Baby Steps (21 page)

I went inside and went straight to bed. I didn't say anything to anyone. I swore I would take the secret with me to the grave. I would forget it ever happened.

And I did forget, for the most part, at least consciously, until a few years later.

When I was twenty-six years old, I received a book called
All About Me
as a gift. It was one of those books that contains questions you are meant to answer, and it gives you journal space to answer them. Questions like “What's the name of your mother?” “What's your favorite color?” “What are your regrets?” “What are you most proud
of?” “If you had to be stranded on a desert island with one person, who would it be?” “What's your biggest secret?”

I've always loved things like this. When I was a teenager, I kept an adventure journal of all the things I'd ever done that I was proud of, like taking a train across the country, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, and riding in a hot-air balloon. This book reminded me a little bit of my teenage adventure journal. I filled out all the pages, and when I came to the question “Tell the story of a secret you've never told anyone,” I suddenly remembered that night in the nightclub when I was nineteen. I wrote about it in the book, with trembling hands and a quickening heartbeat. It was the first time I'd relived it, and part of me thought it might be good for me to write it down. Then I went on to the next question.

The week I finished filling out the entire book, Dick Wolf called and invited me to dinner. He had not yet cast me on
Law & Order,
but he had been my mentor since the
Invisible Man
pilot, and I was always hoping to be cast in his next venture. It occurred to me that I should bring along the
All About Me
book so he could see it. He had teenage children, and I know how teenagers tend to keep things to themselves. I thought he might like to see it and get something like it for them, to help them all communicate better. To create a conversation. I'd completely forgotten the details of what was written there.

We sat down at a table in a restaurant called The Palm on Santa Monica Boulevard, and I showed him my bright orange book. I told him how interesting it was to reflect so much on oneself. He began to flip through the book . . . and then he got to
that page.
The page where I'd told that secret. Only to myself. When I'd written it, I'd never imagined anyone else would read it. He paused on the page, his eyes scanning my words. Then he looked at me.

“Tell me about this,” he said.

“Oh no!” I practically shouted, grabbing the book away. “I didn't want you to see that. I don't want to talk about
that.”

“Why not?” he said.

“I vowed to take that story to the grave with me,” I said.

“Why?” he said.

I paused. Why? Why, indeed? I realized that I had always felt responsible for what happened to me that night. I'd been drinking. I put myself into an unsafe situation. I had taken the blame, which is why I never told a soul.

“I . . . don't want to remember,” I said.

“Look, Lis,” Dick Wolf said. “I'm in the process of creating a spin-off to
Law & Order
called
SVU.
It's about just this kind of thing. Everyone who is the victim of this kind of crime feels responsible and ashamed. They carry it around with them like an extra limb, hoping nobody sees it, even though it becomes part of who they are. I want people to be able to say, ‘That happened to me,'” he said. “So it doesn't destroy them from within.”

“Uh-huh,” I said. I swallowed. It was like he'd read my mind.

“So tell me about it,” he said. “Say it out loud.”

Reluctantly, I told him the whole story.

“So, you were raped,” he said.

I cringed at the word. I'd never spoken it in connection with what happened, even though he was right: that was what had happened. Deep down, I knew it was true. I nodded.

“Why don't you just say it out loud?” he said.

I bit my lip. It felt scary to say it, but what could it hurt? It already happened. Saying it wouldn't make it happen again. Maybe saying it would even help.

“I . . .” I paused. “I was raped,” I said. The word hung there in the air between us. I wanted to take it back. I hated the way it sounded. But there it was.

“Did you say no to that guy?” he asked me.

“I did,” I said. “More than once.”

“Once, twice, a hundred times, it doesn't matter,” he said. “No means no. It wasn't your fault. You were innocent.”

In that moment, when I spoke my secret, and Dick Wolf told me I was innocent, I realized for the first time since it happened to me almost a decade ago that I
was
innocent. It didn't matter that I had been drinking. It didn't matter that I accidentally or carelessly put myself in an unsafe situation. It didn't matter that I never reported it, or never told anyone. I had done nothing to deserve it. I had not caused it. It wasn't my fault, and I didn't need to hold it inside me anymore. I could let it go.

I looked at him in amazement. I felt completely different, astounded that a secret from a decade before had actually become part of my personality, and now, just like that, it had evaporated, like darkness disappearing with the sun.

“Don't you feel better now that you said it out loud?” he said.

I did. I absolutely did.

“I wish I had known you back then,” he told me. “I would have told you to take the bastard to court.”

“Oh no, I wouldn't have wanted to do that!” I said.

Dick just shrugged. “I still would have encouraged it. But now you've told me, and you feel better. That's what I want for every person who's been a victim,” he said.

Dick Wolf went on to create
Law & Order: SVU
to put a spotlight on sex crimes, and I know it's helped a lot of people. Maybe it's helped some to tell their stories and free themselves from the tyranny of the secret.

When it comes to infertility, this tyranny is no less real. This is the power that secrets have over us. The things we are most afraid to say
can dissolve when we finally speak them. What seems huge and unconquerable can become manageable. It can lose its psychological power and become nothing more than a fact, whether it is about violence or sex or a medical issue. I've known a lot of brave people over the years who told their stories, either to free themselves from pain or to help other people feel less alone. Revealing some vulnerability about yourself is always difficult. There are good reasons to keep some secrets: because you promised someone, because not doing so would hurt someone, or because you want to live a private life. Being raised by a mother and a stepmother who both had a habit of saying everything they were thinking and feeling, I've always longed for more privacy than I got. I've longed to keep my secrets.

I also understand why people in the public eye crave privacy. The more famous you are, the more pressure there is to reveal every aspect of your life, as if it should be fodder for the weeklies. It's an occupational hazard: people are going to talk about you and be curious about you, and that can mess with your head a little bit. It can even make you start to fool yourself about what is and isn't true about your own life. And of course you don't want to be criticized, because you are just a person—on many levels, just a normal, regular person. Nobody wants to be criticized, famous or not.

It's confusing to feel encouraged to “tell all,” just by the very situation of recognizability. You're constantly in an exchange with yourself about everything that happens in your life:
Is this something for the fans, or is this something just for me?
There is a great temptation to overshare. I know what it's like to teeter on the edge of oversharing, but then tip back into the urge to be fiercely private. Being on display can make you feel extra sensitive, so there is a tendency to overcompensate by creating a public awareness about certain parts of your life, but not others.

There are very private actors like Matt Damon and Ewan McGregor, about whom I personally would love to know more. I really would. But I also have immense respect for those actors who have successfully navigated both sides; people like Jane Fonda, or George Clooney, or Angelina Jolie. They really turn me on; they have a voice that is speaking on behalf of others.

And so I've begun to see secrets in a different light. Fame is an incredible gift, and why not use it? The trick is to keep the treasure box locked. I've always been conscious of that line: how to keep the people who want to know about me involved in my life, but also to create enough of a buffer that I never lose sight of the fact that I'm the person I've always been, going through the motions of my own life, trying to be there for the people I love in a way that is authentic and appropriate. Because when fame comes at the expense of authenticity, that's a sad, lonely existence. You lose sight of yourself if you don't keep your feet on the ground.

So I do understand how tricky it is, to feel tempted to share only the best information about yourself because you want the public to be inspired and encouraged by the good stuff that has happened to you. Why bring them down with your problems? Unless you are a train wreck or someone like Farrah Fawcett who decides she wants to have a voice and share her journey of trying to heal her cancer—we all went on that journey with her—then telling the truth isn't straightforward.

But honesty can have a powerful ripple effect.

When I was on
Law & Order,
dating Dan Abrams, he was recovering from testicular cancer. For a long time, Dan didn't tell anyone about his cancer, throughout this diagnosis and treatment. He wanted to deal with it privately, which I totally understood. Hardly anyone knew his secret.

Then, a man named Sean Kimerling who had been at the hospital getting treatment at the same time as Dan passed away. Sean was an Emmy Award–winning sports news anchor and a pre-game announcer for the Mets, and his family went through a lot of grief and pain losing Sean at such a young age (Sean was only thirty-seven). In Sean's memory, they started the Sean Kimerling Testicular Cancer Foundation to raise awareness about the importance of getting diagnosed early. Sean's family inspired Dan to speak out on their behalf. He admired how brave Sean had been, and when he recognized that his story might actually raise awareness and help other people who were suffering, he decided it would be worth it to tell his secret. He told a story he didn't want to tell because he knew people didn't have enough information to be preventive and proactive on their body's behalf. It was a brave choice I've always admired, and it was instrumental in my decision to tell my infertility story.

Telling your story can not only lift a burden off your own heart and heal others, but it can change public perception on a significant level. This is already happening with breast cancer. Breast cancer used to be a terrible secret. Women felt ashamed for having it, but when they began to talk about breast cancer and everyone started wearing pink ribbons, it stopped being such a secret and the stigma is lifting. Women are much more able to stand up and say they've got breast cancer now, and because of that, breast cancer has also become a huge focus of research. Now, more and more people survive it. Now, women share their breast cancer stories all the time. It takes great strength and courage to stand up and tell your story, but when you say, “Hey, look, I lost a breast, and so did my mom, and I'm going to stand up with her,” then suddenly you are a hero.

While it's not life threatening, my infertility journey in many ways reminds me of breast cancer because losing a breast can make you feel like less of a woman, just like being infertile can. There is a stigma
of shame that doesn't have to be there. Are you still a woman if you can't or don't have a baby? Who are you if you never do it? Are you just a dude, if you can't or don't have a baby? The ability to make a baby is what makes a woman divinely different than a man, right? Because we have that ability, we have all these other natural biological attributes that come along with a womb, like breasts, and soothing voices, and patience, and maternal instinct, and maternal ferocity. It's just the truth.

All these things make a woman great, but they are not the only things that make a woman great. If you are missing some of them, you can feel less great. You can feel like less of a woman. You can feel like your husband or partner or family or even just a stranger will see you as less of a woman. You can look in the mirror and see less of a woman. You might ask yourself every day,
Who am I if I can't or don't have a baby? What good am I? Who will really love me? Who will see me as desirable? How will I love myself?

These are confusing, emotional, devastating questions, and everyone who has gone through these issues has probably asked themselves these questions. I know I have. Of course you are just as much of a woman without a breast or without the ability to get pregnant or carry a baby to term. But it can feel otherwise. It really can.

Imagine a day when all women who have experienced fertility problems can stand together, raising funds and awareness and changing lives. Imagine a day when choosing to do IVF could be celebrated. This is my hope: that anyone feeling this pain and enduring this journey can feel like it's okay to admit it and talk about it and ask questions and get answers, not just from doctors but from other women. My hope is that more money will go toward research, and that public judgments will be dismissed as ignorant. My hope is that the next generation of women can be fully informed, recognizing that if they want to have it all—career and family—it may take a little bit of
jiggering, planning, and organization, but that they can make decisions
before
they ever have a problem, to ensure they can become mothers someday, if that's the path they choose.