1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:29,840 I want to hear your story, your point of view, tell me what happened to you. 2 00:00:29,840 --> 00:00:36,440 Welcome back to Tell Me What Happened, the podcast that features folks from all walks of life telling 3 00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:44,120 us one true childhood story and how that event, that experience, has impacted who they are today. 4 00:00:44,120 --> 00:00:52,400 I'm your host, Jay Rehak, and like every listener out there, I've had my share of childhood traumas, 5 00:00:52,400 --> 00:00:58,680 dramas, and happy stories. And I'd like to think that everything that's ever happened to me has 6 00:00:58,680 --> 00:01:04,360 made me a better person. And everybody, I always tell people, I know that's not necessarily true. 7 00:01:04,360 --> 00:01:09,120 Some of the things that have happened to me have probably worsened me as a person. But that's the 8 00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:18,800 way I like to think. All right, today I have as my guest, Gabby Iori. Gabby is a born and bred North 9 00:01:18,800 --> 00:01:25,320 Carolinian currently living in Baltimore with her partner and two cats. She's a publicist at 10 00:01:25,320 --> 00:01:32,000 Quirk Books and the digital projects coordinator for Witch Pleas Productions, where she is the 11 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:40,720 video editor and associate producer of Making Worlds. She is a writer, home cook, and storyteller, 12 00:01:40,720 --> 00:01:48,800 and she wants to make you laugh. Welcome to the show, Gabby Iori. Hi Jay, thanks for having me. 13 00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:56,920 Great to have you on the show, Gabby. I know you through my daughter, Hannah, I know you to be 14 00:01:56,920 --> 00:02:05,400 involved actually in podcasting as well as publishing, which is to me extremely cool, especially 15 00:02:05,400 --> 00:02:13,280 since you're a young person and sort of living the artistic dream in a way. Mad respect for you, 16 00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:19,280 that's all. Thanks, that's so nice. Well, listen, Gabby, are you ready to tell your story? I'm ready. 17 00:02:19,280 --> 00:02:23,760 All right, I'm gonna get out of the way. I'm gonna mute myself. At the end, I'll come back and ask a 18 00:02:23,760 --> 00:02:29,360 question or two specifically how you think story that you're about to tell me has impacted who you 19 00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:37,600 are today. But take it away, Gabby. All right, well, funnily enough, I was thinking about this story 20 00:02:37,600 --> 00:02:45,080 on my flight to Chicago when I stayed at your house to meet up with Hannah and the rest of the 21 00:02:45,080 --> 00:02:50,320 Witch-Please team. So it's very full circle that this is happening. But the story I would like to 22 00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:58,320 tell today is about growing up Catholic and the intersection of Catholicism and my OCD diagnosis, 23 00:02:58,320 --> 00:03:07,920 and specifically my first confession in second grade. I was raised Catholic by a Catholic mother 24 00:03:07,920 --> 00:03:14,480 and a Catholic father. Religion seemed to stick more with the with the former, but I grew up 25 00:03:14,480 --> 00:03:20,800 going to Mass every Saturday and it was always a real drag if you know anything about a Catholic 26 00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:28,080 Mass. And I also went to Catechism classes every Tuesday nights at 7.30. And you can tell that 27 00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:34,640 that is a sticking point in my memory because I remember it this many years later. But we had our 28 00:03:34,640 --> 00:03:40,560 first confession, which in Catholicism is referred to as the sacrament of reconciliation, 29 00:03:40,560 --> 00:03:47,200 and it's supposed to be a holy act that essentially purifies the soul after the person doing the 30 00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:54,480 confession shares their sins with a priest. And we had our first one in Catechism class. And it's 31 00:03:54,480 --> 00:04:00,160 important to note that my Catechism class wasn't held at a church. It was held at the Catholic 32 00:04:00,160 --> 00:04:07,600 school that was attached to the church. So I lined up in a hallway with 12 of my other 33 00:04:08,240 --> 00:04:17,200 fellow second graders, and we all individually walked up to an elderly white-haired priest named 34 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:25,520 Donald. And we looked him in the eyes and told him everything that we had done wrong in our minds. 35 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:31,600 And I don't know, you know, most people when they think of Catholic confessions, they think of the 36 00:04:31,600 --> 00:04:38,560 actual confessional where it's a little box type thing that you go into and you're sort of hidden 37 00:04:38,560 --> 00:04:45,440 from the priest, you don't have to look him directly in the eyes and you share your sins that way. 38 00:04:45,440 --> 00:04:52,160 So I was hyper aware of all of my friends in Catechism class leaning up against the wall 39 00:04:52,160 --> 00:04:58,720 six feet away from me. And my voice was so low when telling the father my sins that he, 40 00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:07,280 it's a wonder he was able to hear me at all. But after that, I realized how nice it felt to have 41 00:05:07,280 --> 00:05:15,920 a clean slate of a soul, a pure heart and body and mind. And after that, I started to attend a 42 00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:22,560 confession fairly regularly, because this might be a spoiler for anyone who isn't aware of Catholic 43 00:05:22,560 --> 00:05:28,160 Church teachings. But it's kind of the belief that you're morally evil from the start. And 44 00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:35,680 I started to all these thoughts that I was having thoughts about sex, anger with my parents, the 45 00:05:35,680 --> 00:05:42,240 general hormone fueled bitchiness of being a teenager, they all started to feel morally 46 00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:49,760 reprehensible to me. And I started to think, I need to tell someone about this. And so confession 47 00:05:49,760 --> 00:05:58,720 became an outlet for me to become spiritually healed and not be the terrible person that I 48 00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:07,200 believe myself to be. And little did I know that confession is a pretty early symptom of obsessive 49 00:06:07,200 --> 00:06:14,560 compulsive disorder. It's a way to cleanse the mental palate. OCD is a disorder that really 50 00:06:14,560 --> 00:06:23,120 preys on what ifs and the cycles of thought. And for me, it always went, think bad thing, 51 00:06:23,120 --> 00:06:31,200 well, quote unquote, bad thing, think bad thing, confess, be healed, repeat, and it would be 52 00:06:31,200 --> 00:06:39,920 cyclical like that for years. And I was thinking about this on my flight to Chicago, because I 53 00:06:39,920 --> 00:06:47,200 realized that I still say the our father and the Hail Mary before I take off on an airplane, 54 00:06:47,200 --> 00:06:52,240 which is something I've done since I was a kid. It was a really early flight. And so I was thinking 55 00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:58,560 sort of defenselessly. I was like, well, what if I just didn't? And the OCD voice said something 56 00:06:58,560 --> 00:07:05,920 terrible will happen. And I really started to sort of put together the connections that if I 57 00:07:05,920 --> 00:07:13,520 hadn't necessarily been raised Catholic, I might not have OCD or I might not experience it in the 58 00:07:13,520 --> 00:07:20,720 same way. And it was really interesting for me to reckon with because it was such a both things 59 00:07:20,720 --> 00:07:27,600 were such huge parts of my life in ways that I hadn't put together. So Jay, I think that's my 60 00:07:27,600 --> 00:07:35,280 I think that's my Catholic story. Oh my gosh, I it resonates with me so much, Gabby. I 61 00:07:36,160 --> 00:07:42,880 really appreciate you telling it and sort of articulating the way you said it, which was 62 00:07:42,880 --> 00:07:52,160 commit the sin or whatever, confess, feel better, the cycle, you know, and then sin again, repeat, 63 00:07:52,160 --> 00:07:57,200 you know, the whole thing. And I remember as a young boy feeling similarly, which is when I'd 64 00:07:57,200 --> 00:08:03,360 get out of confession for a minute, I go, I am, I'm in good shape, but it wouldn't last very long 65 00:08:03,360 --> 00:08:10,960 to say. So let me ask you, how do you think and you, you began to actually already explain it, 66 00:08:10,960 --> 00:08:16,480 but how do you think that what happened to you as a second grader, your first confession, 67 00:08:16,480 --> 00:08:21,360 very public, by the way, I never had a public confession in my life that would be very painful 68 00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:28,240 to me to have my classmates listening in. But how do you think that second grade first confession 69 00:08:29,360 --> 00:08:38,480 has impacted you as an adult? Yeah, absolutely. So like I said, I have no idea at the time it was 70 00:08:38,480 --> 00:08:47,760 the early 2000s and early 2010s, I had no idea that there was more to obsessive compulsive disorder 71 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:54,800 than obsessive handwashing and meticulous organization, because that's what was presented 72 00:08:54,800 --> 00:09:03,040 in media. And that's just what I had grown up seeing. So after leaving the church in my 20s, 73 00:09:03,040 --> 00:09:10,320 and finally getting a diagnosis, I realized that I wasn't a fundamentally bad person, 74 00:09:11,760 --> 00:09:18,080 which, as you can imagine, opened life up for me in a way that I hadn't experienced before. 75 00:09:18,880 --> 00:09:27,280 So I feel like that first confession started a really unpleasant arc, a really unpleasant 76 00:09:27,280 --> 00:09:36,560 through line for the rest of my life up until I was about 21, where I would feel morally 77 00:09:36,560 --> 00:09:45,360 reprehensible because I had thoughts, because I was a person who had thought about things, and I 78 00:09:46,400 --> 00:09:51,600 would do my confessions. And eventually, sometimes those confessions turned into 79 00:09:51,600 --> 00:09:59,120 just telling anyone who would listen. I have a vivid memory, not to bring in another memory, 80 00:09:59,120 --> 00:10:05,120 but I have a memory of asking my mom when I was a kid if I could do confession with her, 81 00:10:05,120 --> 00:10:09,120 because we couldn't go to church. And she was like, sure, but it's not going to have the same 82 00:10:09,120 --> 00:10:15,120 effect. And I was like, I don't care, I just need to have it done and get that reassurance that I 83 00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:24,960 wasn't the bad person that I thought I was. So once I left the church and I stopped believing 84 00:10:24,960 --> 00:10:32,640 that I was going to go to hell because I was rude to someone or had an impure thought, that was 85 00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:38,640 another big one for me. I felt like the world opened up for me in a way that I had never 86 00:10:38,640 --> 00:10:46,560 experienced. I have been a journaler ever since I was in my early teens, and I have journal entries 87 00:10:46,560 --> 00:10:54,160 from probably when I was 20 or so and just starting to leave the church and get this diagnosis 88 00:10:54,720 --> 00:11:01,280 and start medication and things like that, where I wrote that it felt like someone had opened the 89 00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:07,440 curtains in my brain and opened the windows. And I was able to feel fresh air for the first time 90 00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:16,560 in my life. And I think people who don't have OCD don't necessarily realize how time consuming it 91 00:11:16,560 --> 00:11:23,360 is to have OCD. So I'm spending so much time checking my thoughts, checking myself, putting 92 00:11:23,360 --> 00:11:28,880 on clothes in the right order so that nothing terrible would happen, things like that. And 93 00:11:28,880 --> 00:11:35,440 then spending an equal amount of time telling everyone about it. And everyone would say, 94 00:11:35,440 --> 00:11:44,720 well, okay. And it was only a big deal to me. So now with the curtains open, I'm able to push those 95 00:11:44,720 --> 00:11:52,000 thoughts away in a way that I've never been able to do before. And I feel like the last four or 96 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:58,240 five years that I've been medicated and not a practicing Catholic have been some of the most 97 00:11:58,240 --> 00:12:07,520 rich and fulfilling of my life. I love it. I'm so happy for you to peel that away. I think 98 00:12:08,160 --> 00:12:14,400 I have a generic understanding of OCD too, of when washing of the hands or whatever, 99 00:12:15,040 --> 00:12:23,840 or following a certain ritual. And the idea of, unfortunately, the Catholic church and the cycle 100 00:12:23,840 --> 00:12:30,160 of making you feel bad or that we were all born rotten people and all we can do is keep more or 101 00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:35,200 less washing ourselves over and over again is really what they're suggesting is a constant 102 00:12:35,200 --> 00:12:41,840 washing of the brain or whatever. And it can become obsessive compulsive. And I think I'm so happy 103 00:12:43,360 --> 00:12:50,240 you broke out of it. It's leaving me with thoughts of my own ruminations where I 104 00:12:50,240 --> 00:12:56,080 get into continuous cycles of good person. No, I'm a terrible person. No, you know, 105 00:12:56,080 --> 00:13:00,000 and the fact that I think that I'm a good person makes me a terrible person. And the fact that 106 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:04,960 I'm a terrible person, no, I'm not. That's just my brain telling it. And then you get into, 107 00:13:04,960 --> 00:13:12,560 and as you said, the exhausting quality of the cycle and those people who suffer from genuinely 108 00:13:12,560 --> 00:13:19,200 how hard that must be because just exhausted all the time, I would think. Yeah, a lot of the time, 109 00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:27,360 it's like a constant wheel turning or always spiraling about something. And I've read so many 110 00:13:27,360 --> 00:13:34,800 beautiful books about people living with OCD and more eloquent metaphors than I've come up with. 111 00:13:34,800 --> 00:13:40,000 But it really, it really is so interesting that I didn't put these two things together until 112 00:13:40,800 --> 00:13:46,160 so recently. I was only in Chicago a couple of weekends ago. So you're getting it fresh. 113 00:13:46,160 --> 00:13:51,920 Well, thank you very much. I have to pull back a minute and just say, I started this podcast 114 00:13:51,920 --> 00:13:57,600 four years ago. I was a high school teacher. I was modeling the students that I required everybody 115 00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:01,520 to make a podcast. And they said, well, let me see what you're doing. And I said, all right, 116 00:14:01,520 --> 00:14:07,200 I'll make this podcast. And the reason I made the podcast in my heart was because I wanted to have 117 00:14:07,200 --> 00:14:12,560 young people understand from older people that when you're young, there's a lot of things that 118 00:14:12,560 --> 00:14:21,520 happen to you that you can unlearn or undo or just become aware of. And your story resonates with me 119 00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:26,880 as a helpful story to other young people and older people too. I don't mean that, 120 00:14:26,880 --> 00:14:32,160 but I just want you to know that my audience skews younger. I think there will be somebody out there 121 00:14:32,160 --> 00:14:36,560 who will be touched by what you're talking about and go, oh yeah, I guess I don't have to be. 122 00:14:36,560 --> 00:14:44,480 I guess constantly washing my brain of because it's impossible because we're all thinking people and 123 00:14:45,520 --> 00:14:51,120 you know all this. I don't mean to be preaching or talking about it, but I'm trying to say thank you 124 00:14:51,120 --> 00:14:57,120 because my audience, some of my people in my audience will really resonate like it's 125 00:14:57,120 --> 00:15:02,160 resonating with me. That's what I'm trying to say. Thank you. I really appreciate that because 126 00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:08,720 it's really important to me that if there is someone like me who I could have really used 127 00:15:08,720 --> 00:15:16,160 someone saying this back when I was probably not in second grade, but probably when I was 13, 14, 128 00:15:16,960 --> 00:15:23,360 19, I really would have appreciated hearing this from someone, I think. So I really appreciate 129 00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:30,560 you giving me the chance to talk about it. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you, Gabby. You're a 130 00:15:30,560 --> 00:15:37,840 great story. Great ending. I appreciate it. All right. Well, that's our show. Until next time, 131 00:15:37,840 --> 00:16:01,920 this is Jay Rehack asking you all to please stay safe out there and try not to hurt anybody.