676: Here’s Looking at You, Kid

Summary

Podcast Summary: This American Life – Episode 676: Here’s Looking at You, Kid
Date: May 24, 2026
Host: Ira Glass

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Overview

This episode explores how adults shape the identities of children and the confusion that ensues when kids try to become or resist becoming what’s expected of them. The episode unfolds in two acts:

• Act 1 ("Jersey, Sure"): Comedian Gary Gulman recounts being molded by football coaches into someone he never felt was his true self.
• Act 2 ("Grown Ups Know Things"): Nicole Glumpla’s lifelong uncertainty about her childhood memories, abuse allegations, and a journalist’s investigation upending her sense of self.

The episode probes the gap between outside expectations and internal reality, and what happens when certainty or doubt—about who we are or what’s happened to us—shapes our lives.

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Act 1: Jersey, Sure (00:27–26:39)

Childhood Transformation and Identity

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Gary’s Reluctance and Timidity (00:27)

  • Gary Gulman was a shy, artsy kid bullied in sports.
  • The high school football "Jetson" twin coaches want to make him a football star, due to his size (6'6", 200 lbs).

• Coaches’ "Magical" Influence (01:21)

  • The "Jetsons" refer to themselves in the third person, give Gary the nickname “Waste”—as in "waste of talent."
  • “They were so convincing... intoxicating. My family was all 'don't get your hopes up,' but the Jetsons just said, ‘Fuck yeah.’” — Gary Gulman (05:16)
  • Daily summer regimen: Intensive workouts, encouragement, and training sessions.

• Transformation and Costumes (06:00)

  • Gary’s body transforms: 240 lbs, 225 lb bench press, fast sprints.
  • Still, Gary feels unchanged inside. “I had built this really great costume... it covered up who I really was.” — Gary Gulman (06:44)
  • Even with confidence, he’s terrified to actually play—his ‘man costume’ is just a shell.

• First Practices and the “Biz” (09:43)

  • Football turns out to be just as brutal as feared.
  • “Guy hit me helmet to helmet... called it a ‘biz’—because of the bzzz sound. Now we know ‘bizzes’ were concussions.” — Gary Gulman (10:02)
  • Despite misery, on-field success during games brings crowds and a rush of affirmation (11:18).
  • Coach: “The only person sticking anybody is Gary Gulman, a kid who never played football until this summer.” — Coach, as recounted by Gulman (12:10)

• Rapid Rise and Letdown (12:36)

  • First game: impressive catches, sacks, newspaper interview calling him “Mr. Raw Potential.”
  • The excitement fades as teams adapt to neutralize him; anxiety sets in.
  • Grades and self-worth plummet: “I would throw up before every game... overcome by nerves and anxiety.” — Gary Gulman (15:00)

• Recruitment & Outward Success (15:39)

  • Despite inner struggle, college football programs (including Boston College) vie for Gary.
  • “Son, I always loved being called son. He said, ‘You have an NFL body.’ Part of me was thinking, ‘Wow, I’ve really fooled another one.’” — Gary Gulman (17:45)

• Depression & The Breaking Point (19:21)

  • Arrival in college amplifies his sense of not belonging. Starts to crumble emotionally.
  • “I just knew. I knew who I was, and the problem is I know who I am, and I hate him.” — Gary Gulman (20:57)
  • Clings to childish comfort (still has childhood “Blankie”—touching, vulnerable details, 21:19–22:23).

• Therapy & Resolution (23:22)

  • Therapist urges him to quit: “You’ll be a man.” (24:01)
  • Quits football, but is allowed to keep scholarship. Begins writing jokes—his real calling.

Notable Quotes

• “Picture my childhood, Charlie Brown if Snoopy had died. That was my childhood.” — Gary Gulman (02:59)
• “You can put a kid in a tough guy costume, but it doesn’t always make him into a tough guy.” — Ira Glass (07:41)
• “If I’m not a football player, then who am I?... [Therapist:] ‘You’ll be a man.’” — Gary Gulman (24:01)

Memorable Moments

• The revelation that the “tough guy” identity is a costume masking real vulnerability.
• A touching discussion about his Blankie: “Oh, I still have it. It's on my pillow right now. In Harlem. Wait, how old are you? I'm 48.” (22:05)

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Act 2: Grown Ups Know Things (29:48–61:14)

The Quest for Certainty About the Past

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Nicole’s Uncertainty and Foster Care (29:48)

  • Nicole Glumpla, at 16, is in foster care after her father’s death; wonders why her mother lost custody.

• Memories and Evidence (31:02)

  • Foggy recollections of abuse, unsure what to believe. Arranges to watch old videotapes made by child psychiatrist Dr. Dave Corwin.
  • Meeting at 17 is filmed. She tries to recall abuse—uncertain, then suddenly has a vivid memory during questioning (35:21).
    • “I remember, oh my gosh, that's really, really weird... I remember it happening. She hurt me.” (36:07)

• Repressed Memories on Tape (38:22)

  • Footage shows young Nicole describing sexual and physical abuse in detail, swearing on her Brownie code that it happened.
  • Later, Nicole describes the sensation: “It was like I took a snapshot of the pain and what was inflicting the pain.” (37:35)

• The Memory Wars (42:02)

  • Corwin’s published case study (Jane Doe) becomes pivotal in 1990s debates: Are repressed memories real or implanted?
  • Psychologist Elizabeth Loftus, a skeptic, investigates the case, questioning reliability and Corwin’s methods (43:39).

• Loftus’s Investigation and Fallout (45:15)

  • Loftus’s team locates Nicole without consent, interviews everyone except her.
  • Nicole: “I felt intruded upon. I felt violated, very vulnerable, very exposed.” (47:22)
  • Loftus defends her actions as standard journalistic investigation: “Whose story is this? This isn’t just her story. It’s the falsely accused mother’s story, too.” (49:50)

• Seeds of Doubt and Emotional Turmoil (52:11)

  • Nicole files suit but reads Loftus’s article repeatedly: “It planted a seed of doubt. It did, yes.” (52:51)
  • Identity destabilized: “It goes to my identity. The key memory on which I rebuilt... my identity has now been called into question.” (56:14)
  • Embodies the paralysis of not knowing if she was a victim or if she destroyed an innocent parent’s life.

• The Aftermath and Radical Acceptance (58:11)

  • Nicole loses lawsuit, bankruptcy follows. Never finds certainty, but moves forward: “I'm never going to know... that just has to be okay.” (58:11)
  • She becomes a pilot, therapist, and maintains (uneasy) contact with her mother.

Notable Quotes

• “I do have an explanation in my mind... I can now realize that it’s not my fault and I can put that chapter behind me.” — Nicole, at 17 (41:42)
• “How disorienting was it to feel like you had the truth and then you lost it?” — Eleanor Gordon Smith (56:07)
• “There is an intangible to be gained from the process of transition, from being a victim to becoming a survivor. And in my case, now, all of a sudden, I'm—Am I neither? I don’t know.” — Nicole (57:21)
• “I’m never going to know. I still thought at some point I would come to a solid decision, yes or no. And really, really, I’m never going to know. And that just has to be okay.” — Nicole (58:11)

Memorable Moments

• The play-by-play of memory surfacing in real time, captured on tape (35:32–36:50).
• Nicole’s raw admission: “It made me feel very small, as though my opinion on my own, the events of my own life were the least important.” (53:16).
• The devastating impact: legal bills, career derailment, still in limbo about her own childhood—and a moving refusal to close the door on her mother.

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Timestamps for Major Segments

| Segment/Event | Time | |-----------------------------------------------|-------------| | Gary Gulman’s story begins | 00:27 | | The Jetsons pressure Gary into football | 01:21 | | Gary describes his mindset, “Charlie Brown” | 02:59 | | Summer of training montage | 04:00 | | Gary’s transformation described | 06:13 | | First painful practices, concussion (“biz”) | 10:02 | | First big game and letdown | 12:36 | | College recruitment and inner tension | 15:39 | | College depression, blankie story | 19:21–22:23 | | Therapy, quitting, new beginning | 23:22–25:29 | | Act 2 begins: Nicole’s story | 29:48 | | Watching the tapes/memory resurfacing | 33:08–36:50 | | Description of “Memory wars”/Loftus’s role | 42:02 | | Loftus’s investigation and Nicole’s reaction | 45:15–48:19 | | Nicole files lawsuit, emotional fallout | 52:28 | | Living with uncertainty, radical acceptance | 58:11 | | Closing reflections with Nicole | 59:10–61:14 |

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Episode Tone & Style

The storytelling is intimate, humorous at times (Gary’s self-deprecation), but deeply psychological and poignant. Ira Glass draws focus to moments of vulnerability, confusion, humor, and the search for truth or comfort.

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Overarching Takeaways

• Identity is shaped—and often confused—by the visions adults have for us.
• Certainty about who we are and what’s happened to us is often elusive—sometimes permanently.
• It’s possible to find a sense of self or peace even in ambiguity, if not in certainty.

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This episode is a masterclass in narrative empathy, emphasizing the untidy, unresolved questions at the heart of growing up and becoming.

Transcript

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There are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website. This americanlife.org Gary did not want to

[Ira Glass]

become a football player. No interest in the game at all. He was a timid kid, the kind of kid who in baseball would close his eyes when he was up at bat. He was so scared of getting hit by the ball. But when you're in high school, you know your personality is still up for grabs. And at Gary's high school, there was not one person, but two people with a very different vision of who he was. They were assistant high school football coaches and very noticeable, big, big personalities. And they were twins.

[Gary Goleman]

And I didn't really know their name. I'd seen them around. They were super handsome and in great shape. I mean, they were ripped. And they would wear gold's gym tank tops and jams. These shorts, these Hawaiian shorts, they would wear those. And they had really long hair and they were, they were very charming, charismatic, funny. And they were known as the Jetsons, which was this, this self proclaimed nickname, I think.

[Ira Glass]

Wait, they called themselves the Jetsons. They referred to themselves, yeah, because the

[Gary Goleman]

Jetsons was people from the future and they felt that they were like that. They were definitely the first people I ever noticed who referred to themselves in the. Is it the third person? The Jetsons are coming to get you. The Jetsons will see you. The Jetsons.

[Ira Glass]

That's what they would say sometimes.

[Gary Goleman]

They would, they would say, johnny Jetson will be with you today. Joe Jetson will be with you tomorrow.

[Ira Glass]

They're like magical figures.

[Gary Goleman]

Yeah, they really were.

[Ira Glass]

And these magical figures, these assistant football coaches, they gave Gary his own nickname in the fall of junior year. It was not a glittery name like the Jetsons. Kind of the opposite, actually. Waste they called him, as in waste

[Gary Goleman]

of talent to like goad man to playing football.

[Ira Glass]

They told him that football would get him a college scholarship. It would get him girls. They said the newspaper would write about him. They wanted him on the team so badly because Gary was a giant compared to most of the kids playing football back then. This was in Peabody, Massachusetts. Boston suburb near Salem in the late 80s. Most high school players back then were 5'9, 5'10. Gary was 6'6, 200 pounds and he was athletic, played basketball on his high school team. Those coaches scolded him for his complete lack of aggression and for crying. What he really loved doing was art projects, going to the arts and crafts store, reading. He kept an enormous stuffed animal collection in his room even in high school. He was also pretty depressed at the time. Gary's a comedian today. Gary Goleman. And on stage when he tries to describe what he was like as a kid.

[Gary Goleman]

I talk about being Charlie Brown. I say, picture my childhood Charlie Brown. If Snoopy had died. That was my childhood. I felt so sorry for him.

[Ira Glass]

I identified Charlie Brown. Like the whole point of his character is that he's sad and lonely, but even that wasn't lonely enough. You have to kill off his dog. Yes. So when the Jetsons started telling him that they were going to make him into a star, he laughed it off. He liked the attention from the Jetsons, sure, but he did not consider this seriously at all. Football seemed brutal, just non stop violent physical contact. He did not think he could cut it. Guys he knew who played football, they were so tough. Gary, on the other hand, he got picked on, he got bullied. He was bullied out of Little League. So football, no way. And then his junior year ended and just a couple days into summer break, it was June, 6:30 in the morning, he got a phone call, woke him up. It's the twins.

[Gary Goleman]

They said, gullman, this is the Jetsons. Meet us at the universe gym at 7:30. We are going to train the Gullman this summer and get the Gullman a scholarship and, and make the Goldman into a star. By the end of the summer you will be 245 pounds and ripped like Arnold.

[Ira Glass]

It was so weird and bold. And on the spur of the moment he figures, what the hell? And he has this thought that you have sometimes as a kid. He thinks these adults say, I can do this. Maybe they're right.

[Gary Goleman]

They were so convincing. They were so convincing.

[Ira Glass]

And then there was a part of you that felt like, yes, magical man.

[Gary Goleman]

It was, it was intoxicating.

[Ira Glass]

It was because they were so cool.

[Gary Goleman]

And my entire life, my, my family was more of a don't get your hopes up type of attitude. A philosophy of things. Don't, don't always work out the way you want them to. And so it was a very negative house. And I remember asking them, I said, do you guys really think I'm gonna, I'm gonna play on this high school football team? I don't have that much experience. And they're Answering should I swear or

[Ira Glass]

just say what really happened?

[Gary Goleman]

Every single time I would ask him any kind of question, they say, fuck yeah. And not everybody was using that expression back then. That was the first instance of somebody saying that to me. Instead of, don't get your hopes up and we'll see, it was fuck yeah. And I just, I was like, oh my gosh, these guys are so, so exciting. And they believe in me.

[Ira Glass]

So that summer, every morning he works out with the Jetsons from 7:30 to 9:30. Then they take him to a diner. They buy him a big breakfast with eggs and other proteins. At night, sometimes they teach him running routes. Remember, Gary had never played football. And it was just like the Jetsons said.

[Gary Goleman]

It was incredible. And it was like a rocky montage. I was getting stronger and bigger. And they would say things. They had this thing, the Gull man is getting huge. The Gullman is getting huge.

[Ira Glass]

And so by the end of the summer, how did you look?

[Gary Goleman]

I looked fantastic, man. I'd grown my hair long like them, and clothes started to look really cool on me. They were, as I was filling out and they were, they were right. I weighed 240 pounds. I could bench press 225 pounds. I ran a 4, 8 40, which was very impressive to everybody. Everything about me had changed physically. I had built this really great costume.

[Ira Glass]

Why do you say costume?

[Gary Goleman]

Because it covered up who I really was. I was still the same Gary who cried at movies.

[Ira Glass]

So you have this man costume that you're wearing, which is your new body.

[Gary Goleman]

Yes, I feel terrific.

[Ira Glass]

And as it came time to start practices, you would think that he would be psyched to use this new body that he had created for the purpose it had been made for. Like, okay, he's Captain America. It's World War II. Bring on the Nazis. But in fact, he was terrified of just getting hit, of the physical contact that's just built into football. And a week before practice, he talks to a friend and he says to the friend, he doesn't think he can do it. He doesn't think he can go through with it. Should he call the Jetsons and tell him he started over? It's not for him.

[Gary Goleman]

I'll never forget what he said. He said, gary, they will kill you. They spent their entire summer training you and feeding you. You can't. You have to go through with this.

[Ira Glass]

So he did. He went through with it. But the problem was, as John Jetson put it, he was a daisy in a field of weeds, a lamb among conquerors. You can put a kid into a tough guy costume, but it doesn't always make him into a tough guy. And of course, adults are always trying to convince kids and inspire kids about who they can be. That's what good parents do. That's what good teachers do. But some kids, like Gary, just have trouble going along with the plan. They want to please the adults. They want to do what they're asked. But all the while they genuinely wonder, can they actually become the person the adults are telling them to become? Is that them? Is that who they should be? And it's totally confusing for them. The adults in their lives seem to know what they're talking about. They're adults, for God's sake. They're supposed to know better. But the kids end up wondering in a really primal way, who am I? Well, from WBEZ Chicago, it's this American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Our show today in two acts. In the second act, adults make it so a woman can't even decide what is true about some of the most basic facts about her own history. And act one is going to be Gary's story, which we're calling Jersey. Sure, that's going to happen after a quick break. Stay with us.

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[Ira Glass]

This is American Life. Today's show is a rerun. Act one. So Gary Goleman went to his first football practice and it was just as bad as he imagined it would be. Guys rush at him, smash into him on every play. It's totally painful. He's completely miserable, bruised. He was in this one play, this

[Gary Goleman]

guy hit me helmet to helmet. And it was so loud, like a gunshot. And everybody noticed it. And they called it a biz. And the way it got its name was they said, and the Jetsons told me this, they said, the biz is the sound that it makes when you get hit in the head during a game, which is bzzz. And each week, the guy who had the best hit on somebody else would get this T shirt called the Biz of the Week T shirt. And now we know that these things, these bizzes they were concussions. But at the time, in 1988, the concussion protocol was pretty much, you good, you good. And that first time that I got bizzed, the Jetsons were so proud of me.

[Ira Glass]

They.

[Gary Goleman]

They high fived me and they patted my head. The Gull man got bizzed his first biz. I was laughing along with them, but I was like, I hope that never happens again.

[Ira Glass]

So every day, Gary would show up at practice and hated it, until finally they started to play real games. And these are just preseason scrimmages, but they're against other high schools. There's a crowd in the stands that changed everything from the very first time they put him in on offense.

[Gary Goleman]

They set up a play for me. It's this pass where they just throw it over the middle. They throw it up high. Nobody can reach as high as I can jump. I catch it. I. It takes a couple of guys to bring me down just because I'm big and I want to run away from contact. Like, there were fans and they were cheering, and I will say that was exhilarating.

[Ira Glass]

Coaches try him out on defense. He barely knows what he's doing, and he sacks the other side's quarterback.

[Gary Goleman]

I had no technique, but I was just so much bigger than this kid that he couldn't outrun me because he wasn't as fast as me and he wasn't as strong as me. So I was able to wrestle him to the ground. Anyhow, we go into the locker room, and the coach is berating the other players on the team for. For not being aggressive. And he says, the only person out there sticking anybody.

[Ira Glass]

Which.

[Gary Goleman]

I don't know if they still use that expression, but I like that express. Sticking anybody is Gary Goman, a kid who never played football until this summer. And I. I had goosebumps, and I. It was.

[Ira Glass]

It.

[Gary Goleman]

It was like a movie.

[Ira Glass]

So it's all happening just like the

[Gary Goleman]

jets happening, just like the Jetsons had said. It was uncanny.

[Ira Glass]

Opening game of the real season. The coaches start him, this newbie player. He sacks the opposing quarterback right away.

[Gary Goleman]

And on offense, they threw me the ball three times. I caught every single one. I mean, that night, I go to my first high school party. I never gone to a high school party, and it was such a letdown because you see parties and movies, they're so exciting, and there's sex, and I just sat on a. On a couch because I didn't drink, and. And it was an incredible letdown. But I was in. I was invited, but you were in I was very excited.

[Ira Glass]

That's what's important. Yeah, you were there at the party.

[Gary Goleman]

You were there at the bad party.

[Ira Glass]

You made it.

[Gary Goleman]

And then Sunday night, the night before school, a local newspaper reporter called me and interviewed me about this game. He said that. That I was the talk of the town. And it talked about how everybody knew the ball was coming to me and they couldn't stop me. And just like the Jetsons had said, there are going to be newspaper articles, there was a newspaper article on the Salem Evening News the next day that called me Mr. Raw Potential. Wow.

[Ira Glass]

Yeah. And it did not last the season opener. His first great game was also his last great game.

[Gary Goleman]

I had one more decent game where I caught a pass and I made a really, really good tackle. But the teams started to do this thing where they would send guys to block me and my legs, and they would send a couple of guys and they would just roll into my. My legs. I think it's called a cut block, if I. If I remember properly. But that. That was how they would sort of neutralize me in.

[Ira Glass]

And didn't the Jetsons have some technique you could use to, like, get around that?

[Gary Goleman]

No. Either they. They didn't suggest one, or I wasn't able to employ it.

[Ira Glass]

Opposing quarterbacks learned to stay away from the side of the line that Gary was on, so he wasn't sacking anyone anymore. And after this one time when Gary fumbled the ball on a big play at the goal line, suddenly, he says, they stopped sending him out for passes. So no more heroic catches. He wasn't making big plays. He was not living up to all that bright potential. And some dark part of his personality kicked in, like maybe he was a waste after all. The man costume had fooled him for a while, but he was still the same person he'd always been. He started to dread practices and games.

[Gary Goleman]

I would throw up before every game on the sideline, I would throw up because I was overcome by nerves and anxiety. I started to feel really lousy about myself, and my grades suffered, and I just knew that I was starting to disappoint these guys. And they never said anything to their credit. They never said, wow, we really had high hopes for you. It just. It sounds crazy. I still have nightmares about it.

[Ira Glass]

His plan back then was, make it through the season, one game a week, never play again.

[Gary Goleman]

And in the middle of this, a college football coach came into our locker room and introduced himself to me at my locker. And that was sort of a. What the hell is going on here?

[Ira Glass]

Introduced himself to you, you mean.

[Gary Goleman]

Yeah.

[Ira Glass]

And said what?

[Gary Goleman]

He said, you had a great game, which I hadn't. And I am an assistant at Dartmouth College, and we'd love for you to take a visit to Dartmouth.

[Ira Glass]

Okay. Here's the thing that Gary didn't know or understand at the time. As disheartened as he was, his coaches did not think he was having a bad season. Sure, they weren't sending him out for passes, but the main reason for that, John Jetson told me on the phone, wasn't the fumble that Gary had made. Like Gary obsessed over it, was that the quarterback couldn't throw reliable passes. Their team wasn't that good that year. And sure, yes, Garry didn't know how to stay on his feet when players threw themselves at his ankles. But John Jetson says he'd only been playing football a few months. Of course, he hadn't mastered that. There wasn't time to teach him everything. The Jetsons still saw Gary as a diamond in the rough. Gary was doing everything they asked, ran his plays well, was more reliable than most of the team. And so the coaches did what they did with any player with a ton of potential. They took video of Gary's best game, that great first game, made a bunch of copies and sent it around to colleges. And after seeing that video, a parade of recruiters showed up at Gary's school. He'd get called out of class to meet them. He was approached by Harvard, Holy Cross, UMass, University of New Hampshire, University of Maine, and some top Division 1A schools. Syracuse and Boston College, his favorite, who'd recently won the Cotton Bowl.

[Gary Goleman]

And also there were players on the team who are all Americans. I mean, this was a big time program that played a big time schedule against Penn State and Notre Dame and Ohio State and usc. I mean, they were. They were big time football. And they had Heisman Trophy winner Doug Flutie. He was the hero to everybody in my neighborhood.

[Ira Glass]

And what do you remember of, like, them recruiting you?

[Gary Goleman]

I remember this man who I had seen on TV because he had recruited Doug Flutian. He was a New England celebrity. His name was Jack Bicknell. I'll never forget it because he had an office at Boston College and it overlooked the stadium. And he had a Heisman Trophy. And he said, son, I always loved being called son. And I would just melt. It's like an arm around the shoulder. I don't know what it is about that word. He said, son, going to go ahead and offer you. Which meant a scholarship. I'm going to offer you. And he Said something to the effect of, you're 17 years old. Or maybe I was 18. He said, you have an NFL body. And I remember thinking, wow, I've really fooled another one. And part of me was saying I was afraid this was going to happen because I'm going to have to take the scholarship and I know I'm going to be in over my head. And then the other side of it was, this is so exciting. And somebody believes in me.

[Ira Glass]

And did part of you feel like, oh my God, I'm gonna be playing for this incredible coach. Whatever problems I had in high school, this guy is the guy. He's a genius. He's gonna fix whatever problem I had. I'm gonna be a star.

[Gary Goleman]

Yeah.

[Ira Glass]

So he takes a scholarship. He says he has no idea how he would have paid for college without a football scholarship. He works out all summer, and by the time he gets to training camp, he, he was bigger than ever. 260 pounds. His speed and strength, one of the best on the team. But it's clear right away I just felt so small.

[Gary Goleman]

I mean, these guys really were supermen. Their aggressiveness, their strength, it wasn't the same sport. And it was quite clear early on to the other players that I wasn't like them. I didn't talk like, and I could be pushed around and, and I could be bullied. There were guys who were going to go on to the NFL. There was one player who played for the Vikings, and I remember one time I was lollygagging on a play and he hit me and bizzed me. And he said to me afterwards, and his nickname on the team was the Maniac, which you really have to do something impressive to get a nickname like that amongst these lunatics. He said to me, he said, you, you can't just stand there like that. I could have killed you in the nicest way possible. He said that he had let up, even though he had hit me harder than I had ever been hit in my life.

[Ira Glass]

Gary went into a full blown depressive crisis. Not eating when he should have been eating like a horse, sleeping all the time crying.

[Gary Goleman]

The prevailing thing going on in my head is, I want to kill myself. I'm worthless, I'm useless, everybody hates me.

[Ira Glass]

And did you have this feeling, did you have this feeling of like, oh, well, I'm actually like as strong as any of these guys. Like, you're stronger than most of them, you're faster than most of them. Like, I should be as good. Did you have a feeling of like, well, if I Just psych myself up in the right way. I'm gonna be able to do this.

[Nicole Glumpla]

Well,

[Gary Goleman]

I just knew. I knew who I was. And the problem is I know who I am, and I hate him. I hate him. He's so weak, and he disappoints and he lets down, and I just wanted to go back to the room and sleep and cry. Yeah.

[Ira Glass]

Did you have your stuffed animals with you?

[Gary Goleman]

No, but I had brought my blankie. Like, I grew up with a blankie that was in my crib, and I could never sleep without it. But it was like this thing that I was so ashamed of and never spoke about, really, to anybody because I thought that if anybody ever found that out, they would just feel like, this guy's insane. And also a woman.

[Ira Glass]

Did you have a roommate?

[Gary Goleman]

I had a roommate, yeah.

[Ira Glass]

That you had to hide the blankie from?

[Gary Goleman]

Yeah.

[Ira Glass]

Yeah. And you would call it the blankie, not the blanket?

[Gary Goleman]

No, I always. I mean, I referred to him. I referred to him. I called him Blankie.

[Ira Glass]

And whatever happened to it?

[Gary Goleman]

Oh, I still have it. It's on my pillow right now. In Harlem? Yeah.

[Ira Glass]

Wait, wait. Seriously?

[Gary Goleman]

Yeah.

[Ira Glass]

Wait, how old are you?

[Gary Goleman]

I'm 48.

[Ira Glass]

Do you need it?

[Gary Goleman]

No, but I.

[Ira Glass]

It.

[Gary Goleman]

I love it. It's there with the pillow. I put it in my computer bag so I can carry it on planes when I travel.

[Ira Glass]

And is it a comfort?

[Gary Goleman]

Yeah, it's a comfort. It helps me sleep. I don't know how common it is, and the fact that you keep asking me questions about it makes me think it's really odd.

[Ira Glass]

But you'll have people who you're sleeping with will come over and they'll sleep in your bed, and they'll be the blankie. Yeah.

[Gary Goleman]

My partner, Sade, she's a woman. She's been aware of it since we've been dating.

[Ira Glass]

Yeah, not a problem.

[Gary Goleman]

Not a problem. Not until today.

[Nicole Glumpla]

Sorry.

[Ira Glass]

I'm not trying to blankie shame you. I'm not. Anyway, back in college, first time Gary goes home for the weekend, he stays in his room, cries and sleeps, and won't talk to anybody. And his brother suggests he find a therapist. The football team actually has counseling services set up for anybody who needs it. And when he gets back to school, Gary meets with the therapist who asks him a lot of questions.

[Gary Goleman]

And he said point blank, he said, why don't you just quit the football team? And I. And I. Like, that was ludicrous to me. And the way I would explain it now is, you have to understand, my entire identity is Wrapped up in this. And if I quit, I will be proving the voice in my head that keeps telling me I'm weak and so. And worthless. Right.

[Ira Glass]

So he made it through the season. The doctor prescribed him antidepressants, and the sadness and ruminations lifted. And in the spring, Gary's therapist asked, what are you going to do about football for next year? And Gary was like, I'll continue till I graduate.

[Gary Goleman]

And he said, listen, I never give advice. It's not my place to give advice, but I'm going to give you some advice. You need to quit the football team. I said, if I quit the football team, I don't get to wear the uniform. I don't get to wear that jacket that gets me special treatment in the cafeteria and makes me interesting to the other students and the professors. I said, if I'm not a football player, then who am I? And he said, and I'll never forget it. The best answer. He said, you'll be a man. But he didn't mean it. You'll be masculine. You'll be macho. He meant, you'll be an adult.

[Ira Glass]

Gary quit the team. He did keep the scholarship. The counselor went to bat for him and convinced the school to let him keep it for four years. And that same year, the year he quit football, Gary took the first real steps towards a different vision of who he'd be as an adult. A vision that was not handed to him by any of the grown ups in his life. Not his coaches or his parents or his teachers. It was something he invented for himself. That's the year he started writing jokes.

[Gary Goleman]

Do you know that I listen to your show and I've heard people reveal things about themselves that I wouldn't reveal.

[Ira Glass]

Yeah.

[Gary Goleman]

And I would never thought that the blankie would be one of those things that there could be somebody being like, oh, I'd never tell anybody about a blankie. I don't. I could care less that everybody knows now.

[Ira Glass]

So you feel. No. You feel no self consciousness about it at all?

[Gary Goleman]

Not anymore. I did for 47 years, though I only mention it on stage this. This year. People laughed and it redeemed everything.

[Ira Glass]

No, no, no. And now you say that. I feel like I don't want to make you feel weird about it.

[Gary Goleman]

No, no. I think it's healthy. But you love Charlie Brown, who was the wisest character on the Peanuts cartoons?

[Ira Glass]

Linus.

[Gary Goleman]

Yeah. And he had a blankie.

[Ira Glass]

He was five.

[Gary Goleman]

He wasn't five.

[Ira Glass]

All right, he's eight or whatever he's supposed to be.

[Gary Goleman]

No, you're right. He was have.

[Ira Glass]

He's a child.

[Gary Goleman]

No, he is a child. Yeah. Yeah.

[Ira Glass]

Gary Goman. He tells the story of his football years and lots of other stories in his book Misfit Growing up awkward in the 80s. To find out when he's coming to a town near you or to see him on video, go to garygolman.com. Coming up, a 17 year old tries to understand a moment that shaped her whole life. Fortunately for her, there's video. Unfortunately for her, it's more complicated than that. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.

[This American Life Announcer]

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[Ira Glass]

this is American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Today's program here's looking at you kid stories of adults telling kids what they should think of themselves and kids trying to make sense of what they're told. Today's show is a rerun. We've arrived at Act 2 of our program. Act 2 Grown ups know things. That act title was actually a line from Lord of The flies. Piggy says it that grown ups have a cup of tea and talk things through and then everything is all right. That's how grown ups do it. It's hopeful and of course, you know, wrong headed. So often things don't work out that well here in the adult world. But in the story it's this moment where a bunch of the boys chime in with their desire that they could turn to adults. And in this next act, a girl turns to an adult with that same kind of hope that the adult will set things right. But over time, the adults that she turns to simply do not agree about some very fundamental things about her. Eleanor Gordon Smith reported this story for a book she wrote.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

I got interested in uncertainty years ago. There's a kind of uncertainty that we all live with, where you don't know the answer and it's not a big deal like what time the bus is coming, who left the front door open, where that pen went. But I wanted to know about the opposite. High stakes uncertainty, where the facts aren't decisive and it hurts to not know what to think, where there are big consequences, it affects your whole life. I wanted to know is it possible to just sit in that kind of foundational doubt? Or do you just have to flip a coin and pick something, anything to believe? Which is how I got interested in Nicole Glumpla. She's 40 now, but this starts when she was 16 and she just couldn't catch a break. She was in foster care after her dad, who had sole custody of her for most of her life, had a stroke and died. She'd bounced around between friends houses but wound up in a group home.

[Nicole Glumpla]

I just felt very adrift in the world and unanchored. Having lost my father, my best friend. I was so alone and I just. I was reaching out for something to feel connected to.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

She started really wanting to know about her mum. She lived nearby, just a couple hours drive, but they hadn't seen each other in more than 10 years. The custody court hadn't even allowed visits and Nicole didn't know why. A quick warning. What I'm about to go into mentions different kinds of abuse. Nicole had a foggy thought that her mum might have done something bad to her as a kid. She remembered saying something to someone when she was young about her mum burning her feet on a stove and remembered something about a sexual abuse allegation. But could that be right? Surely she'd remember those things actually happening? But she didn't. What if her dad had just made her say those things? About her mum. It had been a really ugly custody battle. Each parent said all kinds of things about the other. What if her dad wanted custody so bad he invented all these awful stories. There was so much about her mum that Nicole didn't know. So she arranged to meet her mum in person. They did. They started seeing each other more regularly, but it always felt off. Once she remembers sitting next to her mum at dinner and putting her head down on the table in front of her.

[Nicole Glumpla]

She rubbed my back and it was very, very uncomfortable. And I had a pretty strong reaction to it.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Nicole says they didn't talk about any abuse. And then in the middle of that doubt, a piece of evidence seemed to fall from the sky. And with it the promise of knowing what had happened in the custody dispute. Dr. Dave Corwin phoned Nicole. He was the child psychiatrist in the custody battle that had split Nicole off from her mum. And he had videotapes of interviews he'd done with her when she was a very young girl. It had been his job to investigate the abuse allegations. He'd had a question. He was speaking at a conference. Would it be okay if he showed those people the tapes? Nicole remembered Corwin. She remembered that he'd been nice to her as a kid. She said, yeah, he could use them, but could she see those tapes too? He agreed and recorded their meeting.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

I don't know the effect because it's never been done to my knowledge. This will have on you.

[Nicole Glumpla]

Okay, so I'm sitting across from Dr. Corwin and there's a video camera. I'm getting ready to watch the tapes of myself at 5 years old. And he went through a very lengthy informed consent at this stage.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

You're 17 years old. What I'm doing is I'm, I'm doing this informed consent directly with you saying here's the issues for as I understand them and then it's up to you. Okay.

[Nicole Glumpla]

Finally we got to the point where he was going to shut off the video camera so that I could watch my five year old self. And he asked me, you know, what do you recall?

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

Why don't we start with if you could just tell me what you can recall of that time.

[Nicole Glumpla]

I think I described one of the office that he did one of the interviews in and a striped sweatshirt that I was wearing at the time.

[Young Nicole (voice)]

A sweatshirt that was striped this way. Okay, that's. I don't know why. When I think of these interviews, that's

[Ira Glass]

the first thing I think of.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

17 year old Nicole says she can't remember whether her mom really did hurt her.

[Young Nicole (voice)]

I told you. I guess I told the court that my mom burned my feet on a stove. And I still don't remember if that's in fact how I was burned. Really, that's the most serious accusation against her that I remember. That's what I'm having a problem remembering. I've come here trying not to determine already that she's done it or that she's guilty. And I'm here trying not to say, well, she's innocent. She didn't do anything. And I refuse to believe she's done anything. I'm here. I really want to know.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

And then Colwyn brings up the allegation of sex abuse.

[Nicole Glumpla]

David Corwin literally asks me, do you remember any allegations of sexual abuse, Concerns

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

about possible sexual abuse?

[Young Nicole (voice)]

No.

[Nicole Glumpla]

And my initial reaction is actually no.

[Young Nicole (voice)]

I mean, I remember that was part. That was part of the accusation.

[Nicole Glumpla]

And then he starts to speak and I say, wait, hold on a second.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

Don't remember anything.

[Young Nicole (voice)]

I do.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

17 year old Nicole's whole demeanor changes at this moment. It's instant and kind of strange to watch. She becomes completely still and she's staring into middle distance.

[Nicole Glumpla]

What do you remember?

[Young Nicole (voice)]

I remember, oh my gosh, that's really, really weird. I accused her of when she was baby bathing me or whatever, hurting me.

[Nicole Glumpla]

And that's when I started to recount some details of a memory that came back to me.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

As you're saying that to me. Is that you remember having said those things or you remember having experienced those things?

[Young Nicole (voice)]

I remember it happening that she hurt me. Hurt you or how she hurt me. She.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

There's tissues right here.

[Ira Glass]

Right away.

[Young Nicole (voice)]

See, I don't know if it was an intentional hurt. She was bathing me and I only remember one instance. And she hurt me. She put her fingers too far where she shouldn't have and she hurt me. That's the first time I remembered that since saying that when I was six years old. But I remember remember being beyond. Yeah, I remember it happening.

[Ira Glass]

Okay.

[Nicole Glumpla]

It was like, like a movie set where the walls. There's no, there's no roof. Like I was sitting up on the walls looking down into a bathroom and my biological mother bathing, you know, younger me. And she touches me inappropriately. That's where the memory stops.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

So it's like you're watching it from outside of yourself, from above.

[Nicole Glumpla]

Yes. But I could feel the pain though. And I remember saying that. It's like I took a snapshot of

[Young Nicole (voice)]

the pain, a picture of the pain and what was inflicting the pain.

[Nicole Glumpla]

It was My biological mother.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Even before she saw the tapes, Nicole, at 17, felt she'd got the certainty she wanted. She remembered her mother actually hurting her. She watched the videos of herself as a small girl. Anyway, Corwin shut off the recorder while she did, and this remarkable thing happened. Nicole saw herself as a young girl describing the very same abuse, almost verbatim. I've seen the videos. It's the 80s. A very small. Nicole is in pigtails and white stockings. Corwin's in a big plaid shirt and shaggy hair. And he asks right away about Nicole's mum.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

What's she like?

[Young Nicole (voice)]

Me.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

Why? Why is she mean?

[Young Nicole (voice)]

Hurts me.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

How does she hurt you?

[Young Nicole (voice)]

Like, sticks her finger up my vagina. About up to there on my finger.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

When did she do that?

[Young Nicole (voice)]

All the time when she gives me a bath.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

What did you say to her when she did that to you?

[Young Nicole (voice)]

I said, don't do that. I said, ouch.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

She says, her mum burned her feet over a hot stove. Corwin tries to figure out if Nicole knows the difference between what's real and what's make believe. He asks her to separate things like President Reagan real, which she knows, from things like Superman make believe, which she also knows. He gets her to swear on her oath as a brownie that what she said about her mother is real. She does. She holds three little fingers up in the brownie salute.

[Young Nicole (voice)]

On my honor, I will try to serve God in my country.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

There are other concerning details about Nicole's mum. Once she had dropped Nicole off to see Dr. Corwin for one of their recorded sessions. And Nicole, who seemed happy to be recorded and speak clearly into the microphone when her dad dropped her off, is suddenly concerned that the microphone would broadcast what she's saying into the waiting room where her mom sits. Corwin asks her about the abuse she described the week before. Does she remember talking about that? A little bit. Nicole says quietly.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

Wait. Tell me the little bit that you remember.

[Young Nicole (voice)]

There's no car to the waiting room.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

No, it doesn't. They can't hear us, okay? They can't hear us out there. And you're safe here, okay? And I'm not gonna. After we get done talking, I'm not gonna tell them what you tell me, okay? It's just between you and I right now, okay?

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Okay, she whispers before going on to talk about being burned and touched in the bath. In another interview, Nicole says her mother's told her to lie.

[Young Nicole (voice)]

What's my dad gonna be back?

[Nicole Glumpla]

I don't know.

[Young Nicole (voice)]

He's in court, I guess.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

What's he in Court about my mother. What about your mother?

[Young Nicole (voice)]

Do you know that she threatened me?

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

That she what?

[Young Nicole (voice)]

Threatened me.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

Threatened you? How's that?

[Young Nicole (voice)]

Threatened me that if I didn't watch the CPS that she would do something bad to me.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

She's talking about cps. Child Protective Services.

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

If you didn't do what?

[Young Nicole (voice)]

Lie to the CPS man

[Dr. Dave Corwin]

that she would do something bad to me. Well when? When did she say that?

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

So that's the video of 6 year old Nicole Corwin. Then asks 17 year old Nicole how she's feeling about what she just saw. She says there are some questions that might never be answered. But her biggest question about why she didn't grow up with her mum. That had an answer. She was sure her mom had abused her.

[Young Nicole (voice)]

But I do have an explanation in my mind and I can now realize that it's not my fault and I can put that chapter behind me and I can go on and yeah, I do think.

[Ira Glass]

I think it's a very healthy thing to not run from something.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

For Nicole, the tapes and her memory proved what had happened to her as a kid. It was a relief. She'd been worried that she was going to learn that her dad really did coach her to lie about her mum. Now she could put that aside. She could remember him the way she always had as her best friend and a good dad. But then Corwin published a case study about Nicole. He didn't use her name. He called her Jane Dillo. But Corwin's case study became part of a huge dispute that was fracturing psychology in the 90s. It was called the Memory wars. And the argument was about whether repressed memories, adults suddenly remembering trauma, were real. Some scientists believed repressed memories were possible. Others said no way. Nicole's videotapes and Corwin's article were co opted by the side that thought repressed memories with were real. They thought Nicole's case proved it. Corwin hadn't seen this coming. I've spoken to him. He says he wasn't on either side. Doctor Elizabeth Loftus read Corwin's article with one eyebrow firmly raised. She was a psychology professor at the University of Washington and a big deal. It was her experiments that proved memories are malleable. And she was a star witness in high profile court cases where she argued that eyewitness recollections aren't reliable. So when the memory wars began, she knew which side she was on. She thought repressed memories were almost never real. She wrote a doorstop of a book called the Myth of Repressed Memory. And when she read the Jane Doe case. She was alarmed.

[Elizabeth Loftus]

I knew that people were using this case as the new proof of repressed memory. It was being discussed academically. It was being introduced into court cases to prove that repressed memory is real and has been proven. It was being used against people whom I thought were innocent because they were on trial in their cases. And so we had to get to the bottom of it.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Part of her suspicion was the message and part was the messenger. She'd seen Corwin testify in court. On another case, a patient accused their therapist of abuse, and she didn't find him persuasive there either.

[Elizabeth Loftus]

I already had a suspicion about Corwin and his judgment, I think, going into this situation because of the work I had seen him do on this other case and how he had pretty much, you know, helped to ruin the life of this poor female psychiatrist who was the accused person in this other case.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

You're saying that the female psychiatrist was accused of abuse?

[Elizabeth Loftus]

Yes, by. By, I think, a former patient.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

And Corwin was saying that that had happened?

[Elizabeth Loftus]

In so many words, yes. He was. He was an expert for the accuser.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Loftus decided to investigate the Jane Doe case. She wanted to know whether the abuse had really happened. But to do that, she needed to know the real name of that little girl. Rather than ask Corwin, which would be normal for a researcher looking into someone else's study, she decided to dig around on her own. Loftus knew where to start.

[Elizabeth Loftus]

Clues in the tapes. At some point in the tape, he called her Nicole. And I just made a little mental note. Hmm, her name is Nicole. He said something like, and when you were living in Fresno. And I thought, hmm, it has something to do with Fresno, that kind of thing.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

She contacted a private investigator to run down some tips. She searched death records for Nicole's father. She found dozens of matches, and she started narrowing them down, closing in on the real Jane Doe. Nicole, meanwhile, was thinking very little about her time as Jane Doe. She'd left foster care and was making her own life as an adult. She joined the Navy. She was learning to fly military helicopters. And she decided to become a psychologist, she says, because she wanted to be like Corwin. She felt safe when she was talking to him as a kid, like she was being listened to. She wanted to make other people feel that way. She started acing her psychology classes at night while she trained as a pilot during the day. A couple years into her military service, stationed in Hawaii, she got an odd phone call from a close family friend.

[Nicole Glumpla]

Said, hey, there's something going on, there's a private investigator looking for you.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

What did you think?

[Nicole Glumpla]

Oh, my gosh. Why on earth? What on earth? What is happening now? And I knew within moments of hearing the words private investigator that this had something to do with. With Dave's journal article.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

It was the only thing she'd ever been part of that might be interesting to an investigator. She called Corwin, who learned Loftus was behind it. Loftus interviewed Nicole's foster mum, former stepmom, family friends who knew her growing up. She'd even interviewed Nicole's biological mum and said she might have been wrongly accused. Nicole hearing about Loftus was like, absolutely not. Why did you want her to stop?

[Nicole Glumpla]

I felt intruded upon. I felt violated, very vulnerable, very exposed. And I understand that that probably sounds weird, given that I had already given Dave my consent to publish a story about intimate details of my life, but there's a very, very big difference between someone asking you to investigate parts of your life and someone doing so without your knowledge or permission. I did exchange emails with her and I asked her to stop what she was doing.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

And what did she say?

[Nicole Glumpla]

In so many words? No.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Did she ask you any direct questions while she was looking into the case?

[Nicole Glumpla]

No.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Did that strike you as kind of odd?

[Nicole Glumpla]

It struck me as kind of infuriating.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Nicole complained to Loftus's university, who told her to stop investigating the Jane Doe case.

[Elizabeth Loftus]

I just got the call from some administrator on my campus saying, you know, are you looking into this case? I said, yes, I'm looking into this case. And they came and seized my files. I mean, I couldn't believe this was happening. When can the administrators come to your office and just take your files?

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Loftus was eventually cleared and she published her findings on Jane Doe. She argued that the abuse might never have happened. Of course, this was the opposite of what Nicole had believed and clung to since she was 17. Loftus printed eight pages worth of doubts in a magazine and called the article who Abused Jane Doe? When Nicole heard the article was on stand, she took a friend from her military base and drove 50 miles to Barnes and Noble, where they stood side by side.

[Nicole Glumpla]

Reading was so hurtful, it was so ridiculous to me that someone basically interviewed everyone in my life who had known me when I was a child, except me, and then went ahead and patchwork together this story that just so happened to completely support her hypothesis. How dare she? She just had no right. She just had no right to do what she did.

[Elizabeth Loftus]

Whose story is this? This isn't just her story. This is. This is the falsely accused mother's story. This is a whole. Other people are part of this story. I don't think one person gets to just decide, I'm going to only tell the story one way and only let people tell it who believe me uncritically. What about the other people in the story? I thought I was investigating an accusation against a possibly innocent person.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

I don't think the claim is that you should have just believed her uncritically. I think. I think Nicole says that the way that you went around this research was sort of traumatizing and demoralizing to her. Like it made her feel like she didn't have any control over her own records and her own confidential information from her childhood. Can you put yourself in her shoes at all? Can you understand why she feels like this was a trespass?

[Elizabeth Loftus]

Well, yes. I mean, I think she. She had her way of telling her story and she didn't want there to be another way. And then that might be upsetting for her.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

I don't. It doesn't seem to me like what she was upset by was that there was another way of telling the story. I think what she found upsetting was that you found out who she was and looked into her life without asking her or without thinking about her.

[Elizabeth Loftus]

Well, don't you think that that's what journalists do all the time?

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Usually when you write a story about someone, you contact them or you ask them what they think of the things that you found out.

[Elizabeth Loftus]

Actually, there were times when I would have liked to have talked to her. I think I even wrote up some questions that I might want to ask her. But in the end, we decided that it was just too risky.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Risky how?

[Elizabeth Loftus]

I just remember there were going to be conditions, and it just made us nervous. So we decided we would just publish what we had found out through many, many other sources. And leave it at that. And that's what we did.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Nicole sued with the help of a lawyer who took her case for free. They went after Loftus and everyone who'd helped write the article For 21 complaints, from defamation to invasion of privacy. But even though she was angry with Loftus, Nicole read her article over and over again until something happened that she wasn't expecting. She found herself agreeing with Loftus a little.

[Nicole Glumpla]

It planted a seed of doubt. It did, yes.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

What was that like? To feel like there's this thing that you've been so certain of for so long that you felt like you had resolution of with Dr. Corwin and seeing those tapes and then to have it be the subject of doubt again. What did that do to you?

[Nicole Glumpla]

It made me feel very small. It made me feel very insignificant, as though my opinion on my own, the events of my own life were the least important.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Nicole started changing her mind back and forth, over and over. Some days she thought she'd been abused. Other days she thought she'd lied about it. I have to say, as someone who spent months looking into Loftus article, it is really hard to work out the responsible thing to think. When I first read it, I remember thinking, game over. There's no way Nicole's mum abused her. But as I looked into each claim Loftus made, what had seemed like a nine on the convincingness scale turned out to be more like a 4. Like Loftus found a report from another psychologist who'd interviewed young Nicole, who said she sounded mechanical and rehearsed when she talked about abuse. Loftus told me that was the evidence that impressed her most. But I don't know. He says Nicole has told her story numerous times to a number of different people and she now sounds mechanical. He could mean Nicole's lying, or he could just mean she's been asked to tell it too many times. And Loftus interviewed Nicole's stepmom, a woman who'd been there for the custody battle. She told Loftus that she and Nicole's dad had tried to win custody with what she called the sexual angle. Loftus heard that as sinister. But did she accidentally reveal that she'd had an agenda? Or did she just use sexual angle as an unfortunate shorthand, like saying, we won custody with the abuse thing and take the burns. Loft has found out that Nicole has a fungal condition that makes skin peel like a healing burn. But there are photos of young Nicole's feet with big blisters. Could they be explained by a fungus? It genuinely torments me. I still don't know what to think. Every piece of evidence seems to pinball back and forth like this. I went mad trying to find out the answer. I thought if I read enough court documents, I'd finally find the one thing that no one else had. The thing that would give me certainty either way. Of course, I didn't. And Nicole didn't either. She sat every day in the suspended animation of not knowing, caught between two really distressing ways of seeing her past. In one, her mother abused her. In the other, her father manipulated her into lying. And because she lied, her innocent mother was cut out of her life and wrongly accused of abusing her child.

[Nicole Glumpla]

It just created this back and forth that I continue to Live with today. It did happen. It didn't happen. Some days I fall somewhere in between.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

How disorienting was it to feel like you had the truth and then you lost it?

[Nicole Glumpla]

Disorienting is a good word, but I don't think it fully captures. It goes to my identity. It really goes to the heart of who I am and who I thought I was and who I think I am. The most important, the key memory on which I rebuilt and then rebuilt again. My identity has now been called into question. It's just frustrating. Multiplied by a million, it's just so, so frustrating. There is an intangible to be gained from the process of transition, from being a victim to becoming a survivor. And in my case, now, all of a sudden, I'm. Am I neither? I don't know. Am I either? I. I don't know.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Nicole's lawsuit against Elizabeth Loftus dragged on and on over five years, all the way up to the California Supreme Court. In the end, Nicole lost. The First Amendment protected Loftus as a journalist, and Nicole had to pay legal fees, nearly a quarter of a million dollars, which she could not afford. The court garnished her military wages. She quit the Navy, lost two houses, and her car was repossessed. Over all this, she filed for bankruptcy. These days, instead of being stuck with between believing she was abused and believing that she wasn't, Nicole's found a third option. She tries to care a little less. She can't dial down the uncertainty, so she tries to dial down the stakes.

[Nicole Glumpla]

I'm never going to know. I'm never going to know. And even after all these years, I think I still thought that at some point I would come to a solid decision, yes or no. And really, really, I'm never going to know. And that just has to be okay.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

There's so much that Nicole can't be certain of. So she hammered out a certainty about herself. She found a way forward. She became a pilot. She got two master's degrees and a PhD in psychology. She's now a therapist, like she's wanted since she was 6. And she's never cut her mum out of her life. Nicole's mum has always said that she never abused Nicole. She maintains that today. And she says she didn't tell Nicole to lie to Child Protective Services. Her mum's in her 70s. They live in the same state. It's not an easy relationship.

[Nicole Glumpla]

There's a possibility that I ruined my biological mother's life. There's a tremendous amount of guilt associated with that. We're close for. Well, we're relatively close for a period of time, and then things sort of fall apart again, just as they have.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

When was the last time that you spoke?

[Nicole Glumpla]

Five months ago.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

And what was that like?

[Nicole Glumpla]

It's still. It's still awkward. It's still very pressured, if you will. She still wants very much for me to believe that she never did anything to me. And I still don't know. So it's. It's really, really hard to move past that major sort of elephant in the room.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Do you ever talk about it?

[Nicole Glumpla]

No.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Is she able to accept that you might just not know?

[Nicole Glumpla]

No. I think she really wants me to believe that she didn't.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Do you think you could. Do you think there's anything that could change her mind?

[Nicole Glumpla]

No. The waters are so muddy now. There's no. I'll never know one way or the other.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Nicole is no more certain about what happened today than she was when she was 16. She never flipped a coin and picked something to believe, but she landed on a certainty about what to do, but doesn't rest on what to believe. It doesn't matter what the evidence says she wants. Her mom,

[Ira Glass]

Eleanor Gordon Smith, teaches ethics at the University of Southern California. A version of this story is in her book, Stop Being How We Really Change Our Minds. I'm just wondering.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Wondering.

[Nicole Glumpla]

I'm oh, so tired of wondering.

[Ira Glass]

Well, programmers produced today by Neal Drumming and Emmanuel Berry. The people who put our show together includes Whitney Dangerfield, Aviva de Kornfeld, Hilary Elkins, Damian Graefe, Mickey Meeks, Joe Nelson, Catherine Raymondo, Nadia Raymond, Robin Semi and Alyssa Shipp, Lily Sullivan, Christopher Sotala, Matt Tierney, Julie Whitaker and Diane Wu. Our managing editor for today's program was David Kestenbaum. Additional production help on today's rerun from Molly Marcello. Special thanks today to John and Joe Teshet, AKA the Jetsons, Amy Bertain, Michelle Johnson and Keith Woods. This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by prx, the public radio Exchange. Thanks today to this American Life partners Laurie and Roger Sherman, Beverly Young and Robin Fry. I hope that you will consider becoming a life partner. The reason why we hope you'll sign up is just the most basic. It helps us make our program. A substantial part of our budget now comes from our life partners. But of course, we also do all these bonus episodes. Our latest one is a musical bonus episode where I collaborated on some song lyrics and then went on stage to try them out in front of a live audience to hear that and dozens of other bonus episodes [e-mail] LifePartners the link is also in the show Notes. Thanks as always to our show's co founder, Mr. Tory Malatea. You know, he is so excited about the superhero he created. This guy who gets bit by a radioactive seagull patrols the beaches saving lives. Tori swears it's super popular.

[Gary Goleman]

The Gull man is getting huge. The Gull man is getting huge.

[Ira Glass]

I'm Ariel Glass. Back next week with more stories of this American life.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

From Spider man to a new Steven Spielberg movie. We know the TV and movies you'll want to watch this summer.

[Gary Goleman]

I'm excited about this film. I just know suspense, intrigue, aliens. And I'm like, all right, Spielberg, I'm in.

[Eleanor Gordon Smith]

Check out the summer guide from Pop Culture Happy Hour Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.

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