Okay, hi, Hi, did you see that our friend boom Boom Hiller won an Emmy.

I did see that boom Boom Hiller won any that was very exciting.

Yes, I was very happy for him.

He gave one a great, great speech.

I didn't understand what was going on with the Emmy's with the money.

What was the money thing?

I tuned in like halfway through.

I also tuned in like halfway through.

I think they should just let people who want talk, don't you.

I mean, you posted these awards shows, like what's your opinion on that?

I just feel like that's the moment people get to talk.

I mean, obviously within reason, don't go crazy.

I thought they were deducting people.

They were deducting money from a charity for people who were going over their time.

They were taking money back from the charity.

Yeah, that's what they were doing.

I think I'm pretty sure that they were.

Basically, they had a set number and anyone who talked over it became a giving them less.

Yes, so I was like, that's pretty fucked up.

But who knows.

I mean, I can't really even track a conversation, so who knows What I was thinking.

I was kind of half watching.

I had just I went to New York again this weekend.

So I had there.

I show, Actually I had a show.

Oh.

I just announced a new tour, you guys, that's what I want to talk about.

I announced the Highend Mighty Tour, which I'm going to start next year.

I started Washington, d C.

Next January or February, I don't know.

It's called the High and Mighty Tour.

Tickets are on sale and I'm going to lots of different cities and you can check my website Chelseahandler dot com for tickets or you could go to the link in my Instagram to buy tickets.

That's great.

So that's what's happening there.

And we have a very exciting guest.

I okay, so I saw a movie.

I actually moderated a conversation for a director named Susannah Focal, who directed a movie about Reality Winner.

This is a girl's real name.

This is our guest's real name.

Today.

When your name first.

Texted me and said I want to talk to Reality Winner, I was like, winner of what reality show?

Like?

I did not get her.

Her name is Reality Winner and if you don't remember who she is, she was a whistleblower during Trump's first term.

She was working at the NSA and she leaked some document to AYE to the Intercept and then the FBI basically arrested her.

They came, they interrogated her, they went showed up at her house on a Saturday afternoon.

And anyway, she's a former linguist, she's an intelligence analyst.

She was arrested in twenty seventeen for leaking classified documents about the Russian interference in the twenty sixteen election.

And there is some backstory that our listeners should know about before we get into this conversation.

Reality was in the Air Force as a linguist.

She translated conversations for government targets, and then when she left, she started a contract with the NSSA.

And she outlines that there are certain news sources that people who work for the NSA are allowed to read that are not available to the general public, but people with security clearance are not allowed to read mass news the way civilians are.

Right, so, she explains in pretty great detail in the book how as a person who has a high security clearance working for the NSA, she had access to a specific news outlet that was only for people with a high security clearance.

But there was also sort of this rule that she couldn't go look at New York Times, she couldn't go look at Washington Post.

And if they had found something like that, like links to that on her phone, anything like that, then she would have been in trouble.

So there is this sort of weird dichotomy that people with high levels of top secret clearance do have access to more information, but they also don't necessarily have what all of the rest of us have access to.

So the document, and it was just one document that she leaked, was from this news source that she had access to as a person with high security clearance.

So she felt that she needed to release this document about Russian interference in the election so the American people would know it happened.

And then the FBI found out confronted her in her home in a three hour interview during which she was not read her Miranda rights.

She also had a dog and cat at her home that were unpredictable.

She describes feeling terrified that they'd hurt her animals or use their behavior.

As an excuse to hurt her.

She was taken to jail, where she stayed for about a year before going to prison for four more years, and then her mom lived in her house nearby while she was incarcerated, which she said has saved her life.

And then once she was out, she had a period of readjustment.

She says even the colors outside were overwhelming for her after five years of staring at gray walls.

She briefly got married and then quickly divorced to an old boyfriend who had a child.

This was part of her rebellion during her readjustment period, and now she has written a book about her experience, has moved on romantically and is in veterinary tech school.

So there are a few movies out about her.

There was a Broadway show, There.

Was a Broadway Yes, a Broadway show, and now she has a book called I Am Not Your Enemy.

That's a little background information for you, so please welcome Reality Winner.

Hi Reality Hlsea.

Hi, how are you?

I'm good?

Thanks for having me.

How are you?

Oh?

I'm great.

I always want to say we'll commence, but I feel like commenced as we're starting.

Does it commence mean we're starting something or we're finishing something.

I'm getting confused with my Spanish.

She commenced.

The starting commencement's speech though at a graduation.

Is yeah, well you're commencing into life.

Is that right?

Okay, okay, okay, we have Reality Winner here.

Reality You and I go way back, but you don't know it.

I'm sure a lot of people feel that way about you.

First of all, I'm just happy to see you out of prison.

I actually moderated a conversation between Susanna Fogel.

Do you know Susannah I love her?

Yes, yes, okay, great.

She directed a move in one of the movies.

So there's three movies out about your story.

Reality Winner was a whistleblower in the year twenty sixteen with relation to the Russian interference in the twenty sixteen election, and subsequently went to jail and then prison because of that.

So there was a documentary about you, which I also watched.

And then there was a movie with Sidney Sweeney.

I skipped that one, And then the one was Susannah Fogel who starred.

Who was the star of that Reality Amelia Jones?

Amelia Jones, who's fucking phenomenal?

Did you love that movie?

I don't watch anything about me because I have a very like physical trauma response.

Yeah, I understand that.

I understand that.

How are you doing today?

I'm being so good today.

My biggest issue was having to get to this studio.

I hate driving on overpasses.

They're my nemesis.

Really, Why they're so high?

Why?

What about bridges?

No, I won't drive over a bridge?

No?

Do you know that.

When I was a little girl, our family used to drive up to Martha's Vineyard every summer.

So you drive from New Jersey.

We grew up in New Jersey.

We drive to Woodsholm, Massachusetts, and you'd have to drive over a bridge called the tappan Zee Bridge that's outside of New York.

And it was you know how big bridges are.

They have all of that iron work over them, right, but that's not the actual pavement.

But my brothers and sisters convinced me that we had to drive up over the iron work every time.

So I would crouch down and cover my head because I was so scared, and I'm like, oh my god, how are we gonna stay on?

They're like, we might not let cars fall off all the time, and so anytime, so I have I have bridge trauma too.

I hate them, but it sounds like you have lower Bridge trauma.

Right, there is some bridges out here, Like the only way to get to the beach is on a bridge, and it's not fun to be in the car with me.

I have to drive.

I have to be in charge of my own death.

But it's horrible.

Well, I think after everything you've been through, it's fine for.

You to want to be in charge of your own death and your own life at this point, right, how long have you been out of prison officially?

I have been out for four years.

Okay, So you wrote this book obviously after that, and the book takes us through your journey.

The book is called I Am Not Your Enemy, Reality Winner.

So let's go through your history because you joined the Air Force and then you decided that you wanted to go work at the NSA.

Correct, and take us through what happened when you started working at the NSA.

So in the transition from the Air Force to the in to say, I already knew it was a temporary position.

I had my sight set on getting a position in Afghanistan proper, but that in order to be eligible for those deployments, I would have to keep my security clearance current because that's what the recruiters were looking for.

So I was coming up on a very important deadline and I just took any contract that would happen.

So that was the particular position that I was working at in Georgia at the time of my arrest or at the time I committed the felony, there was nothing for me to do.

I just sat there and watched YouTube all day and planned out my workouts and my yoga classes.

They didn't really know I was there, and looking back, being so disconnected from any sort of purpose or mission is definitely one of those things that left me vulnerable to doing something so naive.

Naive is the word that you use a lot, and I also don't really think you're naive.

I think that from your books and from what I've learned about you, that you really just had a sense of right and wrong and that you wanted to share.

And I think that's very admirable.

And I think what you did, yeah, you're young.

I think you were young and didn't realize what you revealed in the documentary, that you didn't realize what the consequences would be.

In fact, you didn't even really consider the consequences of sharing the information that you were privy to I didn't.

I mean, I just really thought that at the end of the day, no damage was done.

It was very clear that I did what I did for the greater good, and that you know, I was definitely going to lose my job, but did not imagine the statements that the government would then make about me and my character following this.

And at this time in your life, were you familiar with people like Julian Assange.

So on the surface Yet, yes, I knew about Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, but because of a technicality, they were able to keep us from knowing any of the specifics about these individuals.

Every week or so, especially when the news cycle would be very much focused on one of those individuals.

That if you read this.

Washington Post article and it was derived off of classified information and you read it on your personal device, you are then carrying around classified information and you could be charged with the Espionos Act.

So it was a.

Way to make sure that we were kept in the dark on what life is like when you're charged with these sort of crimes, and that I didn't know anything about Snowden or Chelsea at all.

I didn't know what their legal defense was like I didn't really know what they had gone through.

I was just kind of acting in the dark at that point.

And the reason that you acted was because you felt.

What I felt like, if the American people had the information on that document and they could see it in black and white, that a would answer a question that was I felt like it was burning a hole in our society in twenty seventeen, and I wanted to give the American people a way to decode media bias if they had the full story that they could see, like the people I trust on the TV aren't giving me the whole story, Like I can see everything right here, and they're leaving half of it out.

And so can you take us through what happened on that Saturday morning after you had printed this, So you had printed the document with it on a Friday right in your office.

I had actually printed it on like a Monday or Tuesday, and I think I mailed it out on a Tuesday night, and it wasn't for about two and a half weeks until the FBI came to my house.

And I think we should also point out, you know, the the intercept, which is who you sent the document to kind of was like, yeah, they bungled the situation.

They have all these high level people who know how to handle whistleblowers, and your document went to two journalists who did not know how to do that, and instead their mistake wound up eventually in your conviction.

Mistake, it was not a mistake, it was on purpose.

It's by design.

I was the third, well, actually Terry was the third, but there were three of us in a very short succession that were sort of outed by their incompetence but then championed by them.

So they would create victims and martyrs and then try to be the only media outlet fairly reporting on them.

So take us through what happened to you on that Saturday when the FBI did show up at your house because you were getting ready to go on a date that night.

Anyway, exactly the ultimate ghosting.

That's funny.

Yeah, uh, not only did I not show up, but he was probably interrogated as well, poor guy.

Oh true.

So I parked with my groceries and immediately a black vehicle comes up behind my car and parks me in, and Garret and Taylor come out.

They introduced themselves, They showed the warrant and I knew what it was about, obviously, because I had done the thing.

But they said they were looking for documents, and I was like, who, I only had one document and I sent it out like That's kind of one of the reasons why I was just so compliant.

I was just like, okay, search my house.

The only thing that started to get scary was that there were eleven men.

I was pretty sure all of them were armed, and the government was very quick to correct me.

Of the eleven agents, only nine of them were armed.

Only nine, Only nine.

So I was lying again, you know me, I just can't stop telling lies.

And they kept leaving my doors open, and I had just sort of had my early twenties awakening of the injustices of this country and understood that when the police or the FBI, when someone from the government kills you, they have the only control of the narrative.

And so I knew that these men were leaving my doors open and interacting with a dog that had previously been extremely aggressive to men, and that if my cat had gotten out and if I had like run down the street after her, would they shoot me in the back.

If I became emotional about how they were taking care of my animals, or if I thought they were going to shoot my dog, would they shoot me and then you know, try me, I know, basically posthumously convict me in the news cycle the next day they had interrogated me.

I did confess.

I thought that because they looked like the guys that I worked with at NSA, if I just was straight with them, that whatever was coming next in a court or whatever, I could figure out and it would be a normal legal process.

And that was when Garrick told me, we're going to have to take you in.

You're going to go in this vehicle over here, so nondescript, unmarked black vehicle.

He said it was going to be okay because my hands would be cuffed in the front and not the back, and that he would be sitting next to me the whole time, and that he wanted to apologize because it would be a bit of a drive.

What little I did know about Chelsea Manning was that when they first took her, she was in solitary confinement in Quantico for nine months and nobody knew where she was.

So when he.

Said that reassuring statement, I understood that I was going to Quantico that night.

And nobody would know where I was.

That was not the case, and even if they had intended to drive me to the jail themselves, the last remaining part of the warrant was a search of my person, and obviously I was kind of in between dates, so I wasn't wearing much.

A visual search would have been just fine, but a female, a woman, had to do it.

So that was when they called a nearby deputy from the Richmond County Sheriff's office, and I don't know what it was, but she came and assessed the situation, and she took me to a private room and patted me down and executed the search warrant on my person, and she came out and had a conversation that I couldn't hear.

And shortly after that, another Shaff's Department vehicle came up, and another female officer came out and she said, Hey, I'm going to be the one taking you to jail.

So for the first time, women were on the scene, uniforms were on the scene, marked vehicles were on the scene, and the word jail was spoken.

And I mean, honestly, that was the first time I knew that I was going to survive that.

Night, because so that's okay, So okay, it's a paper trail and a record.

Yeah, so I knew my parents could find me.

Then your poor parents, My god, I mean honestly, watching your I mean, I want to make you feel bad because I'm sure you have enough guilt to deal with about with regard to your parents.

But what your mother and your stepfather?

Is it your stepfather?

Yeah, yeah, I went through is just like I wouldn't wish that on any mother, you know, and fighting so hard on your behalf and having to hear and also you know coming Really, there is just nothing better than a good mother.

There really is no nothing better in life than having a good mother.

It's more important than a good father.

A good mother is everything.

Because she wasn't going to let you compromise your values or your goals either.

She wasn't going to let you take a deal, which you were given the opportunity to do.

I was initially upfront and then later again, like in November of twenty seventeen, offered five years, and we had tried some legal strategies to get that down to four years, and it did not work.

And so when you were given that sentence for basically telling the truth.

How did you wrap your mind around that psychologically?

I know you talk about in the documentary and in the book you did as well about contemplating suicide and the one thing you didn't want to do was hurt yourself, kill yourself while your mother was alone in your house, which I thought was just like, oh my god.

They didn't want your mother to like get get that information while she was Yeah.

Yeah, I think that at that moment in time, the only thing I knew I was going to do it, and the only thing I was in control of was the timing where my mother would be when she got the news.

We had just gotten word that I would be denied bail again and that I would probably never leave that jail except to go to prison or to trial.

And I said, I can't do this anymore.

And so I started planning and doing dry runs of my suicide.

And the last piece of the puzzle was, Hey, I'm not getting out on bail.

You need to go back to Texas.

You need to go home and get the house in order, and you know, we'll figure this out later.

You know, my attorneys will do some stuff.

And she put it off by a week, and then she put it off by another week, and then she put off by another week, and then she started like working at a dog shelter and thinking about adopting a dog in Georgia.

And it was like those three weeks where I was actively trying to get her to start driving and doing that.

Other stuff was going on in those three weeks, and I had kind of hit a rock bottom, which involved me screaming and punching a door after an officer, and I came out and told one of my attorneys, this is what's going on when you guys call me to the courthouse for this.

I can't go outside to yard call.

And I know you guys are sick and tired of me saying that I want to go outside.

I'm beliemic.

I can't do this anymore.

I'm belieming.

I'm not functioning, I'm not surviving.

And you know, luckily people on my legal team were very close to that particular illness, and you know, you think about like, you know, men don't take eating disorder seriously.

They have very intimate knowledge of how deadly bolimia is, and they said, this is not okay, Like you were very sick and this has to be taken care of.

And when they started initiating that type of care and that type of consideration, I can't say things got better, but I feel like the moment I came out, it felt like all the drive in me to kill myself had just kind of gone away.

And then how did that impact your eating disorder when you were in jail or prison at this point?

Once you told everybody, then what happened with your eating disorder?

You know, it's so difficult, like even in normal daily life, like you come out about something like that, like obviously you can't just like not eat, you know what I mean.

It's not like it's not like being like, oh, I'm addicted to myth, you know what I mean.

People are going to watch you to see if you're doing myth.

If you're like, oh I have bolimia, people want to see if you're eating right.

It's never really like a relief.

It just cuts some tension.

And I was medicated, and my legal team altered their interactions with me in a way that would not disrupt the daily schedule of the prison.

Then they understood that when they came to have legal meetings with me or when they were calling me to the courthouse and I would miss yard call or being able to go outside.

They stopped doing that.

They said, we are going to meet her on her own terms, and we're only going to try to meet with her after she's gone outside to go run or exercise, and just things like that.

It made enough of a difference to get me through the winter of twenty seventeen.

And you talk a lot about the exercise and that kind of replacing your addiction in a sense, I mean, were you able to actually stop throwing up at that point or did you continue on for a while.

I was able to not throw up and to continue to exercise it an intensity that allowed me to eat.

And that was another pressing issue of with my disordered eating, having very severe OCD.

As to what I would even put into my body, I don't even think clinically I could get my hands on enough food that I was willing to eat to do a proper binge.

So it was pretty much just trying not to throw up the one meal I would eat that day.

Right, because you talk about how it was difficult to get not only like kosher meals, but like meals that didn't have meat or didn't it that had things that you could eat that you were okay eating.

I mean, it's crazy, but as a federal inmate, that County jail was required to give me a substitute protein and not just more rice or more corn.

When I got to federal prison where it is regulated, there's chicken or there's baked beans, right, they have to have that on the line.

It didn't make it easier because you would be discriminated against if you dared hold up the line to ask for the alternative, because they're just throwing chicken on trays and trying to push everybody through.

You just got to have a thick skin.

And there were several really tense standoffs with officers because, like I said, I dared to ask for the beans.

This week, we're looking for questions from writers.

Whether you're an up and coming writer or you do it for a living, Please write into Dear Chelsea podcast at gmail dot com.

Did you make any friends in prison?

Lots?

Yeah, people you still keep in touch with absolutely.

I went and ran a half marathon with one of my friends, Stephanie, and my family got to meet her and they added her on Facebook.

She's great, she's doing so I'm so proud of her.

Oh wow, yeah.

So talk to us about what it was like to come out of PRISM after spending that much time there.

When you did come out four years ago, talk to us a little bit about leading up to that moment and then the actuality.

I know, you have ideas, people talk about these kinds of huge changes that you have ideas of what it's going to be like, and then the reality of what it is like can be kind of counterintuitive to a degree absolutely.

I mean, when you're inside those four walls of the prison, it's like, give me an ankle monitor, I don't care.

I would do anything just to be home.

And in the year leading up to my release, the COVID pandemic had happened.

We had had several unwarranted lockdowns and being put in county jail type conditions all over again, and I had just become so disruptive and violent and using drugs, getting girlfriends, getting into fights that But by the time that version of me walked out of that prison, I was almost unrecognizable to my family.

Even mild disagreements would get loud with me.

I didn't know how to relate.

Because the things that I thought were funny, were like, you know, I mean, they were so inappropriate all the time, which was fine, but I don't think anybody gave me or my family the vocabulary to sort of talk through the process of decompressing.

A huge trauma leading up to my release is that I spent twenty three days in a single hospital room as part of a COVID quarantine procedure.

It was just so desocializing to a certain extent, and I feel like, not ashamed, but just like God, the person I had to become to get through that with any type of stability or you know, we were we were literally like, oh, okay, you're gonna put us in a room like mental patients.

We're gonna act like mental patients.

I mean we did.

And then to come out.

The pressure was if your parents do anything public, if they announced that you're home, we might not be able to keep you at home.

At every step of the way, that halfway house threatened my ability to be on home confinement.

I did two drug tests a week.

I was not ever authorized to drive myself, so my parents had to take off work to drive an hour and an hour back.

Just constant drug testing when I didn't even have a drug charge it like, yes, I know I did drugs, right, Like we can all say like, oh, she did drugs while she was in It's in the memoir.

At that point in time, I'm like, the federal government had zero documentation of substances being in my body, but I'm being tested constantly if the ankle monitor would buzz, if it would be on low battery.

One time, I missed a phone call because I was on the phone with my boss, and I called the guy back and he was like, Okay, well I had already documented as having escaped.

I was constantly under so much pressure from the top down, from the government down, that the only way that pressure could come out was sideways.

And so my family were they were the sideways.

They they.

They were in my line of fire since I couldn't do anything to ease the government pressure off of me.

So things were really toxic those first six months.

Wow, how about your sister.

Luckily she was protected out of the picture.

She was in North Carolina.

She did bring her my niece down, her daughter, she brought her down to visit.

I got to meet my niece for the first time or a second time, because they surprised me getting out of prison.

She and baby were there waiting outside the prison.

For me, I know for her it was hard, but she also had a one year old daughter, so that probably gave her a really nice little buffer zone between the absolute dumpster fire that I was.

And what do you think what was the shift that happened after about six months?

Just did it start to depress your eyes?

Like everything surrounding your case and you're kind of like their oversight of you.

I think a really big part of it was, yes, I secretly married Carlos in my backyard and then sixty seven days later that relationship fell apart, and you know, my parents didn't talk about it, but I think that once it had completely fallen apart, you know, day sixty seven, I said, okay, like his shit is out of this house, like I made him come get it, and you know, was like, I'm going to start figuring out how to secretly get divorced from my living room.

Right, it felt like one of the biggest barriers between me and my parents was lifted.

And honestly, like it's really ugly to say this, but a big part of it was the fact that he had a daughter who was she was four at the time, and he would bring her over, and you know, my mother felt like I wasn't supposed to bond to this child.

Well, my sister and her baby existed, Like, oh, you got out of prison, you got to meet your baby niece.

Oh, but now you're playing stepbom to a four year old, Like I thought you wanted to be an aunt for your sister's baby.

Or were you in any condition to be in that role in the first place.

Well, I was fucking better than he was at it, that's for fucking sure.

But when I found out he was getting high again and stuff like that, I mean, you know it, and part of getting married, I knew he was terrible.

But I thought again, like, this girl was brilliant four years old, taught herself how to read.

Her mom really didn't want to be a mom, which is why she was.

She spent ninety percent of her time with her alcoholic high you know, piece of shit father, And I just thought, well, god damn, like, even with this inkle monitor, I'm better than both of them combined.

And isn't it amazing though, when you think back and look at that kind of decision making, like marrying Carlos in the first place, Like when you look at your the state that you were in, how newly out of prison you were, what your parents must have thought about that.

I mean, you know you discussed that too, and it's obvious, But when you look back at that decision making, don't you just know that you were in no position to make any of those decisions, Like you were dealing with so much much trauma that you hadn't even begun to unearth.

Yeah, and I think that when someone's drowning in trauma, the worst thing you can do is point out that they're traumatized, right, and that I was.

I hate it when people say this, but they do say it innate thinking patterns.

The way you think and operate as an inmate is you find what you want and you find a way to secure it in a way that an officer or a position of authority cannot take it away from you.

So I knew that I wanted to be with Carlos and I wanted to be a family to that little girl.

And I was just thinking like, hey, my parents can't say anything if we're married, but b if I do wind up backing custody, the government can never deny me access to the two of them if.

We're legally married.

Okay.

So it was the absolutely like you just grab something and you're just like, no, you can't take this away from me because I have this legal document and you're constantly trying to be two steps ahead of the police.

And that's where that decision making was from.

And again, as a family unit, nobody had that sort of nobody had the vocabulary to sit me down and say, nobody's going to take him away from you.

We don't like him, we don't agree with him, we're not going to let you go back into custody, but nobody's going to make it illegal for you guys to interact.

And because I didn't get that assurance, I married him secretly, and once that disintegrated, I felt like everything got better with my parents obviously, like the way relationships go.

We did see each other one more time, and that was when I saw first hand the way he was going to use access to his daughter to get behavior that he wanted from me.

And that was when I walked away permanently and I never saw either of them again.

Wow, it's like trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma.

I just keep asking for it.

I make shit decisions.

No, no, no, no, You're going to get better at making life decisions you already have.

You're going to get better.

That's just a period in time that's not permanent.

Nothing's permanent.

You know, Look you're out.

This is different.

I mean, I have a lot of faith in your future, do you?

I mean, I guess I think you just lead.

You're just such a heart leader.

You know, you lead with your heart so much that that's been your issue.

I think you know with when you say you're terrible at making decisions, lead you're making decisions with your heart rather than using your head.

But with all of this experience that you now have, you're going to make better decisions.

It's like a math equation.

You're smart.

You're too smart to keep repeating those decisions.

And I don't think the first decision was necessarily framed as a bad decision.

It was like you based on the courage of your convictions.

That was what I believed it.

I wouldn't frame that as bad.

You just didn't realize the consequences.

So it was it was naive, as you say, it was young, but it wasn't like you did something wrong.

You didn't do something wrong.

You know, I would like to think that I would have those same convictions in your situation.

So now where are you?

Where are you with all of your trauma?

How do you feel about everything?

And how do you feel about your life moving forward?

And how do you frame the past?

So one of the best parts about being back in my hometown is I get to be anonymous.

People when they realized that I'm reality winner, it's usually like, oh, your Billy's daughter, and so everybody wants to know how my mom and my sister are doing.

People don't really make the connection to what I did.

The people down here are very concerned, but they also don't follow national news there, which has kind of been my hiding place.

I'm just coach ree and I've been coaching CrossFit now for four years.

It's it's a cult, but it's also what keeps me from being bulliemic.

It's like the only cure that I've ever found so far.

And you know, I rescue dogs and I recently started a veterinary technology program at the local university, which is the hardest thing I've ever done.

And the travel restrictions are even more like I'm not traveling, I'm not going anywhere, Like, I basically signed up for three more years of federal probation.

What do you mean basically signed up?

Literally, if you miss more than two days, you're out of the program, the vet tech program.

Yes, I felt more nervous asking for one day of missed class to go on book tour the week of publication than I ever did asking my probation officer to try.

You said you were surprised that they used the dog in the movie, that that they had the dog in the movie.

Why did that surprise you?

Or that they had to stealing a dog in the movie, Yeah, which you had never done at that time.

Oh yeah, I hadn't actually never stolen a dog.

My friends stole a dog for me back in May, and I just thought that was like a funny continuation of like how that movie played out.

That was the only scene I've ever seen from that movie.

I just thought it was so delightful, and.

It is delightful.

It is.

It's so funny.

I wasn't even really into animal rescue at the time of my arrest.

You know, it's just kind of been a self fulfilling prophecy.

Like the more people talk about it, the more I started doing it in my own life.

And what do you think or like some of like what do you think is your biggest takeaway from spending all that time locked up and being treated as a criminal, Like what do you think that did to your spirit?

Like do you feel stronger now?

I don't necessarily feel stronger.

I do feel a little bit more brittle, kind of like I know, if you hit this glass against the table the right way, it's going to shatter.

You know, I know what can take me down really quickly.

You know, I've often said, like what doesn't kill you just doesn't kill you.

But I do think that getting to interact with people from a background that I never would have before and sort of breaking down, Like I mean, when I was growing up, I was constantly just around other brilliant children, even in high school.

You know, all my friends right now are like they're all doctors.

They're just insanely successful people.

And even in the military, being around other people like me that could learn languages.

I've never been around normal people until I was in that county jail.

And that's kind of what burst my bubble and helped me understand my own country.

I thought I was interested in social justice, in the United States, and then I got locked up, and I got really interested in it very fast, because you do realize that what is happening to millions of other Americans can happen to you at any time, and that all of us are one interaction with law enforcement away from being in solitary confinement without legal justification.

And what we're seeing now with.

You know, these ice rates going on, and you know citizens getting detained under immigration law, which is ridiculous.

Like, it's so scary right now, to the point to where I never thought that this is where we were going as a country.

My basic understanding was, yeah, if they charge you with the crime, they can do anything to you after that.

And now they don't even have to charge you.

Oh it is Yeah, that's very scary to think about, especially when you put it like that.

What do you want out of life now that you have one?

Honestly, I just want to know that.

My community is a better place because I'm in it, And like most people, I want to be comfortable in my life.

I want enough to get by.

I want to fence in my ten acres and open a dog sanctuary, you know.

I mean, my view of the world has gotten a lot smaller with this criminal conviction, not being able to have the high positions that I wanted to do.

I can't even coach troubled kids.

You know, I can't be a mentor yet you have to have ten years clearance from your last day of your sentence.

My sentence didn't end until last November, so in twenty thirty four I might be eligible to be a mentor for children caught up in the criminal justice system.

I'm surprised they allowed you to write a book.

I am allowed.

I can't make any money from it, and the NSA took two years to clear that manuscript.

Really, you'll make it, So where does the money go?

So I gave everything to my agent because I love him, not in a weird, like rep creepy way, but he found me and he didn't even know I couldn't make money from it.

This was all conversations we had later on once we found a publisher.

As of right now, I don't have any documentation to say otherwise, but proceeds from this book will go to charity.

We just we waited two years for the NSA to clear the manuscript.

When the time comes, we will make a statement on which charities are and you know what percent of proceeds and how that works out legally.

But I do plan on being as transparent as possible.

And do you want to have a family.

I have eight dogs, three cats, and somebody named Eddie.

So is that a man in your life or is that another animal?

He's a man?

Unfortunately, No, no, no, no, that's not unfortunate.

I'm glad that you have someone that you care about.

I want that for you, and I also just want you to like you're an inspiration.

You know.

I hope you do feel that way.

I don't.

I just am like looking back, like I could have done things so much better, and I could have been somebody that the government couldn't say these terrible things about even though ninety nine percent of them weren't true.

You know, it's really hard to continually absorb the things that were said about you in the courtroom that are like there's just enough truth in that statement, like to where you actually just believe everything they said about you.

And I'm still reckoning with that today.

Like I said, I don't use my name in a lot of social situations, and just admitting that I went to prison, you know, the biggest compliment that I get is if I bring it up, people just think I went for like meth, and I'm like, I'm willing to go along with that, Like yeah.

Sure, no, no, it's so much more than that, because I mean, I don't think you're taking into account that you survived all of this.

You know, of course it's not ideal.

Of course, you don't want anyone to be saying, you know, to be propagating lies or perpetuating lies about you.

No, but you survived all of this.

You have a job, and you care about your like place in the community.

Look at all these animals that you're helping, like your parent, you're with your family, you know, like, there's so many good things.

Even though this is not an ideal situation, and you would if you had to repeat it, you would not have repeated it.

You are here with us today and there are lessons for you to still continue to learn, and your story, like sharing this book with the world is going to be tremendously helpful I think, and cathartic for your healing process.

I mean, I'm assuming you're already in therapy.

I mean, you'd have to be right.

You have been in therapy for a while.

Yeah, therapy and me don't get along well because for three years of probation, I was court ordered to do it.

I had to be in a program without being provided the health care for it, so I was like a lot of paying out of pocket.

So like for me, it just let such a bad taste in my mouth.

But I have been able to kind of get my veterans benefits back up and running.

Oh that's great.

Yeah, so I was properly.

Diagnosed last fall and have been doing a lot better with my mental health and a sort of regimen for that.

And you need to reclaim that too, you know, you need to reclaim therapy because that's yours for the taking, not theirs to leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Yeah, I mean, I'll just do a bunch of podcasts till I feel better about myself.

Absolutely, just keep talking and talking and spreading the good word.

Well, and Chelsea, I think you're so right.

Like this book, I feel like is such a turning point where ten twenty years down the road, you may have a better understanding of why you went through what you went through, but this is just the beginning of that.

Like, this feels like a starting point, A commencement, like we talked about.

So we have to figure out what commencement means because I'm still I keep looking up that word.

I'm like, is it a beginning or then?

But no reality.

I think that it's so funny that your name is Reality Winner.

I mean, honestly, try to be anonymous with a name like reality Winner, right, But I really do think like you haven't seen I know you've been out for four years, but you haven't seen the lessons that are going to come from this just yet.

And to be open to whatever comes your way, and the fact that you're so open and so willing to share your story and that you don't Yes, of course there's bitterness, but you don't come across as someone who is bitter and enveloped in.

Your bitterness, do you know what I mean?

You're loving and you're sweet and like and to remain to have those things remaining within you is quite a feat and it speaks volumes about your true character and who you really are as opposed to all of the things that have been said about you that are not true.

Yeah, I think twenty twenty five for me has been difficult because we're right back in the same position we were in twenty seventeen.

And of course it's very triggering for you, so triggering.

I mean, one of the jokes we have is like, you know, the last time around, I only made it four months before I broke.

The law, and I think, right now, lady doubled your time?

Are eight months?

Well?

I know I have little tick marks, you know what I mean.

But it's like the guilt of that then was like last time I was willing to act, and now, like so many millions of Americans, I don't want to lose everything all over again.

I don't, right, you know, am I supposed to be out there?

I mean?

And of course where I live in the middle of nowhere.

You know, we're not in a big city.

We're not in LA We're not Chicago.

Right now, what am I supposed to do?

Am I supposed to drive to Chicago and put my body between victims and masked agents, masked kidnappers?

You know?

No, I mean, here's what am I supposed to do?

You've done what you're supposed to do.

You're not supposed to be involved in anything else.

You need to keep yourself safe and sane.

That's your main objective, and take care of all of your animals and have a good time with your boyfriend.

That's what I want you to do.

That is your doctor's orders.

I'm a medical professional.

I'm actually not so I can't say that, but I think I am so.

But that's You've done your You've done your time, literally, and you've done your contribution to society.

Leave that up to everybody else and just focus on getting yourself healthy and as happy as possible, because I want you to have.

A really full life.

And you know you're still young.

You have a whole life ahead of you, and this guy's not going to be president for the rest of our lives.

This is only a four year stint, even though you know other things have so just don't even you know that's not your problem anymore.

But I do want to thank you.

I want all of our listeners to pick up a copy of I Am Not Your Enemy by Reality Winner.

This book is really important and it's important to just if you care about your country, it's important to read.

And if you care about being a strong woman who has stands up for something and has convictions, it's important for you to read.

And it's a story about surviving.

It really is You're a survivor and you went through you went through hell and you're still here to talk about it, and that in and of itself just shows that you have a purpose.

And so thank you for coming on the podcast.

And I really wish you all the best.

Thank you so much for having me.

I mean, like, I'm such a huge fan and I just really appreciate you taking the time.

Absolutely pleasure.

And I was just when I met Susannah and she's like, oh, will you moderate this film?

I just I was like, oh my god, Yes, I know that story.

So I was just yeah, thrilled to be a part of that as well.

And I'm going to text her right now as soon as we get off and let her know that I got to meet you.

Hey, can't wait to see her next week.

Oh good, you're gonna see her?

Okay, tell her, I say hi, will you I will?

Okay, Okay, bye, Reality, Thank you so much, sending you huge love.

Bye, Thank you bye.

I put up new Vegas dates by the way for next year.

This year, I will be there November first and November twenty ninth.

Those are my last two dates this year.

Then I start up again January thirty, first, March seventh, April eighteenth, and May thirtieth, and tickets are now on sale for all.

Of those dates.

Do you want advice from Chelsea?

Right into Dear Chelsea Podcast at gmail dot com.

Find full video episodes of Dear Chelsea on YouTube by searching at Dear Chelsea Pod.

Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered by Brad Dickert executive pretty Katherine law And be sure to check out our merch at Chelseahandler dot com