Fresh Air — Poet Rachel Eliza Griffiths On Love, Tragedy & ‘Survivor Mode’

Aired: January 20, 2026
Host: Terry Gross
Guest: Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Episode Overview

In this deeply moving episode, poet and writer Rachel Eliza Griffiths joins Terry Gross to discuss her new memoir, The Flower Bearers. Their candid conversation traverses the raw intersections of love, trauma, survival, and creativity. Griffiths reflects on her wedding day joy, which was shattered by the sudden death of her best friend; the attack on her husband, Salman Rushdie; her journey with dissociative identity disorder (DID); the realities of caregiving and grief; and her struggle to assert authenticity as a Black woman writer facing both mental health stigma and workshop skepticism. The episode is marked by Griffiths’s vulnerability, clarity, and profound insights into healing, resilience, and the power of story.

Major Discussion Points & Insights

The Wedding Day: Joy and Traumatic Loss

• Duality of the Day: Griffiths describes her wedding to Salman Rushdie as “both the best and worst day” of her life, celebrating her marriage while coping with the devastating, sudden loss of her best friend Aisha (02:05).

  “I was in this wonderful state of having just gotten married and this kind of golden light at the end of a September day. [...] And something, this kind of storm or coldness, kind of swept over things.” (02:34)

• Shielded from the Truth: Friends and family tried to protect her from Aisha’s death during the wedding, telling her that Aisha couldn’t make it due to Covid. She learned the truth hours later via messages found after searching for her phone. (03:45)

• Immediate Psychological Aftermath: The trauma triggered Griffiths’s dissociative identity disorder, blacking out swaths of her memory of the day and making even looking at photographs difficult.

  “Many parts of my wedding day are blacked out in my memory and are not available to me.” (03:57)

• Alter "June" and Alters in Crisis: Griffiths explains her dissociative experience as different “alters”—versions of herself tied to distinct ages or states—emerge in response to severe stress.

  “There are moments when I’m [...] connected to my altar who as a young child, and my altar, who, in my 20s, [...] I have a future alter who is a really lovely, kind of bold, dazzling older woman, and her name is June.” (06:23)

The Rushdie Attack & Survivor Mode

• Life-Altering Violence: Eleven months after their wedding, Rushdie was attacked and nearly killed. Griffiths recounts the shocking ordinary morning that was ruptured by urgent news.

  “It was August 12th. It was a Friday again. [...] her voice immediately was very, very different. And so she said, you know, I’m coming over right now. Salman’s been hurt. I’ll be right there.” (12:26)

• Shock and ‘Clarifying’ Crisis: In the confusion, she fell down her stairs, but the fall jolted her into focus for the ordeal ahead.

  “I think falling down the stairs was one of the best things that could have happened to me. [...] You need to focus now. It was very clarifying.” (14:31)

• Role as Caregiver: Griffiths became Rushdie’s caregiver—coordinating his medical, security, and emotional needs while suppressing her own distress.

  “Everything was filtered through you... What were you experiencing when he saw you as his rock?”
  “I didn’t cry in the hospital room because I just didn’t think that would be helpful. [...] I was in survivor mode.” (16:28)

• Lasting Impact & Intimacy: The trauma changed them but deepened their bond:

  “It’s hard to watch the love of your life struggle with blindness, with impaired mobility, to feel exhausted. But I’m also trying to really look at what is there.” (18:22) "We really laugh a lot and we really try to support each other." (18:22)

Mental Health, DID, & System Failings

• Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID): Griffiths carefully defines her DID—not as loss of control, but as a protective mechanism formed in response to childhood trauma.

  “I’ve learned to see my Dissociative Identity Disorder as a protector. I’ve befriended it.” (05:20)

• Mental Health Crisis and Policing: In her 20s, after calling the Suicide Prevention and Crisis Hotline, police responded and handcuffed her, criminalizing her distress.

  “Unfortunately, what then took place was a kind of criminalizing of this attempt of me to help myself...” (22:10)

• Complications with Law Enforcement: Paradoxically, her parents were police officers, which complicated her feelings after her own traumatic encounter:

  “I’ve grown up with wonderful [...] law enforcement and having very positive memories [...] It can be a same moment where I’m kind of getting body slammed to the ground.” (28:23)

• Finding Help: This experience led her to a longtime therapist and a transformative journey toward healing, despite the initial trauma.

Childhood, Family, and the Roots of Artistry

• Mother’s Illness and Caregiving: Griffiths shares the loss of normalcy and the responsibilities that came with her mother’s kidney disease starting at age 11.

  “Every five hours of every day for over a decade, she would have to do this at-home dialysis exchange. And it was really hard to witness.” (30:50)

• Complex Parental Relationship: Her mother’s fierce love was often expressed as harsh criticism, which complicated Griffiths’s self-concept as a writer.

  “You can’t strip an identity from a child who is wired to be that way.” (35:47)
  “She was proud of me, and I know that now she was so proud of me.” (36:00)

Authenticity, Black Joy, and the Difficulties of Self-Disclosure

• Workshop Alienation: Griffiths struggled with accusations of inauthenticity in writing about her depression and mental health as a Black woman.

  “It’s soul crushing. It’s maddening, it’s frustrating. [...] I can feel wounded, broken, overwhelmed, and then be front facing, polished, poised, you know, articulate.” (39:23)

• Defining Authenticity: Now, Griffiths insists on her right to define her own authenticity:

  “Who was defining that and making that definition in the first place? Who can tell me I’m authentic or not? I didn’t know that back then, but I know it now.” (39:23)

• On the ‘Tortured Artist’ Trope: She rejects the glamorization of suffering for artists.

  “When you glamorize tortured poets or tortured artists, there’s an injustice, is that they become silhouettes and cutouts. Their humanity is removed from them.” (41:59)

• Path to Healing: Writing and self-reflection become her lifeline—“Once I was able to get stabilized and start to do the inner work and start to heal, I’ll always be healing [...] But this feels like one of the first steps for me in a new life, and I’m really grateful for that.” (43:50)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I have learned and researched and tried to educate myself to help myself live with this diagnosis. [...] That is also a kind of grief.” (03:57) —Rachel Eliza Griffiths
• “When I got to the bottom of this flight of stairs, I just thought, Rachel Eliza, stand up, get up, get focused here. You don’t have time to fall down the stairs and be a wreck and be crying and a. Like, you’ve gotta bear down now.” (14:31) —Griffiths on resilience
• “We really laugh a lot and we really try to support each other. [...] There’s a kind of indescribable bridge and bond we have, having survived such an experience.” (18:22) —Griffiths on her marriage
• “I want to live more than anything. I want to show up. I do not want to die.” (25:26) —After recounting her lowest mental health crisis
• “She was proud of me, and I know that now. She was so proud of me.” (36:00) —Discovering her mother’s secret archive
• “Now at this age, I’m like, I get to decide how authentic I am. I get to define my authenticity, because who was defining that and making that definition in the first place?” (39:23) —On creative autonomy
• “When you glamorize tortured poets or tortured artists, there’s an injustice, is that they become silhouettes and cutouts.” (41:59) —Griffiths on clichés about suffering and artistry

Key Timestamps

• 02:05 — Wedding Day: Joy meets loss; first discussion of Aisha’s death
• 03:57 — Explanation of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
• 06:23 — Alters and dissociation in daily life
• 12:26 — Learning of Rushdie’s stabbing and immediate response
• 14:31 — The fall down the stairs: a clarifying crisis
• 16:28 — Survivor mode: becoming Rushdie’s caregiver
• 22:10 — Mental health crisis: DID episode and the trauma of police intervention
• 30:50 — Childhood, mother’s illness, and forced caregiving
• 35:47 — Mother’s criticism and pride, the complicated roots of identity
• 39:23 — On authenticity and the challenge of being a Black woman writer with mental health struggles
• 41:59 — Dangers of romanticizing the ‘tortured artist’

Summary

This Fresh Air episode with Rachel Eliza Griffiths is a haunting, luminous meditation on the coexistence of joy and grief, and the necessity—and difficulty—of being seen in one’s fullness. Griffiths, with candor and eloquence, demystifies mental illness, caregiving, the artist’s life, and the complex inner worlds we carry. Her story is both intensely personal and quietly universal, offering wisdom, challenge, and hope to listeners navigating their own seasons of pain and survival.