Niles Clipson and Mary Harmon-Christian

00:06 My name is Kathy harmon-christian. My age is 55 years old.

00:13 Today's date is February 3rd. 2021. I am in.

00:21 Decatur, Georgia

00:24 My partner today is Niles Clipson and they are my adult child.

00:34 My name is Miles.

00:38 My age is 20.

00:40 Today's date is February 3rd. 2021. I'm in Atlanta Georgia. My partner today is Kathy and she's my mother.

00:50 So Niles, I'm so glad you wanted to join me today to do this storycorps interview. I think that perhaps it might be slightly unusual for a parent to be interviewing a child's but I think that you have had quite a bit of life experience already. And I know that I have gained much wisdom from you and learned a lot from you and I wanted to give you the opportunity to be able to share your story or whatever part of your story you would like to share and I have that documented. It just has a lot of meaning for me and I was just really grateful and glad that you wanted to do to do that. So I leave the floor open in a way for you to share what you feel most most like you want to

01:49 Tell of your story thus far

01:57 Okay, is there a specific space you would like me to start? Well, how about so I think that you had quite an interesting story around you're coming to to understand who you were in about 7th or 8th grade and then going going from there into your high school time. And then and all of that had a lot that that you experienced and handled and you just saw things about yourself in the world that

02:34 That some people don't see so I thought perhaps you'd like to share some of that.

02:42 Sure, so.

02:45 I don't remember very much as Middle School.

02:50 But I do remember High School slightly more Middle School was probably was when I started questioning. What gender was I don't think as a child. I really knew what that was or had it relate to my life in any way until probably. A wearing it becomes very enforcement schools. And which was around middle school. So sick 7th and 8th grade by 7th grade I had realized there was something different and I went to a Catholic school so they were very strict interpretations of everything.

03:34 Even around marriage and divorce actually very highly.

03:39 Which was I think for me the first thing that I kind of realized it was like you and my dad were going through a divorce at the time and I had some teachers respond very negatively to that for no reason, but just because it was against the idea of what is allowed in a religion and they did they would publicize that their potential disagreements.

04:00 So I think that was for me one of the first light kind of clues about Catholicism not necessarily being.

04:11 Something that I had thought it was I don't think it was really an active part of my life before just because I was young and like obviously was active in my life, but I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what it meant.

04:22 But in middle school that was became more dominant and in 7th and 8th grade, I

04:30 Kind of heard about a queer people like there weren't there were some.

04:35 Gay people in my life that I had met when I was younger, but I didn't really understand that was a that was what being gay was for be that there was associations with that necessarily. I just kind of new people.

04:50 Where's the north were like that was they loaded and I think

04:58 Quick quickly. I realized what it was. I don't remember a lot of zactly how that Discovery happened and shortly after that. I was like gender which was the harder Discovery for sure.

05:11 But in Middle School.

05:14 Kenneth Medina Base great I knew and I had at that time needing a j i m quite a lot of internet access. That was something that I can just do so I had found information online and all these things which is probably not something that would have been accessible much before.

05:36 Me growing up the time that I did interview just like finding information about being queer online independently as a a child because we had like in Jackson Center Schools. We had personal tablets and computers computers in high school. It was just part of our learning and so in high school I had already I already know which meant that going into freshman year at my Catholic High School. I was relatively visibly clear and very much knew that I was trans which it took me longer to admit. But certainly I wanted to high school knowing that I was queer which means from the start there were people who are unhappy with that.

06:25 And of course I join theater for actively is used to and there were some seniors in either when I was a freshman. Who were

06:38 Clear but not necessarily.

06:42 Lot about that boat were different types of or however, they identified personally it which was to me like the first people I met really in real life who are older than me and not online it we're queer people who work we're at summer camp, but it was a different kind of environment because at that point the kids I went to it was everyone was in 8th grade. So it was slightly more of a thing instead of adults who are queer,

07:16 And when you look back on that time, if you were if you wanted a people who did not understand you to understand something. What would that have been?

07:32 At this point I don't I don't care if I understand or not. I am past that for me personally. It doesn't bring me any.

07:40 Any sort of the motion to be honest, I think people have different experiences in life, and if

07:48 You know it just for me personally. I don't need them to understand. I do want people to not be homophobic and to not be trying so but these are obviously very important and you know, many of the people who are very blatantly homophobic and transphobic are even more racist. So these are significant things that they are but in terms of a personal level of understanding, I don't need it from them at the time. I think I felt like I did but it was all so everyone around me. Was it that way in many regards?

08:21 So it was slightly more of a liko. Everyone around me is mistreating me because of this part. So I would like them to understand why they shouldn't be doing that. Where is now and sort of people well, okay. I don't have to understand why I'm queer. Just leave me alone.

08:41 And you feel like as you moved on to high school and then when you left.

08:49 Did it get better when you left High School, it'll get better in terms of being able to find people that were.

08:59 Kindred spirits and that felt the way you did about being in the world.

09:07 Yeah, absolutely like

09:09 It was ended up dropping out of high school early because of a variety of reasons including just like the levels of agoraphobia. I was experiencing on a daily basis and just really being tired of all the things that we're just

09:27 Happening to me as a result of me being queer in that base and I was just tired of it and didn't feel that my safety was.

09:38 Say I didn't feel like I was safe at school anymore, and I was ready to just leave. I didn't find it was something that serve me at all.

09:46 And you know course there are downsides to dropping out of school early, but I ended up getting my GED fairly quickly and starting did a semester of college almost immediately after and then decided that was not nothing. But if I had not done that if I'm not drop out of school early, I probably would have gone straight to University and had a breakdown University, which I know many people do they go straight to school cuz it's the only choice that they have or think they have and then they had a breakdown or they end up hating it or you know, they just feel unfulfilled the rest of their lives.

10:21 So I think it was better for me to not have gone straight to University. I am grateful for the second that kind of completely.

10:29 Turned around my life turned upside down and then made it to a different path. I would know that many of the things that I've done if I had stayed in high school and record to college. We're dropping out maybe not able to go to apply to

10:43 Yeah, and I do want to move on I do want to hear about all those things about what you've you know been able to do with your life that you've created, you know in it in a different way from the original thought which is you go straight to college and all that. I just wanted to pause and see if you're looking back on any of that time. Before dropping out at Marist. Is there is there anything you'd like to say to anyone?

11:13 I think if you would ask me a year or two ago, I would have had things to say at this point. I don't have anything specific to say to certain people. I just worry for.

11:27 Marginalized students who go to that school and schools like it. I worry for their safety and their mental health and their health in general, but I don't have anything to say to people in specific because although there is much to be said has been said many times.

11:46 Bear directly endangering children. Basically that is what is happening there directly endangering and harming children and beyond that you can say that so many times per person and they won't change which means I'm done saying it to them, you know, I think there is used in saying it to them. I think I personally unless I am asked you and I'm needed to from someone who is there. I don't feel a personal mean to I don't feel drawn to that anymore. I said my peace. I know, you know, I said it many many times over many years and did not see change at all. And so I'm not interested in talking to those people are going to affect my life.

12:30 I got to someone who was there or someone who is being directly impacted by that asked me to I 100% would but on a personal level. I don't need to I don't feel like I emotionally too. I'm done.

12:43 So I know you've gone through so much and that you have Incredible strength of character and you've done hard work to heal from tremendous trauma, and I know that and as you moved on into the into the world of leaving Marist getting work when you were only 17 getting your GED getting to go on to Agnes Scott. And then how do you see your life? How did you do you think you had the strength of character to create your own life or and and what kind of Life are you finding you're able to create outside that as it were traditional path of going straight to college because you have been doing that. You've been you know, you're quite an extraordinary person of agent.

13:43 Who's been able to you know, create community and family at such a young age and I think

13:56 I just wonder what you how you think about how you been able to carve out a life in a different path in a different way.

14:06 Sure for me honestly, once you're on a road, you're on a road. I don't find it useful. And nor do I find myself necessarily capable of just

14:18 Causeway thinking what if that doesn't work for me? I don't have those necessarily there can be grief and mourning but that tends to come later for me and is not

14:30 Something that usually pass my life in the same way that I think I would be impacted if I had a lot of what if questions and I'm lucky for that. I really that's not true for many people. I don't know why it is true for me. But I am much much more of us get on with it person like not microwave. It just this is what's happened now, okay, I can't change it. Let's keep going now no point in trying to change the past. I don't find it useful.

14:56 And I don't find myself really capable of that. Once it's done. It's done. I'm no longer like wishing that I could have done differently cuz I know that I couldn't move or I know that I didn't so I done it. Let's keep walking now.

15:12 How much more are just kind of black and white in that aspect? It doesn't affect me as much not that there isn't grief and mourning and pain but in terms of actually regretting things I find that not something I do very often. So I just got almost things and apparently that is something that people throw away if it's completely understandable. It's just not something I struggled with. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know that that is something that I certainly have struggled with. So I find it quite appealing that you don't that you don't necessarily experience that and so we both When We Were Young you're younger than I was when you did it cuz gosh you left when you were only eighteen and I was 23 when you set off to backpack by yourself.

16:00 Yeah, you are only 18 weren't you? And so you set off by yourself. I know you did. So you went to Australia and New Zealand you want to talk about any of that. I'm sure.

16:16 The lead up to that is that I had worked about 60 to 80 hour weeks for the past at probably year leading up to me leaving like leaving the country.

16:29 And I had also for part of that been in full-time college, and I don't know it like working 80-hour weeks while in full-time school just kind of sucks, and I also didn't feel like I was learning anything that I really wanted to be learning at school.

16:46 It didn't seem got an in reality any of it. I find out the demia very unrealistic. I find it very, you know, there's certain positives to Academia. There's many negatives and as a student who was working and didn't live on campus and it infuriated me how many academics and professors were from like literal real life, especially when I was taking classes that were like sociology classes and stuff. It's like no people people aren't have you met a person that doesn't exist in Academia. Like have you met someone that's not true for a lot of things but it's also true for many and it just was not I didn't enjoy that. I didn't want that energy kind of in my life. I would rather eat actually doing things for people like on a daily basis and said I was sitting there and see a rising about how you can do good things for people cuz like that 2 hours that I sent to your Rising about what's best like

17:46 For the people I could have just like made soup and giving it to people so it didn't like draw me to be doing that. I didn't find it useful for my life. So I moved on from that but I did want to travel somewhere. I'm mainly my brother was getting married and he lives in New Zealand and he has two kids one of whom I had never met because New Zealand has relatively far away. So I decided that I would go to the wedding if I could make it after I decided to leave school. So I did a semester of college in the drop out again.

18:28 And I made that choice and then could go to New Zealand essentially and since I had been getting 40 hours of overtime pay every every week for the past year. I was able to do it so positive for meth before that, so

18:48 Able to do it and basically made the decision like a month in advance, but I had been thinking about it for a long time. So it wasn't like slightly impulsive than. That impulse is because something I thought about for a long time for hands just didn't know exactly where those lines could be when it would happen. But I did and I decided that I'm flying to New Zealand expensive. I can just stop other places which is true. You can essentially just have other places or other notice will cost for very little but it'll work away program.

19:20 Say work in Australia for about a month and it really is gorgeous. I am in Arachnophobia. I'm good on Australia.

19:33 But I did I brought it out to be honest. I definitely saw more spiders than you would see here. And I definitely there's not really squirrels there. But there are lizards that act like squirrels at least until I can have American conception of how to spell backed know when they're everywhere. They're everywhere. They're like sort of but not really. Yeah so lot of squirrels and very very hot and like so yes so hot and I had been coming. This is January 7th coming from Atlanta where it was like 50 degrees Fahrenheit and went straight to Australia where it was like,

20:16 About a hundred degrees Fahrenheit like it was like 35 degrees Celsius in those days when I was there which is like a hundred degrees.

20:25 So it was my body does not do that as easily like transfer temperatures. It takes like two weeks and there's like three and a half. So I just was not I remember you. I remember dropping you off at the airport, which was hard and you flew to Abu Dhabi by yourself.

20:47 Or maybe somewhere in between and then me and you went up in the Sydney was it space needle? What what's their up the tower thing rotating restaurant thing and I'll never forget that cuz you took a picture of your cocktail looking out over the Sydney Sydney Opera house and you were not in the picture, but you're just like here and that's so you went there was a view there was a view view, you know, you figured it out and then you had your experience there and you went over to New Zealand and then you you flew back to Abu Dhabi and went to Milan and any I think Milan yeah anything in particular about that trip.

21:47 Learned about yourself or

21:50 Cuz I always find traveling to be an inward as well as an outward Journey.

21:57 Yes, absolutely doesn't agree with that and I think so. I have a 160 page journals and and I have the same one but different covers for every Journal I've used like literally every Journal this company produces and they're like a five-sided so they're sort of small but they're a hundred fifty pages and I saw that one and I filled out more than one of months when I was traveling but still Avail a route that about that wears now, it's like a month-and-a-half between journals for the most part. I know you got to yeah, and you got to see Allison in Berlin. Was that right? Yeah. So she is the most high schools go ahead and who are close to a club with

22:49 And was she's my memory from high school. I don't want anything from high school that she does. She just tells me what happened in high school, but she was in Germany. She was living there for

23:02 A year

23:05 And she's fluent in German and was there for a year so we met up in Germany and I have not seen her in a long time because she'd been in Germany for at that point like eight months. So we got to see each other, which was nice.

23:23 And I went to two different places in Germany.

23:28 Angie I went to the one which was nice I also went

23:33 A few other cities. I have it all written down, but I'm very beautiful and headed for memory. So

23:42 I remember when I have a lot of pictures.

23:46 And I remember you ended up in Devon which is where you were born. Yeah, yes, but that was actually I had not been this trip was playing through about March. I want to know I went back to England for like 3 weeks and then left again and went to Germany Denmark and then came back to England and then left again with you and then came back here and did a road trip around the entire United States and then went back to Devon and I was there full time like living there in about August 2018.

24:24 Are 2019 and I had wanted to go back. I had not seen family that I have an English for quite a while and I nor had I seen Devin in quite a while and it was lovely being back. I would still be there today covid-19 things sort of different as I am back in the States. I have an American accent again and back, but I was planning a millionaire for longer.

24:50 Yeah, and I remember when you were working at the Green Ginger literally like that. Sorry green table literally like a hundred feet 200 feet from where your father and I were married and so you would not only went back to the location. You went back to the very spot where you were that was unintentional where it all happened and I wish there was something very healing something very powerful about that. I think.

25:20 And when I went back, I know and when I went back there for Christmas last year and spent those three weeks with you. I found it to be you know that landscape I had fallen in love with and I think it's way back in 1995 when I first went there and I had never been in a landscape where I felt so safe and some of that was the absence of guns. I have to confess like I have never been somewhere where there was no guns. And I loved the experience of just being out walking at night without fear by myself. I loved it. And so there was something very sort of inwardly pleasing to me that you ended up back in that same spot and really loved it and enjoyed it.

26:06 Yeah, I do love it there and the Moors especially have always been very important to me and have always been my kind of favorite landscape, but it has been a long time since I've been there.

26:20 Probably five years and so being able to be back on the Moors and me really realize. Yeah. Okay, actually, yes. I do hate cities. There is a reason that I feel much worse when I'm in a city and that was something that I really needed to know and

26:38 It was it was it was a coincidence. I ended up like literally so close to where you had met both in where I lived and where I worked but it was very funny and it was ugly. I lived with a woman and her son right and still in contact with him love very much and they're walking distance from this Cafe that I worked at about 3 miles out of town and I decided not to get a car when I went back because of a variety of reasons. So I was living without a car which means that I wanted to do walking distance from the nearest like big town and big as his friend were here and so I would walk the three miles to

27:18 Town to get groceries and things like that and it was about a mile and a half away. It was in between Ms. What ended up being best both like financially for me and placement wise I wanted to be more in a rural area.

27:33 Is a nice place where I lived was like directly backing up into the woods and I wants the woods and Fields everyday to get to work on the river which was exactly what I wanted and do very much Miss but I came back to the States because I was going to be hiking the Appalachian Trail with one of my close friends and then coated so we didn't do that and now I'm here and we live together now, but I am until the safe and I never ever Miss and when you have left home it kind of wasn't it was kind of a

28:12 There wasn't a moment. Like I had of course anticipated there would be a moment and I be dropping you off at College because I'm a middle-class person which had that, you know that idea in my head. And so when you ended up leaving dropping out of high school and then you got a job in a bakery and started working at 3 a.m. And I mean you work hard you did not sit around and then you were working at varuni and you know, you're working a lot. So you ended up just basically only coming home on the weekends for a while and then eventually you just moved out and there wasn't a moment but all of a sudden I realized you were gone and I remember that was

28:57 A difficult time for me and but I went through it over a. Of time and then to have you come back during covid-19.

29:23 The world changing event of Cobra. There was some interesting things that happened that may never have happened and one of them was coming with you coming back to the States. And and so now you so you lived with me for about 6 months and then moved in and and you have this wonderful little family that you've created with your two friends and I don't think a lot of people that aren't queer have a strong of connections would you say that or not?

29:54 The kind of family that you're able to create but I agree in some ways.

30:04 We were actually talking about this earlier today around like having breakfast baby. Turn your volume down a serpent dragon.

30:20 Is a butter.

30:22 Yes, you start again, please.

30:30 I see where you're coming from. I think that's maybe not the word choice that I would choose but I I do agree in anyways, I think.

30:39 Agree to disagree. I think the idea of a sound family is much stronger within the Gray community and primarily based in the Creek community. I think that very strong family connections are found in many cultures, but mainly not in white people in my experience is that type of like super strength of your connection is far less important and doesn't exist really in a lot of white families in the same way that it exists in.

31:17 Most of the rest of the world and most other cultures

31:23 But I think especially in really Western White.

31:29 Societies that is been ass less like important but increase communities that is that kind of comes back with important, but it is found family instead and I think that that idea found family is much more Christmas cific because

31:48 A lot of free people end up with their families from birth or only parts of their like we're families.

31:57 Play end up making their own family much more frequently. Yeah, and what is it? What is it feel like for you to have a found family? What is it? Can you describe that what it's like

32:14 I mean for me that is just a setting spray love with your lovely. It's I think me when I was doing 12 learning that I was queer.

32:24 Even though I wasn't like, you know.

32:29 Actively being hateful and every day when I was 12, I was when I was fourteen, but not when I was 12, and it was just in the middle was figuring out so much of the narrative around.

32:39 Like quintus is I can be gay because I'm gay. I'm going to die cuz Ashley media like that before then there's still a huge like bury your gays Trope work any days like any case how many gay people are people in media' a die? They die at the end of The Fillmore at the end of the book or they're only there is a plot point that is like so sad there hasn't been a lot of like, I know that when I was twelve and looking for crew media, it was all awful like it was so sad and so terrifying and that it was kind I had to representation. That was like just where people being alive and take this thing. It was all like this person is violently killed for being gay at the end of the movie but you watch the whole movie of them figuring this out and then they die or they can never get together with her lover. Like it was all that and I still definitely like a prevalent.

33:39 Children media. So I think it was like never something that I would have expected happening when I was that age. I don't actually know if that's what I thought but I am pretty sure that's probably what I thought of that isn't it can never liked result in positive things in my life. And that's something that I unlearn Superior force of will because everybody around me hated me, so I was like, well, I can't be queerphobic to myself cuz everybody around me is so I can't do it babe got to do it. So I kind of talked myself out of that one when I was like 15, but I'm sure before that it was definitely a struggle for me. And after that was only out of circle because I was experiencing so much of an externally that I was like well

34:20 I'm not going to help them cuz I hate to see people or at least I hate what is happening to me and 15 and mad so I'm just going to not participate in this is going to be even more loud, which is not something that I think I could do today. I think I'm much more tired than I was then.

34:42 But certainly was how I acted been so now I think like having to sound family. Something I would have suspected. I'm going to tell Julie. I love you very much and it's been a few years with the same people who I care about deeply.

34:56 And that's when I say, yeah, and I think it's really helped you with your resiliency, too, and you have a tremendous amount of resilience.

35:07 And so, you know you come through a lot already and what would you put that down to in part?

35:19 I think partially we not dating at the answer you're expected. I think partially it's because I was suicidal at a very young age and had that experience from from most of the light that I remember I going to do with memory loss part of that is concussions and head injuries part of that is memory loss happens to a lot of people and part of it is memory loss has significantly hiring people with PTSD and depression.

35:44 A zipper me. There's not there's definitely spot that. I remember being suicidal. I think for me. It's like we can actually kill yourself like you can't do that, but you want to see you just got to suffer. And so certain point. I could eventually just talked myself out of me suicidal and move past that necessarily being he sent them for me and two different symptoms.

36:10 And so I just keep going. I don't know. It doesn't really at a certain point like you realize they don't have a choice at a certain point. You can look back in your like a actually a choice cuz I'm just going to stay here. It just happened slowly you like notice less and less.

36:27 Are more you notice more and more relieved that you're not trying to kill yourself every day.

36:34 What's a powerful thing to say? It's a very powerful thing to say and I'm very glad that that is true. And as you are now 20, do you have a sense of looking forward into your twenties?

36:53 Is there a is there a rather than having to look backwards to the teens and all that that has been I sense that you're on that that you are moving away from that and not escaping it but evolving out of it growing out of it.

37:14 I would save all then yes. I'm doing a lot of relatively and dance their defeat the moment including EMDR which is specific type of therapy for PTSD and trauma patients. And so there's a lot of looking back intentionally and I don't have memories I didn't exist before today. But at the same time. And he was me to that look forward in a way that I have it in the past because I don't think I'm going to be dead in a year. Where is my entire life? I was like why don't the plan cuz I'm going to be dead by then, which is relatively common amongst people who grew up suicide or depressed but now it's like okay, I'm probably going to be live. So God, I may be choose what I'm going to do while I'm alive in 5 years and I'm about to hit that them Elston that I hate of like I'm going to be alive in two years from now a while ago and I was like, yeah, I'm going to be so what is what I want to do and I know that answer was Covetous harder to make that happen in a reality.

38:13 But I'm much more sad on going to be outside all the time, and I want to talk about trees and mushrooms. I want to study nature. And so I don't know if you remember this and but years ago, we were in Washington DC and we both ended up just falling on the floor and crying and I looked at you and I said

38:43 I knew someday you were going to suffer.

38:46 I just find it and I forgot my exact words and but you can't live a life without suffering and how difficult it is a parent to see your child suffer.

39:01 And you want the most that you can to take it away, but you can't.

39:09 And I am just so grateful that for whatever reason the messiness of life that you've made it here.

39:17 And that you have turn that corner.

39:20 Because the world is a tremendously beautiful place with you in it and you bring such.

39:29 You are such a blessing.

39:32 You are such a blessing.

39:37 And I have always called you my treasure and I always will and it really doesn't matter what other people think does. It just really doesn't but they can impact us.

39:49 They can and there's other things in my life that contribute to my PTSD that you aren't aware of and I don't want you to be and I'm sorry for telling you that but I am past really caring about how other people view me at least not like that.

40:09 Yeah.

40:12 Well

40:13 Wait time to wrap up now, but I just want to say thank you for being so brave and vulnerable and I am honored to be on the Journey of life with you and I give thanks for the gift of your life and the pure of who you are. So thank you for joining me today, and I just love you very very much.

40:37 Thank you for you. I appreciate you and I'm glad that we got to do this.