Happy February, everybody! The days are getting longer and (hopefully) warmer, and lots is happening around us. I’m grateful to welcome Lynn Lobban to WomanPause this month. I was introduced to Lynn by a mutual friend and editor David Groff, who asked me if I would be interested in reviewing Lynn’s memoir One of the Boys: Surviving Dartmouth, Family, and the Wilderness of Men. I was intrigued by her story: Lynn was one of the first seven women to attend Dartmouth in 1968. She even joined a fraternity! (Here’s a link to the documentary Early Daughters of Dartmouth: Blazing the Trail of Co-Education 1969-1972. You’ll need the password Eleazar to access it.) There is more to the story, though. Lynn grew up in a family devastated by alcoholism and is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Please join us, as she talks about her time at Dartmouth, her childhood and its impact–and how she courageously moved beyond and healed. Some of what Lynn shares may be difficult to read. Please read with care.

Diane: Welcome, Lynn! I’m so glad to speak to you today. I’m grateful to have read and reviewed your memoir in Hippocampus Magazine. You’ve led a fascinating life. Let’s start with Dartmouth,1968. You were one of seven young women to join the then all-male campus. What was the landscape like then and for you, specifically, as a young woman at Dartmouth?

 

Lynn: It’s so hard to separate the landscape from my childhood and where I was coming from. When I got to Dartmouth, I was feeling pretty powerless, helpless even, as a child in an alcoholic home. I just wanted to get out of there and live my own life. So at nineteen, I was full steam ahead. My mother was raised in a time when women didn’t have many rights. She died as women’s lib was just starting. Sadly, I watched her literally drink herself to death. Alcoholics drink because they’re alcoholics, they have an allergy to the substance—and certainly it ran genetically throughout the family—but when my mother would get drunk, it was clear she didn’t like being a woman. She hated being “the doctor’s wife,” the way things were then for women. It was the rare woman who pioneered—the first woman in medical school or the the first woman lawyer. My mother wasn’t that. She was highly intelligent but didn’t have that ability to break free. She lived in resentment and exited early at 45. So when I got to Dartmouth, when I got a chance to be one of the first women with all these men, it was like, “I’m going to show them. I’m going to show everyone that women—that I—deserve as much as any man.” I honestly couldn’t see what the big deal was.

 

Diane: Tell us what was happening at Dartmouth or generally in higher education at the time.

 

Lynn: Well, Dartmouth was still all male. I have a line in the memoir, “Testosterone oozed from the trees.”

 

“I Was at Elmira and Didn’t Want to Be Among All Women Anymore. I Wanted to Be Strong Among Men”

 

Diane: How did you get to be one of the seven women at Dartmouth?

 

Lynn: I was taking theater courses in Dartmouth’s summer program and working with the Dartmouth Repertory company in the summer of ’68. When I heard they were going to experiment and take women into the drama department in the fall, I said, “Please can I stay? I don’t want to go back to a woman’s college.” I was at Elmira and just didn’t want to be among all women anymore. I wanted to be strong among men.

 

Diane: How did that work out for you?

 

Lynn: Well, for my delusional self, it worked out pretty well. I felt like I had accomplished something when I joined a fraternity, but pretty soon after, I realized I wasn’t really one of the boys. I mean, I’m not male. Honestly, when I first learned about gender fluidity, I thought, “Oh, maybe that’s me. Maybe that’s why I feel like a guy.” But it’s not that. It’s more like somebody who feels powerless and doesn’t want to.

 

Diane: You felt powerlessness as a woman and in your family. I imagine you felt pretty powerless at Dartmouth, too.

 

Lynn: I think all children, even in great families, feel pretty powerless. I don’t use that term like you do in recovery, where you admit powerlessness so you can actually feel empowered because you let go of trying to control everything. Helpless is probably more the word. And in an alcoholic home, you are completely helpless to these crazy people who are so sick and addicted.

 

“The Psyche Has a Really Great Way of Protecting Us”

 

Diane: Your dad was warmer than your mom, but his was a double betrayal because you realized later that he sexually abused you.

 

Lynn: I didn’t let myself know the full reality of that until I was 38, when my father was ill and died

shortly after. The psyche has a really great way of protecting us. It was always “Oh, yeah, I know my father slept in my bed. Oh, I remember when my mother came in when I was 12 and threw him out and screamed at him. Oh, I remember all that. But so what?” It never connected because my body didn’t want to let me know what it all meant. Because honestly, I just couldn’t. I don’t learn anything until I’m ready to, if that makes sense. And I think that’s true of most people.

 

Diane: I used to be a therapist, and even though there were times in my life that I really should have seen what was right in front of my face, I just didn’t see. I do think we see things only when we are ready to see them.

 

Lynn: And so many people never become ready. I went to Dartmouth talking about wanting the power of men, but I also needed their approval. I felt like men should protect me. So really when I joined the fraternity, though I wanted to be one of them, I also thought, “Okay, these guys are going to be big brothers and protect me somehow.”

 

“Nobody Had Ever Been Positive about My Showing Emotion, and Acting Gave Me Permission”

 

Diane: There’s always been a real survivor, a powerful person inside you who took care of herself however she could when no one else was doing it. You looked to dance. You looked to acting. What did that creative energy give you, and how did you find it?

 

Lynn: At first, I wanted to be a surgeon like my father (after wanting to be Dale Evans.) I was also madly in love with Dr. Kildare. I think I wanted to be a surgeon like my father because he was my “good parent.” But one morning, I did a drama improv in high school—I had just seen “Lust for Life,” a terrible movie with Kirk Douglas—and pretended I was Van Gogh, cutting off my ear. I screamed bloody murder. I had never let go like that. The girls in my all-girls high school kept coming up to me saying, “Oh. Oh my God. That was amazing. You were amazing.” Blah, blah, blah. I swear to God that day I decided to become an actor. Nobody had ever been positive about my showing emotion, and acting gave me permission.

 

Diane: And you danced.

 

Lynn: Yes. The dancing came out of Dartmouth, too. I loved being in my body and moving. And then when my mother died, I just went completely into it. I did nothing but dance for three years. That’s all I did. Three classes a day without a break, which really helped with grieving, or with putting it off.

 

Diane: Do you feel like you’ve made peace with your parents, or as much as you can?

 

Lynn: Well, I’ve tried so many things: rituals, therapy, and I will say that I have found myself. But the answer to your question is, I don’t know.

 

“There’s Always Been a Force Inside Me That’s Wanted to Heal”

 

Diane: And what does making peace even mean?

 

Lynn: Yeah. What does it mean? When I even think of letting go of them, I start to cry. Maybe I don’t want to let go of them because I feel like I never really had them. So that kid in me, that kid in me still, wants that connection.

 

Diane: Of course.

 

Lynn: And even though I try to develop the inner loving parent inside me, blah, blah, blah, I still feel like this little kid who wants parents.

 

Diane: It’s so interesting how things from way back can still feel raw and probably always will. Why would you write a book where you revisit it all?

 

Lynn: There’s always been a force inside me that’s wanted to heal, from the very beginning. And after I kind of segued from acting and singing—I didn’t want other people making decisions about whether I got to do my work— I thought, “I’m going to write.” The joke is, there are more writers than actors.

 

Diane: I know. It’s tough out there.

 

Lynn: Yeah. I had no idea. I first started writing about my childhood in 1991. If I’d had the guts to get it out there then, I would’ve been so ahead of my time. But I was much too fearful to say any of it out loud. Actually, it began with David Groff. I met David in LA when he was an agent. I told him I was one of the first women at Dartmouth and he said, “Well, I’d be interested in that. Get in touch with me.” Years passed, and by the time I got in touch with him, he was no longer an agent. It took me a while to get in touch with him again about editing. He’s just so brilliant, and such a good man, too. And his questions to me—without steering me too much—made me go deeper. So even that little bit of approval and encouragement was enough to set me on the journey.

 

“Isn’t It Sad That Telling the Fricking Truth Can Put You in Such a Place of Fear and Unsafety?”

 

Diane: Has it been healing?

 

Lynn: Yes, it has. But when the book first came out, I was afraid. My sister told me she had no sister. And my brother, well, I would have this terrible fear that he was literally going to put a hit out on me.

 

Diane: Wow.

 

Lynn: I had so much fear putting this book out. My brother and sister text me from time to time, but never anything about the book. It’s as if it doesn’t exist. And I think, “Well, the book’s been out a year and a couple of months, and I’m still alive.” I have told my deepest dark secrets and no one has come after me. I put in the beginning of the book, “This is my story. No one else’s.” I tried to make that pretty clear, and yes, it has been healing.

 

Diane: When my first very personal story was published, I had an anxiety attack. It wasn’t so much that I was afraid people in my family were going to react in a certain way. It was just that I grew up with my mother saying, “You don’t air your dirty laundry.” And just putting it out there, it was like I was carrying shame that wasn’t mine. Did you have that as well?

 

Lynn: Yeah. I was in Santa Monica towards the end of the writing of the book and I was taking a walk. I thought to myself, “Oh my God, I’m going to put this book out there.” And the next thing I knew, I felt this twinge in my hip. Do I need a hip replacement? Who knows? But from that moment until the publication of the book, and even afterwards, the pain kept increasing. It was as if my left leg was trying to get out of my body. And I’m still working with fear. I would also think, is it because I feel I need to be in pain if I’m going to be causing pain to others? I really exploded the myth about the “perfection” of my family. And my mother was like yours: “Don’t tell anybody your parents drink.” My family presented really well, and I knew how to present. But that wasn’t the truth. Isn’t it sad that telling the fricking truth can put you in such a place of fear and unsafety?

 

“I Do Have a Dark Sense of Humor and I Can Laugh at Almost Anything. That’s How I Survived”

 

Diane: Yes.

 

Lynn: I mean, it’s just the fricking truth, or my truth. It doesn’t have to be anybody else’s.

 

Diane: You write about heavy stuff, but there’s a lot of humor in your book, too. Was that a conscious choice?

 

Lynn: Oh, no, no. That’s just me.

 

Diane: Me, too. I make a lot of dark jokes because like what else are you going to do but laugh? Right?

 

Lynn: Exactly. I do have a dark sense of humor and I can laugh at almost anything. That’s how I

survived. It’s good to have that humor in the book because who could even go near it

otherwise? I have tried to read heavy memoirs of other people. I can’t do it. I just can’t do it

because I don’t want to be triggered myself.

 

Diane: This book is not just a spilling of dark secrets. I know it was healing for you. I know you felt like you needed to do it. Do you have a greater purpose in putting it out there in the world?

 

Lynn: Oh yeah, definitely. Especially for survivors of any kind of abuse. Especially for adult children of alcoholics. Especially for anybody who’s been even touched by alcoholism. Especially for women struggling to gain a footing in this man’s world. And for anyone wanting to finally care about themselves.

 

“My Book Has a Message of Hope”

 

I’m sort of saying that no matter what’s happened to you in life, if you can’t transform it, you

can survive it. There’s something beyond it. And yet, at the same time, I am well aware that I

have been privileged to have access to therapy. Being an actor and singer, I’ve lived a kind of privileged life. It’s not like I have a lot of money now, but for that early time, I was well taken care of, and I do somehow feel taken care of by the universe, or whatever you want to call it. But I was never struggling for food, let’s put it that way. I sometimes think, how do women, or anyone who is struggling for shelter and food, and who has also been abused, how do they survive? Oh my God, that is a tall order. But I think my book has a message of hope. I’ve always been a hopeful person, even though it’s sometimes made no sense.

 

Diane: Well, hope often doesn’t make sense. If it did, you wouldn’t need it.

 

Lynn: I will say I never got the relationship thing down. I’ve been married and divorced three times. But now that I’m 75, I can’t believe I’m not looking for another one. If it happens, nice. But for the first time in my life, I’m okay on my own.

 

Diane: It’s freedom.

 

Lynn: It is freedom. Fortunately, I somehow was able to raise two wonderful children who now have children. They’re loving parents and smart parents. I look at them sometimes and think, “Wow. Wow. How did that happen?” Turns out I’m not passing the heavy dysfunction down. I managed to move things forward.

 

Diane: That’s wonderful. I think it’s a gift. I believe when we heal ourselves, we heal forward and backward in time—future generations and our ancestors.

 

Lynn: When you say that, it makes me weep because I feel more connected to my mother and father. I don’t want them to suffer. I mean, I loved my mother and father, and as kids do, I wanted to be able to show that love as a child. I saw their suffering.

 

Diane: I really believe in my heart that we’re giving a gift to our parents by becoming healthier than they were. It takes some of the pressure off.

 

Lynn: Hearing that helps me a lot actually. Maybe that’s the piece I was missing. It never occurred to me that writing the book was helping them. My work here is done.

 

Diane: Then I guess mine is too.

 

Thank you for reading, everyone.

As always, I’d love to hear from you. Please write a comment or send me an email.

 

See you soon!

XOXOXO

Diane