Carlin at Comedy, Home, Life, and Harmony
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2017/07/22
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: Your mom didn’t bring home stray dogs but brought home stray people.
Kelly Marie Carlin-McCall: [Laughing] She was a rescuer.
Jacobsen: 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.
Carlin-McCall: 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.
Jacobsen: 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?
Carlin-McCall: 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 offense 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 behavior 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.
Jacobsen: To go back to school, you were clinging to Miss Morgan in school. You were a very good student. Also, you had validation from Mrs. Dresser. She would bring you around and introduce you as one of the smartest kids. You deduced the smartest because she would bring the smart kids out, but you were the only kid brought out.
Carlin-McCall: [Laughing] Yes.
Jacobsen: Another footnote to that is you only ever received one C. Based on the acknowledgments in the interview, and the narrative within the book, I see patterns and themes. We have a highly gifted and talented kid in a troubled surrounding.
So, likely more sensitive to surroundings, emotionally and experientially, and enduring Carlin craziness, but you ruined your SAT scores. Even knowing you were bright, even knowing you had good grades, the SATs were insufficient for Ivy schools. What were the feelings at that time?
Carlin-McCall: Also, the year I was taking the SATs, my junior and senior year in high school, I was in a difficult emotional place. I had depression. I had anxiety. I had an abortion. I was in this abusive relationship with this boy. Taking those tests were hard, I am not good at taking those tests.
It was a blow. Also, I don’t think I could’ve handled going 3,000 miles away from my parents at the time. I wasn’t capable of it. So, it saved me from having to make the choice. Thank God, I got into UCLA. Even though, after two weeks at UCLA, I couldn’t handle it. I was emotionally unfit to handle it.
I didn’t know I was having anxiety and depression at that level. I didn’t know what those feelings were at the time. I felt crazy inside. I felt as though I couldn’t handle anything. I felt something was wrong with me. I had no idea how to ask for help because, on the outside, I wanted everyone to think I was fine and okay.
It was another big theme in my life, by saying, “I am fine. I am fine,” when they asked how I was doing. It was devastating. It made me feel behind all of my peers. I stayed behind because I didn’t go to college until I was 25. That set me up for the next 20 years thinking, “I am behind. I am behind.”
So, any sense of being smart, bright, and creative, and is the daughter of this very smart and creative man, and mom too, was non-existent. I felt as though I fucked it all up.
License
In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
Copyright
© Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing 2012-Present. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Scott Douglas Jacobsen and In-Sight Publishing with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. All interviewees and authors co-copyright their material and may disseminate for their independent purposes.
In-Sight Publishing 