March 27, 2025 • 39 mins
Leslie almost died once. She doesn't remember it all that well, but her dad Ted does. So she invited him on the show to tell her about it. They also talk about how they're similar, their relationship now, and what Ted really thinks of her.
Hosted by Leslie Dobson.
Produced and edited by Liam Billingham.
Mixed by Aaron Dalton.
Executive producers are Paul Anderson and Scott McCarthy for Workhouse Media.
The views expressed in this podcast episode are solely those of the guest speaker and do not reflect the views of the host or the production company.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Okay, you're here.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
My name is doctor Leslie and this is intentionally disturbing.
My name is also Leslie Anne, as my dad calls me.
On this episode, I bring in my dad, Ted Dobson,
and we learn a little bit about him. But I
wanted to do this episode because I almost died once
and it was absolutely horrific. For nearly a year of
(00:35):
my life, I thought about ending my life. My dad
got me through it, and also my dad remembers moments
of that that I don't. So I hope you enjoyed
the episode of meeting my dad.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Ohay, you're here.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Welcome back to Intentionally Disturbing with doctor Leslie, and I
am here with my dad Ted. If you hear some
background noise and some birds and stuff. Ted moved to Mexico,
so we're doing this in Cabo and it's a bit impromptu. So, Okay,
this is a big deal for me because I've never
interviewed you before.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
I don't think anybody's the ever interviewed you before.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
But you're actually a very interesting person. You just stay hidden,
thank you. All right, So let's say people are actually
listening to this episode and they want to know who the
hell is this guy. Can you give us a little
bit of a synopsis?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Who are you? Where were you born?
Speaker 5 (01:37):
I was born in Toronto in Canada. I trained as
a lawyer, worked as a lawyer for some years, and
then moved to California and with my two brothers, we
purchased a company and spent the rest of my life
in corporate America. Not big companies, but privately held companies
(01:59):
that we continue to own to this day.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Let's talk about like your mom or your dad boarding school?
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Okay I was.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I want to talk about your mom.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Okay, I want to talk about her passing and how
that affected you.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
She lived to be forty seven years old and got
leukemia and endured about six months of the most horrible
torture from chemotherapy.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
In nineteen seventy four. Chemotherapy was a.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
Pretty blunt instrument and destroyed your body basically in an
effort to destroy the cancer. She lived for six months
after her diagnosis and ultimately passed in July of nineteen
seventy four.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
It was stating for our whole family.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
My dad was inconsolable, the kids were inconsolable. I was
twenty two years old and as a result of sort
of being the oldest and my dad completely dysfunctional. I
had to manage the funeral and all of.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
The terrible details associated with that.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You took care of everything.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
I did, not by choice, but because there was nobody else.
So yeah, I took care of everything, and it was
a terrible time in my life.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
But like, how were you?
Speaker 4 (03:42):
How was I?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah? How were you?
Speaker 4 (03:44):
I mean, you're all it's funny.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
How did it affect you?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Because you've always been a very strong, stoic person. I
think I've seen you cry twice.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Maybe it didn't really.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Affect me in the way that you might expect it
to have affected me. I kind of shut down when
I experience that kind of trauma, and I think I did.
I think it was it was a time when I
(04:16):
sort of avoided emotions.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
If you will. I didn't I didn't wallow in self
pity or sorrow. I just sort of.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
Kept on keeping on. And again, it wasn't by choice,
it was by necessity. There was nothing else to do
the family, especially during the immediate, you know, weeks after
her passing, nobody else could function.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
My middle brother.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Actually broke out in hives on his whole body, just
from the emotional trauma of losing our mom.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
It was a terrible time.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
So yeah, I guess my reaction was just to keep
on keeping on.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
People ask me a lot how I do my job,
and I think I roll with it the same way
you just described your mom's death. Yes, but what happens later?
Where does it come out later? How does it affect you?
Speaker 1 (05:22):
If you keep it all in?
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Then I don't. I've actually wondered about that form my
whole life, just how I.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Become sort of emotionally insulated from things, and you know,
it's presented a challenge in you know, raising my daughters
and in my romantic relationships. Because it's a pretty unhealthy response.
I think to shut down and just.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Ignore it.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
But I recognized that that is how I tend to
respond to emotionally difficult situations. I just closed the door
and do something else.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
As do I I'm hoping I do it like a
little better because I'm astay ool, just not a lawyer.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
I hope you do.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Okay, So I don't really want to talk about myself,
but I am wondering how how me almost dying affected you,
and if I don't know if because I was unconscious
for a lot of it, if maybe you could help
summarize it.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Absolutely, you were studying in England and had some abdominal surgery.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
And assist on my ovary, like not non cancerous syst.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
Non cancerousist on your ovary. Unfortunately it recurred when you
came back to the United States.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
You went to.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
A hospital in Or County, California, where they went in
and removed the growth of the cyst.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
And like a towel or something, right, there was gauze
that they had left in there.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
I've never been clear on that. What I do know
is that in some fashion they penetrated your colon.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, not in a good way.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
There's no good way to penetrate a colon. So you
were leaking fecal.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Matter into your abdomen and unaware, well you.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
Knew you felt sick. So you went to that same doctor,
a female doctor, and she said, oh, there's a lot
of flu going around. I think you might have the flu.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Oh I don't even remember that.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Yeah, And so we did actually try and do something
three times.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Three times.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
The second time you went back any of that. Yep,
the second time you went back and she said again, yeah,
you know the flu. It causes fever, It causes all
these things that you seem to be exhibiting right now.
Finally went back the third time and fell unconscious in
the waiting.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Room the day we went to Steinmart.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Yeah. I don't know what you did before that, because I.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Was with you we went. Didn't we go shopping?
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Or you were with your mother? I think? But notwithstanding
you was unconscious.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
You've actually passed out and were completely unconscious in the
doctor's waiting room.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
They called nine to one one.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
The ambulance came, took you literally across the street to
the hospital where they checked you in and started to
try and figure out what was going on.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I do remember a glimpse of being put.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Onto the stretcher and the gurney and Mom saying, boy,
I wish you had makeup on today because these paramedics
are really cute.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Yeah, there was not a I wasn't in that room
at that time. It took a very long time, and
they finally figured out that you were scept They finally
figured out that they had to.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Go in and.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
Cleanse the abdominal cavity where the infection was, which is.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Like a bunch of trainees like holding my intestines.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
And wasn't in the operating room. I don't know, but
there was a there was a surgeon that was in charge.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
But they took out my intestines.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
They had to sort of open you up.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
And during that horrible time, the doctor came out and
your mother and I were in the waiting room, and
I will never forget the words she said. She said,
I think we can save her, which was a rather
shocking and traumatic thing to say, because we didn't know
(09:44):
how sick you were.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
We knew you were in there.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
They had to clean you out, but they didn't we
didn't understand what that meant.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
And in there for how many hours?
Speaker 5 (09:54):
Oh you were I don't know. Honestly, it's a blurb,
but you were in there for a long time. And
happily she came out again a little while later and
she said that, you know, we we think that she's going.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
To be okay.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
But let's go back to she.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Came out and said, we think we can save her. Yeah, Like,
what would the scene look like?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
You know, it's it's the only thing.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
It's with your mother. But the only thing I can
compare it to is I was diagnosed sometime ago with
prostate cancer, which has resolved perfectly and I'm very healthy.
But I remember sitting in the doctor's office and they said,
you have cancer, and you know, your brain stops. And
it was exactly the same when the doctor said that
(10:42):
about you.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
It was just your brain stops.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Is that why when you had prostate cancer you didn't
tell me?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And then I think the day of the surgery you said, hey,
I'm just going in for a little surgery.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
I have cancer. I We're seeing a theme here.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Maybe we are, but but anyway, yeah, it was. It
was terrifying. And then of course your recovery was long
and kind of arduous.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
But did you have to sign away my organs? What
was the like if she dies? There was paperwork?
Speaker 5 (11:16):
No, there really wasn't. It was an emergency surgery. When
they admitted you, we had to sign consents, but I
don't think I even read them.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
It was like get her in, get her fixed.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
And I was I was older than eighteen. I don't
remember how old I was.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Were a senior in college, so twenty two maybe or
twenty four, No, no, no, nineteen or twenty oh, okay,
But notwithstanding, you got uh, you know, discharged from the
recovery room, put you into a penthouse suite in the
hospital overlooking Newport Harbor.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
It's pretty view.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Which the most severe floor of the hospital.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
No, you were in intensive care and you had a coostomy,
which was something that's pretty difficult for a twenty year
old girl to deal with.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
I mean I remember waking up screaming you left a
bag of blood on my stomach.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yeah, and ultimately.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
A testament to your intelligence and your diligence. But you
wound up graduating on time, even though that happened in
your senior year at college. You know, had to go
through the trauma of a colostomy and removing it, having
(12:42):
to go through the trauma of abdominal scarring from the
surgery that they weren't very careful when they went in.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
No, had to go through years and years of fertility
treatment because of that.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
No, I mean they were trying to save your life,
and happily they did.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
You say, I finished school, But it was and I know,
like we've.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Talked about this a couple of times, not a lot,
but that was I thought about killing myself that whole
time I was.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Back at school.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
No, it was it was I.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Hadn't finish my math because math is different in different countries,
so I had to go back to Colorado State. And
I just remember like laying on the grass and the
sun in Colorado thinking I'm I'm done with this, I'm
gonna kill myself.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
And sadly I wasn't there, so and you didn't tell
me those things.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
So no, because you would have stopped me.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Yeah, but anyway, you did graduate, and you went on
to get your master's degree at UCL in London and
and your doctor degree from uh Loma Linda, and you
you came through like a champ.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
So I'm very proud of you.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
But yeah, that the trauma for your mom and I
was terrible when they we're trying to save your life,
and during your recovery and the troumber for you.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
It was unimaginable.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
How did you feel?
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well?
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Once again?
Speaker 5 (14:11):
You know, I when I go back to these things,
I don't go back to feelings. I kind of shut
down my emotions and deal with the situation. It's been
like that, not just with interpersonal things. I deal the
same way with every problem that I face in my life,
(14:32):
which is I don't know how to deal with it.
And then I'm very anxious.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
I get kind of panic stricken.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
Immediately after I decide what I'm going to do and
start doing things, the panic goes away and I'm focused
on the resolution.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
People are going to laugh when they hear this, because
I am so much like you, Yeah, and then people
hate me because of it.
Speaker 5 (15:01):
But what I came to realize was that even if
the solution I was trying to accomplish was the wrong solution,
and as it often was.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I just still fucking got it done.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
It's still like I was doing something, and instead of
just panicking and being ineffective, I was moving in a
path that had at least the potential of resolving whatever
it was. And I think I felt the same way
you know about you when you were going through that
terrible time and when I was going through cancer, and
it really you asked me how I feel. Honestly, how
(15:39):
I feel is never prominent in my response. It's what
I do rather than how I feel.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
But I'd have to challenge that because I feel like
the emotions that are present when you are on the
mission of your next task is almost a way that
you're digesting and releasing the trauma that you just experienced.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
I don't disagree with that, although I don't reflect that.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
I don't that doesn't.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
I don't have an emotional response that I can identify.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
If that, But you come out.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
On the other side without killing yourself each time, Yeah,
because you're not like buried by the horror that you've
been through in your life, and you've been through a
lot of shit.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
But perhaps, like I said, you know that my inclination
is shut down emotionally and just focus on action. It's
just the way my brain works.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
I don't take credit for it, and I don't.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Think it's particularly healthy emotional practice, but that's what happens
to me. I just start trying to figure out how
to fix it.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
When I was really sick. Did you ever cry?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
No?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Can you just? Can you count the times you've cried?
Speaker 4 (17:04):
That would be like zero zero pretty much.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
I think I've seen you cry a couple of times.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Really, mm hmm, is this something you want to be
able to do?
Speaker 4 (17:19):
No.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
I wish that I didn't shut down like I do,
because I find that difficult for other people.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
But I don't crave emotion. I mean I have lots
of emotions. I love you. I love your children.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
I love all my daughters and all my grandkids, and
I have lots of emotion. I've a romantic partner who
I love very much, and so I lots of emotion
in my life.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
My response to trauma is where I shut down.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
It's not like I'm not an emotional person. It's not
like I don't have a great deal of joy in
my life, because I do. But I responded trauma in.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
My own life, and I think it ties into that.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
You don't believe in God or an afterlife too, like
there's a there's an element of you that lives each
day like it's your last.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
I understand the question.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
I don't think I agree with your observation.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
How do you go through how do you go through
your daughter almost dying without believing you'd ever see her again.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
The whole topic of atheism could take up hours of conversation,
should be like.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
A multi episode series where you can't go into like
but evangelistic atheism right.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Now because I don't believe in an afterlife, because I
don't believe that there is any soul independent of the
functioning of the human mind.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
You know, when when we're gone, we're gone. My dad,
your grandpa.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Passed away two years ago, as you well remember, and I.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Can't believe it's been two years.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
Yeah, And he was very old, and in the last
part of his life he was very.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Diminished.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
His mental capacity had been diminished, his physical capacity was gone.
He couldn't walk, he was in a wheelchair. He had
to be assisted to go to the bathroom, to have showers.
And my dad was a pretty chauvinistic guy, and to
have a female nursing assistant help him with those tasks
was was amiliating, humiliating for him. And I was very
(19:39):
close to my dad. I loved him, and when he passed,
all I felt was relief that he was, you know,
freed from this uh you know, physical life that that
was so demeaning and depressing for him, because he'd been
a really successful, die, really intelligent guy, really great dad.
(20:04):
And I know, did I think that there was some
possibility of afterlife, none, whatsoever, you know, absolutely not. I
loved him while he was here. I valued his life
and his wisdom and his company, and.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
I said goodbye when when he passed. I don't think
I don't think.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
That's in any way diminishing the relationship. With the person
who passes. Like the fact that I don't believe in
an afterlife doesn't mean I didn't appreciate the person during
their life.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Perhaps it makes me appreciate it more.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
But would you meet with a medium with me?
Speaker 5 (20:59):
No more than I read the horoscope every morning because
I think it's funny.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
We're going to take a commercial break and then we're
going to come back, and I'm going to ask my dad.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
What do you thinks of me? Okay, Dad, what do
you think of me?
Speaker 4 (21:18):
What do I think of you?
Speaker 3 (21:19):
That wasn't very graceful? Be honest, though, Maybe describe it
or talk about it in a way that's unique to
you and not what the world sees, because it's quite sensationalized.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
I guess I have to go back to when you
were a little kid.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
You're a feisty little kid, but you were.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Always define feisty.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
I see it in your daughter Annabelle. You have pretty
strong opinions about things, and you had them when you
were little, as your daughter has the when she's little, uh,
and you were not to be swayed.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
That was what it was going to be. But perhaps
the thing that.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
I I remember the most, or value the most.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Was your sisters.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
You have three sisters, were never as.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Eager to spend time with me.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
This is an exaggeration, and your sisters will get mad
if I don't express this as an exaggeration.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Don't worry, they'll never listen to.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
But I but I, but I would say, hey, do
you guys want to go, you know, to the park
and play? And they nah, Dad, I want to stay
here and watch TV or play with my dolls or whatever.
But you were always uh eager, And I would say,
leslian I called you Leslianne.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
I still do I have to go to home depot
and buy fertilizer? Do you want to come? And you go? Sure,
I'll come.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
I'm a big hockey fan and living in southern California,
we were where the Anaheim Ducks now the formerly the
Anaheim Mighty Ducks used to play, and if I ever
had an extra ticket, like, you were always there, Yeah, Dad,
let's go to the hockey game.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
So what do I think of you?
Speaker 5 (23:28):
Part of that comes from that sense that you were
my buddy and you were always you know, happy, like
really happy to do stuff together and I and I
love that. I know, I embarrassed you a lot during
during your life. I was I was your soccer coach,
(23:49):
and I had no idea. Well, most soccer teams start
off their practices by doing laps around the field.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
You had to do it different well, because we had
no talent.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Maybe it was your team, but they did not like running.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
That's a problem in soccer.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
So so I thought, well, maybe if we're just trying
to get their cardiovascular system going, maybe they would like
to dance because they're girls and they like to dance.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
And coming from a man who doesn't dance.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
Coming from a man who doesn't dance, But I still
remember you guys were little. Taking your soccer team, I thought, okay,
they don't understand the game. They swarm around like a
bunch of bees.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Around a you know, a flower.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
And I so I thought, okay, I'll take them to
the cal State Fullerton women's soccer match, and I'll sit
them up in the grand stand where they can see
the whole field and they'll understand the flow of the game.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
So I took your.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Whole team to the cal State Fullerton soccer game, and
they completely ignored the game. You include, nobody watched the game.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Nobody even knew it away mostly don't remember going no.
But at halftime.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
They brought out the cheerleaders and suddenly I had fifteen
little girls on the sidelines, just completely mesmerized by the
cal State fullert and cheerleaders. And then the game started again.
They went back up and actually most of you guys
wound up under the grand stand, I think looking for
bugs or something. But those were so I'm still answering
(25:29):
your question, what do I think of you? So part
of how I think of you now is because we
had those experiences together.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
You were my buddy. You were eager to be with me.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
You seemed joyful when we were together, like it was
a you weren't doing it out of obligation.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
You actually enjoyed it. And then you went to high school.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Oh this is all just before high school.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
Oh yeah, this was all before high school. And then
you went to high school. And I say went to
high school kind of an exaggeration because you didn't really
go to high school very much.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I had a great job and I was orange.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
It was it was an interesting time.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
But uh did a tanning salon cash pay I think
six dollars an hour.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
No, it was you know, you always passed I mean,
it wasn't that. And I mean one time the vice
principal called me in and they they always called you
by your last name, they called me mister Dobson. They said,
your daughter doesn't go to school, and I said, yeah,
(26:38):
isn't that your job? And she said, I'll never forget this.
She said, you know, nobody can resist.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
Leslianne, meaning you conned your way out of it every time,
And it was it was an interesting moment. And then
do you think.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I'm a psychopath?
Speaker 4 (26:58):
You yeah, no, okay, that's good.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
But then hed, no, no, I was thinking about the
next thing, which was when we went to college night.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
And they had had like five college.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
Nights and you'd blown off the first four, and so
the last one it was it if you didn't go
to college night. This time there was no more college night,
and they had tables set up for all the colleges
at your high school. And we walked up and down
the rows, and you looked at this college and that
college without any interest whatsoever, until we got like maybe
(27:34):
the third row, and you saw a picture of snow
on the mountains, and.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
You said, okay, I'll go there.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
And you made one college application to Colorado State and
then no other school and you got in and you graduated, and.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
You know it was great. So what do I think
of you?
Speaker 5 (27:57):
You can be extremely frustrat trading when you decide you're
going to do something your way, even if I think
it's crazy, and then you normally accomplish it. And you
did with that. You got into and out of Colorado State.
You decided you weren't you weren't that crazy about Colorado State,
(28:21):
and so you took a semester, brought in England and
decided to stay there, which you did, which was not
part of the program, but it worked your advantage because
they let me, they let you, and you got good
grades and that's what got you into University College London.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
Well, I didn't get into London, No, you went.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
I told them I booked a one way ticket and
that I was going to be there and if I
didn't have a place to stay, it was because they
didn't admit me.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Right, you paid for that.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
I did. But you eventually got into UCL, which is I.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Did because they felt they felt like they had to
let me in.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
Well, you did a great job there, and UCL, as
people generally know, is typically ranked was one of the
top five universities in the entire world, and you studied
psychology there and came out with a master's degree. So
what do I think of you? I was extremely proud
(29:18):
of your accomplishment there. I remember you've phoned me once
from ucl and it was a very different program and
a lot more rigorous than the program at Colorado State.
And your exact expression, as I recall it, was.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Dad, this shit is hard.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
But you graduated and with very good grades, sufficiently good
grades to get you into your doctoral program at low Melendus.
So that's the foundation for me saying I think you
are an enormously effective and successful person. You just when
(30:06):
you decide you're going to do something, get out of
your way, cause you're going to.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Do it now.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
As you you know, you're a doctor and you've gone
through some incredible professional experiences, working at the worst places
in the history of the world, the La County Jail,
Saint Elisabeth's Hospital in Washington, d C. A Tascadero State
hospital where they house criminally insane in California.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
What do I think of you?
Speaker 5 (30:36):
I think you have always chosen a difficult path, and
I never have understood that you could have gone into
you know, marriage counseling or whatever, but no, no, you're
going to deal with you know, psychopaths and criminals, and
more power to you. What do I think of you?
You and I talked one day and I said, you know, honey,
(30:59):
I'm a lawyer, and there's sort of a win or
lose mentality in law.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
You know, I won or I lost.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
There's that's not that's an exaggeration, but it tends to
be the mindset. And I said, how do you deal
with feeling successful? How do you deal with these people
who cannot be cured and come away, you know, wanting
to show up at work the next day and do
(31:28):
it again. And you said to me, you know, I
want to touch their humanity. And if I can feel
that I moved the needle even a little bit, then
I feel like I'm successful and I'm doing something.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Important and meaningful.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
And so how do I think of you? I mean,
I think that really illustrated to me, your your humanity,
but also your.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Realism. You're you're very You're a realist. It's you don't delude.
Speaker 5 (32:04):
Yourself into thinking that things are better or worse than
they are. It's that you have a pretty accurate perception
of how things are as to you, I think as
as to why, I hope, but.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
There's not a lot of room for bullshits.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
No, And then I I watch you in your marriage
and I watch you as a mother.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
I mean, I'm not a single mom who just doesn't
return a shopping cart.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
And.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
You're definitely not a single mom, and and very I
love your husband very much and and think he's just
an incredible, wonderful person. And as a mother, you're You're amazing.
I definitely don't agree with some of your parenting strategies,
(32:48):
but I watched the kids and they're they're phenomenal, and
they're they're bright, and they're inquisitive, and they're creative and
they're imaginative and they're full of energy.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
What's one parenting strategy you would change?
Speaker 5 (33:04):
My grandchildren have two doctors of psychology as parents. I
never negotiated with a three year old ever. It was
that's what you're going to.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Do, and you're going to do it now. And I
watch you and your husband.
Speaker 5 (33:24):
Negotiate with a three year old and I don't get it.
But that's okay because it seems to be working. So
but what do I think of you. I think you're
a caring, loving wife and a caring, loving parent, and
I think your kids reflect that. They're, like I said, imaginative, creative,
(33:48):
full of energy, happy, well behaved.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
That's for the most part.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
For the most part, they're kids, and it's time for
a break.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
So we're I mean, we're here. We're here for two
and a half weeks. You've moved to Mexico.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
I've moved to Mexico. Like, that's it.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
You just you live in Mexico.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
I live in Mexico, come.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
To California like five days a year.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Do you wish we lived closer?
Speaker 4 (34:20):
No? I wish that.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
We're gonna say that.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
No, I wish that I could spend more time in California,
and I plan to do that. Spending four or five
days in California, I don't have the quality time with
my daughters and my grandchildren.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
That I would like to have.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
So my plan is to just live in Mexico, which
I do, but spend more time so that I can
be more relaxed when I spend time with all of you.
But no, I'm I'm committed to my retirement in Mexico.
I I love Mexico. We split our time between here
(35:03):
in San Jose del Cabo and Mexico City.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
And Mexico City is.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
It's one of the most exciting cities in the world.
I've traveled a lot, as you know, and I Mexico
City is is as good as any place I've ever been.
People worry about crime and stuff, but you don't see it.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
It's it's it's you have.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
A very great sense of security and safety in Mexico.
The traffic is as bad as everybody says it is,
but the restaurants are as good as everybody.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Says they are.
Speaker 5 (35:39):
And entertainment is phenomenal. Culture is phenomenal. Museums and uh part.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
When really parting it up in Mexico City. Do you
miss your kids? I do? When you you just went
and saw what the Killers front row.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
Yeah, we saw the uh Clapton, The Killers, Fransford and
then Paul McCartney the Gypsy Kings, and we're going back
to see Cafe Tokuba.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
But and where you're sitting there like watching these incredible musicians, thinking, God,
I really miss Leslie.
Speaker 5 (36:17):
No, I miss you guys at other times, right, I
miss you guys. When my romantic partner, whose name is Lissette,
has a family in Mexico City and we spend a
lot of time with them, and honestly, it makes me
a bit sad that I know more about niece and
(36:39):
nephew than some of the things about my own grandchildren,
and that does make me sad. And but you know,
retirement is a transition, and part of my transition is
to find time to spend more time in California, more
quality time, less time compressed visits, and you know, kind
(37:03):
of regain that part of my life. So yeah, I
miss you guys a lot, and I over the next
couple of years planning to spend a lot more time
in California with you and your kids and.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Your sisters and their kids.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
We would like that.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
I would like that too.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
So this will be the first of many episodes we're
going to do. I'd like to do an actual episode
on religion.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
Right, happy to do?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Do you have any final thoughts?
Speaker 5 (37:35):
I just to say that I love you and I'm
extremely proud of you, and I hope that this new
venture is really successful and people really enjoy it and.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
You know, can learn from it. And I love to
be with you.
Speaker 5 (37:51):
And although I can't believe anybody really is going to
care much about me. I'm happy to do whatever I
can to help you and help you be successful, and
I know you're going to be.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
I it was really important for me to have you
on and I know it was like pressured because we're
in Mexico and you're.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Going to I'm not going to see you. We wouldn't
have time in California over Christmas.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
Well, thank you, And it's important for me as well,
even with the golf carts running by behind.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Us here, yes, and the birds, but it was It's
really important for me.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
It's just like you. It's really hard for me to
express my love and gratitude.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
If we can carve out moments like this that.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Will last forever, that I think is really powerful.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
It is for me as well.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Thank you for the kids and everyone to come after
until the world ends.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
Like you said, we'll do an episode on atheism. I
love you. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Okay, So that was my dad.
Speaker 6 (38:57):
Thank you for listening to another episode ofttionally disturbing. Maybe
that gives you a little glimpse into who I am
and who raised me in a good or a bad way.
But I hope you enjoyed it, and I can't wait
to have him on more and more because I love him.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
He's my dad. Talk to you next time. Oh hey,
you're here.
Okay, you're here.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
My name is doctor Leslie and this is intentionally disturbing.
My name is also Leslie Anne, as my dad calls me.
On this episode, I bring in my dad, Ted Dobson,
and we learn a little bit about him. But I
wanted to do this episode because I almost died once
and it was absolutely horrific. For nearly a year of
(00:35):
my life, I thought about ending my life. My dad
got me through it, and also my dad remembers moments
of that that I don't. So I hope you enjoyed
the episode of meeting my dad.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Ohay, you're here.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Welcome back to Intentionally Disturbing with doctor Leslie, and I
am here with my dad Ted. If you hear some
background noise and some birds and stuff. Ted moved to Mexico,
so we're doing this in Cabo and it's a bit impromptu. So, Okay,
this is a big deal for me because I've never
interviewed you before.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
I don't think anybody's the ever interviewed you before.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
But you're actually a very interesting person. You just stay hidden,
thank you. All right, So let's say people are actually
listening to this episode and they want to know who the
hell is this guy. Can you give us a little
bit of a synopsis?
Speaker 1 (01:33):
Who are you? Where were you born?
Speaker 5 (01:37):
I was born in Toronto in Canada. I trained as
a lawyer, worked as a lawyer for some years, and
then moved to California and with my two brothers, we
purchased a company and spent the rest of my life
in corporate America. Not big companies, but privately held companies
(01:59):
that we continue to own to this day.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Let's talk about like your mom or your dad boarding school?
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Okay I was.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I want to talk about your mom.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Okay, I want to talk about her passing and how
that affected you.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
She lived to be forty seven years old and got
leukemia and endured about six months of the most horrible
torture from chemotherapy.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
In nineteen seventy four. Chemotherapy was a.
Speaker 5 (02:38):
Pretty blunt instrument and destroyed your body basically in an
effort to destroy the cancer. She lived for six months
after her diagnosis and ultimately passed in July of nineteen
seventy four.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
It was stating for our whole family.
Speaker 5 (03:01):
My dad was inconsolable, the kids were inconsolable. I was
twenty two years old and as a result of sort
of being the oldest and my dad completely dysfunctional. I
had to manage the funeral and all of.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
The terrible details associated with that.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
You took care of everything.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
I did, not by choice, but because there was nobody else.
So yeah, I took care of everything, and it was
a terrible time in my life.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
But like, how were you?
Speaker 4 (03:42):
How was I?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Yeah? How were you?
Speaker 4 (03:44):
I mean, you're all it's funny.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
How did it affect you?
Speaker 3 (03:47):
Because you've always been a very strong, stoic person. I
think I've seen you cry twice.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Maybe it didn't really.
Speaker 5 (03:56):
Affect me in the way that you might expect it
to have affected me. I kind of shut down when
I experience that kind of trauma, and I think I did.
I think it was it was a time when I
(04:16):
sort of avoided emotions.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
If you will. I didn't I didn't wallow in self
pity or sorrow. I just sort of.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
Kept on keeping on. And again, it wasn't by choice,
it was by necessity. There was nothing else to do
the family, especially during the immediate, you know, weeks after
her passing, nobody else could function.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
My middle brother.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Actually broke out in hives on his whole body, just
from the emotional trauma of losing our mom.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
It was a terrible time.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
So yeah, I guess my reaction was just to keep
on keeping on.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
People ask me a lot how I do my job,
and I think I roll with it the same way
you just described your mom's death. Yes, but what happens later?
Where does it come out later? How does it affect you?
Speaker 1 (05:22):
If you keep it all in?
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Then I don't. I've actually wondered about that form my
whole life, just how I.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
Become sort of emotionally insulated from things, and you know,
it's presented a challenge in you know, raising my daughters
and in my romantic relationships. Because it's a pretty unhealthy response.
I think to shut down and just.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Ignore it.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
But I recognized that that is how I tend to
respond to emotionally difficult situations. I just closed the door
and do something else.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
As do I I'm hoping I do it like a
little better because I'm astay ool, just not a lawyer.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
I hope you do.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Okay, So I don't really want to talk about myself,
but I am wondering how how me almost dying affected you,
and if I don't know if because I was unconscious
for a lot of it, if maybe you could help
summarize it.
Speaker 5 (06:35):
Absolutely, you were studying in England and had some abdominal surgery.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
And assist on my ovary, like not non cancerous syst.
Speaker 5 (06:49):
Non cancerousist on your ovary. Unfortunately it recurred when you
came back to the United States.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
You went to.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
A hospital in Or County, California, where they went in
and removed the growth of the cyst.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
And like a towel or something, right, there was gauze
that they had left in there.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
I've never been clear on that. What I do know
is that in some fashion they penetrated your colon.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, not in a good way.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
There's no good way to penetrate a colon. So you
were leaking fecal.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Matter into your abdomen and unaware, well you.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
Knew you felt sick. So you went to that same doctor,
a female doctor, and she said, oh, there's a lot
of flu going around. I think you might have the flu.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
Oh I don't even remember that.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Yeah, And so we did actually try and do something
three times.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Three times.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
The second time you went back any of that. Yep,
the second time you went back and she said again, yeah,
you know the flu. It causes fever, It causes all
these things that you seem to be exhibiting right now.
Finally went back the third time and fell unconscious in
the waiting.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Room the day we went to Steinmart.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Yeah. I don't know what you did before that, because I.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Was with you we went. Didn't we go shopping?
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Or you were with your mother? I think? But notwithstanding
you was unconscious.
Speaker 5 (08:21):
You've actually passed out and were completely unconscious in the
doctor's waiting room.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
They called nine to one one.
Speaker 5 (08:27):
The ambulance came, took you literally across the street to
the hospital where they checked you in and started to
try and figure out what was going on.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I do remember a glimpse of being put.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
Onto the stretcher and the gurney and Mom saying, boy,
I wish you had makeup on today because these paramedics
are really cute.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
Yeah, there was not a I wasn't in that room
at that time. It took a very long time, and
they finally figured out that you were scept They finally
figured out that they had to.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Go in and.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
Cleanse the abdominal cavity where the infection was, which is.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Like a bunch of trainees like holding my intestines.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
And wasn't in the operating room. I don't know, but
there was a there was a surgeon that was in charge.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
But they took out my intestines.
Speaker 4 (09:19):
They had to sort of open you up.
Speaker 5 (09:23):
And during that horrible time, the doctor came out and
your mother and I were in the waiting room, and
I will never forget the words she said. She said,
I think we can save her, which was a rather
shocking and traumatic thing to say, because we didn't know
(09:44):
how sick you were.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
We knew you were in there.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
They had to clean you out, but they didn't we
didn't understand what that meant.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
And in there for how many hours?
Speaker 5 (09:54):
Oh you were I don't know. Honestly, it's a blurb,
but you were in there for a long time. And
happily she came out again a little while later and
she said that, you know, we we think that she's going.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
To be okay.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
But let's go back to she.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Came out and said, we think we can save her. Yeah, Like,
what would the scene look like?
Speaker 4 (10:16):
You know, it's it's the only thing.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
It's with your mother. But the only thing I can
compare it to is I was diagnosed sometime ago with
prostate cancer, which has resolved perfectly and I'm very healthy.
But I remember sitting in the doctor's office and they said,
you have cancer, and you know, your brain stops. And
it was exactly the same when the doctor said that
(10:42):
about you.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
It was just your brain stops.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Is that why when you had prostate cancer you didn't
tell me?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
And then I think the day of the surgery you said, hey,
I'm just going in for a little surgery.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
I have cancer. I We're seeing a theme here.
Speaker 4 (10:56):
Maybe we are, but but anyway, yeah, it was. It
was terrifying. And then of course your recovery was long
and kind of arduous.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
But did you have to sign away my organs? What
was the like if she dies? There was paperwork?
Speaker 5 (11:16):
No, there really wasn't. It was an emergency surgery. When
they admitted you, we had to sign consents, but I
don't think I even read them.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
It was like get her in, get her fixed.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
And I was I was older than eighteen. I don't
remember how old I was.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
Were a senior in college, so twenty two maybe or
twenty four, No, no, no, nineteen or twenty oh, okay,
But notwithstanding, you got uh, you know, discharged from the
recovery room, put you into a penthouse suite in the
hospital overlooking Newport Harbor.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
It's pretty view.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Which the most severe floor of the hospital.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:01):
No, you were in intensive care and you had a coostomy,
which was something that's pretty difficult for a twenty year
old girl to deal with.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
I mean I remember waking up screaming you left a
bag of blood on my stomach.
Speaker 4 (12:16):
Yeah, and ultimately.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
A testament to your intelligence and your diligence. But you
wound up graduating on time, even though that happened in
your senior year at college. You know, had to go
through the trauma of a colostomy and removing it, having
(12:42):
to go through the trauma of abdominal scarring from the
surgery that they weren't very careful when they went in.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
No, had to go through years and years of fertility
treatment because of that.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
No, I mean they were trying to save your life,
and happily they did.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
You say, I finished school, But it was and I know,
like we've.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Talked about this a couple of times, not a lot,
but that was I thought about killing myself that whole
time I was.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Back at school.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
No, it was it was I.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Hadn't finish my math because math is different in different countries,
so I had to go back to Colorado State. And
I just remember like laying on the grass and the
sun in Colorado thinking I'm I'm done with this, I'm
gonna kill myself.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
And sadly I wasn't there, so and you didn't tell
me those things.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
So no, because you would have stopped me.
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Yeah, but anyway, you did graduate, and you went on
to get your master's degree at UCL in London and
and your doctor degree from uh Loma Linda, and you
you came through like a champ.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
So I'm very proud of you.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
But yeah, that the trauma for your mom and I
was terrible when they we're trying to save your life,
and during your recovery and the troumber for you.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
It was unimaginable.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
How did you feel?
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Well?
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Once again?
Speaker 5 (14:11):
You know, I when I go back to these things,
I don't go back to feelings. I kind of shut
down my emotions and deal with the situation. It's been
like that, not just with interpersonal things. I deal the
same way with every problem that I face in my life,
(14:32):
which is I don't know how to deal with it.
And then I'm very anxious.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
I get kind of panic stricken.
Speaker 5 (14:43):
Immediately after I decide what I'm going to do and
start doing things, the panic goes away and I'm focused
on the resolution.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
People are going to laugh when they hear this, because
I am so much like you, Yeah, and then people
hate me because of it.
Speaker 5 (15:01):
But what I came to realize was that even if
the solution I was trying to accomplish was the wrong solution,
and as it often was.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I just still fucking got it done.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
It's still like I was doing something, and instead of
just panicking and being ineffective, I was moving in a
path that had at least the potential of resolving whatever
it was. And I think I felt the same way
you know about you when you were going through that
terrible time and when I was going through cancer, and
it really you asked me how I feel. Honestly, how
(15:39):
I feel is never prominent in my response. It's what
I do rather than how I feel.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
But I'd have to challenge that because I feel like
the emotions that are present when you are on the
mission of your next task is almost a way that
you're digesting and releasing the trauma that you just experienced.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
I don't disagree with that, although I don't reflect that.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
I don't that doesn't.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
I don't have an emotional response that I can identify.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
If that, But you come out.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
On the other side without killing yourself each time, Yeah,
because you're not like buried by the horror that you've
been through in your life, and you've been through a
lot of shit.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
But perhaps, like I said, you know that my inclination
is shut down emotionally and just focus on action. It's
just the way my brain works.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
I don't take credit for it, and I don't.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
Think it's particularly healthy emotional practice, but that's what happens
to me. I just start trying to figure out how
to fix it.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
When I was really sick. Did you ever cry?
Speaker 3 (17:00):
No?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Can you just? Can you count the times you've cried?
Speaker 4 (17:04):
That would be like zero zero pretty much.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
I think I've seen you cry a couple of times.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Really, mm hmm, is this something you want to be
able to do?
Speaker 4 (17:19):
No.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
I wish that I didn't shut down like I do,
because I find that difficult for other people.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
But I don't crave emotion. I mean I have lots
of emotions. I love you. I love your children.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
I love all my daughters and all my grandkids, and
I have lots of emotion. I've a romantic partner who
I love very much, and so I lots of emotion
in my life.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
My response to trauma is where I shut down.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
It's not like I'm not an emotional person. It's not
like I don't have a great deal of joy in
my life, because I do. But I responded trauma in.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
My own life, and I think it ties into that.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
You don't believe in God or an afterlife too, like
there's a there's an element of you that lives each
day like it's your last.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
I understand the question.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
I don't think I agree with your observation.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
How do you go through how do you go through
your daughter almost dying without believing you'd ever see her again.
Speaker 5 (18:32):
The whole topic of atheism could take up hours of conversation,
should be like.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
A multi episode series where you can't go into like
but evangelistic atheism right.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
Now because I don't believe in an afterlife, because I
don't believe that there is any soul independent of the
functioning of the human mind.
Speaker 4 (18:56):
You know, when when we're gone, we're gone. My dad,
your grandpa.
Speaker 5 (19:00):
Passed away two years ago, as you well remember, and I.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Can't believe it's been two years.
Speaker 5 (19:07):
Yeah, And he was very old, and in the last
part of his life he was very.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Diminished.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
His mental capacity had been diminished, his physical capacity was gone.
He couldn't walk, he was in a wheelchair. He had
to be assisted to go to the bathroom, to have showers.
And my dad was a pretty chauvinistic guy, and to
have a female nursing assistant help him with those tasks
was was amiliating, humiliating for him. And I was very
(19:39):
close to my dad. I loved him, and when he passed,
all I felt was relief that he was, you know,
freed from this uh you know, physical life that that
was so demeaning and depressing for him, because he'd been
a really successful, die, really intelligent guy, really great dad.
(20:04):
And I know, did I think that there was some
possibility of afterlife, none, whatsoever, you know, absolutely not. I
loved him while he was here. I valued his life
and his wisdom and his company, and.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
I said goodbye when when he passed. I don't think
I don't think.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
That's in any way diminishing the relationship. With the person
who passes. Like the fact that I don't believe in
an afterlife doesn't mean I didn't appreciate the person during
their life.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Perhaps it makes me appreciate it more.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
But would you meet with a medium with me?
Speaker 5 (20:59):
No more than I read the horoscope every morning because
I think it's funny.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
We're going to take a commercial break and then we're
going to come back, and I'm going to ask my dad.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
What do you thinks of me? Okay, Dad, what do
you think of me?
Speaker 4 (21:18):
What do I think of you?
Speaker 3 (21:19):
That wasn't very graceful? Be honest, though, Maybe describe it
or talk about it in a way that's unique to
you and not what the world sees, because it's quite sensationalized.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
I guess I have to go back to when you
were a little kid.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
You're a feisty little kid, but you were.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Always define feisty.
Speaker 5 (21:50):
I see it in your daughter Annabelle. You have pretty
strong opinions about things, and you had them when you
were little, as your daughter has the when she's little, uh,
and you were not to be swayed.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
That was what it was going to be. But perhaps
the thing that.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
I I remember the most, or value the most.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Was your sisters.
Speaker 5 (22:21):
You have three sisters, were never as.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Eager to spend time with me.
Speaker 5 (22:33):
This is an exaggeration, and your sisters will get mad
if I don't express this as an exaggeration.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Don't worry, they'll never listen to.
Speaker 5 (22:40):
But I but I, but I would say, hey, do
you guys want to go, you know, to the park
and play? And they nah, Dad, I want to stay
here and watch TV or play with my dolls or whatever.
But you were always uh eager, And I would say,
leslian I called you Leslianne.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
I still do I have to go to home depot
and buy fertilizer? Do you want to come? And you go? Sure,
I'll come.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (23:09):
I'm a big hockey fan and living in southern California,
we were where the Anaheim Ducks now the formerly the
Anaheim Mighty Ducks used to play, and if I ever
had an extra ticket, like, you were always there, Yeah, Dad,
let's go to the hockey game.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
So what do I think of you?
Speaker 5 (23:28):
Part of that comes from that sense that you were
my buddy and you were always you know, happy, like
really happy to do stuff together and I and I
love that. I know, I embarrassed you a lot during
during your life. I was I was your soccer coach,
(23:49):
and I had no idea. Well, most soccer teams start
off their practices by doing laps around the field.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
You had to do it different well, because we had
no talent.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Maybe it was your team, but they did not like running.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
That's a problem in soccer.
Speaker 5 (24:08):
So so I thought, well, maybe if we're just trying
to get their cardiovascular system going, maybe they would like
to dance because they're girls and they like to dance.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
And coming from a man who doesn't dance.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
Coming from a man who doesn't dance, But I still
remember you guys were little. Taking your soccer team, I thought, okay,
they don't understand the game. They swarm around like a
bunch of bees.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Around a you know, a flower.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
And I so I thought, okay, I'll take them to
the cal State Fullerton women's soccer match, and I'll sit
them up in the grand stand where they can see
the whole field and they'll understand the flow of the game.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
So I took your.
Speaker 5 (24:50):
Whole team to the cal State Fullerton soccer game, and
they completely ignored the game. You include, nobody watched the game.
Speaker 4 (25:00):
Nobody even knew it away mostly don't remember going no.
But at halftime.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
They brought out the cheerleaders and suddenly I had fifteen
little girls on the sidelines, just completely mesmerized by the
cal State fullert and cheerleaders. And then the game started again.
They went back up and actually most of you guys
wound up under the grand stand, I think looking for
bugs or something. But those were so I'm still answering
(25:29):
your question, what do I think of you? So part
of how I think of you now is because we
had those experiences together.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
You were my buddy. You were eager to be with me.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
You seemed joyful when we were together, like it was
a you weren't doing it out of obligation.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
You actually enjoyed it. And then you went to high school.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Oh this is all just before high school.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
Oh yeah, this was all before high school. And then
you went to high school. And I say went to
high school kind of an exaggeration because you didn't really
go to high school very much.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
I had a great job and I was orange.
Speaker 4 (26:10):
It was it was an interesting time.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
But uh did a tanning salon cash pay I think
six dollars an hour.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
No, it was you know, you always passed I mean,
it wasn't that. And I mean one time the vice
principal called me in and they they always called you
by your last name, they called me mister Dobson. They said,
your daughter doesn't go to school, and I said, yeah,
(26:38):
isn't that your job? And she said, I'll never forget this.
She said, you know, nobody can resist.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
Leslianne, meaning you conned your way out of it every time,
And it was it was an interesting moment. And then
do you think.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
I'm a psychopath?
Speaker 4 (26:58):
You yeah, no, okay, that's good.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
But then hed, no, no, I was thinking about the
next thing, which was when we went to college night.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
And they had had like five college.
Speaker 5 (27:12):
Nights and you'd blown off the first four, and so
the last one it was it if you didn't go
to college night. This time there was no more college night,
and they had tables set up for all the colleges
at your high school. And we walked up and down
the rows, and you looked at this college and that
college without any interest whatsoever, until we got like maybe
(27:34):
the third row, and you saw a picture of snow
on the mountains, and.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
You said, okay, I'll go there.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
And you made one college application to Colorado State and
then no other school and you got in and you graduated, and.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
You know it was great. So what do I think
of you?
Speaker 5 (27:57):
You can be extremely frustrat trading when you decide you're
going to do something your way, even if I think
it's crazy, and then you normally accomplish it. And you
did with that. You got into and out of Colorado State.
You decided you weren't you weren't that crazy about Colorado State,
(28:21):
and so you took a semester, brought in England and
decided to stay there, which you did, which was not
part of the program, but it worked your advantage because
they let me, they let you, and you got good
grades and that's what got you into University College London.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
Well, I didn't get into London, No, you went.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
I told them I booked a one way ticket and
that I was going to be there and if I
didn't have a place to stay, it was because they
didn't admit me.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Right, you paid for that.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
I did. But you eventually got into UCL, which is I.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Did because they felt they felt like they had to
let me in.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
Well, you did a great job there, and UCL, as
people generally know, is typically ranked was one of the
top five universities in the entire world, and you studied
psychology there and came out with a master's degree. So
what do I think of you? I was extremely proud
(29:18):
of your accomplishment there. I remember you've phoned me once
from ucl and it was a very different program and
a lot more rigorous than the program at Colorado State.
And your exact expression, as I recall it, was.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Dad, this shit is hard.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
But you graduated and with very good grades, sufficiently good
grades to get you into your doctoral program at low Melendus.
So that's the foundation for me saying I think you
are an enormously effective and successful person. You just when
(30:06):
you decide you're going to do something, get out of
your way, cause you're going to.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Do it now.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
As you you know, you're a doctor and you've gone
through some incredible professional experiences, working at the worst places
in the history of the world, the La County Jail,
Saint Elisabeth's Hospital in Washington, d C. A Tascadero State
hospital where they house criminally insane in California.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
What do I think of you?
Speaker 5 (30:36):
I think you have always chosen a difficult path, and
I never have understood that you could have gone into
you know, marriage counseling or whatever, but no, no, you're
going to deal with you know, psychopaths and criminals, and
more power to you. What do I think of you?
You and I talked one day and I said, you know, honey,
(30:59):
I'm a lawyer, and there's sort of a win or
lose mentality in law.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
You know, I won or I lost.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
There's that's not that's an exaggeration, but it tends to
be the mindset. And I said, how do you deal
with feeling successful? How do you deal with these people
who cannot be cured and come away, you know, wanting
to show up at work the next day and do
(31:28):
it again. And you said to me, you know, I
want to touch their humanity. And if I can feel
that I moved the needle even a little bit, then
I feel like I'm successful and I'm doing something.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Important and meaningful.
Speaker 5 (31:44):
And so how do I think of you? I mean,
I think that really illustrated to me, your your humanity,
but also your.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Realism. You're you're very You're a realist. It's you don't delude.
Speaker 5 (32:04):
Yourself into thinking that things are better or worse than
they are. It's that you have a pretty accurate perception
of how things are as to you, I think as
as to why, I hope, but.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
There's not a lot of room for bullshits.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
No, And then I I watch you in your marriage
and I watch you as a mother.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
I mean, I'm not a single mom who just doesn't
return a shopping cart.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
And.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
You're definitely not a single mom, and and very I
love your husband very much and and think he's just
an incredible, wonderful person. And as a mother, you're You're amazing.
I definitely don't agree with some of your parenting strategies,
(32:48):
but I watched the kids and they're they're phenomenal, and
they're they're bright, and they're inquisitive, and they're creative and
they're imaginative and they're full of energy.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
What's one parenting strategy you would change?
Speaker 5 (33:04):
My grandchildren have two doctors of psychology as parents. I
never negotiated with a three year old ever. It was
that's what you're going to.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Do, and you're going to do it now. And I
watch you and your husband.
Speaker 5 (33:24):
Negotiate with a three year old and I don't get it.
But that's okay because it seems to be working. So
but what do I think of you. I think you're
a caring, loving wife and a caring, loving parent, and
I think your kids reflect that. They're, like I said, imaginative, creative,
(33:48):
full of energy, happy, well behaved.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
That's for the most part.
Speaker 4 (33:56):
For the most part, they're kids, and it's time for
a break.
Speaker 1 (34:05):
So we're I mean, we're here. We're here for two
and a half weeks. You've moved to Mexico.
Speaker 4 (34:09):
I've moved to Mexico. Like, that's it.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
You just you live in Mexico.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
I live in Mexico, come.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
To California like five days a year.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Right.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Do you wish we lived closer?
Speaker 4 (34:20):
No? I wish that.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
We're gonna say that.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
No, I wish that I could spend more time in California,
and I plan to do that. Spending four or five
days in California, I don't have the quality time with
my daughters and my grandchildren.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
That I would like to have.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
So my plan is to just live in Mexico, which
I do, but spend more time so that I can
be more relaxed when I spend time with all of you.
But no, I'm I'm committed to my retirement in Mexico.
I I love Mexico. We split our time between here
(35:03):
in San Jose del Cabo and Mexico City.
Speaker 4 (35:09):
And Mexico City is.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
It's one of the most exciting cities in the world.
I've traveled a lot, as you know, and I Mexico
City is is as good as any place I've ever been.
People worry about crime and stuff, but you don't see it.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
It's it's it's you have.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
A very great sense of security and safety in Mexico.
The traffic is as bad as everybody says it is,
but the restaurants are as good as everybody.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Says they are.
Speaker 5 (35:39):
And entertainment is phenomenal. Culture is phenomenal. Museums and uh part.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
When really parting it up in Mexico City. Do you
miss your kids? I do? When you you just went
and saw what the Killers front row.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
Yeah, we saw the uh Clapton, The Killers, Fransford and
then Paul McCartney the Gypsy Kings, and we're going back
to see Cafe Tokuba.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
But and where you're sitting there like watching these incredible musicians, thinking, God,
I really miss Leslie.
Speaker 5 (36:17):
No, I miss you guys at other times, right, I
miss you guys. When my romantic partner, whose name is Lissette,
has a family in Mexico City and we spend a
lot of time with them, and honestly, it makes me
a bit sad that I know more about niece and
(36:39):
nephew than some of the things about my own grandchildren,
and that does make me sad. And but you know,
retirement is a transition, and part of my transition is
to find time to spend more time in California, more
quality time, less time compressed visits, and you know, kind
(37:03):
of regain that part of my life. So yeah, I
miss you guys a lot, and I over the next
couple of years planning to spend a lot more time
in California with you and your kids and.
Speaker 4 (37:16):
Your sisters and their kids.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
We would like that.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
I would like that too.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
So this will be the first of many episodes we're
going to do. I'd like to do an actual episode
on religion.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
Right, happy to do?
Speaker 1 (37:33):
Do you have any final thoughts?
Speaker 5 (37:35):
I just to say that I love you and I'm
extremely proud of you, and I hope that this new
venture is really successful and people really enjoy it and.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
You know, can learn from it. And I love to
be with you.
Speaker 5 (37:51):
And although I can't believe anybody really is going to
care much about me. I'm happy to do whatever I
can to help you and help you be successful, and
I know you're going to be.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
I it was really important for me to have you
on and I know it was like pressured because we're
in Mexico and you're.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
Going to I'm not going to see you. We wouldn't
have time in California over Christmas.
Speaker 5 (38:19):
Well, thank you, And it's important for me as well,
even with the golf carts running by behind.
Speaker 3 (38:23):
Us here, yes, and the birds, but it was It's
really important for me.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
It's just like you. It's really hard for me to
express my love and gratitude.
Speaker 4 (38:34):
So thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
If we can carve out moments like this that.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Will last forever, that I think is really powerful.
Speaker 4 (38:41):
It is for me as well.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Thank you for the kids and everyone to come after
until the world ends.
Speaker 4 (38:45):
Like you said, we'll do an episode on atheism. I
love you. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Okay, So that was my dad.
Speaker 6 (38:57):
Thank you for listening to another episode ofttionally disturbing. Maybe
that gives you a little glimpse into who I am
and who raised me in a good or a bad way.
But I hope you enjoyed it, and I can't wait
to have him on more and more because I love him.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
He's my dad. Talk to you next time. Oh hey,
you're here.
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