May 26

Written By Christiana Kimmich

#51 – Ben Moroski

Ben Moroski’s Story

Ben Moroski is an L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award-nominated writer and actor. His plays have garnered numerous Los Angeles theatre awards and nominations. His first L.A.-produced play, This Vicious Minute, recounted his years-long battle with self-injury after being raised in a cult. Upcoming acting roles include the forthcoming short films Admitted and Discharge (which he also wrote and produced), both of which shed light on the current state of the American mental health care system and the vulnerable people it affects.

Additional Resources

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Episode Transcript

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Hello, beautiful people. Welcome to The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast. My name is Ashley Loeb Blassingame. I almost forgot my name and I am your host. Today we are talking to Ben Moroski. Ben is an L.A. Drama Critics Circle Award-nominated writer and actor. His plays have garnered numerous Los Angeles theater awards and nominations. His first LA produced play This Vicious Minute recounted his years long battle with self-injury after being raised in a cult. Upcoming acting roles include the forthcoming short films Admitted and Discharged, which he also wrote and produced. Both of which shed light on the current state of the American mental health care system and the vulnerable people it affects.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay. Hold on to your seats ladies and gentlemen, Ben is amazing and I just want to say for the record for those of you who’ve been listening to this podcast for two seasons, I really didn’t know he was in a cult. I’ve found him because he’s an amazing self-injury advocate and mental health advocate and it turned out that he had grown up in a cult. So just for those of you who have started to wonder if I have a cult obsession, I cannot confirm or deny but I did not know about this one. So anyway, the point being Ben is amazing. He does amazing work in the arena of self-injury. His story is so gripping and we tried to keep it digestible in a way that would really speak to anyone who’s ever struggled with any type of addiction, depression wanting to hurt themselves in any way, shape or form.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I hope that you leave this episode knowing that mental illness or being reminded that mental illness does not look or sound or act in one specific way. That it doesn’t have to fit in a box. That self-injury does not need to be a 13 year old girl who is having aches and I really just appreciated how Ben was able to show us that and to highlight how he has been able to grow out of those detrimental coping skills and what he’s been able to do for his mental health. So without further ado, I give you Ben. All right episode 51, let’s do this. Ben, thank you for being here. Really appreciate it.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me and thanks for reaching out.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. How’s your quarantine going?

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, it’s going. I work from home, so I’ve been able to keep… You know, it’s funny. Yes, it’s some semblance of the same schedule but at the same time it’s just such a different energy in the world right now that-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So true.

Ben Moroski:

I think I made the mistake of thinking my life was going to stay the same just because I work from home you know, and then it’s like, wow, what’s all this building up inside of me that feels weird you know?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yes. No, I totally relate to that because I worked for… Well, I have a office outside the house but I also, mostly I can work from home and it just… And I go to school and so I do work on my… But there’s something different in the world. It feels so different.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah and I do closed captioning for live TV. So it’s all doing the closed captioning for a lot of local news stations and stuff. So most of the news… Everything is being filtered through the lens of Coronavirus right now. So it’s just like inundated on all fronts as everyone is of course, but my work also happens to be so, yeah, but overall good. How’s yours?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You guys just got a dog, right?

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. Three-year-old English bulldog rescue. Yeah. So she’s a bit of a project, but we’re excited and I’ve never personally… I mean, I’ve had dogs growing up, but this is my first dog as a gainfully employed adult so-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Welcome.

Ben Moroski:

… yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That’s awesome. So I found you online and you did a podcast with a friend of yours and your story is around self-injury and something I really wanted to talk about on this podcast and from a male perspective too, which is not as commonly talked about. Actually, it’s probably very common. It’s just not as commonly talked about.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. I think statistically it’s… I think the rough statistics are 60/40 female to male. So there are a lot of-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

A lot.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. It’s obviously stereotypically viewed as much more female teenager kind of thing that people deal with, but the statistics are actually fairly even, so it’s definitely interesting.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

There you go and that’s exactly… You know, I have a bunch of stories on this podcast that talk about things that men experience that are stuff around the Me Too movement and things that are typically talked about from a female perspective that I really wanted to find men that were willing to talk about. So thank you for being here and doing that and tell me a little bit about where you grew up, your dad was a professional football player and a little bit about your family.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. So my parents are high school sweethearts. You grew up in Northern California or-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I did. Yeah.

Ben Moroski:

… spending time in Northern California?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah.

Ben Moroski:

[crosstalk 00:05:43], I looked into the first episode of the podcast and I was like, Oh yeah. My parents grew up in the Bay area. They’re from Novato and we’re high school sweethearts. My dad played football in the NFL for eight seasons. He was a backup quarterback and I have two older brothers. They were both born when my dad was playing. My [crosstalk 00:06:01]. He played for the 49ers for one season. Yeah. He backed up Joe Montana through Jerry Rice, the touchdown pass.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Awesome.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. So he played his first six years in Atlanta for the Falcons. My oldest brother was born there. Then he played in Houston when the Oilers were still a thing. He played for the Oilers for a season. My brother Will was born in Houston and then he played for the 49ers for a season and then I was born after that and he retired and my parents moved back to Davis, California where I grew up. My dad had done his undergrad there and played football there and went back to get his masters and start coaching. So when my dad… I think around his rookie season in the NFL, he and my mom became born again Christians and so when they came back to Davis they were looking for a church.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That had to have been hard… On the NFL road, was it like did they see something going on or how did… Do you have any idea like what triggered that?

Ben Moroski:

Their conversion to Christianity or?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You know, it was during his rookie season, right and they become born again Christians. I mean, during a rookie season there’s lots of stuff you can get involved in that isn’t that. What do you think led or drew them in that direction?

Ben Moroski:

You know, I feel like I would be guessing because I just haven’t talked to them about that in a while, but I do know that there was and still is a large evangelical Christian community in professional sports. So there were Christian guys on the team… There were always guys who were professing Christians on the teams-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Got it. Okay.

Ben Moroski:

… and that sort of thing. So there’s definitely, that is like a part of the culture of the NFL as I understand it and has been for a long time. So there was that sort of portion of people within the sport.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Got it. Okay. I’m picturing ballers.

Ben Moroski:

Right? Yeah, yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

[crosstalk 00:08:06], to the NFL and you find Jesus, I’m not sure. That’s not the road I would have pictured.

Ben Moroski:

I know. I think it’s still fairly, obviously it’s not the majority and yeah, so it’s definitely still a fairly unique path I think but they… And neither of them were raised religious particularly. So they were church shopping when they got to Davis and tried a number of places and found this place called Grace Valley Christian Center and I was born and they started going there and yeah and we were there from… Basically when I was born we were in Davis and going to Grace Valley from when I was born up until I was 21.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay. And you were born in ’88?

Ben Moroski:

’88. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

’88. Okay. And tell me about… So that this Grace Valley Christian Center, this was a unique place not… One would say it wasn’t your average born again Christian Church, Is that-

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, it’s an interesting place because it has this facade of definitely being your average Christian place. It’s definitely… I think if you visited there once you’d be like, “Oh, this is a bit intense,” because it’s definitely sort of started by the pastor. He was called by God and started this church in the late seventies in Davis and so it’s his church. It’s nondenominational and everything runs through him. There are elders, deacons, whatever word you want to use but they’re all under him and the buck stops with him and so a service is pretty intense as far as like, the sermon will be 45 minutes to an hour long and be like everyone’s taking notes and it’s very much like let’s study the Bible and that’s what really drew my parents to it initially, two things. One was the sort of intense seeming Bible study and really getting in there and understanding what it’s all about and then the other thing that’s really attractive about Grace Valley is people are genuinely nice.

Ben Moroski:

I mean, I remember once we laughed and the girl I was dating and I, at the time we went to other churches to just [inaudible 00:10:33]. So finding another church and basically every single church we went to we could have been ghosts. You know, people don’t pay you any attention and everyone’s there… And I don’t mean that in an overly negative way, but it was definitely like, “Okay, so this…” So I could see the appeal of somewhere like Grace Valley, where people are… The first time someone shows up, people are asking them over to lunch like that day in genuinely interested in them. Again, it’s funny. It kind of sounds like it’s not like get out, you know, where it’s like coming into our… You know?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. Right.

Ben Moroski:

Like it’s not a fake sense of fatality or like people are being forced to do it. It’s people taking a genuine interest. So that was also I think attractive to my parents was people who were interested in them and their lives.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Those two things make complete sense. I mean, if you want to learn more and be closer to the book and understand, and also be with friendly people who care about you that’s not a long shot. So that makes sense.

Ben Moroski:

It’s a great pitch. Right?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Yeah, absolutely.

Ben Moroski:

A great pitch.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So what went wrong for lack of a better word?

Ben Moroski:

So over a course of time as you stay there you… Oh man. Yeah. This take… New members, take a new member class where you’re kind of introduced to the way that Grace Valley teaches the Bible. Granted, I was born into it so I never had to take the new members class and then at some point you become a member and that’s like signing… you sign something and there’s always… When people have finished the new members class, there’ll be like a… It’ll be part of a church service and people are introduced as new members, but they treat the membership at the church like a marriage.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay.

Ben Moroski:

Like it’s a binding contract and so over the course of years, you… And my mom and I talk about this a lot, but your friend circle outside the church becomes smaller and smaller. When I went… From kindergarten to fourth grade, I went to public schools and then when I was going into fifth grade, the church started a school that was K through ninth. So everyone was pulled out of public school and went to the church schools. So from fifth grade to ninth grade, I was spending more waking hours on church property than I was at home. I lost all my friends from public school and not because… Just because… You know, obviously when you’re a kid you’re being driven by your parents places and-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Life happens.

Ben Moroski:

… you’re friends with who you’re around, but if the only people you’re around is people from the church, again, it’s like the circle shrinks. It’s not a cult in the sense of like people are still in the community. You know, my dad was a football coach at UC Davis. There were a lot of doctors, lawyers like prominent community people in the church, but there’s lots of encouragement to do things the churches way and not… It’s very much a kind of place where it’s like, well, we didn’t tell you, you couldn’t do that and it’s like, well, yeah. I mean, no. Yes. There is-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

[crosstalk 00:13:53], sure didn’t… You sure [crosstalk 00:13:55], didn’t like it. Right, right.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah and then at the base level… And this is the stuff I’ve got away from because I… And I just have a bit of more difficult time recalling it because it’s been a few years now thank God that we’ve been out but it’s definitely very much… It’s evangelical Christianity and it’s very much original sin. Everyone’s a sinner and very much like guilt and shame based environment and a lot of like don’t trust your emotions, don’t trust your thoughts. You know, the devil’s going to put bad thoughts in your head and while you can’t control that, it’s definitely up to you whether you choose to entertain them or not, you know? So that kind of mentality definitely leaves the door open to then be like, well then you tell me… You know, we’ll tell you what’s right and what’s wrong-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Because-

Ben Moroski:

… and that sort of thing.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

What did you think about God when you were a kid? Like, what were your thoughts about what God was or what Jesus was? What religion was? Did you feel like… Was there any place where you felt like you were loved by God? Where you… Like, even though that as long as you didn’t do these things that you were okay or was it… Like did you leave with this idea I have this loving community, I have this loving God but if I do these things it’s bad or is it more like, no, it’s like, I’m all bad, I’m all original sin, I’m all… Like was there an upside?

Ben Moroski:

I mean, I think there was definitely an upside in a certain sense because I mean it’s all I knew. You know, I was born into it. So it’s the community that you’re raised in. So it was just that we’re like God is love, but what does love look like you know? Love looks like… Love from a parent looks like disciplining you physically, you know what I mean?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense.

Ben Moroski:

Love from God means… You know, God’s wrath on the world is a form of his love, you know?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Ben Moroski:

It’s like okay. Sure.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. So what did that do for you? I mean, was this the impetus for the self-injury?

Ben Moroski:

I guess. I mean, I think it was… So I started cutting myself when I was a senior in high school and I was a very good rule follower all the way along. Like the highest award in ninth grade. It was the last grade in the school at the church. It was the pastors award and I won the pastors award and so then after graduating ninth grade then you go back to public high school.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh, okay.

Ben Moroski:

So went to Davis high school. Ironically enough the mascot for Davis is the Blue Devils, so there are definitely some church members who are not thrilled with that and I played. I was the starting quarterback on the football team and I was I suppose, relatively popular or whatever but everyone knew that I was a Christian and went to Grace Valley. You know, so it was the kind of thing where in classes sometimes people would be like, “Hey, you know your church is a cult, right?” And I’ll be like, “Oh, that does not compute with my brain, you know,” but I think getting toward the end of high school, football season was over, senior year we weren’t that good.

Ben Moroski:

I also ran track in the spring, but I think it was getting toward that end… getting toward a massive transition in life you know, and in a community that strongly encouraged people to stay put and go to UC Davis, if you were going to go to college or go to one of the community colleges in the area, but like stay and serve God’s kingdom here. Now why God’s kingdom centered around a church in Davis, California with a total membership of 400 people, I don’t know to this day, but that was the very, very strong encouragement and I never really… I applied to some other schools, but I never… It was never even in my brain that I would go somewhere else you know. I sort of think of it like one of those like shock collars that you can buy for a dog. So like they stay within the edges of your property line.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Ben Moroski:

Then it’s like if they wear it enough, it’s [crosstalk 00:18:18], you just leave? There’s no fence, you know.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Exactly.

Ben Moroski:

Like there’s an invisible sense of you know.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Ben Moroski:

[crosstalk 00:18:28], I couldn’t even put my finger on then you know, but for whatever reason I started cutting my stomach just really lightly. I would get razor blades out of disposable razors and cut my stomach and I think it definitely initially came from a place of, I knew that I wasn’t supposed to use drugs. I wouldn’t have even known where to get drugs frankly and I knew I wasn’t supposed to drink. So those things were clearly sins, right? Sex, clearly a sin. So all very… So whatever this behavior was that I had discovered was something that no one had told me was right and wrong. It didn’t fit in to that. So I had access to it, where I didn’t have to feel guilty about it you know, and I didn’t really know what I was doing and I still look back and I’m like, I just don’t even remember being exposed to self-injury at all.

Ben Moroski:

I remember in the play that I wrote there. I do reference like the one time I remember seeing there was a guy on our football team who had two like crosses carved into his chest scarred and someone had asked him… We were in the locker room and I had just overheard it in passing and someone had asked him what that was from. He said he did it himself and I remember thinking that was the weirdest f’ing thing ever. Like, why the f would you do that to yourself, you know? And that was maybe a year or two previous, you know. So that was kind of the place I was coming from. So it wasn’t like I knew what self-injury was at all. Didn’t even know the term.

Ben Moroski:

So I started cutting my stomach and it was easy to hide and then as senior year came to a close and I was like… Even in public high school, it was like I was starting quarterback of the football team. I was one of the student speakers at graduation, but by the time graduation rolled around, I was definitely starting to cut more and I was cutting in different places. I had started to cut around my wrists and not really with any sort of… I don’t think…. It was nothing about it being suicidal. It was I needed something more to happen, you know? I mean, I needed there to be more blood and it’s funny, much later when I was in it when going in and out of treatment, my mom would say to me, “Ben, you don’t need to prove something to ask for help. You can just ask for help. You don’t need to show something,” but after growing up and… Another thing with Grace Valley was that mental health was very much poo-pooed, but I mean it was basically like, if you sin less, you won’t be depressed, you know?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Ben Moroski:

[crosstalk 00:21:14], work on it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I found the opposite to be true.

Ben Moroski:

Right? Yeah. Same. Trial and error-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

[crosstalk 00:21:21]. Yeah. It’s like yeah, that doesn’t check out.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. One of the best things I… one of like the first things that really hit me when I was in treatment was… and I don’t remember if it’s part of DBT or not, but the idea of if you’re feeling guilty about something, you shouldn’t feel guilty for keep doing it until you stop feeling guilty about it. You know, just keep going in that direction. If you’re having a response that doesn’t-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Can’t change it. You are like no way. Yeah.

Ben Moroski:

Right.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That’s the kind of thing I would take and run with, but yeah.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, exactly.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So is that a common desire to bleed, to have more… Like, is that a common outcome of non-outcome? Is that a common desire of someone who’s doing self-injury or just that was to you for your-

Ben Moroski:

I mean, I can really only speak to my experience, but it was I wouldn’t say that I thought about that consciously like off the bat. Again, I think it was one of this things that the practice changed. It evolved and I think like a lot of other things you need more of the thing-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

To get-

Ben Moroski:

[crosstalk 00:22:33], response. Yeah. So and more of the thing could be the place on my body. If it’s more visible, I’m going to get a bigger response you know. I’m going to get a bigger rush and if it’s more serious and there’s a sense of like f’ing… You know, there’s a sense of that athletic kind of competitive side of it where it’s like I could do that, I did it that bad before, so it’s not up to at least that then like come on, what the hell are we doing here? Why are you even talking to yourself? It’s like, why are you even wasting my time?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Interesting. I didn’t think of it from that perspective. So were people able to see? when did people… When was the first time anyone noticed?

Ben Moroski:

So two things. The first time I ever cut myself, I do remember that and that was, I was like, I think I’d like masturbated and felt really guilty about it because that was… We were not supposed to do that in the church and I was like, okay. So I cut a cross into my right Palm and it was… I don’t even have a scar from it. Your palms are pretty hearty you know, but it was like, okay, I need… Like, I want a visual reminder so I won’t do that again you know. So that was the first time I ever did it. Now when I started… But when I started doing it regularly, cutting my stomach, it wasn’t so much from that kind of punishment or like, I need a reminder about something place.

Ben Moroski:

It was much more of an experimental place, but to get back to your question. You know, I was living at home with my parents obviously, at the end of high school and then when I started college, I also lived at home through college as well but at the end of high school… It was a couple of weeks after high school ended… Actually, it was the Monday after. So I had given the speech we had done grad night, it had been fun and the Monday after, I wrote a note that I suppose was a suicide note. You know, I don’t know. I think it’s easy to label things in retrospect when they’re a lot murkier at the time and I got some razorblades and some candy and I drove to… Where did I end up? I think I was like, somehow ended up in the parking lot of the DMV.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That’ll make you want to kill yourself for it. Sure.

Ben Moroski:

Right? I know exactly. So you know, it’s like just yeah, the desolate wilderness of the-

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:25:04]

Ben Moroski:

So, it’s like just a, yeah, the desolate wilderness of this [crosstalk 00:25:04] parking lot.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I mean, it’s a little-

Ben Moroski:

It’s a bit on the nose.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Where did you find him? The DMV.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Well, I told him not to go. What does God say about the DMV?

Ben Moroski:

I cut my wrist pretty bad. Then I didn’t really know what to do. You know? I was bleeding and it was bleeding onto my shorts, and I just kind of drove around and parked at some other places. Then a couple hours later, I had to pee really bad.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Unexpected things that come up.

Ben Moroski:

Right? I was like, “I’m going to have to get out of the car.”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Okay.

Ben Moroski:

Davis is surrounded by a lot of agriculture and open fields and stuff, and I got out of the car and just peed on the side of the road. Then it for whatever reason just clicked in my head. I was like, “I just need to go home.” I don’t know. I got home and my parents didn’t know where I’d been. I just kind of left. It was the afternoon, but it was still like I was out of school and I just kind of disappeared. I don’t know. I don’t think I had a cell phone at that point. I Didn’t get a cell phone until I think I started college, but I parked across the street and my mom came out of the house and she saw me and she came over to the car, and I rolled down the window, and she didn’t see at first, and she was asking me where I’d been.

Ben Moroski:

Then she looked in and saw my wrist and and my shorts. It’s one of the very vivid memories I have in my life. She asked me if I was trying to kill myself, and I said, I didn’t know and I broke down crying. Yeah. She helped me back into the house and she cleaned it up and it wasn’t bad enough to where I needed anything done other than it to be bandaged. At that point, my mom obviously told my dad, and then they made the decision that I needed to go talk to the pastor, because that was always the first line.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right, right, right. He’ll know.

Ben Moroski:

Unless you were going through something medically, again, the mental side of things, it’s like, well, it’s related to God can… I don’t. You know? But it was definitely like that is the first step. I don’t remember telling my dad this, but I told my dad, I guess, before. I was like, “I know exactly what’s going to happen. He’s going to preach a sermon at me and that’s going to be it. It’s funny that I look back and I’m like, “Wow, how did I have an awareness of what the experience was going to be?” Yet we were there for four more years. I think part of it is I think the people watch documentaries about cults and stuff, and they’re like, “Well, why the f are you still there? Just leave.” “How did you not just leave?” I really think that you don’t leave a place like that until something touches you personally enough that opens your eyes.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

And you were born into it.

Ben Moroski:

And I was born into it, and I wasn’t going to leave on my own. I had friends who left on their own and their families disowned them, excommunicated from the church, and a lot of times when you lose a structure, the church would spin it as, “See, that person went crazy when they left.” It’s like, no, they lost their entire support system and didn’t have anywhere to turn except shitty places.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right, exactly.

Ben Moroski:

So, I went in and I went into this meeting, and so my dad took me over. Me and my dad were there. The head pastor was there, and then there’s like two other people in the room. You know? One person taking notes and the other associate pastor. I’m like, “Oh great.” His office is like very dark. It’s very much like Don Corleone’s office in the first scene of The Godfather. That’s this church office.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay, okay.

Ben Moroski:

The big wood desk, and he’s sitting there. He’s this little Indian man.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Not what I expected.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, and he preached a little sermon to me. He was like, “Do you know how this makes your parents feel?” Basically, when you do these things. I’m like, “Yeah, not good.”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You’re like, “[inaudible 00:29:45] the DMV.”

Ben Moroski:

Right, yeah. The verses that he referenced in the Bible where he referenced from I think Genesis four, could have the chapter wrong, but it’s from Cain and Abel’s story, and God comes to Cain and says, because Cain and Abel both bring sacrifices. God asked for a sacrifice, Cain brings the wrong sacrifice, and he’s pissy about it because God didn’t accept it. God askS him, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? Do you not know that sin is crouching at the door? It desires to have you, but you must master it.” That was the takeaway for me, I suppose. I don’t really know. I suppose the message was you’re on the doorstep of making bad decisions. Clearly the reason you’re here is one of them. So, get your act together and be aware that the devil’s there to… you know.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So there was no, like, “Why did you do this?”

Ben Moroski:

Not in that meeting. From that point, I was asked to meet with the senior associate pastor once a week at his house at six in the morning before I went classes at UC Davis starting my freshman year. The first meeting he and I had was actually good. Yeah. We actually had a genuine talk about why it had happened. But from that point, it turned into me memorizing large portions of the Bible and reciting them to him in his living room at 6:00 AM, and then encouraging me to, “You need to start inviting people to church and demonstrating your faith that way.” At some point, and I was still cutting at this point. I would roll in with gloves on. I mean, it was cold, but I would roll in with gloves on and my knuckles all torn up with burns or whatever I had done. So, it was not making a difference.

Ben Moroski:

I was living at home, so my parents still, my mom, especially, very, very much on the pulse of what I was doing, whether I realized it or not. She eventually was like to my dad, “Look, these meetings need to stop, because they’re not helpful.” So, that was cool, because that was one of the few times that it was like a situation or it was something the church wanted, and my parents said, “This is done.” At that point, I saw my first therapist.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

A real, not a real, but a real therapist.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, someone qualified to talk about the issues.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, exactly. Well, that’s the thing that’s so ridiculous about a place like Grace Valley is they think they can deal with everything in house.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Right. I mean, there’s so many places like that, and we hear that all the time. I think it’s part of this stigma too around these issues, is that it’s not a physical issue. Right? My hope is that even over time, because there is Christian counseling, right?

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. I mean, I went to a Christian therapist.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay.

Ben Moroski:

My first therapist was a Christian therapist.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. So, it’s not an impossible thing that someone would have a Christian therapist and they could have a Christian therapist in house. It’s just those people specifically aren’t trained and they’re dealing with something very serious.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. Even if you had a Christian therapist in a place like Grace Valley, the problem is it’s going to be too filtered through the dogma that they want to, rather than receiving the information from the client and responding to it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. So, where was this therapist?

Ben Moroski:

I saw one that just wasn’t a good fit. He was in the Sacramento area. It was pretty far away from my house, but he was in the Sacramento area, far enough away to where he’d never heard of Grace Valley, which was a good thing. Yeah. I saw him for a few years.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

What was different about that?

Ben Moroski:

It was my first experience going to therapy. So, it was funny because it’s like, “Oh, therapy. I feel so f’ed up in a great way.” Like I’d done something to warrant outside help, you know?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Ben Moroski:

“I have graduated.” So, I didn’t know. It’s like my only exposure to therapy was Goodwill Hunting, where it’s like, “Oh, cool.” So, it’s like this odd combative relationship where eventually we’ll meet in the middle and find it and understand it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Ben Moroski:

Granted, I wasn’t really equipped to talk about my life with a whole lot of candidness because of growing up in an environment where you’re just editing yourself constantly. “I shouldn’t think that, I shouldn’t feel that, I’m not going to say that, because saying that is going to be entertaining a thought that could be sinful.” But it was a good relationship. I look back and I’m like, I wouldn’t see a Christian therapist now basically because I’m not a professing Christian, but I look back and I’m like, “He did his job as well as he could have done given the circumstances.” He even said things to me where it was like, and I don’t remember what precipitated it, but said things like, “Wow, that church sounds spiritually abusive.” I was like, “Wow, I’m not familiar with that term at all.”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Did that open up anything for you? I mean, do you remember it?

Ben Moroski:

No, no, but it was this immediate, like, “I’m receiving information that is out of line with what I should be thinking.” I mean, always in Grace Valley, and not always, but there were definitely times I remember when they were like, “Here’s what to say if someone calls this place a cult,” kind of thing.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

What’d he say?

Ben Moroski:

I don’t remember what they were.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Do you remember what they would tell you to say?

Ben Moroski:

I don’t remember, but obviously I think that the take home was people are resistant to God’s word, so they’ll do anything to tear down the truth. The devil’s out there and he can use anyone to tear down the truth. I mean, at its basis, it’s a persecution complex. If someone’s saying something negative about me, I’m being persecuted because I’m doing the right thing.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So, by the time you get out to this person in the Sacramento area, what does your cutting look like? How regularly? Where is it in its progression?

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, that’s a great question, because through college it was off and on, and there would be times when it would be really bad. Then there were stretches where I wouldn’t do it at all, months.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

What did really bad look like?

Ben Moroski:

Good question. I’m trying to think. Gosh, it’s been a while with the college stuff, but just the size of… I started burning myself. Cutting was the first thing I did, and then I started burning myself. The spaces of skin I was burning were getting bigger and the burning was getting deeper and that sort of thing. Then, again, the slow march of things becoming more visible. I continued to act during college, and I remember, it’s like I can place certain moments of self-injury, because I had to be in dressing rooms with people, and at this point I was hiding everything.

Ben Moroski:

So, I was wearing long sleeves all the time, and then I was hiding the things that I was doing, and I was hiding my scars. I wasn’t comfortable with them at all. Very ashamed of them. I remember a play that I was in my sophomore year of college. I know that I had burns on the inside of my upper arms, on my triceps, matching burns that were pretty bad and really painful in the healing process. But I remember having those and needing to hide them. Yeah. Then things started to move out to my arms and move down my arms and just get more prominent that way.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

When I was using, I had a friend who… so, I did some self-injury, but it just wasn’t my thing. I had drugs and alcohol.

Ben Moroski:

Sure.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I wanted to see what it was about, and, yeah, that was kind of who I was.

Ben Moroski:

No, totally, yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, you know? It was just, people are doing this, got to try it. I was like, “Yeah, that hurts.” A couple of times I thought, “I know what I’m missing. I’m going to cut myself and pour the alcohol in it, see if I’ll get drunk faster.” That does not work. That hurts a lot, just in case anyone was actually wondering. But I had a friend who I was very close to, and we used a lot of cocaine together. She was really into self-injury and a lot of what you talked about. One thing that I thought was interesting was when we were using, we would have these kits, of whether it was straws and credit cards and razorblades. We would have these kits of things that we would go and we would get. We had this mirror that we used to puff paint to create our lines so we could do them while we were driving, because that was a good idea, because God forbid we pull over. We’re in such a rush.

Ben Moroski:

You’ve got to keep on your schedule.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Listen, listen, we had places to be. We were 15 and going places.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. You’ve got to be there on time.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. I know I didn’t want to make anyone wait.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So, she had a kit. She had a self-harm kit. It was one of those things where we were so f’ed up.

Ben Moroski:

Do you remember what the kid consisted of?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I do, because I remember thinking, and not only do I remember, but I remember being in the car and she had this little… I don’t remember what it was in, but it had a razor blade, it had a lighter, it had a screwdriver, I think, or some sort of metal thing. So, I had my drug kit and she had her drug kit in this thing. We would go and we would pick up, I’ll never forget being in a Safeway parking lot, we went and we picked up an eight ball of cocaine, and I’m very excited about this. She pulls out her self-harm kit, and we’re in the middle of the day. She wears long sleeves. She’s covered from head to toe, and she pulls out her self-kit and starts burning herself with the screwdriver. I’m looking at her like, “Now? Really? We just got an eight ball, what are you doing?” I never asked her about it. I mean, she was there was no amount of scar surgery that could have ever done anything for her.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I just remember over the year, when I look back at that, I was so self-involved that it just was not part of the thing, but I just remember she used that literally the way that I used drugs and alcohol and had the kit and had the whole thing. I just remember this sense of ease and calm.

Ben Moroski:

Did she have any first aid stuff in her kit?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh, yeah.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh, yeah. She had the whole thing. I just remember really thinking, the few times that I had tried to self injure, it was like, “Ow, this hurts. Okay.” It was just a very different experience for me, and hers was a sense of ease and comfort and calm. It was done as an emergency situation. I don’t know, like, “We need to do it now.” I never really brought it up with her, but I could see the difference. I could see it for what it was, as that coping mechanism that was so something was going on, and it was the first time and probably the last time that I’ve ever seen anything like that. It stuck with me as a lesson for what this was, that my experience with it other than that has been not that.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. I mean, it’s a massive endorphin rush, causing that degree of pain. It triggers something in you. It’s like runner’s high. You go for a run and you feel-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Not my experience.

Ben Moroski:

You know what I mean? But people talk about that, right?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, same. But, yeah, that totally rings with me, 100%. I feel like self-injury too often is grouped into… I mean, the conversations about it are not happening, let’s be honest, at all, which is funny to me because it’s like, yes, yes, very slowly conversations around mental health are changing and getting better and more productive, and yet there are certain blind spots around issues, self-injury being one of them, that are hard to wrap your head around. The portrayals in pop culture are not really changing that drastically, but it gets lumped into, “I do it.”

Ben Moroski:

It’s like, “Did you do it because you wanted to feel…” “I couldn’t feel something and I wanted to feel anything.” Or, “Did you not feel pain? Did you not feel the pain?” I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience, but it’s like, no, I feel the pain. The pain is part of the deal. But it’s reframed. I remember I’d tell the story in the play where I remember I was in the room with my mom and my sister, and we were at home and I got a paper cut, and I winced and I was like, “Ow.” You know? They’re both looking at each other, like, “How is he wincing about a paper cut with these big scars, this big injury?”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Ben Moroski:

It’s just a different context. It’s all context.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right, it’s all context. I think one of the best ways to think about it is that alcoholism and addiction are self-injury. They’re self-injury.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I mean, when I’m putting something up my nasal cavity that I know is injuring me, I am self-injuring. I’m getting a high from it, but I’m self-injuring. When I’m putting a needle in my arm, I’m self injuring. These are forms of self-injury, make no mistake. We basically decide that the outcome is better than the harm. I mean, right? It’s just a risk reward situation that we’ve decided. As we progress, it gets crazier and crazier, and then at some point, it makes that shift. But it is self-injury. I was a piercer, and I worked in a tattoo shop, and let me tell you how many people come into a tattoo shop for self-injury and call it, “I need to get tattooed.” I cannot begin to tell you. “I’m stressed, I need to come in and get tattooed. I’ve been feeling the need to get tattooed.” Not, “I really would like this beautiful tattoo on my body.”

Ben Moroski:

Beautiful piece of artwork that means so much to me.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right, right. Right. How I get tattooed and how these people got tattood was very different. I was like “Oh, I hate this.” It was something I had to go through to get to the other side. There was never, ever a moment where I was like, “I would like to get tattooed.” But I saw so many people come in with the need to get tattooed and then pick a piece of art after. I would hear people saying like, “I’m addicted to getting tattooed.”

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, not to the tattoos themselves, right? It’s the process of it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Nope. It had nothing to do with the tattoos themselves. In fact, I saw people come in and ask other people to pick their tattoo.

Ben Moroski:

I feel like in a casual conversation though, people could miss that different thing. Like, “Oh, you’re addicted to tattoos.” It’s like, “No, no, that’s not what they said.”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. People did the same thing with piercings.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

They would come in and get pierced. So, I do think kind of what you said, which is I think this is more prevalent. I think it’s out there. I think people have been able to frame it in a way that makes them feel less strange.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Do you think that drugs and alcohol would have done for you what cutting did for you, or self-injury, rather?

Ben Moroski:

Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know. I didn’t drink until I was 21. I was that good of a rule follower. I was like, “I’m not allowed to, I’m not supposed to, breaking the law, also a sin.” So, when I started to drink, it definitely is something that, and I’ve read enough about self-injury that obviously a lot of people self-injure when they’re on drugs or alcohol, but that can be a co-occurring thing. I think statistically, and I think it’s referenced in that book that I sent you guys the link to, that men who self-injure do it drunk more than women who self-injure, statistically speaking. So, it definitely was something that, because alcohol, it lowers your inhibition, so it makes it easier to just get over that natural resistance to attacking your own body.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. Do you think there’s any relation to picking a fight? You know you’re going to get the shit beat out of you when you’re drunk just to want to have someone hit you, or is that just not [crosstalk 00:47:26]?

Ben Moroski:

I don’t know. I mean, I think that’s kind of like what you were just talking about as far as these sorts of things that are self-injury, even if we’ve grouped them into different categories.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right, right.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Stay tuned to hear more in just a moment. Hello, everybody. This is Ashley Loeb Blassingame, the cofounder of Lion Rock Recovery, and your host. Lion Rock Recovery has introduced a support meeting specifically for people struggling with anxiety related to the COVID-19 pandemic structured as an ongoing workshop. The COVID-19 anxiety support meeting will teach coping skills and be a place to share and connect with others also feeling the effects of this crisis. Everyone struggling with anxiety about COVID-19 is welcome. Let me repeat that. Everyone struggling with anxiety about COVID-19 is welcome. To view the meeting schedule and join a meeting in session, visit www.lionrockrecovery.com, and click on the orange banner at the top of the page. You can’t miss it. Together, we will learn to feel more centered and empowered in the face of this great challenge.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So, at this time, you have the burns. Now you said you had them on both sides. So, you had a method? Was it like, “I have to be equal?”

Ben Moroski:

I don’t know if symmetry was a thing, but I definitely know that I’ve placed every single injury I’ve given myself very consciously.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay, so that’s part of it.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. That’s definitely been part of it for me. Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah. So, did things get infected? Did you ever have situations where things went wrong, you took it too far?

Ben Moroski:

I mean, honestly, nothing has ever gotten so infected that I had to-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay. Okay. So you never-

Ben Moroski:

… deal with it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

… needed… yeah.

Ben Moroski:

I’ve gotten stitches once, and, yeah, probably needed stitches on some other things that just healed into some pretty ragged scars.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So you’re excellent at wound care.

Ben Moroski:

I have gotten good at wound care and I’ve figured out what’s working in the first aid world and what products could be discontinued.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I like to think of myself as a first kid tester.

Ben Moroski:

Exactly. Well, it is interesting. I do think that there is an element of self-injury where the wound care and the healing process is very involved, and the degree to which you choose to take care of something or not, it’s a huge part of it. I mean, there’s something therapeutic about-

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:50:04]

Ben Moroski:

There’s something therapeutic about healing yourself, about taking care of something. Then there’s the extended metaphor of say you have a large injury, say a couple inch burn, and you have to keep it covered and then you’re covering it and keeping it covered with something like say paper tape around the edges of whatever you’re covering it with. So, by the time that the wound itself is healing, the area around it has become aggravated and torn up and your body is also focusing on healing the area. It’s just really interesting to me because I think about it in the context of my healing process and then the support system around me getting torn up, my parents getting torn up. But everyone working toward a common goal, but it doesn’t mean there’s not ramifications and there’s no collateral damage.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. That’s absolutely true. It’s not linear. I was making a face because when I went to dance school in New York when I was 15 and I branded myself … Not for self injury purposes, for cool factor obviously.

Ben Moroski:

I still look at people who have branding from fraternities and I’m like, “Why would you do that to yourself?” Meanwhile I’m covered in burns. I’m like, “Oh, God.”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That’s amazing. It’s like, “Geez.” This is classic. I don’t know where the idea came from, but no one else was doing this. So it’s not even a whole group of [inaudible 00:51:49] wanted to do it.

Ben Moroski:

Was it the whole dance studio wasn’t-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

No, no. And I remember … This is classic. I didn’t think about you have to wear all this stuff when you’re doing ballet and all these tights and different things, so I didn’t think about the tights placement. Oh my God. It was like a pentagram but not, and the whole thing was just classic. Just one of those things. But I ended up with this brand and my mother gets a call from the studio like, “So Ashley branded herself.” She’s like, “I’m sorry, what?” Anyway, I was thinking of the healing process because I remember thinking it’s one thing in the moment I was willing to take the pain for the moment because the cool factor of I don’t know what. I did not, like pretty much everything, think through the fact that this was a longterm project.

Ben Moroski:

And burns take a long, long time to heal. And it’s a much messier process than a healing cut.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I had no idea what I was in for. That’s part of your thing. It’s very involved.

Ben Moroski:

Well, and that’s not to say that I try to think of everything around it, but then there’s still, “Oh, shit. I didn’t think of what I’m going to need to be doing or where that placement exactly is.” I have a burn in the space between your index finger and thumb, but on that side, and I was like, “This sounds like a good idea” in the moment. And that took so long to heal because it’s a place that flexes. So even though it was something I was doing regularly, you can’t account for everything.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. One of the things, do you self censor on Instagram or are you censored?

Ben Moroski:

I’m censored heavily.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay. So I want to ask you about that because … Sorry to go back to counseling, but how does that make you feel to be just a straight up picture of you not-

Ben Moroski:

Honestly, I think it’s bullshit. And I think that part of the problem with Instagram’s … Facebook doesn’t seem to have rules about anything compared to Instagram at this point. But Instagram it’s like part of me, when it happens, and I don’t know how it happens. I think that’s one of the infuriating things. I think my understanding is that someone’s flagging it. A person or I don’t know why. Because I kept track of when Instagram announced that they were going to be removing self-injury stuff and I don’t have a problem with that in theory because people are entitled to their own opinions.

Ben Moroski:

I don’t find it helpful to see pictures of open wounds. I think it’s really triggering. I don’t think it helps anyone else. If it’s therapeutic to the person who’s posting it, I can’t really speak to that, but I don’t think it’s doing a service to anyone. I think people potentially have that opinion of some of the stuff that I post, but I really try to post things consciously. I never post things that are open, I only post scars, and I try to post them in a a light that just doesn’t play into the stereotypical, “Oh, I’m self-injuring.”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Like you can’t hear the music with it.

Ben Moroski:

That’s not helpful. But I should be able to show my body if everyone else can show their ass on Instagram and not be censored.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Well that was the thing. I remember I was looking through that and there were pictures of you having lunch. There were pictures of you; just a headshot, or whatever.

Ben Moroski:

There was a rash a few months ago where someone went bananas on my profile and flagged like 50 things.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

They’re just pictures of you.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. I think that the upsetting thing is that there’s no recourse for the person who gets flagged, really. Yes, most everything’s been put back up, and it makes sense to me, of course. They don’t want to tell me who’s flagged me in case I’m a crazy person and then I’m going after the person. And there are things that are legitimately flagged, but I think if my profile is being harassed by someone for whatever reason, I don’t think that’s okay. And I do think it’s a detriment because I’ve definitely shifted how I talk about … I’m nervous when I post now.

Ben Moroski:

And I also choose not to use certain hashtags because I limit the self-injury and self-harm hashtags I use, even though I know that they’re potentially where I’m … And the reason I continue to do it, I’m not reaching some incredibly wide, wide audience, but you never know. And I think I go back to when I was a teenager and Instagram and Facebook weren’t really a thing, but I’m like, that’s where people are communicating now. So it’s the easiest place to reach someone now. And I think would I have stopped if I had seen someone talk about it in the candid way that I choose to? And no, I don’t know if I would have stopped, but I would’ve had more knowledge and I would have known that people-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You may have known where to go. Yeah.

Ben Moroski:

And I would have known something that wasn’t only stereotypical or negative or making you feel like it’s taboo. I also take issue with Instagram’s resources where if you go to their resources thing … Because I get a lot where it’s like “A friend has reached out and is concerned about you.” That thing. And they’re like, “Do you want more resources?” So I’ve followed the links to see where it sends you because I want to know what Instagram’s thinking. And of course the conversation, it’s like, “Oh, this is where our conversations need to shift on a structural level.” Not just on a things are taboo, but you follow their links and under suicide self-injury is listed under the suicide tab.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh, wow.

Ben Moroski:

And it’s like, “Well, you’ve missed the point from square one.”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Wow. Yeah. That’s interesting.

Ben Moroski:

So we’re not even really able to have a real conversation about it, because you’re lumping two things in that are stereotypically linked, but are not scientifically linked at all.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

And they’re offering that as a resource so they don’t want you to post about it, they’re going to censor that, but they’re not even offering the right resources. Who’s to say that you weren’t in Afghanistan and you weren’t a prisoner of war. I guess how do we choose to censor things and how much do we give people the opportunity to decide what they’re not going to look at if it bothers them? Like for the love, just don’t go to … Or whatever. But I did notice that and did want to touch on that and see how that … Because your message is very … And I want to hear about how you’ve been able to get into recovery, but it’s very important to talk about. And I found you with your hashtags and because you went on a podcast and we have 60,000 downloads all over the world. So it’s not out of range of things that you’d be able to touch a lot of people with this topic.

Ben Moroski:

And every time I post I get … Or not every time, but when I post on days like self-injury awareness day, because a lot of times I’ll post things with quotes that aren’t mine because I don’t like writing things. I have no patience for bumper sticker solutions to mental health problems. I just don’t. I just don’t. Because in the moment when shit’s going down, it’s not going to help. I would rather have someone be real with me. And I don’t mean to be cynical at all, but when I take the time to post something in my own words, undoubtedly I get at least one or two or three people reaching out with questions. How do I deal with this? So people are looking for answers.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I think a big place that you would be very useful is to parents as well. I bet that would be a very big resource for them.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. And I definitely have had people because I was doing some writing for my … I keep in touch with my high school drama teacher and I’ve written a couple of plays for her on commission so I’ve kept in touch with some of my teachers from high school and there’ve been moments when they’ve reached out and put me in touch with former students or asked about if they can pass my contact information to parents and that sort of thing.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So take us through what happened. How did you get to a place of recovery? You said you went to a couple treatment centers. What was the first time you went to treatment?

Ben Moroski:

So the summer after my junior year of college we left Grace Valley. My brother told my parents that he’d been molested by a family friend of ours in the church. Not a person in leadership, but by a friend of ours. And to go back to what we were talking about earlier, that’s what I mean where something has to touch you personally to take you out of a cult. You don’t reason your way out of it like, “Oh, I’ve really studied the Bible on my own and found that my beliefs don’t line up with yours.” No, some shit went down and your eyes open. My parents told the church leaders we need to leave. And the short version is, they said no.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Why did they need to leave the church because there was a bad apple in it? Do you know what I mean? How did that-

Ben Moroski:

It’s a great question. Obviously my telling of this story is not including just the rising tide of not being happy there with shit getting more intense there. There was a revival over the summer where they really circled the wagons. Couple of my siblings really got thrown under the bus for stuff that they’d been doing and raked over the coals fairly publicly in the church. My parents were basically told they were bad parents. My parents led the college ministry for years. They were forced out of the leadership role. There was a lot in the context of it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Okay. A lot went on.

Ben Moroski:

And then, also, my parents didn’t want to go to church with the person who’d molested their kid and act like everything was okay, because that person was part of a family who was prominent in the church. They were some of our oldest friends and everyone was members of the church. The church hid behind their confession privilege or whatever to not need to report because the guy had told them, so then it’s like, “Oh, it’s a confession. So they don’t have to report a confession to police.”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Is that true?

Ben Moroski:

There is a degree of confidentiality that religious leaders have in the context of a confession, is my understanding.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

They don’t have to report it, but your parents could have reported it, right?

Ben Moroski:

And my brother did. It was an extended process and that’s a whole other story but the version as it relates to this conversation is my parents said, “We’re leaving the church.” I was doing a theater apprenticeship back East the whole summer. I get home and they’re like, “We’re leaving.” And I was like, “Just like that?” Because it was one of those things you dream about that is never going to happen. It’s like having a dream where you’re flying. It was that level of outlandish. And then we were out. But in the process we were immediately ex-communicated, which on its own is funny to me because that’s really not how ex-communication works. Ex-communication is kicking people out of a church who still want to be there. It’s like, “No, we’re gone. Thank you.”

Ben Moroski:

But they always did this. Whenever someone would leave, they would ex-communicate them, have a ceremony basically. They’d label these people who left it’s like you went crazy or you’re children of the devil if you leave. So that was our whole friend group. That was everyone we knew. We left and we lost everyone. And Davis is a college town, so there’s enough people there, but it’s small enough to where you run into people in the grocery store and they turn the other way; see through you, don’t even acknowledge that you exist. The girl I was dating at the time, my first girlfriend, she was not from Davis but she had come to UC Davis and was a Christian and had joined the college ministry and we’d met that way and she’d become a member of the church, but she was living with some people in an apartment who I’d grown up with. And I was like, “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if they shunned us in the apartment?” And then they did it. They wouldn’t talk to us in the apartment. I was like, “I knew it was crazy, but this shit is bananas.”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You were like, “Hey,” and they don’t respond?

Ben Moroski:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Hey!

Ben Moroski:

Right?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I’m talking to you!

Ben Moroski:

That’s the kind of side of it that I don’t really know that I’ve ever taken full stock of what it meant, the impact it had to lose everyone. But at that point I finished college and I actually had a good senior year as far as I wasn’t cutting for a significant part of it. Because the summer when I went away to the theater apprenticeship, I was around people I didn’t know; I’d never met. I hadn’t cut for a while so I took it as an opportunity to wear short sleeves around people for the first time.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

How’d that go?

Ben Moroski:

It was very, very nerve wracking.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh I’m sure. It must be like being naked.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. And it was just paralyzingly nerve wracking, but I did it because I was like, “They don’t know me, so I can start fresh and I can have that be a part of my past rather than be assumed that I’m doing shit that’s weird by people.” So that was amazing. And then getting out of college, much like getting out of high school, was a really, really hard transition. I didn’t know what I wanted to do at all. I was acting in plays and in the Sacramento area, my girlfriend and I … In the church we weren’t allowed to date until we were in college, so this was my first girlfriend who I’d gotten together with sophomore year of college and we dated for three and a half years. I broke up with her about six months out of being out of college.

Ben Moroski:

So things were shifting in a lot of ways. I was out of my first relationship. I was out of school. I was acting in Sacramento. I was still living at home. I didn’t have a job. And I didn’t know how to do what I wanted to do and I couldn’t even have told you what it was I wanted to do. And then self-injury was sort of reasserting itself again at that point, getting fairly prominent. When I saw that first therapist I started taking medication for the first time. I was on Wellbutrin for a number of years and at that point I was convinced that it wasn’t really making a difference. But I told my mom that I didn’t want to see a therapist again right now. I wanted to do something different. We’re out of the church so I wasn’t even interested in seeing a Christian therapist. I wasn’t interested in going back to him. I just needed something else.

Ben Moroski:

So my mom called our insurance because I still feel like with mental health everyone has to reinvent the wheel themselves. There’s very few resources to help you figure out what to do when. So she called insurance and they were like, “Oh.” They recommended an outpatient program that was covered and it was in Sacramento. So I started going to this outpatient program and I had no idea what to expect. It was five days a week, a full day each day. I’d never done anything like this in my life. And I walk in the first day and it’s me and 12 women, most of whom were significantly older than me and I turned around and walked down the hall to the program nurse’s office and I was like, “So I think I’m in the wrong place. I don’t know if this is for me.” And she was like, “Just give it a couple of days.”

Ben Moroski:

So that was where I was first introduced to things like dialectical behavioral therapy and it all went over my head at the time; most of it. Some of it pinged because it is very practical, but a lot of it, it was like you weren’t seeing a therapist in the program. It was groups all day. And it was stuff anywhere from medication education. That was the group I walked in on my first day was medication education. And they’re talking about f’ing serotonin moving from one neuron to another. And I’m like, “I don’t know what I’m doing here.” But it exposed me to things that I wasn’t aware of like DBT and that sort of thing. But at the same time while it was structured, you’re just on your own. And I was still self-injuring. I was hurting myself on breaks in the program. And it’s one of those things that I was there, I think, three weeks maybe total. But in retrospect it feels like I was there a lot longer because it did start on such a note of hope and positivity and something new and like-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right. This is going to be it.

Ben Moroski:

This is going to be it. Okay, they’re giving me prescriptions. Do I need Xanax? I don’t know. What is that? Great. So I got put on Prozac, Xanax, and something else right away.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

They put you on Xanax?

Ben Moroski:

They gave me the prescription because-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Man, I went to the wrong outpatient.

Ben Moroski:

Right? But it did start on such a note of optimism. But very quickly ground down into feeling like … I don’t know. I don’t know. It clearly wasn’t meeting my needs, whatever I was feeling. Because I burned the back of my hand all the way across it with the … I had a fork that I would use that I would heat up and I burned across the back of my hand. So very, very obvious. And it was almost asking people to notice.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Ask me. Right? [crosstalk 01:11:00]-

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, it’s funny. People pejoratively lump self-injury under the heading, “Oh, they’re doing it because they’re seeking attention. It’s attention seeking behavior.” And I’ve come a long way in my opinion of that to the point where I’m like, “Well yeah, no shit it’s attention seeking behavior. Maybe you should give them some f’ing attention.”

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I’ve seen it be both, right? Where they’re doing everything they can to not have you see it, you happen to find it. That’s not attention seeking.

Ben Moroski:

Exactly. And if it is out there and you’re saying that as a negative-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

And you’re seeing it.

Ben Moroski:

Maybe f’ing think about how you’re viewing it, not about what you think they’re doing it for. If it’s got your attention, maybe look into it a little bit rather than just passing it off. But yeah, I think there was an element of see me. See me. Because we’re in these groups but I didn’t feel seen in retrospect. So I ended up one day bringing … I had my little kit in my shirt pocket. I had a razor blade, I had a bandage, and I had a Xanax.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Sometimes you’ve got to party and outpatient, right?

Ben Moroski:

Right. It was that sensation of looking for something to set me off. Looking for something to take me down. So we were in a small group and you’re just hearing a lot of rough stuff from people and how can other peoples’ stories not affect you emotionally? And I just remember getting pretty depressed just listening to peoples’ really sad stories about their lives and real shit. And I went to the bathroom, I locked myself in the bathroom, and I cut myself on my abdomen. And it had gotten to the point where when I was cutting myself I was cutting and then I was going back into the open wound and continuing to cut within the same wound. So that was another graduated step where the burning became, “Oh, if I burn myself once, the fun thing about that is you can burn over the same spot but now you’ve already burned the nerve endings off so you can hold it. You can do more damage.”

Ben Moroski:

So it was that sort of thing. But then of course the body eventually reacts. So I was in the bathroom and then it was not so much reacting to the pain as reacting to, “Oh, that was bad enough.” Where it was like the blood wasn’t stopping. So I put the bandage on and I buttoned my shirt back up and I was like, “All right. Power of positive thinking. I’m going to head back to the group because they’re going to be missing me in a minute.” And I walked into the group and I almost remember this in slow motion where I was wearing a button down shirt, but it was untucked so it’s hanging loose and I had the bandage on, but I saw a drop of blood come out of my shirt and hit the floor.

Ben Moroski:

And I was like, “Oh, shit.” And I stepped on it. I was like in a movie. I covered it because the room was full of people already, but everyone was just getting back from break. And I was like, “Oh, f. This is not going to go well.” So I got out of the room without anybody noticing which I am honestly very grateful for and I made it down to the psychiatrist’s office and told him what I’d done and he looked like deer in the headlights like he wasn’t computing what I was saying. So I was taken to the ER and … Though a very vivid memory was I was on the floor of the nurse’s office and she was applying pressure to the wound in the program and waiting for the EMTs to get there. And they get there and it’s a pretty profound experience.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, and you’re sober for it.

Ben Moroski:

The EMT pulls the gauze away and he’s like, “Oh yeah, that’s not bad.” And I just had this very profound sinking feeling.

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:15:04]

Ben Moroski:

Not bad. And I just had this very profound sinking feeling, you know?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh yeah.

Ben Moroski:

Like oh seriously.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, right. Come on, man.

Ben Moroski:

You know it was like, go big or go home, and I had f’ed it up. But shit’s already in motion. They have to send you to the emergency room, and from the emergency room, basically they do the psych eval and they found a bed for me, hours upon hours upon hours later, and I was taken to the inpatient program. And from there, it was kind of one of those situations which just kind of, I think after growing up in such a heavily regulated environment of rules and keeping my shit together, it was like, if I’m here, than f it. It was the first time I think I really just let go.

Ben Moroski:

They put me on a lot more medication and I was just, I was reacting poorly to Prozac, and then I was on, they switched the Xanax to Klonopin. And so it’s just like, my inhibition level was very low, you know? And you’re in an environment where if you hurt yourself, you’re going to get an immediate response. So it just got bad. I mean, my mom remembers that time that I was in and out of inpatient as the worst time of her life. I remember being high, and it being kind of fun. And very stressful in its own right, I think it’s unfair to not honor the degree of stress I was living with at the same time, and it had gotten like, you don’t have implements to hurt yourself, or they’re harder to come by. So I was just banging my head against the bathroom floor, to the point where it was just opening my face up.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, but somehow it’s like, again, I rallied. I was put in on a 72 hour hold, but they reevaluate and I was there for like 14 days. But I rallied and I got my shit back together and I got out. And then within like two weeks I was back in. And that time I asked to go back. And from that point I’ve lost like two weeks of time. I don’t remember them at all. They had put me on lithium at that point as well.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Man, they were throwing it all at you, just trying to figure out what would work.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, and it’s funny, I feel like a lot of times I talk about it, I come off as heavily critical of these inpatient environments. But I think it was a… I am critical on certain levels, but I do think it was a bit of a perfect storm where we didn’t know what to ask for. My parents didn’t know what to ask for. And these places, their goal is to keep you alive. I’m alive, so, you know, they don’t have any other solutions. It’s such a short time that you’re there, in the grand scheme, that there is no time to get you off your medication, get to know you, find out what’s really going on.

Ben Moroski:

So I lost a significant amount of time and my parents were doing furious research and trying to find out what to do. The social worker tells my parents that they think I’m on the verge of a psychotic break. My mom’s like, so what solutions are we coming up with? And they had nothing. They came back with nothing. And again, critical of that, yes, at the same time I’ve seen the stacks of case files they’re walking through with, how can you even address the minutia of people’s experiences and concerns and needs when you’re saddled with that much stuff. And then for the psychiatrists who work those places, they’re working their own practice, they’re working at other facilities. They’re seeing you for 10 minutes once a week.

Ben Moroski:

So it’s, again, it’s a bit of a perfect storm, but somehow in all her research, my mom somehow gets a phone call from a guy that she didn’t even know and didn’t know how she was in touch with him who tells her about the Menninger Clinic in Houston, Texas. And I think the big trouble for my mom in her research, and for both my parents, was that there’s very few, there’s not a lot of self-injury centered things out there.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

That really get it.

Ben Moroski:

That really get it.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

They take people, they’ll take people who do it, but it’s not a lot of people who specialize.

Ben Moroski:

Exactly, exactly. So for whatever reason, it seemed like a good fit. And yeah, I was in Houston, Texas for over a month and a half in there. And it was the first time that I was in treatment with people my own age on the unit that was like 19 to 30 years old or whatever, something like that. And people dealing with similar points in their life, even if it’s a massive variety of experiences. So that was the first big turning point to finding some level of recovery.

Ben Moroski:

I do think I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on the financial burden, and I look back and I don’t even know the total extent of the lengths my parents went to and strapped themselves financially. A lot, a lot, a lot. And I think about the context of, in one sense, it’s like, what… I mean I step back from it now and I think about, I was privileged enough to be able to have parents who could strap themselves financially, and do it. And I think about everyone, so many people who aren’t even in the position to do that, and how our mental health system does not serve them. If they have to do that to get me the care that ultimately made the difference, it’s like, f man. It’s intense. Yeah, anyway, I just wanted to mention that. I feel like so many times we talk about recovery and treatment and sounds amazing, and the help that’s there in good places are amazing, but good help takes time. And the one thing that time takes more than anything else is a f ton of money.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, it’s an ugly truth about the system, and there are people who are able to do it in other ways. I think the more understood and accepted an issue is, the better the general care is for it. And particularly with self-injury. I mean, that is just not something that the general care is going to be able to, I mean, it’s just not. And then also with general care, when you’re looking at things like schizophrenia or schizoaffective, it’s going to be a medication. There’s going to be accepted standards of care for things, and kind of where you were like I wasn’t being seen-

Ben Moroski:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Because you’re one of that-

Ben Moroski:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You know, there’s no time to see individual people, there’s a time to create a standard of care.

Ben Moroski:

True, yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

And that’s the scary thing, particularly with self-injury or any sort of things that feel fringe to people.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, and that’s one of the reasons I’m so grateful that you guys had me on today, was I do think converse, and I’m sure you believe, it’s that conversations like this matter to shifting, even if it’s very slowly, how we view standards of care, and things like that. And what is, yeah, yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. So when you get into self-injury recovery, what does that look like? Did you pick a date? Do you have a date, the last self, like how-

Ben Moroski:

You know, there is a long time when I would count days and would keep track. And for whatever reason, it just never really served me that well. And I think part of it was just growing up in Grace Valley where it’s like, I would count days. I would have to keep track of how many days I didn’t masturbate, you know? So it’s hard for me to… I haven’t found it to be a useful thing for me. I think the, you know, I was in Houston and then I ended up coming down to Los Angeles for a Step Down Program, it’s called the Optimum Performance Institute, and I had no idea what a Step Down Program was. And I was like, I don’t need that, I’m an adult.

Ben Moroski:

And it’s like, well, no, yes, sure. And it’s like, in Houston, it was like the first time when I’d really started to shift my mentality around a lot of things and shift toward a forward facing direction in my life. And so yeah, the Step Down Program, being able to integrate these sort of new coping mechanisms, ways of thinking into crafting a independent life that works for me and that I loved and wasn’t relying on these past coping mechanisms. So I think if I had to point to any date, I think moving down to Los Angeles was a dramatic shift in my… that was the big, big life change. That being said, I’ve still been back in inpatient before. I ended up back in inpatient in 2013. So it’s not been without its ups and downs, that’s for sure.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Did you want to go to, were you like, I need to go back?

Ben Moroski:

No, I was out of the program. I was in that program in LA for four months. I moved into my own apartment. I wrote that play. I got my first real job down here, which is actually still the job I have, I do closed captioning for live TV. So I was gainfully employed. But I dated a girl right when I moved down to LA, and she had broken up with me about a year after we started dating, and we started dating pretty soon after I got out of the program in LA. So I was sort of newly single in Los Angeles, and basically I had my leftover medication lying around, and I took all the medication. And yeah, ended up in the emergency room and then in inpatient in LA. And that was definitely a blast. It was just like, what am I doing back here again? You know.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right.

Ben Moroski:

It’s a different city, different life, it seemed, and yet, here I am.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

There you are.

Ben Moroski:

Exactly, yeah. And yeah, to answer your question, I don’t keep a date, and I don’t keep track of days, and I still, I mean from time to time, it is my long grooved coping mechanism, negative though it may be, for coping with stress. So I would be lying if I said there aren’t times where self-injury pops up as the impulse and occasionally as something that I still struggle with.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Is there something specific that you do? Are there people that you call or do you have a recovery community?

Ben Moroski:

There are people who I can be candid with. I’m actually, I’m dating now, and I’ve been in a relationship for close to two years now and we just moved in together in the past six months. First person I’ve ever lived with, so that’s exciting, And my parents provided this, and my girlfriend who I’m with now provides this, there’s a sense of unconditional love. No, it’s not a condoning of something that makes them upset or that’s physically not good for me, but there’s a sense of non-judgment. I’ve also in the past year started seeing a therapist for the first time in a few years, I hadn’t been seeing anyone. And that’s been an interesting experience because it’s been my first time in seeing a therapist not in a state of crisis.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right, right.

Ben Moroski:

So I remember the first session I was like, yeah, so this is weird. And so I think the work for me at that point was to trust that I didn’t need to manufacture a crisis in order to be heard. Again, I think a lot of it goes back to my mom telling me, and growing up in an environment where it was like mental health being poo-pooed and written off and my parents telling me, look, you don’t need to have physical evidence of the problem to ask for help. You can ask for help. Not saying that it’s easy to ask for help-

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

But it’s there, it’s an option.

Ben Moroski:

It’s there. And continuing to hear that, you know?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

It’s okay to ask for help. What does your life look like today in terms of helping? Like, I know you do a bunch of stuff to help reduce stigma around this topic. Could you tell us a little bit about what those things are and are there more things that you want to do with that?

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, I guess the first big thing I did coming out of treatment in LA was I wrote a play and produced it. It’s a solo play, and it’s my story, basically, from growing up in the church all the way through moving to LA. And I think the best thing about it now, looking back, because I wrote it in 2012, the best thing about it now is that it captured the way I thought about self-injury at the time that I wouldn’t… my thinking has shifted so dramatically.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Oh interesting.

Ben Moroski:

That I think it’s really important to have those sort of primary source documents about how we thought of things, so I don’t lose sight of how I viewed something, and polish it over. I feel like in recovery I continue to try to be more articulate about the things I’ve struggled with, but I try to be aware of not shining it to such a high polish that it’s unrealistic.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. So I did that. I’ve really tried to take advantage of the advent of social media and its ubiquity and posting about self-injury and posting about being unashamed to post my scars. The main basic reason I continue to do that, despite whatever censorship pops up, is that there were so many years that I spent that I was so ashamed of my body and of what was on my body, just crippling, long sleeves. I remember I was down visiting my aunt and uncle and I was in college at the time, and I went out to Pismo beach by myself, and I was swimming and my scars were all purple from the cold, just like dark. And at the time I just felt like they were gross.

Ben Moroski:

And I remember there’s a story in the Bible, and this is also in the play, but there’s a story in the Bible about this guy who has leprosy and he goes to this prophet and the prophet tells him to dip himself in the river seven times and he’ll will be clean. And I remember physically doing that in the ocean, like dunking myself, and we were still in the church at the time, I think. And I remember praying to the sky on the seventh time to have my scars gone. And of course they were still there when I came up the last time. But I think back to times like that, because I’m so comfortable now, for the most part, with my body and with my scars, and it’s been a hard won sense of self comfort in my appearance, but I’ve really worked hard to not take it for granted.

Ben Moroski:

And those are some of the main questions I get regularly from people who are like, I’m really ashamed. And it’s a hard question to answer, you know? Well, don’t be ashamed. You know?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Totally.

Ben Moroski:

What do I do? I’ve struggled with this for years, what do I do? And I don’t have a lot of, again, I don’t think bumper stickers are helpful. So I just, again, that’s one of the reasons I post because I feel like it’s an indirect way of encouraging a level of acceptance. Because if I can model a degree of honest self-acceptance, then maybe that can speak to something.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Do people come up and ask you about your scars, and when and if they do, what do you say?

Ben Moroski:

So the number one place I get asked is in the grocery store checkout line by the checker, because, and I understand it, all they’re doing all day is standing and talking to people and making small talk for a space of like 15 to 30 seconds. And people don’t guess that it’s self-injury, just for whatever reason by how my scars look.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

So they’re looking at your hands, right? You’re hands, is that-

Ben Moroski:

Well, they’re looking at, because I’ll wear short sleeves and I have scars all the way up and down my arms.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

It doesn’t look like… like I would think, if I saw your hand, I would think abscess that got infected or [crosstalk 00:01:31:53].

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, so people don’t, because my scars don’t… the real more stereotypical looking lines across, have for the most part faded, or it was never really my thing so much. I moved pretty quickly into bigger things, so it’s more prominent, like those melty looking burn scars, that people think I was in an accident. I have gotten asked if I was a veteran. I was like, oh no. I feel bad. Someone’s trying to be nice and I’m like, no, I’m not. But yeah, most often I get asked in the grocery store checkout line and most often people guess I was in a motorcycle accident or something, or a car crash. And for the most part I will answer honestly. And I’ll say, I actually struggled with self-injury with cutting and burning myself for a number of years, and more often than not people feel really bad that they asked.

Ben Moroski:

And so I try to keep the conversation going. If it was an honest question, I try to give an honest answer. And if they apologize I say, for the most part, my response is something to the effect of, it’s totally fine, I wouldn’t wear short sleeves if I wasn’t comfortable asking. And occasionally it’s like, I’m happy you asked, I don’t mind at all. And the only times I won’t entertain it is if someone’s clearly not asking because they are actually interested.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah.

Ben Moroski:

And it could be just me trying to read tone. And sometimes I’m just not in the mood. For the most part, I’m not self conscious, but there are times when I still am. And that’s just part of it. I think the mistake on social media would be to portray it like I’m just totally liberated and perfectly in touch with what I’ve been through. It’s like, no, there are times when I look in the mirror and don’t like what I see, and I think being able to say those things still is just as important as being able to tell the story of being in a place of recovery and being in a healthy place, you know?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Totally agree. Totally. I mean, there are times where I think of my story being out there or, there’s so much information about me out there and there are moments where I get really self conscious about it. And even that people are going to judge me, that they’re going to judge all the things, whatever it is, whatever the story I tell myself is, even having well over a decade of recovery. And I think that’s just part of it. You do stuff, particularly with coping mechanisms that you can see on your body. Right? I struggle with binge eating, and so if I’m gaining weight, people can see that. And there’s a feeling of being very naked and being very exposed.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

And you know, when I was drinking and using, for the most part, at least in my perception, I didn’t feel like everybody knew exactly what was going on. I didn’t wear my issues on my sleeve, so to speak, and with stuff where it’s related to your body and people can see that stuff, it’s very exposing. It’s very uncomfortable. And I often think to myself, I’d rather have the one where-

Ben Moroski:

Right?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You know?

Ben Moroski:

Totally.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

I’d rather have the one where you just know nothing.

Ben Moroski:

Oh, right?

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Because it’s just like, I don’t need, everybody has issues, why do you have to be able to visibly see mine?

Ben Moroski:

Totally. Well when people say it to me, and it’s true, as like a reassuring thing I know, where it’s like, well, everyone has scars and yours just happened to be visible. And I’m like yeah, no f’ing shit.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

You’re like, right, that’s the part that we’re talking about.

Ben Moroski:

That’s the part that’s driving me up the wall.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right, exactly. That’s actually true. It’s so true, it’s so true.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah, yeah. Well I love what you’re doing, I love that you’re talking about this, I love that you’re willing to show your body and show your scars and show the range of emotion that come with it, make it into art with the clay, and come and talk about it. I think it’s really important. And you know, a perfect example is I work in the mental health field, have for over a decade, and I did not know that it’s 60/40 male, female. I didn’t know that.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. 60/40 female 60, male 40.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Right, sorry, yes. Yeah. I didn’t know it was that close. I figured it was closer than we knew about, but that’s pretty close. And I know that this is the same thing, and something that I’m also going to explore with eating disorders with men, bulimia with men and eating disorders with men. These are things, I had someone come on and talk about sexual assault with men. These are things that aren’t talked about, and they drive a lot of behavior. And I just think it’s so important to have role models come model the behavior of like, yeah, this is what it is, this is how I deal with it, here’s how I answer it, and I can live a normal life.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

And I just think it’s awesome, and I’m super grateful for your time.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It’s been a blast.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Yeah. Where can people get in touch with you or find you, or what’s that-

Ben Moroski:

The easiest way to get in touch with me is on Instagram. My handles my first initial and my last name, it’s BMoroski, B-M-O-R-O-S-K-I.

Ashley Loeb Blassingame:

Awesome. And anyone who’s interested, we are going to post a bunch of resources in the show notes, including Ben’s contact information on Instagram and then some books and some journals about this topic. So please reach out and check out the show notes. Awesome, thank you so much for being here.

Ben Moroski:

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

This podcast is sponsored by Lion Rock Recovery. Lion Rock provides online substance abuse counseling, where clients can get help from the privacy of their own home. They are accredited by the joint commission, and sessions are private, affordable, and user-friendly. Call their free helpline at (800) 258-6550, or visit www.lionrockrecovery.com For more information.

PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [01:38:36]

#51 – Ben Moroski

Ben Moroski’s Story

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#52 - After the Episode

#50 - Alyssa Rocco