An Interview with Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall (Part Three)
Interviewer: Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Numbering: Issue 13.A, Idea: Outliers & Outsiders (Part Nine)
Place of Publication: Langley, British Columbia, Canada
Title: In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal
Web Domain: http://www.in-sightjournal.com
Individual Publication Date: March 15, 2017
Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2017
Name of Publisher: In-Sight Publishing
Frequency: Three Times Per Year
Words: 1,976
ISSN 2369-6885
Abstract
An interview with Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall, B.A., M.A. She discusses: first time feeling truly fathered; drug abuse and misuse in the home, and being able to roll joints not “very well”; self-medicating with marijuana at age 14; baring souls with someone older, Andrew Sutton; helping her mother as her mother used to help people; and caring for strangers.
Keywords: Brenda Hosbrook, care, Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall, marijuana.
An Interview with Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall, B.A., M.A.: Actress, Internet Radio Host, Monologist, Producer, and Writer (Part Three)[1],[2],[3],[4]
*Footnotes in & after the interview, & citation style listing after the interview.*
*This interview has been edited for clarity and readability.*
13. That makes me think of Terry. If I can be indulged, it was one paragraph (and a sentence):
A few days later Terry showed up at our house. I’m not sure why he came – to apologize, to charm me again, to tell me I was a whore? My dad saw him outside the gate at the end of our long driveway. He went inside his office and grabbed his baseball bat. As my dad marched down the driveway toward Terry, he said, “You come near my daughter again, I’ll bash your fucking skull in.”
It was the proudest day of my life – my father had finally fathered me. (Carlin, 2015, p.100)
Yup, says it all.
(Laugh)
(Laugh)
Was that your first experience of feeling truly fathered, or were there other minor events that you did actually feel fathered?
Obviously, my dad would get things for me, or protect me, or stand up for me with my mother at times. He was always teaching me things about the world – politics and the cultural stuff, the ethical/moral compass things. But as far as being a dad who is like “Who are you going out with? Where are you going? Are you going to be safe?”
He would check in with me about stuff like that, but there was never any sense of fear that they would take anything away, like driving privileges, or search my room for drugs. There wasn’t that type of fathering going on, which is what I mean in that comment. The protective father who wants to create boundaries, teach me boundaries, and show me what is safe and what is not safe. That hadn’t shown up in my life up to the point. It had become a type of crisis point.
14. There was not only drug abuse and misuse, depending on term of preference, within the household. In a way, there was an involving you in it. From a young age, you were able to roll and clean cannabis/marijuana.
I couldn’t really roll joints very well, but I definitely cleaned the weed. By watching people, I learned how to roll a joint. When it came to adolescence and knowing how to roll a joint, I was way, way, way ahead of my peers!
(Laugh)
(Laugh)
Because I had been studying it for quite a long time.
(Laugh)
(Laugh)
15. You started smoking marijuana/cannabis at age 14.
That’s when I started self-medicating. I started smoking cigarettes, then started stealing roaches from my dad’s stash. That’s when I started altering my consciousness in order to feel something I didn’t want to feel anymore.
16. Then you met Andrew Sutton, who was a 29-year-old cocaine-snorting mechanic. More or less, as far as I got from reading that part of the book, you bared your souls to one another. What was like to you to be able to be open with someone who was older? When a lot of the time, you were trying to be the good kid.
Yes, it was very heady stuff. Andrew was 10 or 11 years older than me. There was looking up to him with a father-figure part of it. The fact of him being a peer. The sexual relationship, the bonding over the drugs, and the illicit part of that.
Then there were the complications that went along with it, which was ridiculous, crazy, and insane. It showed my very poor choice-making skills at that time. I was not prepared for adulthood and those relationships. My lack of self-worth and the inability to have any healthy boundaries in a relationship with a man. I was so vulnerable in that moment.
Being able to finally bare my soul to someone of the opposite sex was very powerful because all of the other boys in my life, even though they were friends or boyfriends, when you’re in high school you’re trying to pretend that you’re a great person and desperately be liked and loved, it was tough to bare who I really was, and my pain around my childhood and upbringing.
Being able to have someone to relate that to who someone had their own pain in adolescence was a profound bonding for me, it created a safe space. That was our connection initially, Andrew and I. It was the sense of safety and intimacy around that stuff. Unfortunately, it was a ridiculously insane, chaotic situation for me to get into. I didn’t have any ways to separate from it.
All I saw was someone who saw me, adored me, and loved me unconditionally. That was more important than all of the things I was saying, “Yes,” to. I was in way over my head.
17. With that relationship, the sex and cocaine and orgasms were sufficient reason to keep him around too, but you did quit, eventually. Up to the present, is there any substance use or misuse, if I may ask?
I drink alcohol. I smoke weed. I don’t smoke a lot of weed. I don’t drink a lot of alcohol. I haven’t used cocaine since 1988. I know it’s around at parties, but I don’t use it. It is not part of my scene. I walked away from it. I am very, very cognizant of alcohol in my life because of my mother.
Alcohol was never really my thing. I don’t really like it that much. I do smoke one hit of pot once per week, if a friend is around or there is a party. I am lucky. I am one of those people that doesn’t have a substance abuse problem.
I have a way of being in a relationship with it, in a conscious way. I can quit for a year or two at times because I find it distracts me. However, everyone has their relationship with it. Others need to completely abstain. Others can have a beer with dinner. I am lucky to be one of those people.
I am lucky to be alive too. The cocaine, it is a dangerous drug. Any form of it. Any offspring of it: meth, crystal, and others. It is a scary drug. It completely hijacks your brain, the dopamine loop. It makes you a slave to it.
It is meaningless to me today. It doesn’t define me. I see other people, who have the genetics for it. It is scary to watch people teetering and playing with that dangerous stuff. I am blessed. It has been 30 years next year since I have seen cocaine.
(Laugh)
That’s crazy.
18. Your mom didn’t bring home stray dogs, but brought home stray people.
(Laugh)
She was a rescuer.
Later, she got breast cancer. As she was healing, you became her nurse. To me, it seems like you took on the role that she had performed for others throughout her life.
Oh, yes! When I brought Andrew into my life, that was my first rescue. I figured if I married Andrew that he would get his life together. That was the co-dependence in me. Nursing my mother was different, this rescuing thing is a pathology.
It is a way of not having healthy boundaries around creating these situations. Being my mom’s nurse, what’re you going to do? It was difficult, but you can’t say, “No.” It’s your mother. No matter how terrifying it is.
19. What is the motivation there – to care for strangers that are going through any myriad circumstances that you may or may not know at the time?
It is a deep need to alleviate other people’s suffering. That motivates it, ultimately. At times, it is wanting to heal our own suffering. Maybe, it is easier to do it outside of ourselves with other people. Sometimes, if you get motivated by feeling wanted and needed, that’s part of the co-dependent relationship.
The rescuer role is the one that feels high and mighty because they’re doing the rescuing. However, if that’s unconsciously motivating it, over time, it will become oppressive – the helping. There’s a way to be of service. There’s a way of encroaching your own pathology when you’re helping them.
When I went Andrew went into rehabilitation, the first family therapy group session I attended, I told my story. The therapist said, “You’re sicker than he is.” I took great offence to that because A) I was the victim to his insanity and B) I had taken the high road by being there for him and caretaking for him.
She pointed out the victim and the caretaker role were just as pathological. When it is unconscious, all of that behaviour is not healthy because you’re being run by your unconscious scripts. It is only when you can own up and take care of yourself first, and be healthy around that, then you can take care of others in a way that is healthy and real.
Appendix I: Footnotes
[1] Actress; Internet Radio Host; Monologist; Producer; and Writer.
[2] Individual Publication Date: March 15, 2017 at http://www.in-sightjournal.com/an-interview-with-kelly-marie-carlin-mccall-part-three; Full Issue Publication Date: May 1, 2017 at https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.
[3] M.A., Jungian Depth Psychology, Pacifica Graduate Institute; B.A. (Magna Cum Laude), Communication Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.
[4] Photograph courtesy of Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall.
Bibliography
- Carlin, K. (2015). A Carlin Home Companion: Growing Up with George. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press.
Appendix II: Citation Style Listing
American Medical Association (AMA): Jacobsen S. An Interview with Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall (Part Three) [Online].March 2017; 13(A). Available from: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/an-interview-with-kelly-marie-carlin-mccall-part-three.
American Psychological Association (APA, 6th Edition, 2010): Jacobsen, S.D. (2017, March 15). An Interview with Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall (Part Three). Retrieved from http://www.in-sightjournal.com/an-interview-with-kelly-marie-carlin-mccall-part-three.
Brazilian National Standards (ABNT): JACOBSEN, S. An Interview with Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall (Part Three). In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 13.A, March. 2017. <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/an-interview-with-kelly-marie-carlin-mccall-part-three>.
Chicago/Turabian, Author-Date (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott. 2017. “An Interview with Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall (Part Three).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 13.A. http://www.in-sightjournal.com/an-interview-with-kelly-marie-carlin-mccall-part-three.
Chicago/Turabian, Humanities (16th Edition): Jacobsen, Scott “An Interview with Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall (Part Three).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal. 13.A (March 2017). http://www.in-sightjournal.com/an-interview-with-kelly-marie-carlin-mccall-part-three.
Harvard: Jacobsen, S. 2017, ‘An Interview with Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall (Part Three)‘, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 13.A. Available from: <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/an-interview-with-kelly-marie-carlin-mccall-part-three>.
Harvard, Australian: Jacobsen, S. 2017, ‘An Interview with Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall (Part Three)‘, In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal, vol. 13.A., http://www.in-sightjournal.com/an-interview-with-kelly-marie-carlin-mccall-part-three.
Modern Language Association (MLA, 7th Edition, 2009): Scott D. Jacobsen. “An Interview with Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall (Part Three).” In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal 13.A (2017):March. 2017. Web. <http://www.in-sightjournal.com/an-interview-with-kelly-marie-carlin-mccall-part-three>.
Vancouver/ICMJE: Jacobsen S. An Interview with Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall (Part Three) [Internet]. (2017, March; 13(A). Available from: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/an-interview-with-kelly-marie-carlin-mccall-part-three.
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