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Modern Love
Neko Case: ‘If I Didn’t Yell the Truth, What Good Was I?
00:40:55
In a new memoir out next week, the singer-songwriter Neko Case shares some painful childhood memories. In the studio with Anna Martin, Case is open and unapologetically angry as she describes being treated like “an unwanted child.” Both parents, she says, struggled with trauma and addiction. They often left her with no food and only her pets for company. Case also reads a Modern Love essay about the complex heartbreak that comes with being estranged from a parent with an addiction, and the joys of finding love and acceptance in the wake of that pain. Neko Case’s memoir, “The Harder I Fight the More I Love You,” comes out Jan. 28. Caitlin McCormick’s Modern Love essay, “My Mother, the Stranger,” can be found here. McCormick, who recently published a short fiction piece in The Sewanee Review, is working on a novel. Listener callout alert: For our upcoming Valentine’s Day episode, the Modern Love team wants to hear about a moment when you knew you were falling for someone. Whether ...
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- [00:00]
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- [00:14]
Anna Martin
To the People hey everyone, it's Anna. Before we get started today, I just want to ask a quick favor. We're working on our Valentine's Day episode and we want you to be a part of it. Can you tell us about the moment you knew you were falling in love? Where were you? What was happening? What did it feel like? It can be about a relationship you're currently in or a relationship from the past. We just want to know about the moment you could tell hey, I'm falling in love with this person. Record your answer as a voice memo and email it to modernlovepodcastytimes.com and we may end up featuring it on the show one more time. Tell us about the moment you knew you were falling in love and send it as a Voice Memo to ModernLove podcastytimes.com we are so excited to hear from you if you want to be included in the episode. Your deadline is February 5th. Okay, let's start the show.
- [01:12]
NETCredit
Love now and did you fall in love last?
- [01:15]
Nico Case
Love is stronger than anything you offer.
- [01:18]
NETCredit
And I love you more than anything.
- [01:20]
Anna Martin
Anything there's to love Love from the New York Times, I'm Anna Martin. This is Modern Love. Every week we bring you stories inspired by the Modern Love column. We talk about love, sex, friends, family, and all the messiness of human relationships. Our guest this episode is singer songwriter Nico Case.
- [01:45]
Nico Case
The most tender place in my heart is for strangers I know it's unkind but my own blood is much too dangerous.
- [01:59]
Anna Martin
Keis has been making music for nearly three decades, and her songs have always struck me as so personal and emotional at the same time. Though you can't really tell when Case is writing as herself. She's referred to a handful of her songs as autobiographical, but she also weaves in fictional characters, animals, even planets. Kace has a new memoir coming out this month, and she's clearly ready to share some of the most beautiful and brutal parts of her life. The memoir is called the Harder I Fight the More I Love you. In it, she writes that her parents got together, then split up when they were very young. They barely had the money or the time to meet her basic needs. But what was even more painful was how little attention they gave her. She describes experiencing neglect in heartbreaking detail, then striking out on her own as a teenager and creating a chosen family through music. Today, Nico Case reads a Modern Love essay by a daughter who had to cut her mother out of her life in order to protect herself. And Keis tells me what the absence of her mom when she was younger means to her now. Nico Case, welcome to Modern Love.
- [03:19]
Nico Case
Thank you very much for having me.
- [03:21]
Anna Martin
Your new memoir opens with a scene where you're playing a show somewhere and you write, I love a stranger and a new city. I want to know their stories. What is it that draws you to people you don't know?
- [03:34]
Nico Case
I just think they're really surprising. And I think you can find something in common with pretty much anyone. And I think there's something attractive about every person, too. I mean, there are exceptions, but for the most part, most people have something attractive about them and. Interesting.
- [04:00]
Anna Martin
Can you tell me how you attempt to perhaps find that kind of common ground with someone who might seem very dissimilar to you?
- [04:09]
Nico Case
Well, it has to be natural. You can't just bust up to someone and be like, tell me about your childhood. I mean, you could, but do you eat Funyuns? You know, you can't. I mean, you can, I guess, but one of the main ways to get people to talk is if you ask them what's good to eat in their city, and people get really excited to tell you about stuff like that. Or like, where do you go to buy your records if you want to buy from a local person?
- [04:36]
Anna Martin
I do feel like living in this kind of unguarded way. Attempting to connect with strangers is quite rare for someone who has a public career like yours. Does it strike you that way?
- [04:46]
Nico Case
Mm. I'm not really that recognizable. I have a very cubist face, and I wear my hair up a lot, and I look like a totally different person, so no way. Yeah. And I don't know I get away with it, which is fine. I mean, I'm not like, super famous or anything anyway. People don't know it's me unless they just saw me on stage, I think.
- [05:06]
Anna Martin
Do you like that?
- [05:07]
Nico Case
I do. Because you can go to the grocery store. There you go, you know.
- [05:13]
Anna Martin
Well, I am. I'm a little nervous now because you just told me where you stand on asking people about their childhood when you've just met them. But I hope you'll forgive me, because you have written a new memoir that is all about your childhood, and you really hold nothing back from your descriptions of what Your early life was like and how hard things were for you living with your parents as a kid. Can you just give me a sort of sketch of what life was like for you growing up?
- [05:41]
Nico Case
Well, I. I mean, if it was a school year, I'd live with my dad, who was a very quiet person, also a drug addict, very depressed. He wasn't awful or mean or anything. He just wasn't really there, and I could not get his attention. You know, we were really poor, and we lived in kind of a crappy house that was kind of wet, and often there just wasn't anything to eat. So what I would do is I would just kind of sit around and turn on the space heater and sit in front of the TV and watch, like, Gilligan's island, which I fucking hated. I didn't have anything else to do.
- [06:17]
Anna Martin
You also mentioned in your memoir that you spend, you know, most of the time, the school year at your dad's, and then you. You also spend summers at your mom's. And that's kind of where I feel like the. The. You really get a sense of. It wasn't just that your parents were checked out.
- [06:32]
Nico Case
You were.
- [06:33]
Anna Martin
You were really neglected. And I wonder if you can talk about that period when you were functionally kind of abandoned by your mom for hours.
- [06:42]
Nico Case
Yeah. I mean, part of it was what was acceptable in the 70s. You know, there's a lot of Gen X jokes about. You know, nobody raised us, but I, like, my parents had to go to work. We were poor. So I don't. I'm not mad at them for not, you know, being around. Like, I understand that they had to go to work.
- [07:04]
Anna Martin
Yeah.
- [07:05]
Nico Case
Some of it was fun, you know, some of it was, like Huck Finn style. But there were no other characters in the story. It was just animals, you know, my dogs and my cats, and we. We would go to the river, and it was so beautiful. And so on that hand, it was a really magical experience. And on the other hand, it was like a kid can only take so much of that a day. It just felt like forever. But I was just always trying to get people to notice me, my parents, and to even just, like, be with me. I kind of thought I was sort of this extra thing that was around that was kind of in the way. But I didn't think much of myself either. So there wasn't like, some great rebellion at hand because I hadn't really connected the things. It was just like, this sucks.
- [08:07]
Anna Martin
You felt discarded.
- [08:09]
Nico Case
Mm.
- [08:09]
Anna Martin
What were the ways that you would try to get Their attention.
- [08:15]
Nico Case
Being good at things like making pictures. I tried to be a really good artist. I tried to be really good at drawing. I would learn a lot of things, and I didn't know I was doing it, like, facts about animals or, you know, what artist a song was by or who played bass on that song or what town that band was from.
- [08:37]
Anna Martin
Trying to impress them.
- [08:38]
Nico Case
Yeah, just like, you know, I know a lot about animals or just, you know, just trying to seem useful somehow.
- [08:47]
Anna Martin
And did that work?
- [08:49]
Nico Case
Oh, God, no.
- [08:51]
Anna Martin
Was this a practice that you continued as a kid, but then into your sort of teenage and adult life as well, trying to get their attention, trying to be useful or noticed?
- [09:00]
Nico Case
I think I tried that into my, you know, late 30s. I mean, there were disconnects here and there, but my dad, I feel, you know, I understand him, whereas my mother, I don't. And all I know, like, I have a lot of compassion for the fact that, you know, she had a kid when she was a kid and didn't want the kid. Like, yeah, I don't blame you for being bummed out and depressed, of course.
- [09:28]
Anna Martin
Yeah.
- [09:29]
Nico Case
Like, as a little, little kid, I didn't really understand that. But I don't feel like I had a loving mother snatched away from me. I feel like I always. You know, it was always conditional.
- [09:47]
Anna Martin
Yeah. I mean, it really comes across, I was gonna say, in your memoir, that sort of feeling of being unwanted is very visceral for you and incredibly painful to read about. And you describe your mom, especially, having a coldness towards you in multiple scenes throughout the book.
- [10:05]
Nico Case
Well, when, you know, it sucked. But at the same time, it's like, I thought everybody kind of lived that way. But then every now and again, I would go over to a friend's house or something, and I'd be like, wow, they're eating dinner and they're talking to each other, and the parents were around, and they have a pantry. There's a bunch of food in there. You can just eat it whenever you want.
- [10:25]
Anna Martin
Yeah.
- [10:26]
Nico Case
You know, like, you're warm in here. What? There's food and stuff, and people like you and talk to you, and it's cool. And I would be really shy, but then they would talk to me, and I would be like, whoa, maybe I could live here somehow.
- [10:41]
Anna Martin
What did it feel like to know that other families related to each other so differently than yours?
- [10:48]
Nico Case
It was. It wasn't hopeful. It was more like, are you kidding me? Like, what's going on? Like, why? Why do I live a different way? I mean, then again, you know, I was also a kid, so I didn't think really hard about it. There was just like, you know, kind of a low grade humming of, I just always wanted to get to the next place. It's like, okay, well, I'll get this over with.
- [11:21]
Anna Martin
As in childhood.
- [11:22]
Nico Case
Yeah, like, and maybe I'll get to another place or. Or if I was around my grandmother, I felt wanted. And so it'd be like, okay, well, I guess I have, like six more weeks of school and then maybe I'll go visit my grandma. But living with my parents wasn't that. But I've worked through a lot of it. I mean, I've really worked really hard to, you know, make a space for myself in all that and to just go, yeah, that was fucked up. You shouldn't have been there.
- [11:58]
Anna Martin
Well, I have a lot more questions for you about some of the things you've revealed when it comes to your mom specifically, and how you did all that work to process everything that happened to you. But before we do that, I would love for you to read this Modern Love essay that you've selected. Is there anything you want to say to tee up the essay? Why you chose it, why it speaks to you?
- [12:22]
Nico Case
Well, I chose it because this person is desperate to find forgiveness for their mother, or I am not. And I have a very different view of forgiveness and think that it is a really sacred, amazing thing. But in certain situations, it's also a total crock and a responsibility that should not be put on someone who's already gone through so much. You do not have to forgive people. If that's work for you. Hell no.
- [12:51]
Anna Martin
Wow. Yeah.
- [12:51]
Nico Case
Hell no. If you find forgiveness, you're incredible. But if you don't find forgiveness, you're incredible. It's not something that you need to do to be better. It's something you find if you're lucky. But if you want to work on yourself, the goal is not for them. The goal is for you. And if forgiveness isn't in there, who cares? Like, some things are unforgivable. Forgiveness is beautiful. The real thing, it's kind of like the concept of justice. It's flaunted a lot, but it's like forgiveness and justice are not one thing. They're kind of an atmosphere and they're a state of being that's very organic and alive. It's not a thing you reach and then you're there and then you're good. It's like, it has to be a systemic, healthy thing.
- [13:48]
Anna Martin
What a way to prime us for this essay. If you are ready, I would love to hear you read this. My Mother the stranger by Caitlin McCormick.
- [13:56]
Nico Case
I would also like to say, like, what I just said is not a reflection on Caitlin McCormick either, because every single person's reaction to how their parents treat them is theirs. And it's super valid. And I don't think she's drinking the Kool Aid or anything. I didn't mean it that way. I'm just saying, like, that's not what I chose totally.
- [14:14]
Anna Martin
No, no, no, I think that came across. I mean, what you're saying is forgiveness is important to her. And as you said, that's beautiful. And if that's something that feels important to you to achieve, then sort of go forth. You're saying for you, you found that forgiveness is not something that you are, that you need to give. I think that was very, very clear. It was not a remark on her. Her choices are hers and. And yours are yours. And I cannot wait to hear you read this in just a moment. We'll be right back.
- [14:53]
NETCredit
This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. You know, when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself, talking to someone who understands can really help. But who is that person? How do you find them? Where do you even start? Talkspace. Talkspace makes it easy to get the support you need. With Talkspace, you can go online, answer a few questions about your preferences, and be matched with a therapist. And because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule wherever you feel most at ease. If you're depressed, stressed, struggling with a relationship, or if you want some counseling for you and your partner or just need a little extra one on one support, Talkspace is here for you. Plus, Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members. Have a $0 copay. No insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off of your first month with promo code SPACE80 when you go to talkspace.com, match with a licensed therapist. Today at talkspace.com Save $80 with code SPACE80@Talkspace.com it's another wild weeknight.
- [15:55]
Hannah Dreier
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- [16:36]
Nico Case
My Mother the Stranger by Caitlin McCormick I found Soph on an app. I met her at a red lit wine bar in the West Village. She was exactly as pictured, except warmer, more aglow, sheepish and charming, with a full laugh that I wanted to swallow for myself. She went in for a hug. When I approached her, I already knew she was Australian. Over text, I made her swear to explain in person how she'd ended up here. It was the gray mush between Christmas and New Year's, the only time New York feels like finding a quiet, unlocked bedroom at a party. It matched my mood. Weeks earlier, I had gone through a breakup that upset me because it didn't upset me. Heartbreak at 23, I decided, should have felt like a great medieval slaying, like being cut open at the wine bar. Soph told me about how her father had met her mother, a born and raised New Yorker, when he was visiting from Sydney decades ago. Soph was here for a few months to spend time with her mother's side of the family while on summer break from veterinary school. She hoped to move to the city in the fall, finally making good use of her dual citizenship. And your mom lives in Sydney now? I asked. Well, she did, soph said. We lost her a few years ago, actually. I almost asked her to repeat herself. I wanted to dissect her delivery. I couldn't believe she had so effortlessly nailed a tone I'd been chasing for the past three years. In fact, I was so stunned that I told her something I normally save for the sixth date, or the ninth, or never. I had also lost my mother. In a way, we were estranged. I was good at being estranged from my mother, and I was good at making other people feel comfortable about our estrangement. But I was bad at talking about it. My mother was an alcoholic and not the COVID kind. She stole, lied, and cheated. She spoke to me only with cruelty until eventually, after my parents separated several years ago, I cut her off entirely. I lived the adult life I did with a job I loved, friends who loved me, and hobbies and interests, things that eventually my mother had none of. Not despite our estrangement, but because of it. I felt an obligation to be a kind of estrangement poster child, a living, breath breathing embodiment of look, life goes on. I went to group therapy and solo therapy. I hosted a legendary friendsgiving where guests were required to bring a dish their mother might have prepared. I joked about mommy issues with both irony and sincerity. Still, it never stopped being hard. I owed no one an explanation in theory. Yet in practice I did. I came out as gay often, but I came out as someone without a mother constantly. I never felt that I had the right shorthand. She was an unwell person, but for the first 18 years of my life, she had been a beautiful, successful, sparkly person. She loved me fiercely. And then, in only a matter of years, she plummeted into a dark cave where none of us could follow. How are you supposed to let anybody in again after such betrayal? I had no answer. Every day I understood addiction less. It's not the same, I said to Soph that first evening. Her mother had died from cancer. I just mean that I also don't have a mom. It's absolutely the same, soph said, and like everything else she told me, I believed her. The next day, I hosted a New Year's Eve dinner party. We ate Caesar salad and French fries and leek soup and drank wine with funky paper labels. I told everyone that the day before, I'd met someone sparkly. On our second date, we walked 30 blocks uptown along the park to my apartment around Strawberry Fields. She said, an injured bird has a fighting chance if it retains its grip strength. She held her finger out to me like a hooked talon to demonstrate. She would leave in March. So over the next few months, I broke all my own rules. Soph could see me twice in a week, then three times, then four. Soph could meet my friends. Soph could come to Tuesday trivia. We could be exclusive, but only until she left. In coming to know Soph, I also came to know her mother. Here was her mother's favorite cocktail bar, her favorite French bistro, her childhood neighborhood. Not only did Soph know New York at least as well as I did, but she knew it through her mother's eyes. I envied the way she casually slotted her mother into everyday conversation, including and honoring her as if it cost nothing. It's different, I said. Your mom was sick. Your mom is also sick, though, she told me. I wondered what it would be like to honor my mother in the same way, to honor her with the kind of absolution we usually reserve for the dead to mourn not who she had become, but who she had once been, and not worry whether it was a grace she deserved. And so I did exactly that. I tried to relearn how to talk about my mother. How to say that she was a professional chef by trade who had served powerful people in cities all over the country, including New York, that simultaneously she had been the kind of mother who paid her taxes, blanched her broccoli with good kosher salt, and texted bitmojis that said, I'm so proud of you. I started pointing out things that reminded me of her work, clogs worn with dresses, Joan Osborne and Joni Mitchell, any storefront that used to be a Dean and DeLuca. I wished I knew even more, like where so many years ago our mothers could have passed each other on the street. It was only then, as things go, that out in Arizona my mother entered the hospital for late stage liver disease. First the doctors guessed that she had two or three years. This became a month. I booked the flight for a week out. Then finally, as I took the subway to Queens to meet Soph's grandmother, it became days. If you have something to say, now would be the time to come home, my father said when I got off at the earliest stop I could, which happened to be City Field. When Soph met me in the parking lot, I asked her in so many words and without the prepared speech I had hoped to give to be my girlfriend. The next day I flew to Tucson. By the time my plane touched down after two layovers, my mom was unconscious. My relationship with my mother was a movie. I had put on pause to leave the room, only to return to find the credits playing. I haven't decided if this was her version of Grace. I still don't know what I would have said. Besides, I love you and I forgive you. And why don't I know your favorite cafe downtown? Why won't I ever know? I have no choice but to believe this was enough. Like love, there is not much to say about death that hasn't been said before. It is often a lot of waiting around. I gathered with aunts and uncles and siblings as my mother lay in hospice. We discussed whether we liked the eggplant curry we had ordered better than the chicken. We played board games and listened to my mother's breathing, quieting to hear it slow. Ultimately, we lost her. When I am asked how I'm doing in that particular limp tone that we use for terrible things, I try on grief truisms like old jeans. I say I'm fine and also cut open. I am like Little Red Riding Hood lost in the woods. In my best moments, though, I'm learning to use these questions to continue the work I started, which is to Say I use them to talk about my mother. I attempt past tense. She was beautiful and successful and sparkly. She took her chardonnay with ice. At the end of each day on the phone with my girlfriend 14 hours in the future, I ask her questions. Did you know I asked with urgency about the smell of death, about old voicemail messages, about all matters of grief. Yes, I know. She always says. She says she likes the idea that someone only dies the last day someone says their name. I like this truism best of all. She promises me that we have forever to master. Talking about it, I think we must spend forever trying.
- [26:16]
Anna Martin
What did it feel like to read that essay? What comes to mind?
- [26:19]
Nico Case
It felt like I was reading about somebody who was healthy and just. I'm excited for her that she has a really nice girlfriend who is so compassionate and so cool to like, put a nice Runway out for her to, like, do her tap dance on. You know what I mean?
- [26:40]
Anna Martin
Yeah. By tap dance, you mean to sort of understand her own loss or her own grief?
- [26:44]
Nico Case
Yeah. She's like, come on into my parlor and do all the tap dancing you want and, you know, get it out. And I'll be here and I'll watch and I'll actually be interested and engage with you while you're tap dancing.
- [26:54]
Anna Martin
You're reacting to the support of Soph throughout this essay. You're saying that Caitlin has this beautiful love that sort of nurtures her through this very difficult period of loss.
- [27:06]
Nico Case
Yes. And also, you know, the undercurrent, like she doesn't understand and she'll never understand. But, you know, accepting that you'll never understand is. Okay.
- [27:24]
Anna Martin
We'll be right back.
- [27:39]
NETCredit
This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. You know, when you're really stressed or not feeling so great about your life or about yourself, talking to someone who understands can really help. But who is that person? How do you find them? Where do you even start? Talkspace. Talkspace makes it easy to get the support you need. With Talkspace, you can go online, answer a few questions about your preferences, and be matched with a therapist. And because you'll meet your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule wherever you feel most at ease. If you're depressed, stressed, struggling with a relationship, or if you want some counseling for you and your partner or just need a little extra one on one support, Talkspace is here for you. Plus, Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a zero dollar copay no insurance. No problem. Now get eighty dollars off of your first month with promo code space80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com save eighty dollars with code space80@talkspace.com my name's Hannah Dreier.
- [28:41]
Jennifer Rawhouse
I'm an investigative reporter at the New York Times. So much of my process is challenging my own assumptions and trying to uncover new information that often goes against what I thought, thought I would find. All of my reporting comes from going out, seeing something and realizing, oh, that's actually the story. And that reporting helps readers challenge their own assumptions and come to new conclusions for themselves. This kind of journalism takes resources. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of reporting trips. If you believe that that kind of work is important, you can support it by subscribing to the New York Times.
- [29:38]
Anna Martin
So, Nico, can you talk about any parallels between what Caitlyn wrote about her relationship with her mom and. And your own story about your mom?
- [29:48]
Nico Case
She's a gnarly drunk. That's about it. One thing in here that really struck me is when she says every day she understands addiction less. And I've never heard it put so simply. And it's a really, really strong sentence and a really strong thought. It's like, yeah, I understand addiction less all the time, too. And, you know, there's all of us that have been abused by people who've, you know, really struggled with addiction and et cetera, and where is our support? Like, there's so much support for people with addiction, which is awesome. I'm not saying that that's bad. I'm just saying, like, inside I have this inner, like, struggle.
- [30:40]
Anna Martin
Huh. Where is.
- [30:41]
Nico Case
In my life and in my body and, like, in. In my daily practice? Like, no, I do not. I'm not, like, begrudging people treatment. Like, absolutely. And if people have the strength to do that, like, please, yes, good. Save your life is important. We need to save it, you know, and it's important for people around you, you know, But I just. I think about all the people who just abandoned or there's. There's no. It's just the most hollow place. It is the loneliest, most hollow place. And I guess. And there, you know, there is support for people who've had parents who are really abusive in that way, but it's pretty thin, and people can find each other and stuff. But, you know, abandonment and abuse is a really big deal.
- [31:41]
Anna Martin
I feel like I can kind of hear young Nico speaking through that answer through what you just said. You said, it's a lonely place to be. And I can. I sort of. I feel like I hear child, you speaking.
- [31:53]
Nico Case
That lonely place never goes away, ever.
- [31:58]
Anna Martin
You talked about your sort of immediate reaction to this essay was feeling very happy for Caitlin that she had this support in Soph. And I guess I wonder, hearing you talk about the sort of. The grief that never leaves, the loneliness that never leaves in your life, have you found a sof. Have there been people that have showed you a different way of being or loving? Can you maybe talk about someone in specific that you would be able to share?
- [32:25]
Nico Case
Well, I have a good friend named Jennifer Rawhouse, and she's married to my dear friend John Rawhouse, who plays pedal steel in my band. And she runs a nonprofit organization called Peer Solutions, where she helps kids help other kids talk about things like abuse and sexual abuse. And she has a lot of kids who are trans and, you know, just people from all over the place who have kind of been kind of shoved aside for whatever reason, like, all the reasons that we're cruel to people in our society. And she's just so good at talking about things. And I remember one day I said something like, yeah, and I was really upset. And she goes, of course you are. Of course you're upset. And I remember it kind of gave me whiplash. I was like, whoa. Really? Yeah. And then I felt like, okay, I just grew a little muscle or something, or some little pocket was filled up in a nice way.
- [33:30]
Anna Martin
Yeah. What about that was so. What about that was so striking to you?
- [33:35]
Nico Case
I watch her be compassionate to people all the time. And then, you know, she did it to me. And, you know, she went through horrible abuse as a kid. Like, absolutely surreal horrible abuse. And she's really loud about it. And her loudness, I think, is something that made me really accept it when she said, of course you're upset, and she's not afraid to be loud. And I always felt really. What's the word? I just felt like I wasn't the only person who was loud and. Cause often you feel like you're just screaming underwater and no one can hear you.
- [34:13]
Anna Martin
And her saying, of course validating that emotion felt like you were screaming together.
- [34:18]
Nico Case
It's like, yeah, I'm not the only person who's like, you know, you're taught this set of values as you're growing up by the television, and they're supposed to be American values or whatever. You know, tell the truth and all this stuff. Nobody wants to hear the fucking truth.
- [34:32]
Anna Martin
Yeah, yeah.
- [34:32]
Nico Case
You speak the truth.
- [34:34]
Anna Martin
You're fucked.
- [34:36]
Nico Case
People just don't want to hang out with you. Like, it's too much work. And I've always been that guy, you know, I've always been the person who's like, that's fucked up.
- [34:45]
Anna Martin
You know, it's tough, though, you know, with your own. With a parent, for example, speaking the truth to your mother about how you were feeling or the loneliness you were experiencing. It doesn't feel like that was something that you were able to do as a kid.
- [35:01]
Nico Case
Well, they didn't have the words for it, certainly. Yeah, I have the words for it now. And, you know, I did speak to her as an adult about those things with the correct words. It just didn't make any difference I was gonna say.
- [35:13]
Anna Martin
What did it feel like when you voiced your mom?
- [35:16]
Nico Case
It just felt like the same water pouring over you that poured over you when you were a little kid. You know, it's like. It's just the same bath. Here we are. It feels like shit. I think, you know, under certain circumstances I could start crying or. But I don't really. Cause I know it's not my fault. Fault. But I'm also like, she still sucks. I feel really bad for her.
- [35:44]
Anna Martin
Yeah.
- [35:45]
Nico Case
And I really. You know, there's part of me that's like, she grew up in kind of impossible circumstances, and, you know, she went through a lot of horrible things and abuse and, you know, I don't. I don't blame her for that at all. And I don't blame for her for having me, you know, but. And it's weird, you know, people think it's really awful that I talk about this, but abortion had just become available at that time, and for whatever reason, she didn't get an abortion. And I'm sure she was scared and she was a kid, so, like, you know, any choice she made at that point, I wouldn't fault her for. But as an unwanted child, do not make fucking abortion illegal in this fucking country. Like, I cannot fucking believe where we are right now. It is disgusting. It is so inhumane and cruel. To live as an unwanted child is the loneliest nadir. It is the worst. I would so much rather have given my mother her life than be here now because I spent my life thinking that I ruined her life. And it's not okay for either one of us. It is cruel.
- [37:11]
Anna Martin
Nico, can I ask you, when you say, you know, I know it's not my fault, it strikes me that I feel like Caitlyn, the author of this essay, goes through that type of understanding, you know, in her own way, where she realizes it's nothing that she did. This was a disease her mom was battling. Is there a specific moment you can point to in your own life where that really hit you, too? Like, this is not about me. My mom's behavior towards me is not because of something I did. Like, is there a moment that you can point to?
- [37:46]
Nico Case
Well, I think I was kind of probably near 40 when I finally just understood what happened. And I was like, oh, my God. I wanted to believe this whole story so bad that I let the most threadbare lies stand in as the truth for who she was. But it wasn't who she was at all. She didn't want a kid. And the lengths that she went to to not have a kid are so extreme that it's impossible not to be offended by them. I mean, I'm not really anymore, because they're so outrageous that I almost can't take them personally anymore.
- [38:34]
Anna Martin
Do you want to share even just a sort of high level overview of what those lies were? You don't need to necessarily.
- [38:41]
Nico Case
Well, I thought for my entire life, up until I was about, I guess, 38 or so, that my mom had had cancer at one point.
- [38:48]
Anna Martin
You thought that she had cancer, and that was not true?
- [38:51]
Nico Case
No, no. She used a fake faking having cancer to get away from me as a.
- [39:00]
Anna Martin
Way to disappear herself from your life?
- [39:02]
Nico Case
Yes. And I would ask her about it, and she was, you know, she wouldn't really say much about it. Like, I had asked her what kind of cancer she had because I'd be going to the gynecologist or whatever. I knew that it had to do with her reproductive system. So I realized that she had said ovarian and cervical, and she didn't have both. So I would just think that I forgot, like, when I went to the gynecologist, and they're like, well, does your family have a history of, you know, these cancers? I wouldn't remember which one she said to check the box of. And then I finally realized I wasn't forgetting. She was telling me different answers. You never had fucking cancer.
- [39:47]
Anna Martin
Wow.
- [39:47]
Nico Case
Oh, my God. I was just like, holy shit. How did I not see it? What I took away from it was like, you wanted to believe in her so bad.
- [39:55]
Anna Martin
Yeah, yeah. It's like, yeah, you wanted to have a mom. You wanted to have a mom that was coherent, that at some point still wanted you.
- [40:04]
Nico Case
Yeah. And I didn't want Amom. I wanted her. I worshiped her. I thought she was the most beautiful, talented person. I thought she was the coolest thing in the world. And I wanted to be with her all the time. And I couldn't figure out why I never was or why she wouldn't come and save me. And of course she was unhappy. And, you know, absolutely. She didn't really know what to do. But her choices of how to deal with that, like, I have no respect for. I don't know. I don't. It's been a long time. I don't wish to contact my mother, and I hope she never contacts me.
- [40:47]
Anna Martin
Did you ever feel like you had to explain why your mom was absent from your life to other people? No, not at all. Tell me why.
- [40:57]
Nico Case
Well, it's not unusual to have grown up neglected or abused. It's not unusual to have a parent that struggles with addiction. It's not unusual to have a parent who struggles with mental illness and depression. So I will say, yeah, my mother was a fucking horrible person and, you know, a really bad drunk. And, you know, it's unfortunate, but it's a really common thing. So who cares if I say it out loud? Maybe someone will hear it and feel like, oh, you know, it's like the statement, I understand addiction less every year. Like, I felt very. I felt very grateful to Caitlin McCormick for saying that because I had a new sentence that was a tool that was like, okay, that is so true. I understand addiction less and less as well.
- [42:03]
Anna Martin
Nico, so much of what you shared, I think people listening will have that same experience of having a new sentence or sentences for themselves. I think you are doing for listeners what Caitlin did for you.
- [42:18]
Nico Case
I hope so. I mean, you know, there are people who listen to me because, you know, I write songs and I don't take that for granted, and I don't want to abuse that. And if I didn't yell the truth or what I think is the truth, then what good was I? All I ever wanted was to be useful, and maybe that's what I'm useful for.
- [42:43]
Anna Martin
Nico Case, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking to me today.
- [42:46]
Nico Case
I'm honored to be here talking with you. Thank you for having me.
- [42:53]
Anna Martin
You can find a link to the Modern love essay you heard today. Caitlin McCormick's My Mother, the Stranger in our show notes and Nico Case's memoir, the Harder I Fight the More I Love youe, comes out January 28th. It includes similar childhood accounts to what Kayce shared in this episode and many other memories from her life. The Times was not able to reach Case's mother for comment. Her father is deceased. This episode was produced by Reeva Goldberg with help from Amy Pearl Davis Land and Emily Lang. It was edited by our executive producer, Jen Poyant, production management by Christina Josa. The Modern Love theme music is by Dan Powell. Original music in this episode by Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Rowan Niemisto, Dan Powell and Carol Savaro. This episode was mixed by Sophia Landman with studio support from Maddie Masiello, Daniel Ramirez and Nick Pittman. Special thanks to Mahima Chablani, Nell Gillogli and Jeffrey Miranda, and to our video team, Brooke Minters, Sawyer Roque and Eddie Costas. The Modern Love column is edited by Daniel Jones. Mia Lee is the editor of Modern Love Projects. If you want to submit an essay or a tiny love story to the New York Times, the instructions are in our Show Notes. I'm Anna Martin. Thanks for listening.