December 5, 2016 |
Time To Live Again
Time to Live Again is a story of childhood trauma, healing, and resilience through art and music.
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What does it mean to live again? Can one overcome their traumatic past to make the best of their hopeful future?
This short documentary profiles Nadia Ackerman, a singer, artist and small-business owner. Originally from Australia, Nadia moved to New York and now sells her art and music from her shop Natchie, in Dumbo, Brooklyn.
In this film, Nadia opens up about the sexual abuse she suffered when she was a child, and how through therapy and perseverance, she was able to heal herself and turn her past into something positive. Her songs and drawings are thematically centered around childhood, and contain whimsical characters and settings. There are, however, some heartbreaking aspects to her art – and that sadness becomes even more apparent once you understand Nadia’s past.
This is a story of hope, told from the perspective of a true survivor. Nadia’s past is painful and sad, but she has been able to spin it into a positive light by channeling her feelings into her art. She hopes to become a mentor to young girls and boys, and to encourage them to speak up about abuse.
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When I think about this girl in this age,
it's very strange,
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because I don't really have any memories,
which is actually very common.
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If I've had trauma
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at a certain age,
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usually don't have
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a memory of it.
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[MUSIC]
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[LAUGH]
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Sit.
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[MUSIC]
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My name is Nadia Ackerman.
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I'm a singer and a songwriter,
and an illustrator and
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a business lady [LAUGH] entrepreneur.
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I grew up in Sydney on the northern
beaches, so I grew up on the ocean.
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[MUSIC]
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There's four kids, so
it was a very busy household.
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You come home with your first artwork, or
your first project, and it's like yeah,
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that's great, Nadia.
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You've already had siblings that
have come before you that have done
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what you're doing already,
maybe even better than you.
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So, I grew up trying harder.
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I've been wanting to, for a while now,
get into portraits of people
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[MUSIC]
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We're all made up of tons of different
parts of our personality and
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different ages of ourselves.
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[MUSIC]
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Growing up as a child,
I don't really have any memories or
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any, there's no feelings.
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I can't really put a finger
on how I felt then.
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But I definitely remember teenage years,
just darkness, depression.
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And I didn't think anything of it, because
I thought that's what everyone felt like,
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so I didn't say anything about it.
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I didn't speak up about it.
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To top it all off, at 17, my father died.
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His death just started
stirring everything up, and
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brought a lot of things to the surface.
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[MUSIC]
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At 21,
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I had my first flashback of something
that happened to me when I was six.
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[MUSIC]
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In that moment, I knew was the first time
that I really knew that I've been abused,
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and I just didn't know what to do with it,
and
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I just put it away, I was,
okay, that's not happening.
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I think the flashback was sort of
the lid coming up off a tiny bit.
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And once that lid came off,
then everything started coming out,
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slowly in spurts.
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[MUSIC]
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My night terrors began.
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And I would wake up screaming so loud.
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The night terrors were kind of my secret.
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I knew it was related to the abuse.
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But what happens when you start realizing
things is that you just don't want to
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admit it.
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I kept going on with my life.
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I was a singer.
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When I was 23, I moved to New York City.
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It was getting harder to hide.
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I was 25 when I woke up one morning,
and I wanted to kill myself.
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I am done with these feelings.
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I am done with feeling like this.
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And I woke up and I thought, this is it,
I am just going to do it today.
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And there's always been a part
of me that has stopped me,
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a larger part that says hey,
don't do this.
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Go and get some help.
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Go and talk to someone.
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I actually just took myself to the doctor,
cuz I didn't know where else to go,
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what else to do.
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I just walked right in and said,
I need to see a doctor right now.
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Straight away I went, and
started working with a psychotherapist.
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We worked together for about a year.
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One morning, straight out, she just said,
were you sexually abused a child?
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And I just said to her, yeah.
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She was like, it's been a year,
and you didn't tell me.
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And I just said, you didn't ask.
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[MUSIC]
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Dealing with it and earning it has
been very difficult for me, and
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very strange, and
just very good at putting things away.
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She sort of had some kind
of dissociative disorder.
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She recommended a doctor that she
went to school with at Columbia, and
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who specializes in a therapy called EMDR,
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which is eye movement deprocessing and
reprocessing.
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And basically,
what it does is you reprogram your brain.
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With the trauma, your brain has a pattern,
almost like a track in the brain,
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where this trauma lies.
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And you can actually trick the brain and
change the pathway to change the outcome,
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and change the feelings
associated with that trauma.
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[MUSIC]
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When I finished my first session,
I walked out of there on my own, and
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I felt like she had taken 3,000 tons of
weight off my shoulder, in one session.
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It was unbelievable.
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[MUSIC]
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The thing about trauma, and
the thing about healing is that you,
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you spend your whole life
running away from it.
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And in order to heal,
you have to actually walk through it, and
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nobody, nobody wants to
walk through it again.
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[MUSIC]
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I thought I knew what happened.
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We worked with the flashback memory
that I had, and I believed in
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every ounce of my being that it
was my childhood friend's brother,
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I believe that, for some reason,
that was the answer I had.
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It was him.
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So, we did a lot of work on that,
processing and working through it.
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And years into it,
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I finally got the courage to
want to reach out to him.
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[MUSIC]
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I found him on Facebook, and
my heart was pounding out of my chest.
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And I wrote to him, and I just told him,
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I know what you did to me, and I just
wanted to let you know that I know, and
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that it's not okay, and I'm going to give
it back to you so you can carry it now.
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He denied it, big time.
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Which I thought, well,
of course you're going to deny it,
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as if you're going to say yeah,
sorry about that.
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I just got to the place where I was,
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I don't need you to tell me
whether you did it or not to heal.
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Two years later, my childhood
friend reached out to me and said I
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have wanted to tell you this for
a really long time, but
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I've not, don't know how to say it,
and I know who abused you.
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What she said to me was,
it wasn't my brother,
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it was my father, and it didn't
happen once, it actually happened for
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three years, and
he abused her as well at the same time.
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So, it was the two of us for three years.
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So suddenly, what I'd been thinking
was one time, and I was six,
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was actually no, you were six, you were
seven, you were eight, you were nine.
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And the only reason it
stopped was they moved.
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[MUSIC]
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I don't know what he said to me,
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I don't know what he threatened me with,
and
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when you're a child, and
you don't understand,
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when you have somebody big and strong and
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scary controlling you,
I don't really know.
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I don't really know why I went back.
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And I don't know why I
didn't say anything.
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I feel like a lot of survivors
struggle with shame and guilt.
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It's what keeps me quiet.
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When I started to take the steps to
heal was when I took my power back.
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And decided no,
the rest of my life that I have left,
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this last half I want to live free and
free of him, and
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free of the past, and
free of all those memories.
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Fast forward a year later,
I had about 365 songs on my hands,
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I just started writing every single day.
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It was an outpouring of years of
silence and years of not speaking.
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So, I went about making my first record.
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And then I went about
making my second record.
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I started seeing my songs as drawings.
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One thing turned into another,
into another, and
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I went from greeting cards to print.
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To markets, to opening my own store.
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And here I am today with Natchie,
my own brand.
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It's my nine year old self
who's doing all these drawings.
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It's my nine year old self
who's writing the songs, and
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she was silent for all those years.
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And it's really is
amazing situation where I
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have built almost a world for
the ages of myself that are abused,
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the seven year old,
the eight year old, the nine year old.
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I've built a land for them that's safe,
that nothing can happen to them.
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And they always get to play all day.
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[MUSIC]
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One of the great things about having
the store is my connection with people and
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strangers.
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Hey.
Hey.
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How you doing?
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Great.
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I've met a lot of
really amazing children.
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One child in particular,
her name is Allie, and she's 11.
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She's a budding young artist.
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She's really smart and really switched on.
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When I first met her, she's like,
hey, welcome, and in open arms.
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That shows a lot of character already
once you first meet a person.
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These are really good.
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It's a lot of, a lot of charcoal.
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And this,
these are a little doodles I did.
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I have a whole bunch of ideas.
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I should do this, and then I kinda
move on, and then I forget about that.
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It can be a real problem for a lot of
artists where they don't finish anything.
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Yeah.
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So, it's a good, it'd be a good
habit to start getting into.
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Obviously, I got a special place
in my heart for young girls, and
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to be able to mentor them means a lot
to me, and it's very important.
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[MUSIC]
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She's amazing.
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She's a pretty cool
superstar to look up to.
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Before, I guess I thought I
never had anything to talk about or
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anything to share, but
that's absolutely untrue.
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I've got a lot to talk about,
and a lot to share.
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And I'm starting to wake up to that,
that I have a lot to give.
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Everything happens for a reason.
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I'm a really big believer in that.
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And as sad, and as horrific as my past is,
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I wouldn't be the person I am
today if it didn't happen.
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There was years and years of being in
that tunnel, and not seeing anything
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and wanting to give up.
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And I'm just so glad I didn't,
so glad I didn't.
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And you just gotta, you gotta keep going.
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You gotta keep moving forward,
no matter what.
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No matter what, you have to keep moving,
that's the key.
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[MUSIC]
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[MUSIC]
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Come on love,
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it will be all right.
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Don't give up without a fight.
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[MUSIC]
00:00:07,167 --> 00:00:11,143
When I think about this girl in this age,
it's very strange,
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because I don't really have any memories,
which is actually very common.
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If I've had trauma
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00:00:21,190 --> 00:00:26,008
at a certain age,
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usually don't have
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a memory of it.
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[MUSIC]
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[LAUGH]
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Sit.
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[MUSIC]
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My name is Nadia Ackerman.
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I'm a singer and a songwriter,
and an illustrator and
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a business lady [LAUGH] entrepreneur.
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I grew up in Sydney on the northern
beaches, so I grew up on the ocean.
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[MUSIC]
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There's four kids, so
it was a very busy household.
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You come home with your first artwork, or
your first project, and it's like yeah,
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that's great, Nadia.
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You've already had siblings that
have come before you that have done
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what you're doing already,
maybe even better than you.
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So, I grew up trying harder.
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I've been wanting to, for a while now,
get into portraits of people
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[MUSIC]
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We're all made up of tons of different
parts of our personality and
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different ages of ourselves.
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[MUSIC]
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Growing up as a child,
I don't really have any memories or
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any, there's no feelings.
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I can't really put a finger
on how I felt then.
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But I definitely remember teenage years,
just darkness, depression.
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And I didn't think anything of it, because
I thought that's what everyone felt like,
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00:02:47,010 --> 00:02:51,820
so I didn't say anything about it.
33
00:02:51,820 --> 00:02:53,040
I didn't speak up about it.
34
00:02:54,510 --> 00:02:57,090
To top it all off, at 17, my father died.
35
00:02:59,820 --> 00:03:02,530
His death just started
stirring everything up, and
36
00:03:02,530 --> 00:03:04,210
brought a lot of things to the surface.
37
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[MUSIC]
38
00:03:06,771 --> 00:03:07,491
At 21,
39
00:03:07,491 --> 00:03:12,900
I had my first flashback of something
that happened to me when I was six.
40
00:03:12,900 --> 00:03:20,511
[MUSIC]
41
00:03:20,511 --> 00:03:28,076
In that moment, I knew was the first time
that I really knew that I've been abused,
42
00:03:28,076 --> 00:03:32,181
and I just didn't know what to do with it,
and
43
00:03:32,181 --> 00:03:38,470
I just put it away, I was,
okay, that's not happening.
44
00:03:38,470 --> 00:03:43,460
I think the flashback was sort of
the lid coming up off a tiny bit.
45
00:03:43,460 --> 00:03:46,120
And once that lid came off,
then everything started coming out,
46
00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:47,830
slowly in spurts.
47
00:03:47,830 --> 00:03:49,662
[MUSIC]
48
00:03:49,662 --> 00:03:52,340
My night terrors began.
49
00:03:52,340 --> 00:03:54,970
And I would wake up screaming so loud.
50
00:03:54,970 --> 00:03:58,450
The night terrors were kind of my secret.
51
00:03:58,450 --> 00:04:00,010
I knew it was related to the abuse.
52
00:04:00,010 --> 00:04:04,120
But what happens when you start realizing
things is that you just don't want to
53
00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:05,760
admit it.
54
00:04:05,760 --> 00:04:07,820
I kept going on with my life.
55
00:04:07,820 --> 00:04:08,780
I was a singer.
56
00:04:08,780 --> 00:04:10,790
When I was 23, I moved to New York City.
57
00:04:13,560 --> 00:04:18,695
It was getting harder to hide.
58
00:04:18,695 --> 00:04:24,790
I was 25 when I woke up one morning,
and I wanted to kill myself.
59
00:04:24,790 --> 00:04:27,120
I am done with these feelings.
60
00:04:27,120 --> 00:04:28,410
I am done with feeling like this.
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00:04:29,450 --> 00:04:33,142
And I woke up and I thought, this is it,
I am just going to do it today.
62
00:04:33,142 --> 00:04:38,577
And there's always been a part
of me that has stopped me,
63
00:04:38,577 --> 00:04:43,350
a larger part that says hey,
don't do this.
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00:04:43,350 --> 00:04:44,260
Go and get some help.
65
00:04:44,260 --> 00:04:44,910
Go and talk to someone.
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00:04:46,590 --> 00:04:50,960
I actually just took myself to the doctor,
cuz I didn't know where else to go,
67
00:04:50,960 --> 00:04:52,240
what else to do.
68
00:04:52,240 --> 00:04:56,140
I just walked right in and said,
I need to see a doctor right now.
69
00:04:57,820 --> 00:05:00,879
Straight away I went, and
started working with a psychotherapist.
70
00:05:01,940 --> 00:05:04,000
We worked together for about a year.
71
00:05:05,710 --> 00:05:09,450
One morning, straight out, she just said,
were you sexually abused a child?
72
00:05:09,450 --> 00:05:10,560
And I just said to her, yeah.
73
00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:16,810
She was like, it's been a year,
and you didn't tell me.
74
00:05:16,810 --> 00:05:18,350
And I just said, you didn't ask.
75
00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:21,124
[MUSIC]
76
00:05:21,124 --> 00:05:25,634
Dealing with it and earning it has
been very difficult for me, and
77
00:05:25,634 --> 00:05:29,660
very strange, and
just very good at putting things away.
78
00:05:32,380 --> 00:05:35,890
She sort of had some kind
of dissociative disorder.
79
00:05:35,890 --> 00:05:41,410
She recommended a doctor that she
went to school with at Columbia, and
80
00:05:41,410 --> 00:05:44,720
who specializes in a therapy called EMDR,
81
00:05:44,720 --> 00:05:48,620
which is eye movement deprocessing and
reprocessing.
82
00:05:48,620 --> 00:05:54,432
And basically,
what it does is you reprogram your brain.
83
00:05:54,432 --> 00:05:59,770
With the trauma, your brain has a pattern,
almost like a track in the brain,
84
00:05:59,770 --> 00:06:01,680
where this trauma lies.
85
00:06:01,680 --> 00:06:07,290
And you can actually trick the brain and
change the pathway to change the outcome,
86
00:06:07,290 --> 00:06:10,040
and change the feelings
associated with that trauma.
87
00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:11,832
[MUSIC]
88
00:06:11,832 --> 00:06:16,904
When I finished my first session,
I walked out of there on my own, and
89
00:06:16,904 --> 00:06:23,290
I felt like she had taken 3,000 tons of
weight off my shoulder, in one session.
90
00:06:23,290 --> 00:06:24,661
It was unbelievable.
91
00:06:24,661 --> 00:06:28,103
[MUSIC]
92
00:06:28,103 --> 00:06:32,091
The thing about trauma, and
the thing about healing is that you,
93
00:06:32,091 --> 00:06:35,380
you spend your whole life
running away from it.
94
00:06:35,380 --> 00:06:41,020
And in order to heal,
you have to actually walk through it, and
95
00:06:41,020 --> 00:06:45,260
nobody, nobody wants to
walk through it again.
96
00:06:45,260 --> 00:06:47,409
[MUSIC]
97
00:06:47,409 --> 00:06:49,510
I thought I knew what happened.
98
00:06:49,510 --> 00:06:55,140
We worked with the flashback memory
that I had, and I believed in
99
00:06:55,140 --> 00:07:02,070
every ounce of my being that it
was my childhood friend's brother,
100
00:07:02,070 --> 00:07:07,050
I believe that, for some reason,
that was the answer I had.
101
00:07:07,050 --> 00:07:07,550
It was him.
102
00:07:08,850 --> 00:07:13,730
So, we did a lot of work on that,
processing and working through it.
103
00:07:15,990 --> 00:07:19,780
And years into it,
104
00:07:19,780 --> 00:07:24,110
I finally got the courage to
want to reach out to him.
105
00:07:24,110 --> 00:07:25,647
[MUSIC]
106
00:07:25,647 --> 00:07:31,770
I found him on Facebook, and
my heart was pounding out of my chest.
107
00:07:31,770 --> 00:07:38,500
And I wrote to him, and I just told him,
108
00:07:38,500 --> 00:07:42,280
I know what you did to me, and I just
wanted to let you know that I know, and
109
00:07:42,280 --> 00:07:48,379
that it's not okay, and I'm going to give
it back to you so you can carry it now.
110
00:07:48,379 --> 00:07:52,010
He denied it, big time.
111
00:07:52,010 --> 00:07:54,180
Which I thought, well,
of course you're going to deny it,
112
00:07:54,180 --> 00:07:56,380
as if you're going to say yeah,
sorry about that.
113
00:07:57,480 --> 00:07:59,150
I just got to the place where I was,
114
00:07:59,150 --> 00:08:03,460
I don't need you to tell me
whether you did it or not to heal.
115
00:08:05,180 --> 00:08:09,500
Two years later, my childhood
friend reached out to me and said I
116
00:08:10,550 --> 00:08:15,170
have wanted to tell you this for
a really long time, but
117
00:08:15,170 --> 00:08:20,410
I've not, don't know how to say it,
and I know who abused you.
118
00:08:20,410 --> 00:08:24,450
What she said to me was,
it wasn't my brother,
119
00:08:24,450 --> 00:08:29,340
it was my father, and it didn't
happen once, it actually happened for
120
00:08:29,340 --> 00:08:35,920
three years, and
he abused her as well at the same time.
121
00:08:35,920 --> 00:08:39,380
So, it was the two of us for three years.
122
00:08:39,380 --> 00:08:47,400
So suddenly, what I'd been thinking
was one time, and I was six,
123
00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:52,230
was actually no, you were six, you were
seven, you were eight, you were nine.
124
00:08:52,230 --> 00:08:54,824
And the only reason it
stopped was they moved.
125
00:08:54,824 --> 00:08:57,920
[MUSIC]
126
00:08:57,920 --> 00:09:01,133
I don't know what he said to me,
127
00:09:01,133 --> 00:09:05,655
I don't know what he threatened me with,
and
128
00:09:05,655 --> 00:09:10,772
when you're a child, and
you don't understand,
129
00:09:10,772 --> 00:09:14,818
when you have somebody big and strong and
130
00:09:14,818 --> 00:09:19,578
scary controlling you,
I don't really know.
131
00:09:19,578 --> 00:09:21,399
I don't really know why I went back.
132
00:09:21,399 --> 00:09:22,960
And I don't know why I
didn't say anything.
133
00:09:24,430 --> 00:09:28,709
I feel like a lot of survivors
struggle with shame and guilt.
134
00:09:30,090 --> 00:09:31,850
It's what keeps me quiet.
135
00:09:38,065 --> 00:09:42,928
When I started to take the steps to
heal was when I took my power back.
136
00:09:42,928 --> 00:09:47,944
And decided no,
the rest of my life that I have left,
137
00:09:47,944 --> 00:09:52,960
this last half I want to live free and
free of him, and
138
00:09:52,960 --> 00:09:57,758
free of the past, and
free of all those memories.
139
00:09:57,758 --> 00:10:02,024
Fast forward a year later,
I had about 365 songs on my hands,
140
00:10:02,024 --> 00:10:05,462
I just started writing every single day.
141
00:10:05,462 --> 00:10:10,100
It was an outpouring of years of
silence and years of not speaking.
142
00:10:10,100 --> 00:10:12,170
So, I went about making my first record.
143
00:10:12,170 --> 00:10:15,080
And then I went about
making my second record.
144
00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:21,170
I started seeing my songs as drawings.
145
00:10:24,440 --> 00:10:27,120
One thing turned into another,
into another, and
146
00:10:27,120 --> 00:10:29,670
I went from greeting cards to print.
147
00:10:29,670 --> 00:10:32,880
To markets, to opening my own store.
148
00:10:34,070 --> 00:10:36,760
And here I am today with Natchie,
my own brand.
149
00:10:38,020 --> 00:10:41,220
It's my nine year old self
who's doing all these drawings.
150
00:10:41,220 --> 00:10:47,010
It's my nine year old self
who's writing the songs, and
151
00:10:47,010 --> 00:10:49,730
she was silent for all those years.
152
00:10:49,730 --> 00:10:55,520
And it's really is
amazing situation where I
153
00:10:55,520 --> 00:11:00,420
have built almost a world for
the ages of myself that are abused,
154
00:11:00,420 --> 00:11:02,400
the seven year old,
the eight year old, the nine year old.
155
00:11:02,400 --> 00:11:07,440
I've built a land for them that's safe,
that nothing can happen to them.
156
00:11:08,490 --> 00:11:11,570
And they always get to play all day.
157
00:11:11,570 --> 00:11:14,494
[MUSIC]
158
00:11:14,494 --> 00:11:18,622
One of the great things about having
the store is my connection with people and
159
00:11:18,622 --> 00:11:19,330
strangers.
160
00:11:21,470 --> 00:11:22,821
Hey.
Hey.
161
00:11:22,821 --> 00:11:23,652
How you doing?
162
00:11:23,652 --> 00:11:24,776
Great.
163
00:11:24,776 --> 00:11:25,750
I've met a lot of
really amazing children.
164
00:11:27,250 --> 00:11:32,050
One child in particular,
her name is Allie, and she's 11.
165
00:11:32,050 --> 00:11:33,780
She's a budding young artist.
166
00:11:33,780 --> 00:11:36,060
She's really smart and really switched on.
167
00:11:37,390 --> 00:11:42,920
When I first met her, she's like,
hey, welcome, and in open arms.
168
00:11:42,920 --> 00:11:48,350
That shows a lot of character already
once you first meet a person.
169
00:11:48,350 --> 00:11:50,010
These are really good.
170
00:11:50,010 --> 00:11:53,770
It's a lot of, a lot of charcoal.
171
00:11:53,770 --> 00:11:55,900
And this,
these are a little doodles I did.
172
00:11:55,900 --> 00:11:57,500
I have a whole bunch of ideas.
173
00:11:57,500 --> 00:12:04,200
I should do this, and then I kinda
move on, and then I forget about that.
174
00:12:04,200 --> 00:12:07,190
It can be a real problem for a lot of
artists where they don't finish anything.
175
00:12:07,190 --> 00:12:07,880
Yeah.
176
00:12:07,880 --> 00:12:11,360
So, it's a good, it'd be a good
habit to start getting into.
177
00:12:12,650 --> 00:12:16,200
Obviously, I got a special place
in my heart for young girls, and
178
00:12:16,200 --> 00:12:20,990
to be able to mentor them means a lot
to me, and it's very important.
179
00:12:20,990 --> 00:12:21,828
[MUSIC]
180
00:12:21,828 --> 00:12:25,040
She's amazing.
181
00:12:25,040 --> 00:12:28,310
She's a pretty cool
superstar to look up to.
182
00:12:29,900 --> 00:12:32,390
Before, I guess I thought I
never had anything to talk about or
183
00:12:32,390 --> 00:12:36,098
anything to share, but
that's absolutely untrue.
184
00:12:36,098 --> 00:12:38,660
I've got a lot to talk about,
and a lot to share.
185
00:12:38,660 --> 00:12:42,780
And I'm starting to wake up to that,
that I have a lot to give.
186
00:12:44,060 --> 00:12:45,280
Everything happens for a reason.
187
00:12:45,280 --> 00:12:46,850
I'm a really big believer in that.
188
00:12:46,850 --> 00:12:52,590
And as sad, and as horrific as my past is,
189
00:12:52,590 --> 00:12:57,440
I wouldn't be the person I am
today if it didn't happen.
190
00:12:59,230 --> 00:13:03,380
There was years and years of being in
that tunnel, and not seeing anything
191
00:13:05,750 --> 00:13:09,130
and wanting to give up.
192
00:13:09,130 --> 00:13:12,470
And I'm just so glad I didn't,
so glad I didn't.
193
00:13:13,770 --> 00:13:15,420
And you just gotta, you gotta keep going.
194
00:13:15,420 --> 00:13:18,160
You gotta keep moving forward,
no matter what.
195
00:13:18,160 --> 00:13:21,970
No matter what, you have to keep moving,
that's the key.
196
00:13:21,970 --> 00:13:26,353
[MUSIC]
197
00:13:28,059 --> 00:13:36,526
[MUSIC]
198
00:13:36,526 --> 00:13:42,136
Come on love,
199
00:13:42,136 --> 00:13:50,553
it will be all right.
200
00:13:50,553 --> 00:13:54,231
Don't give up without a fight.
201
00:13:54,231 --> 00:14:04,231
[MUSIC]
NULL