to live authentically
[22:30]Hopefully
[22:32]People who are afraid to be themselves
[22:34]Don't have to go through what I went through in order to find that freedom
[22:39]To be themselves. I don't want to be a cautionary tale, but I certainly don't mind being one if it helps anybody and
[22:48]It's it is about addiction, but it is really about living authentically and how I
[22:55]Was afraid to do that for so long
[22:58]You know starting with my stepfather because I had to change who I was in order to be in order for the house to be
[23:04]Okay, and so you know I started stashing away pieces of myself
[23:09]you know which ended to ended up with me stashing drugs and alcohol all over the house and
[23:15]Reclaiming that you know after I I got sober and not just because I got sober, but because
[23:21]There was there was this um this moment of clarity that I had
[23:27]that led to
[23:28]Action that I didn't want to take which led to
[23:32]Me discovering that the fear was you know as they say a mile wide a mile high and paper thin
[23:38]I could walk right through it. It's amazing
[23:41]I feel like you know coming into your authentic self
[23:44]You talked so much about like dissociating and how like you used to dissociate from everything and now you're just like
[23:50]The opposite of that. I don't know if it's associating or just being so present
[23:54]But you know you get that from you right away and
[23:58]It's just so great. And here you are like in your element like giving your all to the world and it's just so cool to watch
[24:05]Thank you Zippy
[24:07]So thank you for coming on and for anybody still listening
[24:11]At Laura is coming to our retreat. I'll say this again at the beginning
[24:15]But in Charleston
[24:16]So there are still at this recording at least some tickets left if you want to come meet her in person and she'll be at Zippy's bookshop
[24:23]At some point I got to get the date when is it March?
[24:26]March 23rd March 23rd at Zippy's bookshop in Santa Monica. So you can go to person. I can't wait
[24:35]Laura, thank you. I'm so impressed. I couldn't put it down. It was so good. Congratulations. Oh, yeah, okay
[24:42]That's it
[24:45]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books
[24:49]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens and at moms don't have time to read books
[24:54]Also sign up for my newsletter at zippyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom
[25:00]Every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan back texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon
[25:06]productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music