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Most people remember Kym Karath as Gretl from The Sound of Music, one of the most beloved films of all time. But what happened to her after that role is a story far fewer people know.
In this episode of Crazy Amazing Humans, we sit down with Kym Karath for a deeply personal and powerful conversation about her life beyond the screen, her journey after early fame, and the experiences that shaped who she became.
After starring in The Sound of Music, Kym went on to appear in well-known television shows including The Brady Bunch, The Waltons, My Three Sons, Lost in Space, and Archie Bunker’s Place. For many, she remains closely associated with her role as Gretl, but the story most people know is only the beginning.
Kym shares what life was really like as a child actor, including behind-the-scenes memories from The Sound of Music and what it meant to grow up in Hollywood at a young age.
This conversation then moves into much more personal territory.
Kym opens up about surviving rape and the emotional aftermath that followed. She speaks candidly about how those experiences impacted her sense of self and how she found a path forward.
She also shares the life-changing experience of motherhood when her son became critically ill with meningitis and was left severely disabled. In an instant, her life shifted, and she was faced with a new reality that required resilience, strength, and a complete redefinition of what her life would look like.
Through these experiences, Kym was forced to confront questions that resonate far beyond her own story: what really happens to child actors after fame, the hidden realities behind growing up in Hollywood, the process of rebuilding after trauma, parenting through the unexpected, the challenges and meaning found in parenting a child with severe disabilities, and how people turn pain into purpose and create real impact in the lives of others.
Rather than being defined by what happened to her, Kym transformed her experiences into purpose. She went on to co-found The Aurelia Foundation and Creative Steps, organizations dedicated to supporting adult children with moderate to severe disability and their families through education, compassion, and community.
Crazy Amazing Humans is a podcast that shares the stories of people who use their time, talent, and resources to make a positive difference in the world. Each episode highlights what happens when compassion becomes action and when individuals choose to rise above their circumstances and help others along the way.
Kym Karath’s story is not just about what happened in her life. It is about what she chose to do with it.
This is a conversation that will stay with you.
If this episode encourages you, please like, subscribe, and share it with someone who needs hope and belonging right now.
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/katrina-carlson/3563718
Read Kat's Show Notes
Just a Thought: Episode 50 with Patti Davis
Listen Now (10 min listen) On Patti Davis: A First Daughter Transforms Pain into Power While Growing Up in the Spotlight To celebrate our 50th
Read Full Transcript
CAH 50 Patti Davis (Completed 07/21/25)
– I want you to feel, I want you to feel something crazy, crazy amazing. Hey, crazy amazing humans. We’re here in the studio today with someone whose journey is as courageous as it is inspiring. Patti Davis is a writer, advocate, and trailblazer who spent her life carving out her own identity, often in the public eye, but always on her own terms. You may know her as the daughter of President Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan, but Patti’s story goes far beyond her well-known family,
– Right? She’s the author of over a dozen novels and memoirs, including The Long Goodbye, a deeply moving account of her father’s Battle with Alzheimer’s. Patty has been a powerful voice for Alzheimer’s caregivers, founding the Beyond Alzheimer’s support group at UCLA as an author. Her most recent book, dear Mom and Dad, a letter about family memory and the America we once knew is a poignant exploration of healing and reconciliation within families and within ourselves.
– That’s right. Healing and reconciliation. I think we can all use a little bit of that. So thank you for that. So Patti has also spoken openly and bravely about personal struggles, always with honesty, compassion, and a desire to help others find their strength in their own stories. So, Patti Davis, it’s such an honor to have you here today in the studio with us on the Crazy Amazing Humans Podcast. Thank you so much for having me. Well, thank you for being here. And you know, I wanna start off with something we saw online where you gave a beautiful eulogy for your mom, and in it you mentioned a story about your dad getting a massage. Could you kick us off with that? Sure.
– So this was, you know, long time ago, way before governorship, and when I was pretty young, and my father used to, there was this eastern European man who would come give my father a massage, and he would be in their, their dressing room, which was, you know, fairly big. And anyway, my father was on the table on his stomach facing his face cradle, and my mother tiptoed in and kissed him on the back of his neck or his shoulder or something like that. Well, he didn’t know it was her. He hadn’t heard her come in, but he never said anything to the massage guy. And, and then he said to my mother, after the man had left, he said, I, I don’t think we can have him here anymore. And she was like, why? No, I think she knew. I think she realized, I think she got it. That didn’t, that’s very sweet. Like, I mean, you know. No, he was a very,
– Yeah,
– He was a very kind person. And, you know, Alzheimer’s really revealed more because, you know, the thing about Alzheimer’s is it’s appealing away
– Yeah.
– Of, of the layers that we all build up in our, in our lives. And you get to who that person really is at their essence, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. Right. Right. Yes.
– Well, my first question to you is, do you have that massage therapist number? And does he do a kiss in the
– Massage? I dunno. Long gone. It was long gone. Okay. Yeah, it was a long time ago.
– Well, you’re touching on some of your life experiences, and that’s what we love so much about your writing. So in your latest book, dear Mom and Dad, you share some very relatable emotional insights, dare I say. And not everybody, of course, is a child of celebrities, but there are still some common experiences that we all have growing up. So in your view, how do we take our challenges, our traumas from childhood and adolescence into adulthood and into who we are today?
– Well, I, what I’ve learned is, I think, I think what you don’t do is to say, I have to get over this. You know, I have to get, I, I have to like put that away and I have to get over it and move on from it. You’re never gonna get over it. This is part of your foundational reality who raised you and what your childhood was, is part of your foundational reality. It’s always going to be with you. You can, however, build up a musculature that keeps it sort of compartmentalized so that you get around it, you know, you get around it, you get maybe get through it, but you don’t get, you don’t get over it. And I, I sort of, I th I have an analogy that I think of a lot. It’s like, if you were born without a toe on your right foot, you know, initially you’d sort probably be limping, and it would be very obvious that you don’t have a toe in your right foot. But if you build up the musculature and your leg and you know, your spine and your, and your knee and everything, you can run marathons. You can walk just fine. You know, no one’s gonna know that you don’t have a toe on your right foot, but you’re gonna know. ’cause every time you take off your shoe, you don’t have a toe on your right foot.
– Yeah,
– Right. It’s not gonna go away.
– Right.
– But you, you can, like I said, you build up a musculature around it. And I think that’s what we have to do with our childhoods. You know, I, I am always gonna have the childhood I have, I had, I’m always gonna have a, a mother who wasn’t interested in being one and didn’t like me very much. That’s never gonna go away. But I have a choice if I, of either being that wounded little girl or saying, no, I, I have an existence separate from that, you know, that’s there. And when it rears its head and it does, sometimes it’s kind of like it. Okay. Thank you for sharing. I know why you’re there. Yeah. I don’t
– Need you right now. Right. No, that’s really helpful. I mean, because I think, I don’t know if anyone gets out of childhood unscathed by someone or something. I preach we even talk to our own kids. True. No, nobody does Some more than others, but some more than others. A hundred percent. Yeah. So, so that is helpful, I think for anyone listening to the podcast right now. And well, you have so many helpful things in your books and, and you’re, you’re kind of an open book yourself, I would say, you know, which I think is amazing because I think you were doing that before everyone else was. I mean, yeah. I got in trouble for it too. I know. But just thinking about it, it’s really interesting how times change, right? Yeah. Because you really, and so, and, And you really, it really feels, as you’ve shared, it’s, it, it really, many of the times it feels like you’re just trying to help other people by sharing, you know, help them along their journey. So for example, you’ve been very candid about the challenge you had with drug addiction, which Yeah. You know, I did not know. And you shared the other evening with us. Yeah. So I’m sure there’s some people in our audience who have gone through similar experiences or have a loved one who’ve gone through something like that. And I was just wondering if you would tell us some of the key takeaways that you learned from overcoming your situation or
– Anything. Yeah. I mean, I, I got addicted to amphetamines, to diet pills when I was like 15, I think. 15, 16, probably 15 by the way. I remember
– Girls at my high school taking those for
– Sure. Yeah, a hundred percent. They were, they were called Rainbow pills, the ones that I initially, and they were in different colors. Each color had its own strength. Wow. And I met somebody when I, I went to boarding school in Arizona and then, and I met somebody who came back from vacation, and her sister worked in a doctor’s office, and she was ordering the medications. So she was like ordering all these amphetamines, taking them herself. And then she would mail them to me at my boarding school in Arizona. I’d get these like little envelopes with pills in them, which I think was a federal offense even back then. Oh, look, a
– Rainbow has
– Arrived. And I was a, I mean, I, you know, I was a mess. I mean, I, my heart was screwed up and I’m sort of, I’m sort of a testament to it’s not that easy to die because I was kind of working on it, you know? Yeah. Like, the human body is amazing. Okay. You know? Yeah. And, and then I kind of got off the, well, I also used to take black, then I got, would get black beauties.
– What were those, what are the, were
– They, those were called s. Okay. And they literally were in a, in a black gelatin capsule. They were so powerful when I first started taking those. I would cut the capsule in half, or I’d pour it in, you know, half of it out. Eventually I could take a whole one. And she, it is
– Astounding that I’m still alive. Made. You’re coping, you’re finding certain ways to cope with your situation and Yeah. So, yeah, just keep, so how did, I mean, like, how did you get off it or what would you, okay. So what would you
– Say to people who, there was really no rehab then? I mean, maybe there wasn’t hos you’d have to go to a hospital or something. So I didn’t do that. Secondarily, I got, I got off pills. ’cause I thought, okay, I, you know, a, a thread that has run through my life was my father telling me that God put everybody here for a reason.
– Mm.
– And that’s come up for me so many times. And it certainly came up for me with drug addiction, that I just, I thought God could not be smiling down right now and saying, oh, good girl,
– Go take more pills. Taking pills cannot be the reason I’m here.
– That’s, yeah, exactly. It can’t be the reason. So I was taking pills and then writing furiously. I was writing poetry at the time, so I thought, well, I’m doing something that I’m right. But the pill part not so much. And so there was that, but then secondarily, I, I kind of got into cocaine because it was like, that was the direction of my addiction. It was that speedy thing, you know, I never took downers or anything like that. I just wanted to be speedy. And there was a lot of that going around, around that time as well. Yeah. Kidding. By the way, a lot. And then I was trying all on my own to get off cocaine. And I, I was living in Ang at the time, and I, I had just, I had split up from Bernie Ledin, and so I was living by myself, and I did this like juice fast, and I got all clean and everything. And I thought, okay. I’m like, I’m, I’m cured. I’m no longer into drugs. And then I went to this guy’s house who had cocaine, and I snorted cocaine. And now I’ve been fasting. I’m totally cleaned out. Oh. I laid there and at night, sure. I was gonna die. I mean, my heart was like beating out of my chest practically. Oh my goodness. And I, I got out of bed, I got down on my knees and I just prayed and I went, God, please, I, I don’t wanna die like this. Mm. I know. This is not what you had in mind for me. I don’t wanna die like this. And that was the last time I ever
– Did cocaine. Wow. Scared straight right there. For sure. No, I’ve heard stories about that when you go clean and then you think you can go right back to where you left off. Oh
– Yeah. And then you just, and then your body’s like, no. And people didn’t die. Really
– Vulnerable. Yeah. People Oh, people sure. I was gonna die that night. Yeah. Yeah. So if, if someone was struggling with this issue right now, is there any like, advice you would wanna give them?
– Well, I mean now there’s so many rehab programs and stuff like that, that I would definitely counsel someone to, to go into some kind of rehab group. Yeah. One of the things that was really pivotal for me when I said, okay, I’m not gonna do this anymore, was to realize that I was really kind of uncomfortable in this world. And I felt like I could function better and participate better. If I was high on something, I was, I would fit in better. Right.
– It’s a weird coping skill. Well,
– Yeah.
– So social anxiety and you placate yourself. People need to, what do you call it? Like grease the slats to be able
– To go in. Yeah. I’m like much more entertaining and I’m much more, you know, I can participate much more in this world and in this life if I’m high on something on, in my case, pills or cocaine. So I, for me, I had to go, okay, you know what, you are just gonna be a person who is uncomfortable a lot of times,
– You
– Know, in groups of people or in crowds or something like that. You know, you’re just, you’re a shy person and you’re gonna be uncomfortable and you’re just gonna have to live with that. Right. So you did yourself, because you can’t take talk something to get to, you know? Yeah. You can’t do this anymore. So you’re just gonna have to live with like, that’s who you are. And some people maybe aren’t gonna wanna be with you ’cause you’re not entertaining enough. Okay, fine. That’s just the way it is. You know, everybody’s different.
– That’s great. As my therapist would say, that’s called radical self-acceptance.
– Yeah.
– Okay. And I’m working on that. Think we are working on that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So you mentioned sex, drugs, and rock and roll. This is an awkward segue that you were with Bernie Leadon in the seventies, who was a member of, you may have heard of them, the Eagles. In fact, you love it. We were talking about this earlier. You co-wrote a song with Bernie called I Wish You Peace. And the lyrics are stunning and very applicable for today.
– Yes. – On that hit hit album, you also might have heard of called One of These Nights.
– Yeah.
– Anyway, so as a jumping off point to talk about your journey as a writer, which includes, by the way, lyrics of course. Yes. Writing books, writing screenplays, poetry, op-ed pieces. Do you think, do your ideas, do your inspirations come from a similar place even though they manifest in all these other ways?
– Yeah. ’cause they just, they just come from stories. If you’re a writer, you’re always looking for stories. So it can be, there’s a novel I wrote a long time ago that started with hearing a conversation between two people walking past me or something. You know, it’s, it’s just, or or I’ll get an image in my head or something, you know. I mean, I’m, I’m actually rereading one of my novels right now ’cause I, I think it could be a good TV series. So I’m writing a pilot script for, I had to reread my own novel ’cause I wrote it. It’s called The Earth Breaks in Colors. And I, I, I wrote it like 10 years ago. So, but I had this image of, I envisioned Topanga, I set it in Topanga Canyon at night. This little girl wakes up and somebody’s digging out in the yard with a shovel and digging up the dirt. And I just had this image. And then I thought, I wonder who that is and what, why he’s, what he’s doing.
– Wow. – Like, I didn’t know until it’s her father and he’s bearing this priceless thing from their house. But I didn’t know until I kind of started writing it and got into the story. You know, writes like that a lot as Stephen King. Oh, he never outlines, he never knows where he’s going. There’s a little book he wrote a long time ago called On Writing.
– I love that book.
– Yeah, yeah,
– Yeah.
– And he talks about that. He has no idea where he’s going. I mean, other, everybody writes differently. Yeah. Yeah. Some people outline, outline, outline, writing screenplays, and writing, you know, TV series or something like that is diff ’cause you kind of have to outline a little bit, which I don’t like, but you kind of have to. But it’s not my nature. My nature is just to go, oh yeah, I have this thing and I’ll just like follow it. Well, you’re very creative, so you can do that. Not everyone can like sort of go and that. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work. Yeah. I mean, sometimes you get an idea and you start going and going, Hey, well this sucks. How many books do you think you’ve started and didn’t finish? Not that many actually. That’s good. Yeah. Not that many.
– I mean, I have quite a few songs,
– So, but the, you know, but the same is true with, you know, with op-eds or something. Yeah. I mean, I’ll, I’ll have an idea. I’ll even, I work with a really good editor at the New York Times and I’ll call her and I’ll go, I have this thought, I have this idea. And she’ll go, well it sounds like you should just start writing it. ’cause I mean, we’ll toss it around. She’ll go, I don’t know if it work. And then I’ll start and I’ll go and I’ll call her and go, this isn’t gonna work. Okay. That’s, yeah.
– But you discover as you’re writing. Yeah. And you’re surprised by your own writing at the same time. And which kind of keeps it fresh, I think, for an
– Audience. Sometimes. Yeah. Sometimes you’re surprised in a good way. And sometimes you’re, I mean, sometimes a line will, I’m sure you’ve had that happen. A line will come out song and go, wow, I didn’t, I don’t know where that came from. You know?
– And it’s, it feels so good. That’s
– One of the most wonder moments. It’s
– Like wonderful moments, kind of you channeling something, you know? Yes. The channeling. It’s really nice. So it’s very happy. I’m very happy to have a fellow songwriter in the studio where we do a lot of songwriting actually. So, and another thing you’ve written so powerfully about is your journey with your dad through Alzheimer’s. Yeah. And both in the Long Goodbye, that’s one of the books. And the later in the book, Floating in the Deep End, which is not only a memoir, but also kind of a guidebook for navigating the disease.
– Yeah.
– And I have that book myself. I’m holding it up to the camera. This is floating deep. I’ve really enjoyed reading this. Not only because you are a really exquisite writer. Thank you. Really emotional, made me cry. And because my mom has dementia. Yeah. So, you know, all of that is very poignant. But this book grew out of the caregiver support group you founded at UCLA beyond Alzheimer’s.
– Yeah. – So, from your perspective, what’s something that people often misunderstand about Alzheimer’s? Either the disease itself or the experience of caring for someone with it? You can talk about.
– Well, I mean, there are so many things, and I wanted to say something about actually how this book came about. Yes. But first I’ll say that I think the grounding thing for me, when my father was first diagnosed, when, when my father was diagnosed in 1994, people were not talking about Alzheimer’s. No. Lots of people had it, and no one was talking about it. And people didn’t even know exactly what it was. Right.
– Well,
– Certainly
– In the experience of it. But like the general public’s like Alzheimer’s, is that the one where you shake, or is that the one where you, you know what I mean? It’s like, oh, they lose memory, you know? Yeah. But
– They don’t really talk about it ’cause they’re afraid of it.
– Well, that’s true.
– You know? Yes. And it was just like this secret, it’s an embarrassing disease and stuff like that. So people weren’t talking about it. So I didn’t have any support or, or really any, I I was on my own, which actually ended up being a good thing. ’cause it was kind of like beginner’s luck. I just followed my gut and I followed my instincts in dealing with my father. But one of the things that was really grounding for me, kind of right out of the gate was I told myself, I didn’t believe that my father’s soul could have Alzheimer’s. That there was a soul in there that couldn’t be sick. So there’s this wall of the disease, but there’s a soul behind it. That’s just fine. And I used to tell people that in my support group, but I was very careful because I I, somebody’s religious or spiritual beliefs Absolutely. Or lack of. And there is none of my business. You know, and I would say that to people and I would just, but I would say, this is what helped me. If it doesn’t comport with your beliefs, that’s fine. That is none of my business. Consider the possibility that it might be true. Because you don’t know that it’s not true. And the reason that you need to consider the possibility is that it will keep you open to those moments in the disease where that person shows up, where there’s an aperture in the disease, where there’s a little opening and they show up again. They’re really quick and they’re really fleeting. And if you don’t believe that that can happen, you’re gonna miss it. So just consider the possibility that there might be a, a soul in there. And beautiful. I
– Honestly love that so much. And it is, you, you, you hit that at the beginning of, of your book. And I, I was really like, wow, I love this. I just love that.
– Well, this happened to you too. I think you said something like, dad, I’ve been praying for you. And he kind of became lucid for a second and says, well that’s surprising. ’cause he didn’t think you were, would pray. Right.
– I think that was the very, very beginning of his, was it? Of his disease. Yeah. And I think because I had from, I mean, I learned all about God and I talked to my father about God a lot when I was a little girl. But then I sort of stopped,
– You – Know, and there were our political disagreements and there’s all this stuff got in the way and you know what my mother would tell him about me and all of this stuff. So I stopped talking to him about my spiritual beliefs and about God and all that. So he assumed that I didn’t have any beliefs anymore. That’s really interesting. So then when I said about praying, he, he was like surprised. That’s interesting.
– Well, I mean, I think that clearly you somehow upbringing really kind of gave you an anchor in your faith of, of, you know, and that is another thing, honestly, that can carry so many people through.
– Yeah.
– You know, I’m sure that was something you obviously called on that when you had the drug issue. I mean, that’s really impactful when you hear someone, Hey, I dropped my knees and I prayed about this.
– Yeah,
– Yeah. Faith is an amazing thing to have. Like, it is,
– I think it would be very lonely to not have it. I respect anybody’s beliefs, like I said, a lack of, that’s their right. But I think it would be very lonely. I do wanna say something though, about how this book came about, because I think it, it says something about the medical establishment and how the medical establishment treats Alzheimer’s. And I think it’s an important point to be made.
– Yes.
– So I started my support group created and started my support group beyond Alzheimer’s in 2011 at UCLA when David Feinberg was head of UCLA. Mm. And he like embraced it like that. So I ran it twice a week with a, always with a co-facilitator who was from the medical field because there were questions that I couldn’t answer. And even if I could, I wasn’t legally allowed to. Yeah, sure. You know? That’s wonderful. It was a really good, that’s wonderful. Caring. I had a couple of different rotating co-facilitators, but I was there twice a week. I ran at UCLA for five years, then David Feinberg left. And the administration that came in was not so keen on running an Alzheimer’s. And I knew that, I knew they were gonna drop my group and I was not gonna give them the last word. So I told them in advance that I was not gonna renew my contract there. And I moved it to St. John’s and I ran it there for, which is a much better situation. And I ran it there for like a year. And then after six years of it, I, I had only managed to publish one book in six years. And I thought, I really need to get back to being a writer and we need to get back to being an author. So I had the idea of taking the support group into another phase and licensing it to hospitals. And I would a great idea, you know, I’d help. I, I wrote up a prospectus and everything and approach different hospitals. Mo I mean, people would talk to me and even meet with me, but then I would get, well, you know, it’s not really in our budget, the budget for, ’cause my proposal for them was for running it once a week with a regular facilitator and a co-facilitator. It would’ve cost about 35,000 a year for a hospital to run it, which is pocket change for a hospital. Yeah, absolutely. They’re just not interested. You know, they just, even though they know that caregiver stress is a real thing, and in all likelihood, those caregivers are gonna be the ones to go into a hospital. And I, I also, I forgot to say this in my departure from UCLA, a very prominent doctor there who I will not name said to me, Alzheimer’s is the least profitable area of medicine. Holy
– Mackerel.
– Wow. Which, it’s not shocking. It’s a business. It’s a chill, it’s a business that
– Kind of, – It’s not shocking that they would think that It’s shocking that he would be so callous as to say it. Absolutely. You know, so when that didn’t work, I thought, okay, well then I’m just gonna write a book. Absolutely. And I’ll write a book, this part memoir and part handbook, and I’ll put everything that I learned and, and did in the support group in this book so that people can have this. Yeah. Because I just wanted to help people, you
– Know? Yeah. And I thought it was cute because you dedicated it to, to David Feinberg. David Feinberg, yeah. Yeah. That’s nice. Yeah. You’ve kind of touched on this a bit, but you, there are some meaningful ways, you know, people can show up both for those living with Alzheimer’s and for the caregivers who support them. Can you kind of give a few to our audience?
– Well, one thing that I think is a more generalized thing is, and I’ve said this to people a lot, that you’re never gonna be the same person at the end of this experience as you were at the beginning. How you are different is a matter of choice. You’re either gonna be harder or you’re gonna be softer. You’re either gonna be more open, more compassionate, more giving, or you’re gonna be more closed off and colder and angrier. And it’s a choice, and it’s a choice that you kind of make every day. And part of making that choice is to understand that being around someone with, with Alzheimer’s or with any kind of dementia, but particularly Alzheimer’s, means understanding that that person is living in the moment. And, you know, we’ve all, there have been like books about, you know, oh, it’s great to live in the moment. And, you know, we try that, but we don’t do it very well because we’re always either thinking of the past or projecting into the future. That’s where that person lives. So you can learn a really important skill by being in the moment with them, because for them, that’s all, that’s, that’s where they are at all times, you know, that is fantastic. And the not correcting people is, is, is really important. And it’s, it’s sort of changing your, your natural inclination. Because if somebody gets something wrong, you wanna say, no, no, no. That’s not right. And I an example, actually, I, I gave this in the book. A friend of mine has a friend who he helps out sometimes who has a woman who has Lewy body dementia, which is really brutal. What is that?
– What is that?
– Lewy body Dementia is, it’s sort of a, a simplistic way of putting is kind of a combination between Parkinson’s and dementia. But it’s a, it’s a different kind of dementia. That’s what Robin Williams had. And that was misdiagnosed for a, a long time, actually until they did an autopsy. I don’t know how it was missed, because it is a complicated diagnosis, but it’s made all the time. So I don’t know how it was missed. But Lewy body dementia is brutal. It’s just brutal. It’s not so much memory. It’s some memory loss, but not so much. It is a real rollercoaster. There are hallucinations. Oh. It’s, it’s just, it’s just brutal. Okay. And some of the medications, like they give for Alzheimer’s patients to maybe retard some of the symptoms, like, like Aricept are not indicated for. You can’t do that for Lewy body dementia. And it can also have Parkinsonian symptoms are shaking and, and everything, which is somehow sometimes how people are diagnosed with it. Somebody is taken in or goes to the doctor because they think they have a Parkinson’s and it turns out to be Lewy body. Oh,
– So you have a friend who,
– So my friend has a friend, a woman who has Lewy body dementia.
– Ooh.
– And he helps sometimes. And he goes, she doesn’t have any family, so he goes and spends some time with her. So time. And he, he called me once and he said, she keeps telling me that there are men on the roof. And I keep telling her that there aren’t, and then she gets mad and she won’t listen to me. And I said, well, stop doing that. Oh gosh. She’s hallucinating men on the roof. And any of us who have ever done drugs in the past or dabbled in psychedelics know that hallucinations are very real. So she is seeing men on the roof. So what you do instead is you agree with her. I know I saw them, but you know what? I just chased them away. They’re gone. So you let me know if they come back again, and then I’ll chase them away again.
– Oh,
– You, you always agree with them. Don’t, don’t ever make them wrong. ’cause then they’re just gonna get angry and they’re gonna stick to that. I’m not promising that once you say that to somebody, it’s immediately she’s gonna go, oh, okay. They’re gone. It, it might not work, but the other’s not gonna work.
– Yeah.
– So you might as well get that. And you might have to do it a couple of times and you might have to go, you know what, let’s go outside and I’ll show you. I chased them away. They went that way. I mean, you can spin out the story however you wanna spin it, you know. Right.
– It’s really interesting because in, in dealing with my mom, and I’m not sure, and maybe you can explain to us, but the difference, I thought dementia is like the whole umbrella of it is all kinds of memory loss.
– Yes.
– And then you could have Alzheimer’s, it takes them a little while to maybe figure out and diagnose exactly what it is. And sometimes I will say in my mom’s case, I think they’re not even bothering, like putting a real name on it. It’s just like, she’s got dementia, da da. But what I did notice in terms of when someone’s saying that, she would say, you know, grandma, grandma and grandpa, she’s talking about her grandma and grandpa and her mom and dad. And you know, I remember when it alive, it first hap Yes. That they’re still alive, what with it, what they did and all that stuff. Yeah. But I remember the first time that happened and I didn’t know, I said, mom, your your mom and dad aren’t, and she, it will make them so sad. Yes. It makes them so sad. And you realize I never said it again. Like, I corrected wrong on something. I’m like, no. And so when you said that, I said, yeah, I learned that kind of the hard way. Yeah. That I learned it quickly. Yes. Because the last thing I would ever wanna do is make her upset or sad. Right. You know, and it, it was really like heart wrenching, gut wrenching Yeah. To see her like have some, like how do I not know what’s go, what do you, you know?
– Yeah. And also you, if you tell ’em that they’re dead, then they have to, it’s like Groundhog Day, they have to keep, go like grieve again. Oh yeah. And then they’ll forget about it. Oh, that’s awful. And then what are you gonna keep telling them? Yeah. That’s awful. Yeah. So it’s just, you know, I had people in my support group who, I remember one woman whose mother kept asking why her parents weren’t calling or, and she would make up this elaborate story about they were on a cruise and there was no cell service. And well, they’re in Antarctica now. And then when her mother asked again, and it would be because she’d forget, you know? So then she’d like elaborate on the story and well, now they’re in Greenland, but there’s no cell service in Greenland. And you know, she just, that’s right. You just make up stories, you know, because I mean, I call it creative lying. I have a whole chapter in this book online. Oh yeah. Yeah. And you know, we’re all taught when we’re growing up to not lie. Well, sometimes lying is your friend go. And when it comes to dementia, lying is your friend. Aw. If they think it’s Christmas and it’s August, who cares?
– Yeah. – Go put out some Christmas ornaments. Right. There you go. You know, I love, what’s it, there’s no harm in it. Love.
– This is incredibly,
– Yeah. Yeah. Love
– Helpful that, so I wanna pivot a little bit. We know that you’ve grown up in and around celebrity and politics your entire life. And incidentally, my father was a, our audience knows, was a star football player, played 13 years in the NFL and also a state senator in Ohio for multiple terms. So I really connected in dear mom and dad, your stories in your book that address such things because I can, I can relate to having a political father. So I know you’ve mentioned it even now, that you didn’t always agree with your dad. But what are you most proud of that your dad accomplished as president of the United States?
– I would have to say now, because I hate politics. So I, I, I don’t want to like get into specific political things. And I did have disagreements with him. I would say particularly now that the respect he had for this country and for our constitution and for the spirit of America,
– You – Know, the last speech he gave was really a speech about immigration. I mean, you can pull, if you google like the last, the last speech that, that Reagan made, you know, on his way out of office, it was about, you know, lady Liberty with the, you know, with the torch welcoming people here. He had this whole thing where he said, you know, you can go to France, but you can’t become French. You can go to England, but you can’t become English. But if you come to America, you can become an American.
– Wow. – That’s really, that’s the only country in the world where that is true. Wow.
– Wow. Absolutely.
– Yeah.
– Well, I have to, okay, so you didn’t want to go there, but I do. Given your unique personal experiences and perspective, what do you make of the political climate we find ourselves in?
– I just, I don’t wanna get into that too much just because I just don’t.
– Yeah,
– Totally. But I mean, I will say that I’m, I’m so saddened by everything, you know, it’s just, I’m scared and I’m sad.
– I have a Okay. So in those moments, and for our audience, anybody that maybe feels frustrated or discouraged, what do you do to stay okay, to stay engaged? Let’s say as an American citizen? Do you have any sort of self-care things that you do personally?
– Well, I mean, I work out like crazy. So that helps. That’s a huge one. That’s huge. That helps. That’s a big deal. It’s the endorphins and it’s good for you. It’s good for your brain, it’s good for everything. And I mean, I think meditating helps. You know, I, other than, I mean, I, I sign every environmental and animal rights petition. I can, I give what money I can.
– And you also write, right? I mean, you write ops,
– Which is not nothing. You write current. I try to capture moments in, in my op-eds as much as I, as much as I can without getting political. You know, I try to like sort of stay on that, that side of that line because I just don’t wanna get into that red blue thing. Yeah. It’s toxic. You know,
– What a beautiful answer because Yeah. In your op-ed pieces, you get to put another voice into the public arena.
– Yeah.
– And I appreciate your voice.
– Yeah. Thank you for your voice. Thank you. Yeah. We really, and thank you for being here. And before we wrap up, I just wanna say I’ve known you for a long time. Yeah. We’ve known each other a while. I know. And, and, and in getting to know you through researching for this podcast, it became apparent to me that the difficult things you’ve been through or you faced them head on and they seem to deeply shape your perspective and brought forward inner strength and things you may not even known you had kind of strength and things. And I was wondering if you feel like the hardships that you’ve been through have in some way become your superpowers?
– Yeah. And I think that’s true for, for everybody. You know, I think it’s how you look at things. You can go, okay, well I’m, you can just look at yourself as a victim. Or you can say, these are the things that shaped me. These are the things that taught me and I was supposed to learn these things. You know, I don’t believe that it’s an accident who we’re born to. I just don’t, I think we are, I think we’ve lived before and we’ll live again and we’re reunited with people in this life, either because the bond of love was so strong that we were pulled back together or because we had something to work out with those people. And I always felt like I had something like that was ancient with my parents and I had something to work out with them. And so, you know, everything that I went through, particularly with my mother, I, you know, ultimately I kept coming back to, there’s something I’m supposed to do here. You know, there’s something I’m supposed to get right here. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m supposed to show up. I tried running away, that didn’t work. So I’m supposed to show up here, you know, and, and try to get this right because I don’t want this to go on for lifetimes.
– Yeah. Well, ancient, you must have done something to really piss off Nancy Reagan.
– That’s what I thought we were when I was a little girl. As my mother aged and became more difficult, I went up to see her like every weekend. And sometimes it was okay and sometimes it was not okay. And one day I was out there, I was usually on Sunday, I would go up there and, and one day a man who I grew up with, who she really liked, she liked men more than women. So she liked him. And he came up to see her that day, the Secret Service called and said, oh, he just drove in the jar. And I said, I’ll go let him in. And I like ran out because I needed to talk to him. And I said, oh my God, I’m so glad you’re here. ’cause she is like so awful today. Today this is like really bad day.
– You’re like prepping him.
– Yeah. Well I knew she was gonna be nice to him, but I said, I’m just, I’m just so glad you’re here because now she’ll be nice ’cause you’re here. And, and he said, why do you do that? Why do you come up here? She, you know, she treats you awfully. And I said, because I have to work things out with her in this lifetime. We have been through this before and I have to work this out in this lifetime. And the only way I know how to do that is show up. Show up. That’s all. That is a superpower.
– You’ve, – You’ve, he still reminds me of that. Yeah. Interesting. It like interest struck him so much. Interesting. He still reminds me that I, that I said that.
– So what would you say to others, like listeners right now who might be in the middle of their hardest moments? Like how these hardest moments can turn into your superpowers, make you become that person? Any advice for people going through just emotionally hard times, physically, illnesses, anything that you wanna, from your wisdom and experience share?
– I think maybe it’s important to look at your experiences as what you are going through and not who you are. Ah, I love that. Right, right. You know, this is, I mean, this illness is what I’m going through right now. This heartbreak is what I’m going through right now, but it’s not who I am. Thank you. Thank you for
– That. You know that, I love that. With the NAMI support groups, we were talking about support groups before we get started, national Alliance for Mental Illness. But that is one of the things that we say in our 12, we read like these ground rules. And one of them is the whatever you’re going through does not define
– You. Exactly.
– You are a person that ha is experiencing this, but it doesn’t define the core person. Yeah, exactly what you were alluding to. Great.
– Great. Exactly.
– Patty, wow. I know I want to know this and I bet you our audience does too. How can our audience keep up with all that you’re doing and follow you?
– So I am on Instagram, but all you’re gonna get on Insta, I mean, you’re welcome to follow me on Instagram, but pretty, you’re going to, you’ll get my op-eds, I post my op-eds and stuff,
– Which is
– Great there. But other than that, you’re gonna get my dog and my cat.
– Okay, well we love your dog. I mean, that’s how we originally met. You were walking your dog.
– Yeah, we’re gonna get Lily and Minnie.
– Do you still have pugs? No,
– I have Lily, the pug. Yeah. Gracie died about two years ago. She was almost 17.
– Wow. Gracie.
– And then two weeks later I adopted Lily and she was two years old, so she’s gonna be four this August.
– Happy birthday. She’s
– Like a little angel. That’s so
– Lovely. Yeah. That’s wonderful. I you’re, you’re a good dog
– Mom. Yeah. Is that what you call? And many of my cat I adopted eight years ago, she was a year old. She had been left in a box, cardboard box in the Vons parking lot. Someone just wrote Cat with her, with her kittens. Someone wrote Cat on the Box and just left her in a cardboard box in the parking lot. That’s
– Awesome. Well, you have a real heart for people and for pets and you know, animals, people for living
– Things. Yeah. Yeah.
– It’s amazing. Thank you so much for being here, us today. Thank you for asking us fun. And so Patty Davis, you are crazy. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Sorry.
– Today’s episode of The Crazy Amazing Humans Podcast is brought to you via Apple, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. All episodes are free, so make sure and subscribe today. Well, that’s our show.
– And by the way, this is our 50th episode. Woo. Everybody 50th. Here’s the 50 more. That’s right. Here’s the 50 more. And a huge thank you to Patty Davis for sharing her amazing story on our 50th episode. Please make sure to check out her latest book, dear Mom and Dad, a letter about family memory and the America We once knew if today’s episode moved you or you think it could inspire someone else, be a crazy amazing human and spread the word.
– And don’t forget to subscribe to the crazy Amazing Humans podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can also watch us on our crazy amazing Humans YouTube channel. Leave us a comment, hit that like button and share your thoughts. We love hearing from
– You. Yes, we do. And of course, the biggest thank you goes to you, our incredible, crazy, amazing humans audience. Your support means the world to us, the whole community. And remember, never forget that every small act of ordinary kindness can spark extraordinary change one person at a time.
– So here’s the challenge for the week. Find just one way to extend kindness or love in the world around you. Even the smallest act can ripple out in powerful ways. I’m Jefferson Denim.
– And I’m Katrina Carlson. Stay healthy, stay connected, and keep being the crazy amazing humans that you are. We’ll see you next time, right here on the Crazy Amazing Humans podcast. I want you to feel, I want you to feel
– Something crazy, crazy. If you have any questions or comments about today’s episode, please make sure to write us at CrazyAmazingHumans@gmail.com.
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