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There are few modern photos more iconic than the image of Christine Blasey Ford with her hand raised in the U.S. Senate chamber, vowing to tell nothing but the truth about being sexually assaulted by then-nominee to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh. From that moment on, Christine’s life was forever changed, exposing her to vicious hate and shaking the deeply rooted respect for government that had motivated her to come forward in the first place. Now, almost six years later, Christine sits down with Stephanie to give her a look into this new life. She shares how, even though many things got harder for her after her testimony, if she had the choice to do it all again, she would.

Lemonada has teamed up with Apple Books to bring you the Lemonada Book Club. The March pick is One Way Back by Christine Blasey Ford. For more details, visit apple.co/lemonadabooks

This series is presented by the Marguerite Casey Foundation. MCF supports leaders who work to shift the balance of power in their communities toward working people and families, and who have the vision and capacity for building a truly representative economy. Learn more at caseygrants.org or visit on social media @caseygrants.

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To follow along with a transcript, go to www.lemonadamedia.com/show/lastday shortly after the air date.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Stephanie Wittels Wachs, Judge, Christine Blasey Ford

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  00:04

On September 27, 2018, just about everyone I knew was glued to their TV screens as a woman wearing a blue suit walked into the Senate chamber to testify against Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. With a slew of photographers crouched in front of her, she raised her right hand and swore to tell the truth about what happened to her in the summer of 1982. She believed it was her civic duty to tell Congress that the man they were considering as the next Supreme Court justice had sexually assaulted her at a party when they were both teenagers. I for one, remember her testimony clear as day. I was stuck in a chair so much that summer and early fall nursing my baby who was born in May of 2018. And I vividly recall sitting in this salmon colored glider in my son’s nursery, watching this woman on my little iPhone screen, holding on to him and hanging on to her every word. Well, behind the images on the screen. Behind that blue suit was a real life human being a mother of two named Christine, a professor, a California resident, and a big fan of Soundgarden and Metallica. She’s someone who historically hasn’t gone by the formal three name moniker. We’ve come to know her by Christine Blasi Ford. She has been Dr. Blasi, we’re just Christine, even Chrissy to a select few. And she’s now the author of a new memoir called One Way Back, where she details the life she lived before that day in the Senate chamber and how she plans to keep living the version of it that she’s in now, on the other side. It’s a very different version of her life. One with security detail, and a dining room full of letters from 10s of 1000s of strangers. The underside of her hair is no longer dyed the vibrant blue she’d worn before her day in the Senate. Many of her relationships have changed, and she’s formed new ones, including with some of the most recognizable people in the world. Of course, these huge changes make Christine a perfect person to talk to about Last Days. So without further ado, this is Last Day, a show about the moments that change us. I’m your host Stephanie Wittels Wachs. Today, I give you the gift of Christine Blasi Ford.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  02:42

Hi.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  02:43

Hi, how are you?

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  02:45

Wow, you’re wearing a Metallica shirt.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  02:48

Can you see that?

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  02:49

Oh, fuckin’ love it.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  02:53

And pajama pants as well.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  02:54

Obsessed.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  02:56

Yeah.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  02:57

Oh, my God, yes. I just finished reading your book, I loved it so much. I just enjoyed you. And I’m thrilled to talk to you today.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  03:07

Oh, thank you so much. Let’s, I’m thrilled to meet you.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  03:12

So I want to start with the before times, actually, so it’s so funny you say before times you capitalize it like we do. And you right? I missed the simple determinations I used to make in the before times. And I’d love to get a sense of what your life was like in the before times.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  03:30

Sure, so I’m a university professor, and I teach statistics, which is this class that people don’t necessarily want to take but often have to take. So I try to make it as fun as possible and as educational as possible. It’s pretty challenging class. So I do that from September until May and in between I surf as much as I can. And then in the summer. I have the summer off to be with my kids.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  04:01

I feel like surfing is such a symbol in the book, right you in the water and what it means to you. And as someone who doesn’t surf but it’s surf curious. Could you kind of break down like surfing for dummies Crash Course why you love it and why you love the water and why you love surfing,

 

Christine Blasey Ford  04:20

Sure, well, I love being in the water, especially the ocean and, and especially the Pacific Ocean with all of the biodiversity and the varying types of waves around every corner. It’s just something that I when I’m in the ocean, I feel really connected to other people who are in the ocean, even people who might be in the ocean far, far away, all at the same time so.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  04:47

Yeah, I love that. That’s yeah, that connectivity and like the bigness of it, you know, a lot of people are afraid of that bigness. But you seem to find a home in it.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  04:57

Yeah, I think I feel safer in the ocean than anywhere, but it’s it is a place to be mindful it is it can be dangerous. So you have to have some skills and some knowledge and make some decisions when you’re out there. So it’s both beautiful and a little bit scary.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  05:17

Beautiful and a little bit scary. Is that a place you kind of like to live?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  05:24

It’s like, it’s scary part doesn’t get too out of control. And yes, it’s okay, that when you’re in the ocean, and it’s scary. What’s interesting is that you don’t really have the opportunity to panic or doubt yourself, you really have to make quick decisions and stay calm, like that’s one of the things that you’re taught for ocean safety is to stay calm so you don’t really have the same opportunity to get stressed out and panic and overthink everything. And that’s kind of nice to be a little bit contained in that way just because you’re managing oncoming waves, and there’s another one behind that. There’s other surfers and rocks, there’s all kinds of things that you need to be mindful of.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  06:12

Wow. So surfing was your hobby, obviously, your passion your pastime still is it sounds like but like you said, the thing you did for work was super smart academic work up in Palo Alto. And your teaching and research, I think is such an interesting backdrop for the events that have unfolded over the last five years, you speculate that you were able to keep the trauma of your assault under the surface for so long because of the objective statistics focused way that you’d been trained to kind of look at data and and there seems to be a real turning point in the story where you feel like you can’t hold this at bay anymore where this traumatic event can’t be kept at this distance any longer. And I’m wondering if you could talk about how that felt to sort of have those two different things colliding?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  07:03

Yeah, so it was not as hard at the beginning as it became later on. And I think one thing that people don’t realize is that the process for me started three months before everyone saw me on TV so when Justice Kennedy retired, you know, I started having some thoughts about who might be the replacement and saw that news articles that mentioned Brett’s name, and was concerned and was operating on a pretty short timeline, because I think it had been announced that the nomination from this shortlist would be selected within a week or something, it was very short time period. So I felt really clear. And I was not anxious or stressed. But I was clear that I needed to say something, not necessarily to the whole world or on television, but that I needed to just say something to someone that was kind of the easier part is making that initial contact the first week of July.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  08:15

And listeners, I gotta tell you, things spiraled out of her control very quickly after that, you really do need to read her book to fully comprehend how nutty it was. But just to give you an idea, Christine says she initially talked with a few close friends about how to report this information, where to even begin, she contacted her state representative who put her in touch with Senator Dianne Feinstein, there was lots of back and forth with their respective staff. At some point, a few people encouraged her to get legal representation. When she got lawyers, those lawyers encouraged her to testify in front of Congress, that by the time she got comfortable enough with that terrifying prospect, her lawyers suddenly advised her against it. Politicians that Christine had been put in touch with kept changing their tune about how involved they want it to be, and by the time the summer came to a close, she had no idea if anything was actually going to be done. Then various details about her and her allegation leaked, articles were published and all of a sudden, a congressional testimony was back on the table and would need to happen stat.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  09:45

I really do appreciate how you, you drew this boundary in the book and you said if you want to read about what happened to me or the testimony, it’s all on public record. So I don’t even want to talk about that. What I would like to ask though is I think it’s really fascinating, like, the morning of a life changing moment. You don’t necessarily know what’s coming. I mean, you kind of did you, you were about to be put in front of a metaphorical moving train, in the Senate chamber, but you woke up that morning, and what was going through your head and what was what was going on in your body and anything like that, that kind of comes to mind about the before you went in and leading up to it?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  10:25

Yeah, for sure, the day before is worse than the day of I think with any stressful thing in life, it’s kind of like that with a doctor’s appointment or anything, or the day before is the worst. So the day of I woke up incredibly early, I got almost no sleep. And I just felt really ready, ready to get this done and be over, it had been three months of all kinds of wrangling and stress and meetings about going forward and meetings about not going forward. And that that morning, I woke up ready for this to come to an end. So I remember really clearly walking down the hallway, from the holding room to the committee room. So I remember that hallway forever. It was like it was in slow motion. The people standing in their doorways and waving at me and looking at me, and then coming into the committee room with my bodyguard, and getting to that table and chair, and then all the photographers kind of jumping up and snapping photos.

 

Judge  11:34

Do you swear that the testimony you’re about to give before this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? So help you God, thank you very much.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  11:44

I mean, the cameras clicking is such a visceral image. And I’m wondering, like, as you emerge out of that, what do you remember feeling and thinking sort of immediately after, right? You’ve there snapping and you’ve been grilled? And there’s all this talk between the senators and you walk out, and what is your thought?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  12:06

My thought was, that went okay, I’m okay. I’m going to be okay. And I’m going to go home and go back to California and hopefully soon be able to move out of the hotel we were living in and go back to our house and go back to work when I could. So I came out of the hearing, you know, intact, I survived it pretty well, it didn’t seem that terrible. It wasn’t my preference to have all those cameras or to have it be so public. But I didn’t know that it was going to be that public and that everyone was going to be watching it. And in a way that served me.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  12:52

I think it’s so interesting to think about that identity shift, right of like, you know, Christine, private Christine, and then push like household name, Christine.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  13:03

Yes.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  13:04

That is a major shift that I don’t think a lot of people can speak to. What do you remember about that time?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  13:12

I remember a lot of people contacting me and wanting to speak with me media, citizens, famous people. And I felt like I just needed a lot of time to come to terms with what was happening, the level of media and the level of coverage. And finding out how many people had watched it and hearing my very painful story about high school I. Yeah, it was very sudden, and people, even in my most inner circle, were sort of responding to me differently, so.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  13:53

How so?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  13:55

Just like some people seem to be a little bit in awe of me. And I think that’s one of the reasons I wrote the book is, you know, I heard from a lot of people I got correspondence from people all over the world. All 50 states 42 countries, and I think some people you know, obviously some people kind of demonized me but a lot of people idolized me and part of wanting to write the book was just to share that I’m just a person and a lot of people saying they could never do what I did and I wanted to let them know that I could never do what I did either so.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  14:36

Right, and you know when you’re this is a quick personal tangent but when you’re when you’re nursing I don’t know if you nurse your your kids, but like yes, you’re you’re in that just hole where you’re just like a cow. You’re just like, just like, cut off from the world in a different kind of a way.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  14:57

Yeah.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  14:57

I was nursing my son, when you were going through this, and I remember viscerally and vividly sitting in the chair, watching you and like, it makes me overwhelmed like being so in awe of what you were able to do.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  15:15

My motivation and coming forward was to be helpful. And to provide facts about how Mr. Cabinets actions have damaged my life. So that you could take into a serious consideration as you make your decision about how to proceed. It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr. Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court. My responsibility is to tell you the truth.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  15:42

I think it was true for so many people who watched you that you, you suddenly like became the symbol which you talked about in the book, would you have gone through this like had you known like I was going to, you know, become this thing that people were going to do to attach meaning to and symbol to? That seems like a lot of pressure for someone who was just trying to do the right thing?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  16:07

Right, yeah, I think beforehand, when you’re wrangling with something like this, and people tell you there’s going to be backlash. And it’s not a concrete thing backlash. So you’re just imagining in your head, like, what is backlash? Does that mean, people I don’t know are gonna say bad things about me. Okay, that’s okay. That’s just a tree falling in a forest somewhere. I don’t need to worry about that. But I didn’t really know in a concrete way what the backlash was going to look like. And it probably that’s good that I didn’t know. But even now that I do know, know what people are capable of and what their intent is. I still don’t regret it and still would, would do it again. It’s survivable, and I want people to take that away from my account that yes, it was extremely difficult, very painful, went through a really long grief cycle. But it’s still important that we speak up.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  17:18

Yeah.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  17:19

If we want things to be different and better. Not everyone can speak up. There’s a lot of reasons why people can’t speak up. And I’ve heard from so many survivors, so I totally understand, but for those who want to hope this gives them some more concrete examples of what that aftermath might be like.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  17:44

One part of that aftermath is that Brett Kavanaugh did indeed get confirmed to the Supreme Court. Christine’s testimony was ignored, downplayed and doubted. After the confirmation people in her life tried to reassure her that she’d done the best she could and at least it was over now. She writes that she felt quote, misunderstood by everyone on the planet. She also writes poignantly about what this outcome meant for her understanding of the political system in general, a system she had been trying to help. I think what was so heartbreaking in the book, you, I’d like to quote you to you, if you if you’ll allow me.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  18:27

Sure.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  18:29

You say I was told that even if I had medical records describing the assault and identifying Brett as the attacker, as well as 20 people saying they’d been told about it years earlier. And actual videotape of him doing it would not have made a difference. Even with that video, they could have denied it was Brett on the footage. So since it takes your breath away, and then you write, every time more information came to light about Kavanaugh or the way that confirmation was handled various contacts in DC would tell me the harsh truth, there is zero chance that anything will be done.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  19:06

And that’s after, you know, months and months and months of grieving and that natural grief part of well, someone’s going to fix this and someone, some lawyer or politician or journalist is going to get all this information together about and expose, actually what happened or maybe there will be an investigation or you know, there’s these things that you go through with grief where you’re hoping for things to happen, hoping somebody’s going to fix it. And then when people start to say to you things like what you just said nothing is going to be done. You really do have to start moving into more of an acceptance phase, and it just took me a really long time to get there. I’m a long term griever takes me a long time to get over things. So I was slow griever I guess I take it slow.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  19:57

It was slow griever, yes, yeah but I think the thing that’s so interesting about that is that you expect you the sort of human, you expect that the right thing will happen, right? Like, I’m, I had good intentions. I’m a good person, I did the right thing for the right reasons.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  20:19

Surely yes, I mean, I was trying to be helpful. And I thought, this is helpful information. And all I’m saying is, maybe you should take another look at the people, the other people on the list who were possible candidates and maybe take a deeper look into, into Brett, I was called by a higher duty and civic duty and patriotism. And I assumed that that’s how people would treat me. And instead, it felt like the people I was trying to help actually hurt me, and did not help me so that was really difficult to come to terms with.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  21:00

Yeah, I think you write really eloquently about growing up in DC, and this being such a fundamental part of your understanding about how the world works, you grew up in the hub of American democracy. The machine was all around you. And you learned to respect government, and the system and the process and how it works for the people.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  21:24

Yes.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  21:24

Of which you are one. And I’d love to know, like, what would you say you did learn about this process of the reality of how the system actually works? And how much has that sort of shifted your belief and in the system injustice and all the things that that we sort of hold as our core tenets?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  21:45

Yes. Well, I learned a lot about being an individual and trying to speak to the system and how complex that can be. I think George Washington said it in his farewell address something about like, something about how patriotism can’t override partisanships so once we have partisanship there, it’s really difficult to have patriotism. I hope I’m not butchering that farewell address, but I think it sounds great. But it’s he said something like that. So I think that I learned that that might be the state that we were in at the time. And maybe we’re still in that were a part, partisanship is sort of overriding any sense of civic duty patriotism. But nonetheless, we still need to keep trying. That’s important to keep trying.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  22:40

Perhaps even harder.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  22:41

Yes.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  23:03

We’re back. The weeks following Brett’s confirmation were devastating. After he was confirmed, Christine was still incredibly anxious and fatigued. Yet people were starting to move on. She was told there wasn’t much of a need anymore for the security guards she come to rely on, her calendar was suddenly totally empty, which for someone who loves their work, and learning and being around students felt like a void of purpose of social interaction. Everything that she knew and held dear was ripped out from underneath her.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  23:38

Yeah, that was those are hard times. So we had to reduce the security but it wasn’t safe enough for us to return to our house yet. So we’re still in hotels for several months. And I think we lived in four different places. So we were a little bit busy just because of that relocation and settling in and getting the kids to their schools, and to all their activities. And I wasn’t I just stayed inside. I didn’t go to those things. But making sure that they still got to go to school, I didn’t want them to have to miss their academic year. So I sought out my academic year. It wasn’t safe for me to go and I certainly didn’t want to put students at risk. Even if I could figure out a way to protect myself and have security for myself, it was just a little bit too much to try to strategize about how I could be in the classroom teaching so I set up for a year and actually set up for two years. So button now I’m back teachings.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  24:51

I’m so glad. I’m so glad to hear that. Yeah, it’s interesting, like we started talking about the ocean, the bigness of it. and suddenly your will got so small.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  24:54

Yeah, I just stared out the windows for so many hours and watched very micro level things happening, like trees and leaves and construction.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  25:15

Do you think that’s part of how you were able to make it through each day? Like how do you make it through each day?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  25:21

Well, maybe we all got a taste of it in the pandemic, when we were inside, it’s a little bit similar to that, where suddenly you’re you’re inside and your regular life is not happening or your job is closed or has moved online. So it was, in some ways similar to that. And yeah, you find ways to pass the time, and I would get up in the morning, and after the kids would go to school, I would stay back with the security and, and just watch the surf channel, you know, all day long, and stare out the window and hope that we were going to move back home soon.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  26:06

How did your sons and husband interact with you during this time? I mean, were they worried about you? Were they you know, how were those interactions?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  26:18

Well, during that after math period, I think that, you know, the kids certainly wanted to be back in their neighborhood. But they were, you know, kids are super resilient. So they were doing pretty well, and they were still going into school and seeing their friends. And, you know, I became like a really permissive parent, and I’m not a very permissive parents. So like, I just let them play Xbox, however long they wanted and have chocolate sundaes from room service for breakfast, or whatever they wanted to do to get through that time. So and then they got to see their friends and do middle of the week, sleepovers and, you know, there were times that we couldn’t all stay together, it wasn’t a good idea for us all to be in the same place so they would stay at different friend’s houses. And but yeah, they they definitely were more motivated to go back home. And I was I was a little bit more concerned about making sure that our house was a safe place and putting in, you know, various measures in our home that would help fortify us once we were we’re back here.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  27:22

Did you say that? Are my, am I making this up, am I projecting that you would like leave your doors open?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  27:28

Yeah.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  27:28

Like did you think about security in you know, in the before times?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  27:32

I never thought about that. I never I actually just thought they either just gonna dismiss me and be like, thanks for this information, bye or thanks for this information, we’ll do something about it and keep you posted or something, I didn’t know that it was going to be you know, not being able to be at home and needing a security detail for a while. But yeah, in the before times, we definitely had that house that anyone could just come in and come out the door opening and shutting all day with people coming in and out and playing basketball up front. coming inside and outside and all we’re all we’re welcome. And now our house is a bit of a fortress so it’s a little bit different now.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  28:17

Yeah, I have that house, not the fortress, the in and out the […] the door slam and constantly the doors and the footsteps and the running and the stairs and the yes, you know it’s it’s something a good time.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  28:33

I know […] I mean.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  28:37

You’re making me, I’m like, okay, I need to love this time. Is good and slow.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  28:42

Yeah.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  28:43

Okay, start surfing and love the slamming of the door constantly.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  28:47

Slamming of the door is hard to love, yeah, but you can get there.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  28:51

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Yeah, I mean, I think that was sort of like the before and then these 10s of 1000s of letters. Yes, yeah, and some were threatening and violent, hence the fortress. But many others, the majority, the overwhelming majority were so deeply supportive.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  29:11

Beautiful. Yeah, just so incredible, just an incredible outpouring, and so different from the internet. I just wish everyone could have that part of the experience, because then you see how loving and wonderful people actually are. But if you go on the internet, you don’t see that. It was almost the opposite of what I saw on the internet in terms of proportion of hate and love. And, you know, 98% of the letters were incredibly loving. And the 2% that were were horrible. Were very, very horrible, very scary. And of the 98% that were were grateful for patriotism in our country and civic duty and citizenship. 24% of those were from survivors who told me their story. So those were heartwarming and heartbreaking. And I read them with a team of my students who are experts in trauma and work at our VA hospitals. You know, we just all kept feeling the same thing we have to write back to this person we had, you know, every letter you would read and be like, I just want to call that person and tell them something. And every letter felt that way, it was just this desire to respond. So yeah, still trying to figure out how to do that, but this book is one of the ways to try to, to honor those people for helping me survive, but also to, to honor what they’ve been through which many of them have been through so much worse. And they were so generous in sharing their supportive words, and.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  31:08

What an interesting intersection, you actually had a body of students trained in trauma, who could help you sort through them. And meticulously catalog in terms of data?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  31:24

Yes, it was sort of a way to make sense of the volume of letters. When the first batches were coming in, I thought, oh, I’m going to write every buddy back. I still wish I could do that, and I did start in on that I’ve written back to anyone over the age of 90, we started undoing that part. But it took so long that we quickly realized that was not a feasible way to respond. But yes, we formed a team. And we really, were just wanting to hear everyone, the way I was heard, I wanted everyone to be heard.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  31:59

But that’s an amazing. I mean, that’s wow, they shared with you so that you could hear them, right. I mean, it’s beautiful. There’s like this triumph of the human spirit stuff, where you’re like, holy shit, we are in this together. And it is powerful, isn’t it?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  32:18

Very, very.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  32:20

Yeah, then it probably helped you to, you know, I would assume on your on your healing journey to I mean, the, the acceptance, the, you know, the grief, that you speak about so eloquently, it must have played into your ability to keep kind of putting one foot in front of the other.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  32:36

Definitely, yes. So I spent about a year reading the letters and still reading but I spent a year of full time reading the letters with my students and we were learning so much from survivors about their experiences that in a way that it can inform science and can inform clinicians working with trauma survivors, so just all so many different levels, the letters were really helpful, and especially helping me on my psychological process of of getting through through it all.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  33:16

Do you think that your work is going to be really tailored to this moving forward?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  33:20

I don’t perceive it becoming like a new area of expertise where I would teach on that topic or something, it’s more of a of another type of work that I would want to get involved in in terms of helping other people who are trying to decide how to come forward and how to be safe. I want to be helpful in that area, for sure.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  33:43

It’s so beautiful, Christine, because your goal was to help. And you didn’t help in the way that you thought you would. But you are helping in this much bigger way that I’m sure you never could have imagined. I mean, I’ve heard you say multiple times today, I want to make it better for the next person. I want to make it better for the next person, and you are.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  34:04

Thank you, it’s got it’s taken a really long time for me to even see that it the first couple of years, I couldn’t see past like, all every minor incorrect thing that was said, and I just was, you know, kind of drowning in the information and the misinformation and the hate and all of that. But now I can see and I think it’s kind of interesting and ironic how badly I wanted the meeting to be private. Because I just I’m kind of afraid of cameras and I don’t really like my picture taken even like I just don’t like that camera part of all of it. And so, if I had gotten if I had gotten my way, and I had written a letter to the head of the committee say thing for his family and for my family. I think this really would be a better idea to have a private meeting. It wouldn’t have been helpful, I guess.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  34:06

It’s true.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  34:20

And yeah, that’s kind of interesting.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  34:36

That’s the bummer. That’s the that’s the bummer.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  35:17

The great thing.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  35:19

I mean, I mean, yeah, not the same story, but lost my brother to heroin overdose was like, Oh, my God, and then got so deep into addiction work and figuring out like, why are we losing so many people? Why is this an epidemic? How can how I did 26 episodes on opioids, how can I understand what happened? And people would say, like, but you’re helping so many people, I was like, I don’t fucking want to. I was like, Tim back. I don’t this sucks. This is a horrible alternative.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  35:46

I felt that way for a long time. I mean, I’m only now able to, it’s a long, it’s a long road, as you know, it’s just a really long road, and wow, that’s amazing, you did all that work. I don’t know that I could have done that.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  36:00

You know, you could this is the thing, like I felt the same. Like, it’s that thing of like, I couldn’t yes, you can, you know, you, it’s like very selfish in the beginning, how can I understand this more? But then it really is like, how can we all do better in this arena? Can I ask you a few more questions?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  36:20

Yes.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  36:21

Okay, great, okay. Um, this Anita Hill, quote, was so resonant. Where you talk about seeing Anita Hill and then meeting her after your testimony, and her telling you to give it five years? And it’s been five years?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  36:41

Almost six, I mean.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  36:43

Wow, I know.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  36:44

That almost like I guess it’s five and a half. Because I think of the start as being June 27, so yeah.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  36:53

And I’m wondering, like, how would you say that you’ve been changed by all of this by you know, by the passing of time, like you’ve given it five years, you just spoke to it beautifully about, I didn’t used to be able to see the forest for the trees, about the helping and all of that. And I think it’s really helpful for people to hear like, time does pass, it does change. Can you speak to that?

 

Christine Blasey Ford  37:18

Yeah, I think that in that grieving process, where you just get to the point where you just think it’s not, I’m never going to be okay, again, like, I will never be okay, again. And right, it’s, like, unacceptable at first, and you just don’t want it to be that way. But as soon as you like, accept that, that, yes, you’re never going to be the same again, it’s, it’s not going to be the same. So once I started really accepting that is when I started to, to get better. And because before that, I just wanted it to be fixed, whatever that meant. So, but I think the really great thing is we can all rebuild our lives. And we’ve, a lot of us have had to rebuild our lives, like you’ve talked about with your own life, and a lot of people we all go through losing people that we love and various grief cycles. But there’s something about us that we’re wired to only suffer for so long. So I was pretty committed to the suffering path. I was on that path and just thought that’s how it’s going to be forever. And I’m like, just going to manage my grief and, and keep going and always be not okay. And, and then suddenly, like it starts to abate and and then you get to say, okay, well, what do I want my life to look like now? How do I build my life now? It’s this terrible thing, and it’s like this gift and you also wish you could give that gift to other people, without them having to go through the horrible parts, where you get to then decide, who do I want to hang out with? How do I want to spend my time and it makes everything really clear so I felt like I was given all this clarity, right? Like, I’ve changed, where I spend my time I change, I’ve changed my surf spot, I go to a different place. I’ve just made all these changes that I’m sure I would not have made. I would have just like kept complaining about or something, literally. So I made those changes, and now I just I live, I think a much more simple life and a much more minimalist life, and that’s working really well for me.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  39:40

I mean, you just essentially said exactly what I wrote in the epilogue of my book, which was when you go through something like this, it’s like your house is blown up, torn to bits and you’re just like sitting on this pile of rubble. And then you do realize at some point, okay, I have to rebuild. But what do I want to build, now? Like intentionally? What do I want it to look like? Like all that kind of and it’s like you say, can people do that without going through some sort of trauma? I don’t know, there’s a clarifying piece of it. That’s like, yeah, and that is universal. Like you’re talking about the same exact experience.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  40:23

Right, like in our crisis, we have opportunity.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  40:28

Yeah, and you got to meet Oprah. And you didn’t just meet her, Christine. You got to stay at her house.

 

Christine Blasey Ford  40:34

She’s so nice. Oh my gosh, and she can drive that golf cart so well, I was scared she was driving so well.

 

Stephanie Wittels Wachs  40:41

There’s even more LAST DAY with Apple premium subscribers get exclusive access to content like behind the scenes chats with the producers of the show, diving deeper into episodes. Sign up now on Apple podcasts. LAST DAY is a production of Lemonada Media. The show is produced by Kegan Zema, Aria Bracci, and Tiffany Bui. Our engineer is Brian Castillo. Music is by Hannis Brown. Steve Nelson is our Vice President of weekly content and production and Jackie Danziger is our Vice President of narrative content and production. Executive Producers are Jessica Cordova Kramer and me Stephanie Wittels Wachs. If you’d like what you heard today, we have three other seasons that you can check out. Have a story you’d like to share, head to bit.ly/lastdaystories, or click the link in the show notes to fill out our confidential Google Form. follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership. You can find us online at @LemonadaMedia and you can find me at @WittelStephanie. Thank you for listening, we will see you next week.