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Things that happen involving both of these women are pretty extreme. The first woman is ex bunny girl, Jane Gaskin. I think to understand Jane and all the wild things that happened to her, sometimes because of her, you need to understand where she's at when this all starts. And that's in January 2000, the beginning of the new millennium. Jane has just survived the millennium bug. Good for her. And she's just made the mother of all resolutions, to leave absolutely everything she knows in England behind. Follow the price of paradise wherever you listen to podcasts.
Was never really diagnosed, but, from what I can tell, like, he definitely was extremely paranoid, and he would have these episodes, like, every couple years where he'd decide that everybody was laying traps for him, like, literally laying, like, scorpions under his doormat and everybody around him was cooking meth and And then he'd kind of snap and he'd call you screaming at you or show up acting like a nut trying to fight somebody. And every once in a while when he would kind of go off, He disappear for a while. So he was kinda wild. I think maybe it got worse as he got older because it seemed like he was pretty functional. He had jobs. He worked as an electrician. He was in a band. You know, they were kind of living like a Malibu party lifestyle. And, you know, I think he was a little volatile. And, you know, when he met my mom, they had this whirlwind relationship that ended basically with me, And then they were never really together after that. I definitely have a better sense of my mom's upbringing, just because she was the one that I, I grew up with for the most part. She had 4 sisters and a brother, and her dad was a guess he'd been in the army. And so he would run the house with a very severe military precision. It's clear he was abusive, physically, maybe sexually. He claims that he would, like, line up the daughters and check them to see how well they were developing, things like that. So she had a pretty nightmarish relationship with him, and I think struck out on her own very young, started working right away, started making money, really was very capable. And, you know, she was, like, the prettiest smartest girl in town, you know, like, all the rock stars wanted to date her. She turned down Mick Jagger Mick Jagger tried to date her. She wasn't into it, you know. And she had me in her mid thirties. So she was, I think, by the standards of that generation, she, you know, had a kid later in life. And, you know, she said it, it was like the most incredible thing that ever happened to her, and she was, so happy to have a child. And she immediately realized, like, once
She just kinda left me. She just decided to go inward into herself, and I just decided to go outward. I let it be known that I was angry. I yearned for her so much that I would drive her away, and I would fight with her, and I'd fight with everyone around me. I was so moody and unpredictable and not well. When I would go to her, a lot of times it just erupted in arguments because I don't know how to communicate. I'm so angry, and I'm so sad. Like, I'm crazy. I'm I'm going mad at this point. And, you know, I would go to her, and a lot of times, she just wouldn't say anything. It just made me more angry, and all we would do is fight. You know, we would fight. I stole her stuff, and it just really grew worse. I think I just scared her because I was so angry. I remember when we moved in with our foster family, she got a lock on her door so she could just lock me out. As a child, I had temper tantrums like any young toddler and child will do, but the anger that specific fury developed almost overnight. The grief and the anger go hand in hand because I lived a life where I didn't have to know either one. And suddenly, as a child, I'm rendered face to face with both of them completely inexplicably.
Everybody around me all said that that's not the right way to be. It's not okay to be gay. I, of course, didn't want to be gay. It would have made my life a whole lot easier if I could have just prayed all this away. So that's what I tried to do in silence for a few years. In the meantime, the Christian academy failed. I had went back to high school, and I still didn't fit in. But something in me had changed at this point, and I really didn't care that I didn't fit in anymore. I really just felt defeated, you know, being stuck with being homosexual when you don't want to be, when it would make your life so much easier not to be. I didn't want to be on the earth anymore. I can remember driving home from my friend's house, and I really just wanted to drive my car off the edge of the road. It felt like it would have made everything so much easier, and it felt like maybe my family wouldn't have to deal with having a gay person in their family. So maybe it would make things easier for them too. I ended up becoming friends with, you know, a girl that I'm still friends with today. And just before I turned 18, I came out of the closet to her and I told her that I was gay. And she was very loving, just letting me talk and express how I feel, and I offer the same thing for her. I had 2 teachers in high school at that time that I had a lot of respect for. One of them was my English teacher and he also was a preacher on Sundays. I asked him what he thought about it.
He had a really challenging childhood. His mom had bipolar disorder and was really significantly impacted and, would have very long manic episodes where she'd become psychotic and violent at times. His dad drank heavily and was just not a very kind person. And I remember even thinking to myself, you know, maybe having a family has done something to anchor him in a different way. You know, I think I really thought, like, problem solved. Like, we got through it. Like, we're good. Then I got pregnant with my second daughter in 2,009. But Scott actually got pretty angry that I was pregnant, and he was also just mean. I remember this time very early in my pregnancy. I had given up refined sugar to lose some weight, but I got pregnant. And I'm like, okay. I'm gonna have cravings. I'm gonna eat refined sugar. And we were at a wedding, and I was like, oh, I just wanna have this wedding cake. And he looked at me and at a table full of people. He said, but you're gonna get fat. It totally floored me that he would say something like that in front of a whole group of people, and he was so cold about it. He almost looked at me like he was kind of disgusted with me. Like, oh, you're gonna get fat again. That was the beginning of, like, knowing, like, some tide was turning that was not feeling very safe and secure and good. Things really deteriorated from there. Scott had become
