Paris: The Memoir(87)
I downed a shot of Dream Water. The label said, “Wake refreshed!”
“In my dreams,” I said. “I never wake refreshed. I’m so fucking tired. I’m just—literally my mind is going through what the upcoming months are, and it’s nonstop. Travel all around the world, and I see nothing except hotel room, club, stores. I don’t even know who I am sometimes. I’m always putting on this fa?ade—like a happy, perfect life. I had this plan. I created this brand and this persona and this character, and I’ve been stuck with it ever since. And I didn’t used to be that way.”
It was that skydiving moment. Telling the truth gave me that horribly wonderful, wonderfully horrible feeling of free fall into empty sky.
“Something happened to me. In my childhood.”
Alexandra sat cross-legged on the bed, holding the camera in her steady hands as it all poured out of me.
“They took away all of my control, and I wasn’t allowed to be any, like, have, just like—basically, they take away all of your human rights, and you just like, have nothing. And you just, you literally can’t control—you can’t even like walk or talk or go to the bathroom or cough—everything a normal human being would do, but you have to ask permission. And be locked up. And controlled. And given fifty million rules that like—it made no sense whatsoever. It was just like, literally, create this impossible—I don’t know, it’s like psychological torture. Crazy! It doesn’t even seem real. Like when I talk about it, I’m like, I don’t even know how this is real. But all these other survivors online—I get now that other people like me are out there, and they understand, but they are not being heard. They are not being believed that children are in these places that are worse than prison.”
In scattered bits and pieces, I told her the story I’ve told you in the pages of this book. By the time it was all out, the sky was showing a glow of early dawn. Outside the window, Seoul was a deep blue sea dotted with traffic signals and high-rise offices. Alexandra and I lay on the hotel bed, physically and emotionally drained. We were both crying. Her arms were trembling with fatigue from holding the camera still for hours. I’m in tears now, thinking about her stamina and patience and the generosity it takes to just listen.
“I wish I could bring a camera into my dreams and show you what it’s like,” I said. “It’s terrifying. And I think the only way to have these nightmares stop is to do something about it.”
Throughout the filming and editing of This Is Paris, Alexandra coaxed me far beyond my standard comfort zone, and there were some intense moments when we clashed. I was beyond nervous when she reconnected me with the few girls I knew at Provo, and the final moments of the film follow us to Provo Canyon School, where I stood with fellow survivors on a mission to break the “code of silence” and close down that particular hellhole.
The scariest moment of the whole process was sitting down with my mom and talking to her about what really happened. Studying the expression on her face, I saw disbelief at first and then shock and then deep sadness. All the times I cried for her—so many terrifying nights and miserable days when my heart kept sobbing mom, mom, mom—it’s as if she heard it all at once. Overwhelmed, she covered her face with her hands, pressing her fingers against her forehead, silent for a long moment. When she looked up again, her face was composed and pretty. A mask of grace under pressure. She had to process it in her own way.
At first, I thought she might still be the queen of sweeping things under the rug, but a few days later, I got a text from her with a link to an article about Provo Canyon survivors, as if she wanted me to know she was ready to follow me down the rabbit hole. From there we began a slow, careful conversation about the past, respectful of each other’s feelings, neither one of us wanting to pile on any more pain.
As my advocacy work expands, I’m focused on urgently needed legislation that protects children still in custody, but I’m agonizingly aware of the families torn apart by the troubled-teen industry—families who start out in crisis and end up utterly dismembered with crippling debt and deep, deep emotional scars. They need help, too. They need healing.
Having my mom beside me on legislative action trips gives me hope for those families. Privately, we haven’t sorted through it all. I don’t know if we ever will. Publicly, her willingness to talk about it shows astonishing courage. Her presence sends a simple, powerful message: Mom’s here.
21
Carter likes to say he cured me of my clubitis, which, I guess, is another word for FOMO. And my FOMO was next level. I compulsively kept going, year after year, feeling like I had to make up for lost time.
The carousel ride went around and around, following the same global path year after year: Cannes Film Festival. Let’s go. After Cannes, it’s the Monaco Grand Prix. From there we all fly to Ibiza, then Saint-Tropez, Tomorrowland, Coachella, Burning Man, Ultra Music Festival, Art Basel, Miami, EDC. There was a full calendar of events that could not be missed, and in between the regular stops were red carpets, film premieres, and epic after-parties. I remodeled my new house with acres of closet space, a recording studio, and an updated, grown-up version of Club Paris where I gathered my friends whenever I was home.
Carter and I crossed paths many times during those years. He was at a lot of the same festivals and events, and he tells me he and his brother, Courtney, and cousin Jay crashed several parties at my house. I didn’t invite them—didn’t even know them—but we knew so many people in common, they had no trouble fitting in. Apparently, Jay spent an evening with Snoop Dogg and Suge Knight smoking weed in an upstairs room. He went home to Michigan and told everyone about it, and it became one of the favorite family legends: “That Time Jay Got Stoned with Snoop and Suge.”