Huh. Have you ever wondered what a sandwich sounds like?

Not much to it, is there? Unless, of course, it's a Walker's sandwich.

Mmm, that is good. Now that's what Asani should sound like. Go all crisp in with walkers.

Delicious.

I feel I should let listeners know that this episode of Think Again is about surviving and thriving

in the face of unspeakable trauma and sexual violence.

And that in order to get to the thriving part, we have to talk about the trauma part,

which may be painful for some listeners and not appropriate for children.

But I don't want to scare anybody off.

I think it's one of the most valuable conversations we've ever had on the show.

Hi there. I'm Jason Gatz, and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.

For a human child growing up, trust is the foundation of everything. We learn how to regulate our emotions, how to see the world as relatively stable and safe

through the connection with the people who care for us.

Severely neglected children can suffer all kinds of harm to their ability to think,

connect with others, and learn. But what happens when the caring bond is not only missing, but is horribly

abused, distorted through incest and sexual violence? How do you build a self and a life after that?

And let's say you somehow manage to survive to adulthood, to thrive even. How do you fill the place in your heart where the love and the trust is supposed to be? My guest today has had to answer all of these questions for herself. She is the playwright, author, and activist Eve Ensler. You may know her as the creator of the vagina monologues. What you might not know is that all the horrors I'm talking about happen to her as a kid. Let me take that out of the passive voice.

Her father did that to her and more.

And he died without saying anything remotely closed, I'm sorry.

So Eve wrote his apology for him or for herself.

Her book, The Apology is a letter to her to Eve Ensler,

in the imagined voice of her dead father, retelling what

...