0:00

Hiram College is a place where you can

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explore your passions and become your best self.

0:04

Hi, I'm Allison and I'm a biology student.

0:06

In preparation for my future career, I work

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as an animal care steward at the Hiram

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College Field Station. I find my work to

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be very rewarding as I adapt my skills

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in animal care. I've learned how to care

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for injured animals and even become trained in

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handling of raptors. Learn how you can pursue

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your passions at Hiram by visiting www.hiram.edu. Welcome

0:38

to Nobody Told Me. I'm Laura

0:40

Owens and I'm Jan Black. And

0:43

joining us on this episode is

0:45

Helena D'Abala, author of the new

0:47

book, Craig's List Confessional, a collection

0:49

of secrets from anonymous strangers. And

0:51

since 2014, Helena

0:54

has been meeting people on Craig's List

0:56

and documenting their stories. And even

0:58

just from that, we are so excited to talk

1:00

with you. You must have so many amazing things

1:02

that you've learned about people and humanity in general.

1:04

So thank you so much for joining us. Thank

1:07

you so much for having me. And I'm

1:09

very excited to talk about the stories in

1:11

this book. Let's start out with your background.

1:14

You were an immigrant to the US who

1:16

became a lawyer and then found that that

1:18

wasn't fulfilling. And you found a

1:20

very interesting way to try and seek fulfillment. Talk

1:22

to us a little bit about that. It wasn't

1:24

just swimming or picking up a hobby. Yeah. So

1:27

I came to this country when I was

1:31

not even 12, barely 12 years old.

1:34

And I came from Albania with

1:36

my mom. We sought political asylum

1:38

here. And the first

1:40

few months, I would say probably

1:43

even a year after we immigrated

1:46

to this country, were very, very difficult

1:49

in that my mom, who was a

1:51

former family medicine doctor, and

1:54

my dad, who joined us later,

1:56

who was an ambassador, they both

1:58

took on jobs that that were

2:01

quite challenging in

2:03

order to make ends meet. And so my mom

2:05

and I actually ended up cleaning houses for a

2:07

long while, just to kind

2:09

of make a little bit of money. And

2:11

that was my first foray into this world,

2:14

or rather this idea that things

2:17

look different from the outside than

2:19

they actually are from the inside.

2:21

This duplicity, this acting that we

2:24

tend to do, performance,

2:26

I should say, when

2:28

portraying ourselves to the outside world. And

2:31

I think that's also where some of

2:34

my sensitivity to that came from. And

2:36

my parents were very, very pragmatic in

2:38

light of all of these big

2:41

sacrifices that they'd made for

2:44

me to be able to go to school and have

2:46

a good life. They wanted me to

2:48

do something that was kind of easy and

2:50

safe. And so law school had always been

2:52

on the horizon. And I went to undergrad,

2:55

I got a full ride, I graduated

2:57

Phi Beta Kappa from GW, and

3:00

they were thrilled. They

3:03

couldn't have asked for anything more. They're like, absolutely, you

3:05

have to go to law school. And so that had

3:07

become a self-fulfilling prophecy where I thought, okay, now I

3:09

have to. And I never stopped to question, will

3:12

this make me happy? Is this what I wanna do with

3:14

my life? So I did go to law

3:16

school and I graduated when I was 24 and

3:19

got my first job and realized,

3:21

okay, I'm saddled with thousands of

3:23

dollars of student loan debt. And

3:26

I don't like this job, but I'm

3:28

stuck because I have bills to pay

3:30

and responsibilities to my parents. And

3:33

that was a very sad place to be

3:35

because I had to pretend that I wasn't

3:38

feeling all of these things and that everything

3:40

was fine and that I was

3:42

thrilled to have this job and this opportunity. So

3:45

golden handcuffs, so to speak, in the

3:47

sense that you get everything that you've

3:49

ever wanted and then you realize, I

3:52

can't take a different path here because

3:54

I've put so much time and

3:57

money invested already into this being my

3:59

reality. And that's where really

4:01

it started. The facade that I

4:03

portrayed to the world started cracking a little

4:05

bit, and I started realizing this isn't making

4:07

me happy. I need to do something else.

4:10

And so how did the Craigslist

4:13

Confessional Project begin? Washington,

4:15

D.C. is a very special city in

4:18

that there's this juxtaposition there of people

4:20

who have an immense amount of money

4:22

and power and homelessness.

4:25

It's unfortunately quite a common problem

4:28

there. And there was a

4:30

homeless man who panhandled right in front of my

4:32

office building every day. His name

4:34

was Joe. And Joe and I had kind of

4:36

built a relationship, I would say. We would talk

4:38

every so often. I'd bring him lunch from Capitol

4:41

Hill or buy him a sandwich or bring him

4:43

a soda or something. But it wasn't really a

4:46

deep connection. I didn't know him well. And

4:48

then one day I was caught

4:50

up in my own world and I passed him by

4:52

and I didn't have anything to give him. And

4:55

he called after me and he asked if I was upset

4:57

with him. And that

4:59

was a heartbreaking question to see how

5:02

much was riding on our relationship for

5:04

him. He was relying on me for food.

5:07

And so I stopped to talk to him

5:09

and we shared a sandwich.

5:12

And I realized I'd been kind of doing the

5:15

same thing that other people do with homelessness. Most

5:17

other people do with homelessness, which is that it's

5:19

really hard to come face to face with

5:21

somebody's sadness, palpable and very visible sadness.

5:23

And so most people tend to kind

5:25

of revert their eyes and look the

5:27

other way. And by

5:30

placating him with food and not really

5:32

seeing the humanity in him and stopping to

5:34

recognize and have this conversation with him, I'd

5:37

been doing the same thing. So

5:39

we stopped and we talked that day and I

5:41

kind of asked him about his life and asked

5:43

him a lot of questions that I'd been subconsciously

5:45

processing for a while, which is, you know, what

5:47

do you do when it's cold outside? What do

5:50

you do when you don't get food? What do you

5:52

do when you don't get a shelter place? What

5:54

do you do if your stuff gets stolen when you're in the

5:56

shelter, which happened a lot, he told me. So

5:58

we had this conversation. And then I kind

6:01

of opened up too about my own life and what

6:03

I'd been going through, where I'd

6:05

come from and the whole

6:07

immigration experience. And it felt

6:10

really refreshingly real. It felt

6:12

like this real connection that I hadn't had

6:15

with another human being in a really long

6:17

time. And so I went back

6:19

to my office and went back to work and

6:21

I kept thinking back to this conversation and thinking,

6:24

what happened? What happened? Why

6:26

is this sticking with me? And I realized it was

6:28

the first time I'd been honest with somebody in a

6:30

long time. And so I

6:32

kept, that's where I started thinking, how do

6:34

I do this again? I want to have

6:37

this conversation. I want to have all of

6:39

my conversations like this. I want to talk

6:41

to everybody this way in this honest and

6:43

raw and unguarded way. And that's

6:45

where the idea for the ad came where

6:47

Craigslist was ubiquitous in DC. Everybody

6:49

used it. Personal section

6:52

was thriving. So I

6:54

posted an ad and I said, tell

6:56

me about yourself was the subject. And

6:58

I offered to listen to anything that

7:00

people didn't feel that they could share

7:02

with anybody else anonymously and for free.

7:05

Quick send or post. And

7:07

then the next morning I checked my inbox

7:10

and it was just pages of

7:12

replies. Did you initially think that you

7:14

were going to meet up with these people in person

7:16

or were you going to just have them share their

7:18

story with you via email or on the phone? Because

7:20

it seems kind of... I always

7:23

intended for sure, for sure risky,

7:25

but I always intended to meet with people

7:27

in person because I thought that that would

7:29

be the closest way to

7:32

replicate in what had happened with Joe, you know,

7:34

just sitting across from another human being and just

7:37

looking them in the eye and having that

7:39

human connection. And I thought, you can't have

7:41

that by having somebody send you an email.

7:43

You can't really have that through the phone.

7:45

So the intention had always been to meet

7:48

them in person. I

7:50

feel like this happens with so many things where

7:52

before you have a chance to overthink it, it

7:54

gets away from you and you post it. And

7:56

then when I saw the replies, I was like,

7:58

oh, this I guess... wasn't just a

8:00

fluke, this is people are

8:03

taking me up on this. And I think if I

8:05

had maybe had a chance to think it true and

8:07

say, this is Craigslist, this is scary, what are you

8:09

thinking, maybe you shouldn't do this, it

8:11

might've, you know, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't

8:13

be having this conversation. So I think a lot

8:15

of it came from this like fortuitous

8:19

inability to think five million steps ahead

8:21

on my own part in that particular

8:23

moment and just doing it because I

8:25

didn't think that much would come from

8:27

it. And I was happily wrong. And

8:29

what were some of the responses that

8:31

you got in that initial bunch? What

8:33

did people want to confess to you,

8:36

to talk to you about, to get off their

8:38

shoulders? I mean, this

8:41

was six years ago now. So I can't

8:44

tell you for the people that I didn't meet

8:46

and what people were kind of sending in by

8:48

email, but I do remember from

8:51

that initial ad

8:53

that I got two responses that I

8:55

ended up meeting with. And one of

8:57

them was Sarah and her story is

8:59

in the book. Sarah was in her

9:02

40s, I wanna say at the time, and she

9:04

wanted to, she'd been a heroin addict, her

9:07

whole adult life essentially. And she wanted

9:09

to share the roots of that, where

9:12

that had started from her childhood trauma. And

9:15

she was also a mom, she was a

9:17

parent. So she wanted to talk about how

9:19

that had affected her as a mom

9:21

and how it affected the relationship that she was

9:23

trying to rebuild with her sons. And when

9:25

I met her, she had been clean and sober

9:29

for a long while, but it was

9:31

very kind of evident that

9:33

the sadness and trauma of those years still

9:35

lingered on her. So that was the first

9:37

meeting I ever did from that ad. And

9:40

it was during my lunch hour. So I had

9:43

put in several hours of work. I'd

9:46

set up this appointment, I show up at the

9:48

Starbucks, I'm waiting and I'm sitting outside. I

9:50

remember I was wearing a white dress. It

9:52

was so hot. And

9:55

like it is right now in New York

9:57

City, I don't know what the weather is

9:59

like with you guys, but it was... It

10:01

was so hot, I was sweating. I'm looking

10:03

around nervously because I hadn't had the good

10:05

sense to ask, what are you gonna be

10:07

wearing? How will I recognize you? So I'm

10:09

just kind of looking around at everybody that's

10:11

in my periphery. And I have

10:13

this fear that she's not going to show and I'm

10:15

starting to talk to myself, say this is ridiculous, of

10:18

course she's not gonna show. You set up the sat

10:20

on Craigslist, like what were you thinking? And

10:22

then I see this lady, she's across the

10:24

street and she's walking, but she's kind of

10:26

limping a little bit. And I lost

10:30

eyes with her and I had this thought. It was

10:32

an idiot, I said, that's her. I

10:34

knew it, I knew it because she was kind of

10:36

having the same feelings I could tell her. She's like,

10:38

I'm meeting somebody off a breakfast. What

10:40

have I done? What am I thinking? And

10:42

so she walked up to me and

10:44

I said, hi, you know, and her

10:46

name and she said yes.

10:49

And she explained that she'd bought new

10:51

shoes for the occasion. They

10:54

had been digging into her heel and she

10:56

had blisters because she'd walked from

10:58

the Metro. And so we went to

11:00

a nearby park and had

11:03

this lunchtime conversation. And

11:05

I went back to work that day and I

11:08

realized, okay, this is something,

11:10

I need to keep doing this. And

11:12

I also very quickly realized I gave

11:14

myself 45 minutes and this

11:16

not even close to what I need to

11:18

really, to

11:21

make everybody feel comfortable and not make them feel

11:24

rushed that I have to go somewhere. So

11:26

I kept some lunchtime meetings, but then

11:28

I started moving most after work and

11:30

the weekends. And then it started taking

11:33

over all of my

11:35

free time. And then I started realizing,

11:37

I love this, what I'm doing and

11:39

the people I'm meeting and the stories

11:41

I'm listening to. And I don't love

11:43

what I'm doing. So why am I

11:45

placing priority on my nine

11:47

to five when really it should be

11:49

on this thing

11:52

that I've just kind

11:54

of haphazardly discovered. And

11:56

I decided to quit my job, which

11:58

I did. I put my loan. on deferral, started

12:00

up a credit card, made this financial plan

12:03

in my head of how I was going

12:05

to make all this money, quote unquote, that

12:07

I had saved last for a year, which

12:10

of course went out the window like two

12:12

weeks in. But yeah. So

12:16

I made this whole plan and I quit

12:19

my job and then I immediately regretted it

12:21

and started crying, called my boyfriend at the

12:23

time on the phone, who's now my husband,

12:25

and started crying to him on the phone

12:28

about, oh my gosh, I actually did it.

12:30

And he was like, no, this is what you wanted. And I

12:32

think that you owe it to the idea, you

12:34

owe it to the people that you met with to see

12:36

this through. And

12:38

I gave myself that one year. And of

12:41

course, here we are six years later. When

12:43

you met with people and they told you

12:45

their story and rid

12:47

themselves of their burdens, do you

12:49

think that they did that with

12:51

the intention of then making

12:53

positive changes in their life? Or do you

12:56

think they just wanted to have somebody listen

12:58

to them? I think

13:00

that's a really good question. And I don't think anybody

13:02

has quite ever asked it that way. No,

13:04

I don't think that people saw this as

13:07

a fresh start or a way to

13:09

leave behind their old lives and start anew

13:11

or to get better or anything of that

13:14

sort. I

13:17

think people just, you

13:19

know, I think at the very end of the day,

13:21

this is about being heard. And

13:23

I think people need to be heard.

13:25

They don't need back

13:29

and forth conversations about what they should do

13:31

and how they should change the way that

13:33

they're approaching something or a cousin that you

13:35

had once that went through the same thing.

13:37

No, they kind of just need somebody to sit

13:39

there and nod and maybe reach out a hand

13:42

every once in a while and say, I'm so

13:44

sorry, you went through that or just

13:46

kind of listen and care about the story that

13:48

they're sharing. They want to feel that it's that

13:51

somebody is born witness to this life that they've

13:53

lived or this trauma they've gone through, the sadness

13:56

or whatever or loss or whatever it is that

13:58

they may be sharing about. I

14:00

don't think they do it with the

14:02

intention of, yeah, this will be this

14:04

groundbreaking thing. I think they just

14:06

want somebody to listen to them. They

14:09

don't want judgment. Yeah, they don't want judgment.

14:11

And I think it's very sad because it's

14:13

so telling about what's lacking in our society

14:15

today is this ability to

14:17

share something and unburden of yourself, something

14:20

that is your own truth without fearing

14:22

that somebody else is going to look

14:24

at them differently or judge them or

14:26

think less of them. Or

14:29

God knows if I tell somebody this, the world

14:31

might end as I know it. There's

14:33

this huge burden on us to

14:36

portray ourselves as everything's

14:38

great, everything's wonderful. And

14:40

our whole online persona is

14:42

built around that, about the portrayal

14:45

of these perfect lives, these filtered

14:47

lives that we lead. And I

14:49

think we really are buying into

14:51

that so much that it's creating

14:54

this dissonance between our internal realities

14:56

and our external

14:58

roles. So yeah,

15:01

I think people were just looking to just

15:03

have somebody listen to their lives. What

15:06

advice would you have for somebody then who's

15:08

maybe portraying themselves to be somebody they're

15:11

not behind closed doors as they are on

15:13

social media and they feel

15:16

like they are just

15:18

feeling depressed and anxious and really

15:21

struggling with things, especially right now. If they

15:23

don't have somebody like you who will listen

15:25

to them, what should they do? I

15:28

think the way

15:30

that I like to visualize it is kind

15:32

of like a constellation of stars where you

15:35

look up and unless you know how these

15:37

stars are connected, it just looks like a

15:39

random smattering of dots in the sky. And

15:42

I think with people, it's kind of

15:44

the same thing where unless you reach out

15:46

and you tell somebody what you're going through,

15:49

you'll never know if that person is a

15:52

kindred spirit.

15:54

You'll never know if that person can reflect

15:56

back to you a sort of understanding of

15:59

what you're going through. through. And I think

16:01

that by reaching out and sharing these stories

16:03

about what life is like

16:05

for us, truthfully, what we're doing

16:07

is not really separating ourselves, it's

16:10

connecting ourselves on the basis of

16:12

things that are more important than,

16:14

you know, what's going on

16:16

on social media and hashtags and filters.

16:18

It's on the basis of reality, and

16:20

there's nothing new under the sun. So

16:23

you won't find that, you know, it's

16:25

entirely singular, your own path or that,

16:28

you know, you are the only person

16:30

to ever ever gone something like this,

16:32

it's much more likely that you'll find,

16:35

hey, here's somebody who gets it, who

16:37

understands what I've gone through, because they went

16:39

through something similar. And I'm hoping that what

16:41

this will do is engender that

16:43

understanding of how important it is to

16:45

listen to one another and suspend that

16:48

judgment and extend empathy, unconditional empathy, and

16:50

want to understand each other, and want

16:52

to understand where the person comes from,

16:55

what informs them, what are their lives

16:57

about? Like, what makes them tick? What

16:59

are they passionate about? I think these

17:02

are the things that help us build

17:04

real connections and friendships. So you

17:06

quit your job, and you continued

17:09

to have these meetings with people that

17:11

you'd met through Craigslist. And

17:13

you also developed a website as a result

17:15

of that. Tell us more about the website

17:18

and also about how many people you've met

17:20

up with over the years to listen to

17:22

their problems. So

17:24

craigslistconfessional.com is the website.

17:26

And so in six

17:30

years, I've met, I stopped counting after

17:32

a while, but I've met with well

17:34

over 300 people. And ultimately, what I

17:36

kept hearing

17:40

what was reflected back was the

17:42

sense of, so this

17:44

is what has happened to me now what,

17:47

and there was the now what was

17:49

kind of followed with this hope of,

17:52

okay, maybe what I went through can

17:54

help somebody else, maybe it wasn't all

17:56

in vain. And so short,

18:00

Shortly after I started listening, and I'm

18:02

talking months, not years, shortly after I

18:04

started listening, I started compiling

18:06

notes, obviously, with the permission of

18:08

the subjects and the people that

18:10

I was meeting with, compiling notes

18:12

about the stories that they were

18:14

sharing with the hopes of anonymously

18:16

one day writing about what they

18:18

had shared so that they could

18:20

find that kindred spirit, that constellation

18:22

I was talking about earlier, of

18:26

somebody whose story who might be going

18:28

through something similar. And so with the

18:30

permission, I started writing these stories. And it

18:32

was, I believe, almost

18:34

two years, if not longer than that,

18:37

as me just solo listening and doing

18:39

nothing else, just taking notes and meeting

18:41

with people. And then one

18:43

day, and I have to mention, I had

18:45

not told my parents that this is what

18:47

I was doing. So for about a year,

18:49

they were under the impression that

18:51

I was still lobbying. That

18:54

was very nice. But

18:59

yeah, so we, my husband

19:01

and I moved to New York, and I took that

19:03

opportunity to tell them, guys,

19:06

this is what I've been doing for about

19:08

a year. And that

19:10

really changed everything

19:12

in that my mom was hugely

19:14

disappointed, but my dad just stopped

19:16

talking to me altogether. And that

19:18

lasted for quite a while. And

19:20

this disappointment and the upsetness

19:22

was really palpable. We just couldn't understand why

19:24

I would do this and why I would

19:27

waste a ton of money on school and

19:29

time and not do anything with it. You

19:31

know, very kind of traditional conservative and their

19:34

thoughts about you went to school for this,

19:36

so this is what you must do. And

19:40

then I think that that really

19:42

put a little bit of pressure that

19:44

had not existed before to

19:47

make good on this promise of finding these

19:49

kindred spirits for these stories. So I approached

19:51

an editor at Quartz and I said, this

19:53

is what I've been doing. Would you mind

19:55

if I shared my story with your audience?

19:58

And he said, sure. wrote about what

20:00

it was like to be a Craigslist listener for

20:03

a year and to just do that

20:05

day in and day out with

20:07

no breaks for a whole year to meet

20:09

people off of Craigslist and to listen about

20:11

stories they'd never shared before and That

20:14

was such a wildly I think

20:17

people identified with it so much and

20:21

I approached him afterwards about sharing some

20:23

of these stories on courts and he

20:25

said sure let's give it a try

20:27

Which is what we ended up doing

20:29

and that column ran for over two

20:31

years on courts so

20:34

it was very clear

20:36

from the responses that I got from

20:38

people who reached out after reading these

20:40

stories that What I had

20:42

suspected all along which is that these types

20:44

of stories and issues bond us in a

20:47

shared reality was was

20:49

actually happening and so There

20:51

was a community I think that came from

20:55

From this but it took a long while

20:57

to get there Were there any themes that

20:59

you found in people stories that surprised

21:01

you maybe about what kind of struggles they

21:03

were going through? Nothing

21:07

surprising, but I think that

21:09

it's because I've heard it so many

21:12

times that now that now there's Almost

21:17

The lesson learned here is that as

21:19

I was saying there's really nothing new

21:21

under the Sun So even though the

21:24

details around something might be slightly different

21:26

or tweaked from person to person I

21:29

think the feelings that we all share are Universal

21:33

so there might be somebody who's

21:35

sharing something about addiction and The

21:38

another person sharing something about addiction with

21:40

a family member an experience that they've

21:43

had that's slightly different from that So

21:45

there's a little bit of variability But

21:47

ultimately you find that there are

21:49

absolutely themes that people everybody goes

21:52

through loss Everybody goes through issues

21:54

with their family whether it be

21:56

communication or something of that sort

21:58

and relationships and marriage or

22:00

children, etc. Right? So there are

22:02

these baskets, if you would, or

22:04

themes that, you know, people's stories kind

22:07

of easily fall within. But it also,

22:09

I don't think, helps to categorize too

22:11

much because you don't want to kind

22:13

of rob it from that individuality of

22:15

somebody's story that they're sharing. How

22:19

has it impacted you emotionally

22:21

to hear these stories

22:23

about suffering and, you

22:26

know, trauma that people have gone through? This

22:29

has been the hardest

22:31

thing I have ever done in my life.

22:33

And that I think the reason is

22:35

that, I mean, besides just obviously

22:38

the obvious fact

22:40

that listening to sad stories day

22:43

in and day out makes it hard

22:45

to see the silver lining. I think

22:49

ultimately what I come away

22:51

with is the fact that

22:55

just not being able

22:57

to step back a little bit

23:00

and take that emotional break

23:02

when it's necessary is a hard lesson

23:04

that I had to learn. So I

23:06

think that I maybe about

23:09

a few months in started feeling that

23:11

I needed to do this because people

23:13

were relying on me to do this.

23:16

And I felt very responsible and very personally

23:18

invested in people's stories that they were sharing.

23:20

And I was cheering for them and I

23:23

wanted everything to be great

23:25

and every story to have a happy

23:27

ending. And then you ultimately realize that's

23:29

not life. Life doesn't always have a

23:32

happy ending and people are reaching out

23:34

to a stranger on Craigslist. So they're

23:36

not going to be sharing, you know,

23:38

how great their day was yesterday. And

23:40

if they do, that's really the anomaly

23:43

here. But that's okay. I think ultimately

23:45

once I started kind of balancing things

23:47

out and learned that there was a

23:49

natural rhythm to kind of learn to

23:51

sense when I needed to take a

23:54

break, I ultimately found

23:56

that balance and got to a place

23:58

where it wasn't

24:00

so overwhelming. But honestly, it's taken

24:02

a very long time to do

24:04

the balance, to step all the

24:06

way back and see that even

24:08

though these stories aren't about happy

24:10

things that have happened to people,

24:13

when you look at them in

24:15

summation, it's absolutely about the strength

24:17

of the human spirit, right? It's

24:19

all of the people who have

24:21

lived to tell their own stories.

24:24

And it's so inspirational to

24:26

be looking back now six years out

24:28

and to see how

24:30

positive of an experience this has

24:33

been overall. You

24:35

don't keep in touch with most of the people that

24:37

you talked to. Was that something that you

24:39

decided to do originally or did that just

24:42

come about along the way? Because how could

24:44

you possibly keep in touch with so many

24:46

people? I think

24:48

originally the idea was I'm not going to

24:50

keep in touch with anybody because I didn't

24:52

want to build a relationship. Meaning, I think

24:55

once you start getting to know somebody, there

24:58

are implicit expectations that are built

25:00

from that. And I didn't want people to think, well,

25:02

I can't tell her this because I'm going to see

25:04

her tomorrow. I'm going to talk to her again. Or

25:06

what if she judges me? I didn't

25:09

want that sense of expectation. I wanted

25:11

this to be as far of a

25:13

departure from therapy as possible. Meaning, we're

25:16

not doctor patient.

25:18

We're friend-friend. You

25:21

know, it's anonymous. You're not paying me. We

25:23

don't have an ongoing relationship. So I wanted

25:26

this to be something that people could fully

25:28

take advantage of, that anonymous aspect of it

25:30

especially. So I didn't want

25:32

to say, hey, I expect for a

25:34

relationship to come out of this. That

25:37

said, I don't think most people wanted

25:39

that. So we were totally

25:41

on the same page in that regard.

25:43

But there were exceptions, as you mentioned.

25:46

And not very many. I

25:48

think there's only been four or so people

25:50

that I keep in touch with on a

25:53

regular basis from Craigslist Confessional. But those

25:56

relationships are surprisingly

25:59

enough. Some of the strongest winds

26:01

and most important ones to me. So there

26:03

are people who stories are shared and a

26:06

spark that are. My friends. Why

26:09

not have become I should say my

26:11

friends Not you know originally with my

26:13

friends Br Br Why do you think

26:15

we will confide sayings to a stranger

26:17

that we wouldn't confide to to other

26:19

people cause I heard someone say one

26:21

time will tell people varies secret things

26:23

about our lives if we're sitting next

26:25

to him on an airplane and we

26:27

figure we're never going to see him

26:29

again and the strike up a conversation

26:31

and you find yourself revealing something that

26:33

you may be Haven't told your spouse

26:35

or your best friend or anything. Why

26:37

do you think. That happens.

26:40

I. See and not the anonymity is

26:42

what's to draw. I think that

26:44

idea of. I'll never

26:46

see this person again. Would y have to

26:48

lose hate to say and need to get

26:51

this off my chest? I'm just gonna do

26:53

it. I'm going to say it on. and

26:55

you don't have that with somebody that you

26:57

know well or that you know intimately. And

26:59

not only that, but I think people who

27:01

are totally invested in the long term in

27:03

your life. Those are people who are most

27:05

likely to want to jump in and give

27:07

you advice and sage and also to just

27:09

bring their own narratives in their own experiences

27:12

into this and say hey, this is what

27:14

I think you should do. Where's that stranger.

27:16

On an airplane as like I guess this guy

27:18

wants it's on the but it's like I'm gonna

27:20

sit here and listen and I think said for

27:22

here is what we need we need the guy

27:25

who just sits there and listens and nods occasionally

27:27

and says okay you know and and maybe. You.

27:30

Fi and that acceptance or you

27:32

find that catharsis and having finally

27:34

told your story in your piece.

27:36

it's just so much harder when

27:38

or strings attached to do that

27:40

because of that fear of judgment

27:42

that we talked about earlier where

27:45

you don't want that proceed, don't

27:47

want have registered that. Fleeting

27:49

look have something in their face were

27:51

oh what would change their what happened

27:53

Is this person looking at me differently

27:55

now because I've shared this oh I

27:57

should have said anything we don't want.

28:00

Regret either. A There's always

28:02

this fear. Of somebody

28:04

that we know well of their

28:06

the way that they've looked at

28:08

as of this, this persona that

28:10

we've curated over such a long

28:13

time of building that relationship showing

28:15

the cracks of them perfection. You

28:17

know there's so much pressure these days

28:19

to just. Be. Perfect.

28:22

There's so many people who write books and

28:24

talk about becoming better speakers that not a

28:26

sunny who talk about being goodness as such

28:29

we know is very important and you seems

28:31

you have mastered that as much as a

28:33

person can someone is why would you have

28:35

for the average person who is listening to

28:37

our show who says you know I want

28:40

people to feel like they can talk to

28:42

me, can find me and I can be

28:44

a resource for them. Just a hearing. Their

28:46

story. You know, I think it's

28:49

my main take away, his to minimize myself

28:51

as an audience. Meaning I'm not there to

28:53

reflect my own narrative in my own experiences.

28:55

I'm not there to tell them about how

28:57

something I went through a similar i'm not

28:59

there under six them and tell them about

29:01

how they could do better or what I

29:03

would do in there. And if

29:05

I were in their shoes and just

29:07

there to listen and so knowing those

29:09

boundaries, I think it's important to stay

29:11

within the confines of that and create

29:14

that space. For somebody feels free.

29:16

That. The. Biggest share these

29:18

things and not feel they're sharing their

29:20

time with somebody else, are showing their

29:22

attention that somebody else and I think

29:25

most leaks. You know as somebody feels

29:27

that you're listening because you have to

29:29

or that you know you have something

29:31

else to do right after the see.

29:33

gotta go Or if they feel that

29:35

on you know maybe you're not so

29:37

interested in and would be Has to

29:39

say you kind of lost them. So

29:41

it really is about building as much

29:43

of a constable space for them to

29:45

feel comfortable to share that with you.

29:48

as possible no means asking questions it's

29:50

not all passivity right it's asking questions

29:52

that show the wanna understand why the

29:54

person feels this way and where they

29:56

come from and what they've gone through

29:58

and actual those respects were the fact

30:00

that they're a human being that's lived

30:03

through this. So even if you

30:05

find somebody sharing a story that's so totally

30:07

different from anything you could possibly

30:09

imagine, you have to bridge that

30:11

gap. You have to ask those questions that show

30:14

that you want to understand them better. So

30:16

in a nutshell, ask good questions and minimize

30:18

yourself as an audience. Don't let them see

30:20

you, your wheels moving and thinking about what

30:22

am I gonna ask them next or how

30:24

am I gonna respond to this? It's not

30:27

really about you. The spotlight is on them.

30:30

Helena, our show is called Nobody Told Me

30:32

and we always ask our guests, what

30:34

is your Nobody Told Me

30:36

lesson? So what is it that you've

30:38

learned about listening or about going with

30:40

your heart as far as your career

30:42

is concerned or about life or whatever

30:45

it might be that you maybe had

30:47

to learn the hard way but that

30:49

you'd like to pass on to somebody

30:51

else? This

30:55

is such a wonderful question. I think that

30:57

my answer would have to be, I started

30:59

down this road looking for myself

31:01

and somebody else, looking for somebody that had

31:03

gone through something similar that could reflect back

31:06

that knowledge of, hey, you're not alone, I

31:08

get what you've been through and I see

31:10

you, I see you, who you really are

31:13

and not just this person that you're

31:15

pretending to be. I wanted that so

31:18

desperately. I wanted that connection so

31:20

desperately and so I kept looking for

31:22

somebody else to show that to

31:24

me, to really reach out in a way that

31:26

felt real and

31:29

nobody told me I would find it in

31:31

everyone. So yeah. Oh,

31:36

it's beautiful. How can people connect with

31:38

you and learn more about the book? You

31:41

can go to craigslistconfessional.com and

31:44

there are about a million addresses where you can

31:46

reach out to me. I'm still listening. So if

31:48

you have a story that you wanna share or

31:50

you just get something off your chest, I'm

31:53

at halenaatcraigslistconfessional.com. Wow,

31:56

wow. Well, Helena, thank you so much for

31:58

joining us. This has been really, really, really, really... really insightful

32:00

and just a wonderful peek into

32:03

the lives of other people. Thank

32:05

you so much for having me on. This has been a pleasure. Our

32:09

thanks to Helena De Ibala. Again

32:11

her book is called Craigslist

32:13

Confessional, a collection of secrets

32:15

from anonymous strangers. And again

32:17

her website is craigslistconfessional.com. I'm

32:19

Jan Black. And I'm Laura

32:21

Owens. You're listening to Nobody

32:24

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